Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to the Cross References podcast on the Book of Ezekiel. In this study, you learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and most importantly, how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
Whether you’re a newbie Christian or a veteran Bible reader, my goal is that God’s Word will make more sense to you after every episode.
Host: Luke Taylor
The Devil in the Details: A Description of Satan
Ezekiel 28:10-19
Ezekiel Series, Part 48
Introduction
He’s the angel of light and the prince of darkness.
And no, I’m not talking about Michael Jackson. I’m talking about the devil.
A recent Barna research poll revealed that only 35% of Christians believe the devil is an actual spiritual being.
That means at least 65% of Christians are deceived. Actually, most of these Christians aren’t even Christians, but that’s another story. Let’s just be clear on one thing today: the devil is real, and the Bible tells us all about him.
And if you have any questions about the devil, we will probably answer them today on the Cross References Podcast.
[theme music]
(Continued)
Welcome to the Cross References podcast, where you learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and most importantly, how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
Whether you’re a new Christian or a veteran Bible reader, my goal is that God’s Word will make more sense to you after every episode.
My name is Luke Taylor, and today we’re continuing this study of Ezekiel 28. This is where we really drill down verse-by-verse in this description of the devil. Ezekiel 28 is perhaps the most descriptive chapter about Satan in the whole Bible. And that’s why last time, I didn’t even want to get into the details so much as I just wanted to establish, for all of us listening, WHO chapter 28 is really about. So if you need any help with that, go back to our previous lesson, Ezekiel series part 47.
Now that we’ve established who it really is in Ezekiel 28, today we get to talk about what it means. So grab your Bible, turn to Ezekiel 28, and let’s find the devil in the details.
V11-12, Satan, the power behind the power
Ezekiel 28:11-12
11 Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me: 12 “Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God:
“You were the signet of perfection,
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
So as I mentioned last time, even though this section supposedly, is about the king of Tyre, I believe it is actually about Satan. In the previous section- verses 1-10- they were addressed to the prince of Tyre. This next section in verses 11-19 is addressed to the KING of Tyre. There were not two human rulers or leaders in Tyre; the previous section was actually about the human leader, and this section is about the real leader of Tyre- the real king- which is the devil.
For example, it says the king of Tyre was perfect in beauty. That would not describe a human. There is no human who is the signet of perfection. Sorry ladies, Robert Pattinson is not the signet of perfect. Unless he’s the devil, which, ok. Maybe.
Now, why is Satan mentioned here alongside the king of Tyre? I believe Tyre had been given over to the devil’s jurisdiction at this point in history. Every domain, every nation or territory, has a spiritual being placed in charge of it, as I’ve been covering on my other podcast, Weird Stuff in the Bible. And the Bible doesn’t say this, but I believe that at this time in history, Tyre had been placed under the domain of Satan. So he is the power behind the power of the King of Tyre.
Are there any nations under Satan’s direct control today? I don’t know. Possible. I have my suspicions. But it’s speculative. It changes over time. I think in one sense, he has a level of control over just about every nation. Remember in the temptation of Christ, it said in
Matthew 4:8-10
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.’”
Now, notice that Jesus didn’t say, “You can’t give me all the kingdoms of the world.” That wasn’t Jesus’ response. Jesus said, “No, I’m not gonna worship you,” quoting a Scripture to go along with that. But he didn’t challenge Satan’s ability to give them to Jesus. And I don’t think Satan was making an offer that he couldn’t deliver on. I think Satan was capable of handing all the kingdoms of the world over to Jesus. So I’d say he has a level of control over every nation. But my theory is that he had a more direct control over the land of Tyre and its King here in Ezekiel 28, much like he’ll be using the antichrist as his puppet in the tribulation. And the devil may potentially have that much control over a world leader today.
Just something to keep in mind. Something to keep you up at night.
v13, Lucifer, the prince of darkness
Ezekiel 28:13
You were in Eden, the garden of God;
every precious stone was your covering,
sardius, topaz, and diamond,
beryl, onyx, and jasper,
sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle;
and crafted in gold were your settings
and your engravings.
On the day that you were created
they were prepared.
Now, I covered this a little bit on the last episode. In fact, I covered everything on the last episode, I’m just expanding on it this time around. Digging in.
This verse basically proves here that we’re talking about Satan, not the human king of Tyre. Satan was in Eden, and this gives a description of what Satan looks like. He was covered in precious stones.
Heaven is full of precious stones. Heaven is a place of bright and sparkly lights. A variety of colors. You know, these stones are red and blue and green and gold or yellow; these are gemstones. The priest in Israel would wear a garment with 12 gemstones and these represented the 12 tribes of Israel, I think. But they weren’t all the same as these gemstones. So it’s more likely that Satan is covered with these colorful and bright stones because we’ll learn later that he was once a heavenly being.
I read a quote in the previous lesson by Dr. Michael Heiser:
They are descriptors of shining-ness, luminescence.
So the devil was a shining being. The word for serpent in Genesis 3, nachash, also means shining one.
In Isaiah 14- which is another passage about the devil, very similar to Ezekiel 28- that chapter also uses the word “Lucifer” to describe Satan.
Isaiah 14:12
“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
The word “Day Star” is in Hebrew the word “Lucifer,” and that’s how some Bibles actually translate verse 12 there. “Lucifer” is a word that means “light bearer” or “shining one.”
So Satan is a bright and luminous being. Not just simple white or yellow light; according to Ezekiel 28, he shines with all the colors of the rainbow. Which is pretty interesting when you look at how some wicked and demonic movements here in America have adopted the rainbow as their symbol.
You know, I covered this in a five-part series back in the Summer of 2023, but rainbows are not inherently bad. God made the rainbow in Genesis 9. But God’s rainbow has seven colors; the rainbow of the gay pride patch only has six colors. And six is the devil’s number. God’s number is seven, the number of perfection or completion. The devil uses six in the Bible. The Antichrist’s number is 666, as I’m sure you know.
What is the significance of the devil being bright- what does it mean? Well, we are attracted to shiny things. Humans are naturally mesmerized and drawn to shiny objects. It’s why gold and diamonds are so valuable. Who ever decided that we must ascribe value to gold? Why does a 3-carat diamond ring cost $30,000? Humans just naturally do that because we see value in bright, beautiful things.
Satan deceives us by making evil look beautiful.
II Corinthians 11:14 says
even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
So even if an angel were to appear to you, don’t necessarily listen to them. Their words need to line up with what the Bible says, or they might be an evil angel sent to deceive you. That’s why Paul warned us in
Galatians 1:8
even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
Do you think Paul was exaggerating right there? I don’t think so. Even an angel. If they preach another gospel, let them be accursed.
That means Joseph Smith was deceived. He claimed to have been visited by an angel in the 1800s who gave him a new bible, the Book of Mormon. This book of Mormon was supposed to “correct” the mistakes of the actual Bible. This is where Mormonism or the Latter Day Saints religion comes from. They are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, but they are sadly deceived because they follow another gospel.
One of their books of Mormon literally says this; I’ll quote it word-for-word:
In September, 1823, and at later times, Joseph Smith received visitations from Moroni, an ANGEL OF LIGHT, who revealed the resting place of the ancient record from which The Book of Mormon was afterward translated.
An angel of light. The exact thing that the New Testament warns us about, that Satan masquerades as an angel of light. That’s not a hard trick for him to pull off, because he’s Lucifer, the Shining One. It’s interesting, ironic you might say, that the shining one is the Prince of Darkness.
[musical interlude]
V14-15, The imposter, Who Looked Like a Cow
Let’s move on to verse 14 now. Can you believe we’ve only covered three verses so far today? Sure you can, because we’re on our 48th episode of our journey through Ezekiel. But this chapter is well-worth slowing down for.
Ezekiel 28:14
14 You were an anointed guardian cherub.
I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;
in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
Satan was a cherub. This is the singular form of the word “cherubim,” which are the angels who surround and perhaps guard God’s presence.
Cherubim are mentioned a few times in scripture. They are placed in statue form on the ark of the covenant. They kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden.
It’s interesting that Ezekiel is the book that gives us the most physical description of the cherubim. We see them in chapters 1 and 10 of this book, which we’ve already gone into in detail on this podcast. Let me start by going back to chapter 10…
Ezekiel 10:14
14 And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of the cherub, and the second face was a human face, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.
So the faces are lion, a cherub, a human, and an eagle. So you say, ok, but what did a cherub look like?
Ezekiel had viewed these same creatures in chapter 1, which we covered in episode 5 of this podcast. Which would have been part 2 of our Ezekiel series. I know that’s a little confusing. On YouTube, I have a playlist of ALL my podcast episodes, from one to 108, which is today’s. And then I have a second playlist with just the Ezekiel series of lessons. So anyway, that’s where you can look if you want to go all the way back to the early days of this podcast back when I thought it would take me about two years to get through Ezekiel. So we have four faces on a Cherub in chapter 10- lion, cherub, human and eagle. So you say, what’s a Cherub face look like though? Well, there’s a similar description of the cherubim in chapter 1
Ezekiel 1:10
As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle.
So three of the four faces are the same, but on one of them, it says the face of an ox. In chapter 10, it said the face of a cherub, but back in chapter 1, Ezekiel called it the face of an ox. And this word for “ox” is showr (pronounced “shore) in the Hebrew, and it means an ox, a bull, a head of cattle. What we might call a “bovine” animal in English, which means a cattle type of animal such as cows, buffalo, bison, bulls, calfs, anything like that.
So this tells us what a cherub’s face looks like. It looks like the face of a cow. And I did a whole episode called What Does Satan Look Like, it was part 15 of the Ezekiel series. And this is an illuminating revelation because it brings a greater context to Israel’s conflicts and temptations in the Old Testament.
Who was the deity or godlike figured who most often battled the Israelites in the Old Testament? It was this false god called Baal. B-a-a-l. You don’t have to go far in the Old Testament stories to run into this Baal guy. What you might not realize, though, is that Baal is an Old Testament name or identity of Satan. By the time of the New Testament, he’s had his name changed to Beelzebub, the prince of demons (see Mark 3). But it was the same figure. His name just went through some alterations over time.
What did a Baal idol look like? It may or may not surprise you to learn that a Baal idol was a calf or bull. Oftentimes a bull head on a human body. But he was a bovine figure, which is actually what Satan looks like.
Does Satan have the other four faces? I have no idea. But he was a cherub, so I’d say at a minimum, he has the face of a cherub. And he desires to be worshipped, as we’ll cover in a few minutes, so he desired ancient people and even the Israelites to worship him. Either in Baal form or through another way.
Do you remember what the Israelites did right after the Red Sea crossing and Moses went up on the mountain?
Exodus 32:1-4
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
So bizarre. Of all things to worship, why a cow? What is the draw to worship a golden calf? It’s not random. It’s a spiritual draw.
You might also recall an evil king in I Kings 11 named Jeroboam, who caused Israel to sin in a big way.
It says in verse 28 of that chapter:
So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
Golden calves. This was an apostasy of the northern kingdom of Israel. Why calves? They weren’t just worshipping idols, they were deceived into worshipping Satan himself. See, all this falls into place.
One more thing it brought up in verse 14 was the stones of fire. I explained about the stones of fire last time, that this is referring to God’s divine council, His gathering of spiritual beings who God uses to rule over mankind. Perhaps those territorial spirits I mentioned before. And Satan had a seat at the table.
Ezekiel 28:15
15 You were blameless in your ways
from the day you were created,
till unrighteousness was found in you.
He had it so good, and then he blew it.
V16-17, The Dragon, the king under the mountain
Ezekiel 28:16-17
16 In the abundance of your trade
you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub,
from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.
I cast you to the ground;
I exposed you before kings,
to feast their eyes on you.
Satan was kicked out of heaven. I would say this was at the same time as Adam and Eve’s sin in Genesis 3. Satan was kicked out and in revenge, decided he wanted to corrupt God’s good creation. He crept into the garden of Eden and deceived the first humans. Got them evicted.
It’s kind of interesting that his outcome mirrored Adam and Eve’s. Just as Satan was evicted from heaven, Adam and Eve’s sin got them evicted from the garden. But Adam and Even didn’t commit the first sin; the first sin was Satan’s sin of pride.
In verse 17, it said he was prideful. The gifts that GOD had given him made him proud and think he was better than God. A good reminder for us about the danger of taking pride in our gifts, especially our spiritual gifts. That’s why I often say pride is “the big one.” CS Lewis called it “The Great Sin.” He said, “pride is what made the devil the devil.”
Let me go back to Isaiah 14 for a moment. I read a verse there earlier where it referred to Satan as Lucifer; the morning star. Let me read a little further:
Isaiah 14:13-14
13 You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
Those are the five “I Will” statements of Satan. I will I will I will. It’s all about “I.” Me. Pride. Ego.
That is the great sin, the big one. Satan wanted God’s throne. And it’s the temptation he used against Eve. He said, “You shall be as God- or as a god.” That was Satan’s own temptation.
Pride does two things to you. The obvious one is that it makes you self-centered. That’s, well, duh. “I will I will I will.” It makes you obsess over yourself. To look at everything through a lens of how it affects you.
Some think that pride means to think highly of yourself. But that’s not exactly it. Many prideful people are almost always just incredibly insecure. They actually don’t think too highly of themselves, they are just terrified of what everyone else thinks, and that’s what drives them to brag and boast so much. It’s not necessarily reflecting what they think of themselves; they’re actually trying to get their affirmation from what they can get YOU to think about them. Which is kind of ironic since one of my biggest turn-offs is listening to someone brag about themselves.
So it’s not necessarily to think highly of yourself. It’s when you think primarily about yourself. Whether you have high self-esteem or low self-esteem, the devil’s goal is the esteem. Getting you to focus everything inward and internally. To constantly recite your own history, to not be able to get over your past. To dwell on everything that has ever happened to you and how it affected you.
One thing that has astonished me to learn over the past few years is how much of Hollywood is in therapy. All these actors, all these celebrities, they are mental wrecks. They can’t get over themselves. You wanna make some money, go become a therapist in Los Angeles. These celebrities are pouring money into paying someone to listen to them talk about themselves because they just can’t stop doing it.
Anyway, enough about self-centeredness. Let me tell you about the other thing pride does. It also makes you others-centered. Another thought from CS Lewis: It gets no enjoyment out of having something, but only in having more of something than someone else does.
Pride is about the comparison game. Wanting to have more than the person next to you. Or not wanting them to have more. I think about that dragon in the Hobbit books. Smaug. Smaug is a talking dragon who lives in a mountain and sleeps in a pile of gold. What is the dragon ever gonna do with all that gold? He can’t go down to a market and buy something with it. He has no wallet, no practical use for money. He’s a dragon. He’s terrifying; nobody wants to be around him or do business with them. I’m assuming if he wants something to eat, he just goes and eats it. He doesn’t need to buy it.
So what’s the deal with all that money? Because he doesn’t want anybody else to have it.
Smaug is a brilliantly-written satanic character. And I’m not trying to say that it’s wrong to read those books or watch those movies. I’m just saying there’s a lot of spiritual parallels here. He’s a dragon, just as satan was a dragon. His chief characteristic is pride. JRR Tolkien tapped into some deep spiritual realities when he was writing these stories. The dragon is consumed with pride.
And that’s the dragon’s downfall. The hobbit is able to distract the dragon by puffing up his ego. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that isn’t satan’s downfall as well.
This is why the New Testament tells us not to take new Christians and put them in positions of leadership in the church.
I Timothy 3:6
He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.
That’s the devil’s trap. And it can be a lot of our traps as well. Pride in ourselves, in the good gifts God gave us.
Let’s read the last verses from today before we go. Actually, I’ll take another short break and then we’ll talk about these last verses of the chapter.
[music]
Housekeeping/Mailbag
Next time on this podcast, we are continuing our study of the devil. Today was just about learning the enemy. We have reviewed the details of the devil. Where he came from, and in a moment, where he’s going. But in between all that, we’re in the battle, and I haven’t explained to you yet how to fight him. So that’s what our next lesson is going to be about: how to fight our spiritual enemy, Satan. So our next episode is going to move into New Testament mode and we’ll come back to our Ezekiel studies after a few weeks.
Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
Weird stuff- next episode: When Did Satan Fight Over the Body of Moses? That’s a strange verse we see in the book of Jude, and it’s part of a joint effort that I’m undertaking here at the start of the year on both of my podcasts to expose everything about the devil.
Email: crossreferencespodcast@gmail.com
Mailbag: on the episode talking about the historical fall of Tyre in Ezekiel 26. That was an episode that didn’t get a lot of attention. Not a lot of downloads. I didn’t expect it to. I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t.
Yet, after it was up a week or two, I actually received this really nice feedback on it from Dustin, and this is what he said:
So I really appreciated Dustin’s message because that’s why I am covering every verse of Ezekiel. Otherwise I would never have probably done a study like that on Ezekiel 26. It’s simply not one of the highly trafficked areas of the Bible.
But I knew there’d be someone out there who would appreciate it because somebody, somewhere, is gonna need a resource on Ezekiel 26 someday. So you are welcome, Dustin, and I really appreciate your feedback. And for everyone else, we’ll keep drilling down on the devil over the next few weeks like I said and return to Ezekiel in February.
V18-19, The Devil, Who Looked Like a Worm
These verses are about the fate of the devil. And they haven’t happened yet, even though they sound like they did, and I’ll explain why.
Ezekiel 28:18-19
18 By the multitude of your iniquities,
in the unrighteousness of your trade
you profaned your sanctuaries;
so I brought fire out from your midst;
it consumed you,
and I turned you to ashes on the earth
in the sight of all who saw you.
19 All who know you among the peoples
are appalled at you;
you have come to a dreadful end
and shall be no more forever.”
So these last couple of verses are talking, I believe, about the fate of the devil. I actually don’t think this has happened yet, where all peoples are appalled at him. I mean, obviously, it says there that he came to a dreadful end. The devil hasn’t come to an end yet. So I believe this is talking about the devil’s final fate, which is when his trial takes place, perhaps at the Great White Throne judgment, the moments before he is cast into the Lake of Fire forever and ever.
Isaiah talks about this, too. Back to
Isaiah 14, verses 16 and 17
Those who see you will stare at you
and ponder over you:
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
who shook kingdoms,
who made the world like a desert
and overthrew its cities,
And so, this is talking about when Satan lies exposed, and everyone sees him for who he is. The New Testament may talk about him going about as a roaring lion, and we’ll discuss that next time. Take him seriously. But he is “as” as roaring lion. He is not a roaring lion. Jesus is the lion. The devil is a masquerader. An imposter.
We’ll say “ is this the man? We were afraid of him? Look at him there, lying in the dirt?”
So if this is going to happen in the future, why is it past-tense? I think I can explain that. Sometimes the Bible uses past-tense for things that haven’t happened yet, and it’s because they are such a done deal that they might as well have already happened. Things that are just set in stone. An example is
Romans 8:30
And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
This verse messes with a lot of our theology because we know that glorification doesn’t happen until we get to heaven. That’s when we’re made perfect and no longer sin, no longer even desire to sin. But that hasn’t happened for us yet, so why does Romans 8:30 speak about it as if it already did?
And that’s because it’s talking about something that’s a done deal. It hasn’t happened yet, but if you’re in Christ, your future glorification in the heavenly kingdom is confirmed. Sealed. Nothing can separate you from God. Those whom he justified he also glorified.
And that same certainly applies to the doom of the devil. He’s gonna be put on trial, exposed before the world, and then cast into the Lake of Fire. It’s a done deal, it just hasn’t happened yet.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t talk about it! We will, two episodes from now. In the next episode, we’re going to talk about how to fight satan. And then two episodes from now, I’m going to talk about the final fate and doom of Satan.
Closing Thoughts
But in closing today, let’s go back to what Jesus said about seeing Satan cast out of heaven. Falling like lightning. To me, that implies that God backhanded Satan pretty hard when he kicked him out. Because when someone falls, they don’t fall just lightning-fast. So his “fall” had a little bit of force behind it, I’m thinking.
Reminds me, I used to try to use cheesy pickup lines on my wife. This was AFTER we were married. But when my wife or I would get home and come through the door, I often tried a pick-up line on her just to be silly and flirty with her. And one time I used the classic line, “did it hurt when you fell from heaven.” And when the girl looks confused, you’re supposed to say, “Because I think I’m looking at an angel.”
Only, when I said it, she kind of thought through that one theologically, and she said, “Are you calling me the devil?”
So guys, that’s the problem if you are a theology nerd who marries another theology nerd. She might just require a little more elaboration when you call her an angel.
Maybe in her valentines card I’ll tell her she’s the signet of perfection and perfect in beauty.
She knows her bible well enough to get that reference, too. But if you’re dating a girl who doesn’t know her Bible too well, maybe you can use that one.
So anyway, as we’re closing down, I’m going to read
Luke 10:18 and 19 again
18 And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.
Satan fell like lightning. Jesus said this because the disciples were amazed that even the demons had to flee when they heard the name of Jesus. And He’s like, “totally, I’ve given you authority to treat on serpents.”
So guess what: we have authority. We aren’t limited to just knowing ABOUT the devil. We have been spiritually equipped- if you’re in Christ- equipped to stand against him. Not just playing defense. You can go on offense. And we’ll learn how to do that next time.
Thanks for listening to the Cross References Podcast. This has been Luke Taylor, and I hope the Bible makes more sense to you after this episode.