"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit." Isaiah 14:12-15 (NKJ)
The Lord God in His omnipotent sovereignty and according to His plan, laid down an eternal challenge before He even created mankind. It's a choice that requires a response from every individual born into humanity. It's the choice to either submit to Him and His sovereignty completely or to be consumed by death because of our choice to make our lives completely void to His purpose in giving us life in the first place. And every human being will have responded to the choice by the day of God's final accounting ... either by actively choosing or by sheer disobedience - refusing to choose Him.
What's more, ... I think that the angels may have had the same free will that we have to choose to believe God and that satan made that choice in error, while instigating and convincing a third of heaven's angels to go along with him. He's made his choice, now he seeks to subvert our eternal success in the making of ours.
In our efforts to understand the whole picture of what exists under God and in our efforts to follow Christ, we know that the scriptures are the ultimate authority as God's inspired words to us, but still, ... we sometimes have questions that we struggle to find answers for. It's important to remember that in any quest to find answers that scripture doesn't seem to answer directly with enough clarity for us to understand the definitive answer, caution - very strict caution, must be exercised in holding any potential fit as just that - "potential", until the day when we may know and understand such things in heaven. In the mean time, scripture reveals what we "need" to know now authoritatively.
In a search to satiate one of my own curiosities though, I came across an article by a man named Ragnar Oborn who wrote an article entitled "Why Did God Create A Devil?". In the article Ragnar dispels the old and unfortunately common "devil with a pitchfork" perspective of the enemy of God by positing him an angel, still in possession of all of the attributes he was given as he was created. And that he uses them now to deceive and persuade mankind to follow him - thereby making him their god. In essence Ragnar asserts that the destroyer and father of lies, in becoming aware of himself - his beauty, power and all that God gave to him, chose to disbelieve that God created him and is in fact God over him. Like us, satan was created and would be unaware of where he came from unless God told him, but satan obviously didn't believe him.
This choice to disbelieve God would make it possible for satan, in his own mind, to challenge God for the position of ultimate authority. Whether Ragnar's thoughts in this is article are completely accurate or not, we know that satan did make this choice to challenge God and rebel, and that it's the same choice that we're charged to make and will make whether we actively choose or we choose by default, by disobeying the ultimate command in life - to believe God.
Avoiding the choice is not and option. There are no gray areas, safe spaces or places to hide. God has a purpose in creating each and every one of us and if we deny it, we make ourselves useless to His purpose and worthless to His end goal of relationship with Him. satan's choice will end with himself and his followers in a lake of fire - made worthless to God as a result of his choice. We know this from chapter 19 of the book of Revelation.
We're each one of us making that choice right now. What is it?
All of scripture is intended to inform us and give us direction in making that single, ultimate, all important choice of our lives - how to respond to God.
"No, O people, the LORD has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8 (NLT)
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