“Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.” (Eze. 28:15)
I ask you to contemplate this verse today, and I ask you to do so with this in mind, the Lord God is Omniscient, He knows everything that ever has been or ever will be, even your thoughts, nothing has ever escaped His attention. I posed a question a few letters ago, how much does the Lord influence our lives, how much of our paths are of our own choosing? “And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.” (Exo. 9:16)
The Lord raised Pharoah up, He put Nebuchadnezzar into power, He does as He pleases in all the affairs of man, but I do not believe continuously, for we have been blessed with free will, just how much though we may never know.
The answer to my own personal question concerning the doctrine of election was blessedly given to me not long ago, after many years of searching, we cannot reconcile the free will of man with the Sovereignty of God, it is for Him to decide and know.
Apparently, as far as I have been shown up to this point, the angels, when they were first created, were given what we can best call free will as well, but I keep my perspective of this in check, so to speak, with 1 Peter 1:12, “Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.” As much as they understand grace is perhaps as much as we can understand that free will that they had, and perhaps in a way we cannot comprehend, still have.
Lucifer was made perfect, yet iniquity was found in him. I state the obvious here, the Almighty knew before He created him that iniquity was not only in Lucifer, but that he would act upon it by his own free will. The Lord knew that he would change his name to Satan after he said, “I will.” The action of that moment may not seem important to us, but it was the beginning of sin, that iniquity was not just found, but expressed, it was debated in his mind, it was contemplated, logically thought through, deduced in part by those new-found emotions of pride and envy, and then acted upon, completely and totally against the Almighty.
Blind arrogance is the best terminology I can come up with at the moment.
We must also take into account here that a specific amount of time passed from when he made his decision to rebel to when he was cast out, and in that time, he coerced a third of the angels, all with the full knowledge of the Most High, even before He created them.
Those first thoughts perplex me, to know them would not change the condition of man, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23) the knowledge of them would not modify how we can be reconciled to God, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” (Eph. 2:8) but knowing what Satan thought would be advantageous to our own battle with sin against the Most High God, along with what I have penned many times, if we knew what Eve said to Adam after she ate of the fruit and before he did, we would have, as it were, another weapon in our arsenal against not only the wiles of the devil, but against that old man, our sin nature that hounds us constantly.
Iniquity was found in Lucifer, and it is found in us after we reach a certain age, different for each of us. It is, for lack of a better word, an age of accountability, and whether we can recall it or not is immaterial, our action when it arrived was the same as Satan’s, we rebelled against God.
I confess, if I had an opportunity to question an angel who did not fall, one who stayed in the service of the Lord, I would want to know what kept them from falling. I believe it would help me to sharpen that sword that you and I carry.
