I learned a great secret recently when I got to talking with a Starbucks employee inside their locale at 35^th and 8^th Avenue and he inadvertently revealed that anyone who orders a brewed coffee—even a Venti at $2.17—can purchase a refill for only 54 cents. Think of that!

When I expressed my pleasant surprise and appreciation for the tip, the Starbucks server, who was in the process of clearing tables, responded, "Like G.I. Joe says, ' Now you know,' and knowing's half the battle."

The reference to the action figure, as I had him explain to me, was from the '80s TV cartoon about G.I. Joe. At the end of each episode, G.I. Joe would say, "Now you know," and a gaggle of kids would yell back, "And knowing's half the battle."

If you ask me, this could easily sum up what's gained from learning the Bible's description of Satan as a cherub. Suddenly you see where pagan symbolism originates and take its cue. The skies open up to the whole framework of the pagan, idol-worshipping religious system that stems from the Tower of Babel and Baal worship, introduced a hundred years or so after the Flood.

The first thing to remember is there is a myriad of races of angelic creatures that exists in the universe. When God created the angelic host, He established a heavenly government throughout the universe, giving the angelic beings varying positions of governmental rank and authority. Satan, as Lucifer, was made chief administrator of the whole thing.

As the top god outside the Trinity, Lucifer was created "full of wisdom and perfect in beauty," reveals Ezekiel 28:12, and he was given the exalted honor of literally covering God's throne in the role of "the anointed cherub that covereth." Of course, he was later tossed from this position after leading a revolt in the angelic realm.

Cherubim are to stand guard and maintain the integrity and holiness of God. In Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel 10 and Revelations 4, we learn there are four living creatures, or cherubim, that surround God's throne and each of them has four faces and four wings. The fifth cherub, Lucifer, was the one that actually covered the throne before his removal. (Note: This is the reason the number five in the Bible is associated with death.)

"And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass," further describes Ezekiel 1. "And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.
"Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.
"As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.
"Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies."

Beneath their wings they are "full of eyes in all directions," as Revelations 4 states, explaining the unremitting vigilance with which they stood guard around the throne.

"They don't need to turn their heads around like you and I do to see because they literally have eyes in the back of their head—they literally have another face in the back of their head and on each side, hence they have a 360-degree vision capability without turning physically," explains my pastor, Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill., in a study I have on tape. "I realize that's an odd creature for you and I to try and conceptualize but get the idea of what's here."

Ezekiel 10 relays a subsequent vision of the throne's cherubim in which the four faces are represented by a cherub, a man, a lion and an eagle. Remember, in Ezekiel 1, the faces are of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle.

In Revelations 4, the faces are of a man, a calf, a lion and an eagle.

"Notice we've got three that are the same each time—the lion, the man and the eagle—

and then we've also got one that changes each time," says Jordan in his study. "In Revelations 4, it's a calf. In Ezekiel 1, it's an ox. In Ezekiel 10, it's a cherub. So we learn something: A calf, an ox and a cherub are used interchangeably by the Holy Spirit to describe the same face on that living creature."

This realization that in a cherub is the face of either an ox or a calf gives new meaning to the Gen. 3 account of Satan's appearance in the Garden of Eden.

Gen. 3:1 reads, "Now the serpent was more subtil (or "subtle") than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made."

"Have you ever heard people say to you, 'Well, see the Bible isn't scientific—it's not zoologically correct because everybody knows that a serpent is a reptile and in Gen. 3:14, God says 'that because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field,' " says Jordan. "People say, 'Ha, ha, ha, ha, see your Bible's wrong,' but you know, folks, you can take that viewpoint if you want to, but the path of faith certainly isn't to come at it that way. The path of faith is to look at God's Word and say, 'Now, Lord, you got these things different. Why?' And the reason is Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel 10 and Revelations 4, which, of course, the guy that scoffs at it, he never gets that far in his reading."

Of course, the reason Satan can be called the "beast of the field" and then said to be "cursed above all cattle," is because that's exactly what he is in himself. He's a cherub and a cherub's interchangeable with a calf, or an ox, or, in other words, a beast of the field.

An ox is a bull and Baal is a term kin to that. Satan's religion from the outset has been Baal worship and it's no mistake that in Psalm 22, when Jesus Christ hangs on the cross and looks around at the religious leaders in his midst, He says, "The bulls of Bashan have beset me round about."

It's no accident either that when Moses went up into Mount Sinai for 40 days, and the Israelites became increasingly anxious for his return, brother Aaron gets the bright idea to collect everybody's golden earrings and melt them down to make a molten calf for an altar. (Exodus 32)

"Isn't it interesting how the god turns out," says Jordan of this infamous account of Israel's disobedience that led Moses to throw down his tablets of stone. "Aaron doesn't make a totem pole. I wonder who led him to do that. You see, he had a religious experience that led him to make that god in the image, not of God Almighty because then he wouldn’t have made an image, but in the image of a calf. And he said to them, 'These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.' "

Just to give one more example from I Kings 12, Israel's King Jeroboam, in order to nullify Jerusalem's influence as the center of religious activity, chose Bethel as one of two centers in which he sets up golden calves. He sacrificed to the calves and this, along with other idolatrous practices, eventually led Hosea to pronounce judgment on the city, even calling it "Bethaven," or "the house of idols." (Hos. 4:15).

Pagan religion is immersed in its own examples of pulling from Satan's cherub manifestations to make images and idols as visible representations of the invisible gods, or fallen angels under Satan's headship.

Pick up any book on mythology, or compilation on world religions, and you'll see it pop up everywhere.

If you look just at J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter-related guide, Fantastic Beasts, the "griffin" is described as having "the front legs and head of a giant eagle, but the body and hind legs of a lion."

In the Potter series, Harry's House, Gryffindor, literally means "golden griffin" in French.

"You can begin to understand how some of this stuff acts together when you begin to understand who it is that the adversary really is," says Jordan. "You ever take a circle and draw the horns of an ox on top of it—you know what you got? You've got a fist with the fingers up. I know people say, 'Well, you're crazy, Jordan.'

"But you see his majesty the devil is some fellow and there's a lot of things going on in the world that nobody ever studies about and I've told you all before, 'One hundred years ago, fundamental Bible-believing people in Chicago knew all about these things.'

"Some times these things fall strange on your ear, but the things I'm telling you your grand-daddies, if they were fundamental Bible-believing people, they understood these things and knew them. That's why they did a lot of the things they did that you look at them and think they're nuts for having done them."

"This kind of information and understanding is basic to the warfare and warring a good fight—you have to know who your enemy is."