53:4.2 (604.4) Self-assertion was the battle cry of the Lucifer rebellion. One of his chief arguments was that, if self-government was good and right for the Melchizedeks and other groups, it was equally good for all orders of intelligence. He was bold and persistent in the advocacy of the “equality of mind” and “the brotherhood of intelligence.” He maintained that all government should be limited to the local planets and their voluntary confederation into the local systems. All other supervision he disallowed. He promised the Planetary Princes that they should rule the worlds as supreme executives. He denounced the location of legislative activities on the constellation headquarters and the conduct of judicial affairs on the universe capital. He contended that all these functions of government should be concentrated on the system capitals and proceeded to set up his own legislative assembly and organized his own tribunals under the jurisdiction of Satan. And he directed that the princes on the apostate worlds do the same.
53:4.3 (604.5) The entire administrative cabinet of Lucifer went over in a body and were sworn in publicly as the officers of the administration of the new head of “the liberated worlds and systems.”
53:4.4 (605.1) While there had been two previous rebellions in Nebadon, they were in distant constellations. Lucifer held that these insurrections were unsuccessful because the majority of the intelligences failed to follow their leaders. He contended that “majorities rule,” that “mind is infallible.” The freedom allowed him by the universe rulers apparently sustained many of his nefarious contentions. He defied all his superiors; yet they apparently took no note of his doings. He was given a free hand to prosecute his seductive plan without let or hindrance.
53:4.5 (605.2) All the merciful delays of justice Lucifer pointed to as evidence of the inability of the government of the Paradise Sons to stop the rebellion. He would openly defy and arrogantly challenge Michael, Immanuel, and the Ancients of Days and then point to the fact that no action ensued as positive evidence of the impotency of the universe and the superuniverse governments.
53:4.6 (605.3) Gabriel was personally present throughout all these disloyal proceedings and only announced that he would, in due time, speak for Michael, and that all beings would be left free and unmolested in their choice; that the “government of the Sons for the Father desired only that loyalty and devotion which was voluntary, wholehearted, and sophistry-proof.”
53:4.7 (605.4) Lucifer was permitted fully to establish and thoroughly to organize his rebel government before Gabriel made any effort to contest the right of secession or to counterwork the rebel propaganda. But the Constellation Fathers immediately confined the action of these disloyal personalities to the system of Satania. Nevertheless, this period of delay was a time of great trial and testing to the loyal beings of all Satania. All was chaotic for a few years, and there was great confusion on the mansion worlds. 5. Nature of the Conflict
53:5.1 (605.5) Upon the outbreak of the Satania rebellion, Michael took counsel of his Paradise brother, Immanuel. Following this momentous conference, Michael announced that he would pursue the same policy which had characterized his dealings with similar upheavals in the past, an attitude of noninterference.
53:5.2 (605.6) At the time of this rebellion and the two which preceded it there was no absolute and personal sovereign authority in the universe of Nebadon. Michael ruled by divine right, as vicegerent of the Universal Father, but not yet in his own personal right. He had not completed his bestowal career; he had not yet been vested with “all power in heaven and on earth.”
53:5.3 (605.7) From the outbreak of rebellion to the day of his enthronement as sovereign ruler of Nebadon, Michael never interfered with the rebel forces of Lucifer; they were allowed to run a free course for almost two hundred thousand years of Urantia time. Christ Michael now has ample power and authority to deal promptly, even summarily, with such outbreaks of disloyalty, but we doubt that this sovereign authority would lead him to act differently if another such upheaval should occur.
53:5.4 (605.8) Since Michael elected to remain aloof from the actual warfare of the Lucifer rebellion, Gabriel called his personal staff together on Edentia and, in counsel with the Most Highs, elected to assume command of the loyal hosts of Satania. Michael remained on Salvington while Gabriel proceeded to Jerusem, and establishing himself on the sphere dedicated to the Father—the same Universal Father whose personality Lucifer and Satan had questioned—in the presence of the forgathered hosts of loyal personalities, he displayed the banner of Michael, the material emblem of the Trinity government of all creation, the three azure blue concentric circles on a white background.
