The Pyramid vs. The Body
Ezekiel 28 describes one of the main facets of satan's fall. It describes his behavior that God identified as the root of his sin: trading.
Ezekiel 28:12-16 “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God : “You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created. “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you. “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones.
Some translations refer to the trading as "commerce." So what was satan trading or selling? A new kingdom.
Satan was trading power for loyalty to his new kingdom, that, not coincidentally, he would lead. Satan promised the angels that he would give them a better position in his new kingdom if they would bail out of the creator's kingdom and give their loyalty to lucifer.
Now, this is a ridiculous proposition, but it is one that sells in the created order. One third of the angels bought in! It is a powerful lie.
How can a created being, like satan, give a better experience to creation than God? God created mankind just to extend His love to them!
Satan doesn't gather people to him to love. Satan wants to control more territory and he needs subjects to subjugate, but he promises love, acceptance, and promotion in order to build his base! There is no kingdom without the loyalty of the subjects.
Satan needed the rebel angels way more than they needed him! But that is the way the lie works. It steals from the people it promises to elevate.
This is the character of satan. He only steals, kills, and destroys, but every step of the way he is promising more. Impatience with God is why people and angles fall for the false promises.
This mentality...trading power for loyalty... it tries to infiltrate every organization from the PTA, to the neighborhood association, to the halls of congress (this is what redistribution of wealth is), to the church.
One of the ugliest places you will find this organization is in the church.
The organization that trades power for loyalty is always expressed as a pyramid scheme. There are a few leaders at the top, and they rule over the subjects with promises of elevation while stealing their devotion...their loyalty... that is supposed to be directed to God. When you start to fall out of line...when you start to wander from supporting the "all seeing eyes" at the top of the pyramid...when you start to explore life outside of their base, they don't rest in love, trusting that God will move either way...no, they protect their base. The top always brings the base back, or keeps it in place, in one of two ways...will call them "Plan A" or "Plan B".
Plan A is attention and praise. The top will invest a little power in the base person to keep, or win back, their loyalty. Suddenly, the base is treated as important again. Suddenly, you are indispensable. "Can you help with this?" Or, " what do you think about that?" Plan A singles out the person who might be drifting and treats them special for a minute. Plan A is often used to build the base. Draw in people with flattery and with vision of promotion. It never lasts, but it is an effective tool to keep the base where the top of the pyramid wants it. After all, without the base there is no top!
This is opposite the way God's kingdom works:
James 2:1-9 My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others? For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, “You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor”—well, doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives? Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him? But you dishonor the poor! Isn’t it the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? Aren’t they the ones who slander Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear? Yes indeed, it is good when you obey the royal law as found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law.
This is actually the "fruit" of the fear of man. The top of the pyramid fears loosing the base, and the bottom of the pyramid fears losing the approval and promises of the top. The fear of man is a snare. It keeps the top and the bottom enslaved to the puppet master, who is lucifer:
Proverbs 29:24-27 Whoever is a partner with a thief hates his own life; He swears to tell the truth, but reveals nothing. The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe. Many seek the ruler’s favor, But justice for man comes from the Lord . An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous, And he who is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked.
If you give in to Plan A, either from the top or bottom, you are partnering with a thief... satan. Satan cannot create authority, only steal it. Shame on the top and the bottom, but also pray for the top and the bottom. Both ends of the pyramid are the perpetrator and the victim. Satan exploits both by taking advantage of their fear.
The fear of the Lord is clean. All authority...all true elevation... comes from God alone. Anyone who is promising you opportunity, love, or acceptance for keeping your support under them is working outside of God's true family. Anyone looking to human leaders to make their life good is doing the same thing! God's organization is a body, not a pyramid.
If Plan A doesn't work, the top of the pyramid is forced to resort to Plan B. Plan A says "you catch more flies with honey." Plan B says "to make a cake you have to break a few eggs" (chairman Mao's saying). Plan B threatens to take affection and power away from those who break ranks. "We won't be your friend anymore. " or "You'll lose everything you worked for if you don't support us." or "stay with us all the way, or your out all the way." It is the same fear of man, but it is directed in a way intended not to flatter, but rather to terrorize a person into supporting the base. Listen, if you have to support the top to be friends, then you really aren't friends. If you are only friends with people who can help you, then you don't understand friendship. Have higher standards for friends.
Proverbs 12:26 The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.
The top of the pyramid isn't the top without the base. The pyramid structure is one of the most extreme expressions of arrogance. This arrogance says "there is no God, he does not see that I am asserting myself as Him."
Ephesians 6:9 And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.
Plan B, at its core, is a threat to withdraw life... but the people making the threat don't have the ability to give, or withdraw, life, and the person being threatened is supposed to recognize God as their source, not people. There is only one author of life. His name is Jesus. There is only one person who truly can establish you, elevate you, or pull you down:
Daniel 2:20-22 Daniel answered and said: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, For wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, And light dwells with Him.
God establishes people in a way no man can, and appoints people to positions no other person controls. This is the reason David was so pleasing to God: he mostly made his decisions with this in mind. He waited on the Lord. He didn't give in to the flattery or the threats. He simply tried to find out what the Lord was saying and then did his best to obey.
The pyramid is bad for those at the top AND those at the bottom. Don't participate. Don't support the pyramid structure. Fear the Lord and speak truth in love. Our struggle isn't with the people at the top OR bottom. It is with the trader behind it all...Lucifer... and the angels that locked themselves into an evil pyramid forever:
Ephesians 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
God is a father, not a boss. He doesn't "invest in people"...investing implies selfish motivation. The one who invests does it for a return. No, God is a father who freely gives out of vast resources to anyone who asks. God chose love, and even let Adam and Eve, who rebelled, continue to live in the vastness of his resources and affection. God loves enemies, and delights in sons and daughters. He is continually turning the pyramid upside down, even going to the bottom to die in order to not just save the masses at the bottom, but to elevate as many who want it to be kings and priests.
God's organization is a body. Not a pyramid. Everyone is a leader and a servant in the true organization that is Jesus' body:
I Corinthians 12:12-27 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
Stay out of the pyramids and stay in the body!
Ezekiel 28:12-16 “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God : “You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created. “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you. “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones.
Some translations refer to the trading as "commerce." So what was satan trading or selling? A new kingdom.
Satan was trading power for loyalty to his new kingdom, that, not coincidentally, he would lead. Satan promised the angels that he would give them a better position in his new kingdom if they would bail out of the creator's kingdom and give their loyalty to lucifer.
Now, this is a ridiculous proposition, but it is one that sells in the created order. One third of the angels bought in! It is a powerful lie.
How can a created being, like satan, give a better experience to creation than God? God created mankind just to extend His love to them!
Satan doesn't gather people to him to love. Satan wants to control more territory and he needs subjects to subjugate, but he promises love, acceptance, and promotion in order to build his base! There is no kingdom without the loyalty of the subjects.
Satan needed the rebel angels way more than they needed him! But that is the way the lie works. It steals from the people it promises to elevate.
This is the character of satan. He only steals, kills, and destroys, but every step of the way he is promising more. Impatience with God is why people and angles fall for the false promises.
This mentality...trading power for loyalty... it tries to infiltrate every organization from the PTA, to the neighborhood association, to the halls of congress (this is what redistribution of wealth is), to the church.
One of the ugliest places you will find this organization is in the church.
The organization that trades power for loyalty is always expressed as a pyramid scheme. There are a few leaders at the top, and they rule over the subjects with promises of elevation while stealing their devotion...their loyalty... that is supposed to be directed to God. When you start to fall out of line...when you start to wander from supporting the "all seeing eyes" at the top of the pyramid...when you start to explore life outside of their base, they don't rest in love, trusting that God will move either way...no, they protect their base. The top always brings the base back, or keeps it in place, in one of two ways...will call them "Plan A" or "Plan B".
Plan A is attention and praise. The top will invest a little power in the base person to keep, or win back, their loyalty. Suddenly, the base is treated as important again. Suddenly, you are indispensable. "Can you help with this?" Or, " what do you think about that?" Plan A singles out the person who might be drifting and treats them special for a minute. Plan A is often used to build the base. Draw in people with flattery and with vision of promotion. It never lasts, but it is an effective tool to keep the base where the top of the pyramid wants it. After all, without the base there is no top!
This is opposite the way God's kingdom works:
James 2:1-9 My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others? For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, “You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor”—well, doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives? Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him? But you dishonor the poor! Isn’t it the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? Aren’t they the ones who slander Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear? Yes indeed, it is good when you obey the royal law as found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law.
This is actually the "fruit" of the fear of man. The top of the pyramid fears loosing the base, and the bottom of the pyramid fears losing the approval and promises of the top. The fear of man is a snare. It keeps the top and the bottom enslaved to the puppet master, who is lucifer:
Proverbs 29:24-27 Whoever is a partner with a thief hates his own life; He swears to tell the truth, but reveals nothing. The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe. Many seek the ruler’s favor, But justice for man comes from the Lord . An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous, And he who is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked.
If you give in to Plan A, either from the top or bottom, you are partnering with a thief... satan. Satan cannot create authority, only steal it. Shame on the top and the bottom, but also pray for the top and the bottom. Both ends of the pyramid are the perpetrator and the victim. Satan exploits both by taking advantage of their fear.
The fear of the Lord is clean. All authority...all true elevation... comes from God alone. Anyone who is promising you opportunity, love, or acceptance for keeping your support under them is working outside of God's true family. Anyone looking to human leaders to make their life good is doing the same thing! God's organization is a body, not a pyramid.
If Plan A doesn't work, the top of the pyramid is forced to resort to Plan B. Plan A says "you catch more flies with honey." Plan B says "to make a cake you have to break a few eggs" (chairman Mao's saying). Plan B threatens to take affection and power away from those who break ranks. "We won't be your friend anymore. " or "You'll lose everything you worked for if you don't support us." or "stay with us all the way, or your out all the way." It is the same fear of man, but it is directed in a way intended not to flatter, but rather to terrorize a person into supporting the base. Listen, if you have to support the top to be friends, then you really aren't friends. If you are only friends with people who can help you, then you don't understand friendship. Have higher standards for friends.
Proverbs 12:26 The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.
The top of the pyramid isn't the top without the base. The pyramid structure is one of the most extreme expressions of arrogance. This arrogance says "there is no God, he does not see that I am asserting myself as Him."
Ephesians 6:9 And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.
Plan B, at its core, is a threat to withdraw life... but the people making the threat don't have the ability to give, or withdraw, life, and the person being threatened is supposed to recognize God as their source, not people. There is only one author of life. His name is Jesus. There is only one person who truly can establish you, elevate you, or pull you down:
Daniel 2:20-22 Daniel answered and said: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, For wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, And light dwells with Him.
God establishes people in a way no man can, and appoints people to positions no other person controls. This is the reason David was so pleasing to God: he mostly made his decisions with this in mind. He waited on the Lord. He didn't give in to the flattery or the threats. He simply tried to find out what the Lord was saying and then did his best to obey.
The pyramid is bad for those at the top AND those at the bottom. Don't participate. Don't support the pyramid structure. Fear the Lord and speak truth in love. Our struggle isn't with the people at the top OR bottom. It is with the trader behind it all...Lucifer... and the angels that locked themselves into an evil pyramid forever:
Ephesians 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
God is a father, not a boss. He doesn't "invest in people"...investing implies selfish motivation. The one who invests does it for a return. No, God is a father who freely gives out of vast resources to anyone who asks. God chose love, and even let Adam and Eve, who rebelled, continue to live in the vastness of his resources and affection. God loves enemies, and delights in sons and daughters. He is continually turning the pyramid upside down, even going to the bottom to die in order to not just save the masses at the bottom, but to elevate as many who want it to be kings and priests.
God's organization is a body. Not a pyramid. Everyone is a leader and a servant in the true organization that is Jesus' body:
I Corinthians 12:12-27 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
Stay out of the pyramids and stay in the body!
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