Reluctant Demon (5 page)

I can tell you I realized right away our fate could have been much worse. At first one might argue that this was hardly banishment. Earth was more beautiful in those days than it is now. This fragile and delicate planet hanging alone in space had obviously been created for something important. It was not designed for rebels like us. Satan never really valued the beauty of Earth anyway, so its exquisiteness was completely wasted on him. From the day it was made, all of heaven knew how much God particularly favored Earth. So when I realized where we were, I thought there had been some mistake.

None of it made sense. W h y were we alive? W h y had we not been utterly destroyed as lawbreakers? What would we do on the most beautiful of the worlds God had created?

"Is this really Earth?" we asked each other.

"It must be," someone responded. "This is not so bad."

The others agreed; it could have been much worse.

We could have landed on one of those horrendously hot planets.

"Must have been a mistake," someone else offered.

None of us had an answer, but I knew God did not make mistakes. We were here for a purpose, but only He knew what it was.

We wandered aimlessly about Earth for several days—

I don't know how many. We were still outside the realm of time, so it was hard to know how long we had been there. While the others were arguing over territory, I found myself thinking about God.

How was He feeling about those of us who had betrayed Him? He had certainly loved us. I wondered if He missed us at all. As much as He loved us, we all felt that He loved Lucifer even more. We never knew whether it was true, but in the end, we didn't really mind.

I've often wondered whether or not God ceased to love him because he behaved like an overindulged child. Did his rebellion truly change the affection of God toward him—or us for that matter? After all, God is so above the presumption and foolishness of His petulant creation.

I wondered if God regretted His decision to cast us out without giving us a second chance.

No longer the light bearer of heaven, Satan the accuser and we whom he had mesmerized tried to figure out why we were on Earth. Satan really seemed to be as perplexed about it as the rest of us. Although, of course, he would never say so.

I also found myself thinking about the host who had remained in heaven and wondered if they were watching us. We used to do things like that, you know.

We would stand on the edge of heaven and speculate about Earth. Knowing the angelic realm as I do and the angels' penchant for gossip, I could just imagine what they might be talking about.

"Why didn't Yahweh destroy the rebels?" they must have mused.

That's what I would have been asking. It's too simple to say that it was because God loved us so much He could not bear to destroy us. No one who knew the slightest thing about His holiness would consider such sentimentality Perhaps simply being cast from His presence satisfied the demand of His holiness and His justice, but I doubted it. There had to be another reason.

Now as I look back on how things turned out, I wonder whether or not God regretted that He had not destroyed us right then and been done with it. W h y didn't He use His might, indignation, strength, and power to utterly crush Satan and the rest of us? If He had, no one would have thought twice about His right to do so. He should have completely eradicated any memory of us. I daresay no one in heaven or on Earth would know that we had existed. It would have been as though we never
were
at all. Heaven could have gone on carrying out God's ideas like we never happened. We would have been obliterated from its history. No one would have known or wondered about us. If you ask me, God missed a fantastic opportunity to clean the whole mess up and be done with it.

Instead of ending it neatly and completely, as He probably would have if He had only thought it through a little more, God permitted the righteous anger in Michael to rise up. There was no doubt about who the players were.

Michael and his angels utterly conquered us and drove us out of heaven.

"Is this Michael's fight?" the gossiping angels must have asked one another. "Why doesn't God seize the moment to demonstrate His omnipotence?"

Certainly the heavenly host was aware that the weight of His glory could destroy anything that opposed it. If you ask me, God left Himself wide open for unhealthy speculation among the remaining angels when He let Michael take the credit for the war. The utter destruction of the rebels by His hand would have forevermore insured that there would be no further rebellions. W h y did He not show Himself forth in His unlimited might and authority? He must have known how history would record that it was Michael and his angels who overcame Satan. Was God even a little worried that this might go to Michael's head? After all, if Satan could be corrupted, then no one was exempt.

Perhaps it was because the power of God was never in doubt. I suppose He did not consider it necessary to demonstrate a power of which every one of us was certain.

At first I could not see why it seemed more important to prove His restraint and compassion where we were concerned rather than settling once and for all what could happen to anyone who thought he could outwrestle God. It took me awhile, but I think I finally figured it out. God would allow Satan to show the futility of existence apart from His presence. Heaven was watching, and heaven would learn.

If it were possible that a created being should have been able to muster his gifts and abilities (which Satan was permitted to retain) to be victorious, independent from God's presence, surely Satan was that one who could do it. And if Satan could do it, then others, as we had done, would follow. I thought God was taking a big risk to allow Satan the opportunity to realize his ambitions. He was given domain to rule just as he wanted. With no strings attached, this rebellious angel would be allowed to rule apart from the presence of the One who had created him. He would be permitted to establish his own throne and his own kingdom, but not in the heaven where God was.

All of heaven would be standing by, watching to see what he would do. With all of our powers and abilities and corrupted nobility, we found ourselves in a beautiful place crafted by the very hand of God but with no idea as to why. Having no further recourse to God and not willing to challenge him for control, we pledged our allegiance to Satan the accuser of our brethren.

But we did not pledge our devotion. We had known devotion only to God. We pledged allegiance to Satan out of fear and a lust for his power. We never doubted for a moment that Satan loved anything but himself.

I knew that all of heaven would be standing on the edge of eternity to watch and see what Satan would do with unrestrained power.

I could have told them.

CHAPTER 6

I WONDER IF IT
is possible for the human mind to understand the horror of banishment. I doubt it.

Perhaps you could try to imagine what it would be like to be suddenly disowned and thrust from Earth into space and sentenced to remain alive forever on another planet. How long would it take before the awareness of total abandonment and separation from everything that caused you to be who and what you are began to birth sheer terror into your very soul? It is not death, but it is everything you fear death to be.

I have observed human ways for a very long time, and I marvel at the extremes to which you people will resort to avoid death. It's not the idea of being dead that troubles you. Some might find death to be a welcome escape if only one could be assured that it were nothing more than an endless, dreamless sleep. As a matter of fact, even to me the notion doesn't seem that bad. What people fear about death is that it is nothing like that at all. You fear being awakened, regaining consciousness, and realizing there's been a terrible mistake: you're not dead at all. You're still alive but far removed from your home and familiar surroundings and cast into another dimension where you are entirely alone.

You fear death because the unthinkable hides in your imagination. What if death is only a door through which you are forced to pass, only to find that you have remained exactly the same person? You retain your consciousness, your talents, ambition, emotions, and every aspect of aliveness that gives meaning to your existence. But the world in which these things have meaning and relationship is suddenly closed off to you.

Your life on Earth was worthwhile only in so much as it had purpose, definition, and meaning to the world around you. You pass through the door called death, and the world you have known is gone. Your meaning and purpose are gone. There is no longer the possibility of a God to whom you can cry out. You are completely alone.

It was something like that for us to find ourselves suddenly on Earth with no way to return. We were angels, more glorious than you can possibly imagine and created to live eternally in heaven, not on Earth, no matter how pretty it was.

When I came to my senses after the crash, I was appalled at what had happened to Satan. At first I wasn't sure it was really him. How could he change so drastically? He was no longer the light bearer—or anything close to it. He was ghastly. The grandness of all that he had been was horribly changed. The light that emanated from him was completely gone. He was gray and thin—so thin I could almost see right through him. It became so apparent that his beauty and glory had only been real because of his relationship to God. His beauty, talent, and charm were real and meaningful only as he reflected the attributes of the God who made him. Disconnected from God, He became unspeakably ugly.

How can I explain the change in him? Imagine a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments and set aglow by hundreds of lights. You behold the beautiful tree in its halo of lights and exclaim how glorious it is. You don't take notice that its brilliance is completely dependent upon the hidden electric cord that winds itself silently from bulb to bulb until it is at last plugged into the electrical outlet where the power is. You don't become aware of it until the cord is unplugged and the tree becomes suddenly dark and loses its beauty. The ornaments are still there, as are the light bulbs and sockets, but the glory that is a Christmas tree is gone. That tree once so admired and set in a place of honor to be the center of your home is suddenly lifeless, dull, and dry. What was once a Christmas tree, full of promise, is now only a dead plant with meaningless ornaments and fake icicles that are too much trouble to remove. I have watched as you dragged it to the curb to be carried off by the garbage truck.

It was like that for Satan. All of the ornaments and reminders of his existence when he was the light bearer still hung on his being. But the relationship to God that had given him meaning and purpose was completely gone.

As it was for Satan, so it was for the rest of us who had fallen with him. It was stunning to see how our feet had become hooves. Even our wings were changed. Most of our beautiful feathers had been replaced with slimy scales. The others were like Satan, the essence of ugly. I had not found a way to look at myself, so I held out hope that somehow I might look a little better. In stunned disbelief at what had happened to us, we staggered about Earth as one who has consumed too much alcohol staggers about in his surroundings. He is not sure where he is. He is unsure of what has happened to cause such pain in his body He is disoriented and tries to remember how he came to be in such a state. Yet at the same time, he is afraid to remember. Had he really done this to himself?

Surely there was someone else to blame for his condition.

Regret and remorse are the most bitter of companions.

At least that's how it was for me.

Once we realized the finality of this new reality, panic overtook our common sense, and we began to blame one another. Someone must be held responsible for what had happened to us. Finally, someone dared to say it.

"It was Satan's fault. He misled us."

"That's right. We would never have rebelled on our own," said someone else.

"How could we have been so foolish?" another added.

Then as one angry mob, they turned on him. I knew this to be an extraordinarily dangerous move. I knew they were underestimating Satan's wrath. I tried to tell them, but I couldn't get a word in, so I kept to the back of the group and waited to see which way things might go.

Of course, I was right, and things went bad quickly.

I cannot begin to tell you what an ill-conceived idea it was to try to overthrow Satan. God had not destroyed us, but Satan almost did. Everyone had underestimated his strength, his power, and his capacity for ruthlessness.

He obliterated the first line of attack against him, and I'm quite sure he would have annihilated the rest of us had it not been for one thing. We were all he had left.

Whatever he planned to do, he would need us to carry it out. Make no mistake; we would remain alive only as long as he had use for us.

When we realized we could not match him in strength or power, we did the next most illogical thing.

We turned on each other. Well, everyone except for me.

I hid behind a tree. As if we hadn't learned one thing from the futility of the war in heaven, we proceeded to wage war on Earth. If I could not fight in heaven, where I knew my way around, then I surely wasn't about to chance getting hurt and lost on Earth, having no idea where anything was.

They raged and fought against one another in an attempt to secure a position near Satan. After the failed coup, each one was anxious to prove a newfound loyalty to the fallen prince. I suppose they thought being near him might be the best place for protection, though protection against what, I don't know, since there was nothing on Earth more fearsome than them. Perhaps they thought Satan would reward those who were the closest to him.

I think some naively held out the hope that Satan might rule them like God had. Not a chance.

I've concluded that angels, in their natural state, are not strategic thinkers. Perhaps it was because in heaven we never needed to evaluate cause and effect. God caused all things, and the effect was never in question. I'm pretty sure it never crossed anyone's mind that if they destroyed Earth, there would be absolutely no place for us to go. I thought about pointing it out, but I changed my mind.