People believe a lot of misinformation about angels. In this message, we look at what the Bible actually tells us about these supernatural beings God created before he ever created the world as his personal servants whose job is now to minister to us, his beloved creation.
Engage in the Spiritual Battle
In our continuing series on the Unseen spiritual realm, today was supposed to be Demon Week. However, since today is Mother’s Day, I thought that might be an odd fit. Instead, I decided to concentrate today on what some of us call our mothers: Angels.
Angels aren’t exactly a primary topic in the Bible. They are mentioned enough, though, that we have some concrete knowledge about them and their role in the Cosmic Battle. As I prepared for this message, I was actually surprised at how often the Bible speaks of angels. We see them in the first book of the Bible, the last book of the Bible, and over a third of the books in between. Angels are a huge part of the birth of Jesus and are present after His resurrection. They slay Israel’s enemies, share messages from God, protect saints from certain death, and carry out God’s final judgment.
In an ironic twist, however, our secular culture has given a lot of attention to this topic of angels. With summer just around the corner, pay attention to how often you see tattoos of angels and angelic beings. It might surprise you. Fun fact: the name of the second largest city in America, Los Angeles, is Spanish for “The Angels.” (It should be a very godly city, shouldn’t it?)
When I was a teen in the late 1990s, there was a big push into the Unseen realm with popular television shows like “Touched by Angel,” “Supernatural,” “Charmed,” and “Angel.” More recent years have seen other “angel” shows, as well as fantasy stories, television shows, and movies featuring fairies; and, when you think about it, fairies and angels are essentially the same.
All this cultural highlighting of angels is unbiblical. There is a serious disconnect between what people – especially non-Christians – think about angels and what the Bible actually tells us about them.
Here are some misconceptions people hold about angels. I want to make it clear that these are not true.
Misconceptions of Angels
When people die, they become angels. Sometimes this bad theology is stated at the worst possible time – at the death of a loved one, when someone trying to be comforting tells a grieving person, “God must have needed one more angel.” It might feel comforting, at first blush, to think your loved ones become angels who come back to earth to help you, but this is completely anti-biblical.
We’ll get into this later, but all the angels were created before the world was formed. They are different from and higher than humans.
Psalm 8:4-5 – 4What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? 5You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.
Angels and humans are categorically different types of beings with different purposes in God’s design.
Angels are like meek people with two wings. This is how people often picture angels, and angels are often seen as gentle and peaceful. However, when they appear to people in the Bible, we see that the people are terrified! Sometimes angels come to earth to bring not peace, but wrath. In multiple biblical passages, including the description of the Last Day, angels bring death to Israel’s enemies.
Matthew 13:49-50 – 49This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50and throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
All the sweet tattoos of beautiful, meek angels totally miss the mark!
You have a guardian angel assigned to you. Some people take a story from Acts 12 out of context to assume everyone has their own guardian angel assigned to them. In this chapter, Peter gets freed from prison by an angel and shows up at the house where Christians are praying for him. The girl who answers the door and sees Peter tries to tell everyone he is at the door, but they don’t believe her. They say, “It must be his angel.” Nowhere else does the Bible speak of assigned angels, so we shouldn’t run with this concept.
I’m not saying angels don’t guard and protect us. They do, but the “assigned guardian angel” concept is more fairy tale than biblical teaching.
Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings. Not so. Maybe this is what perpetuated the guardian angel belief.
Origin of Angels
To begin a study of angels we must first find where they came from. In the book of Job we learn that angels were beings who existed before the creation of the earth. At the end of Job, God questions Job and puts him in his place. In part, he says:
Job 38:4-7 – 4Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me if you understand. 5Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6On what were the footings set, or who laid its cornerstone – 7while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
Demons
In the book Revelation we find the story of angels who rebelled against God.
Revelation 12:7-9 – 7Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9the great dragon was hurled down – that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
We looked at this passage a couple of weeks ago. It shows us that this Cosmic Battle began a very long time ago. God had created heaven and filled it with angelic beings; but the dragon, Satan, led a contingency of angels in battle against God’s righteous angels. Satan and his followers ultimately lost, and that’s why the serpent shows up in the beginning of the Bible.
One implication of this story is that angels, like humans, have free will and the ability to choose to sin against God. God’s angels are righteous, holy beings who also have free will, but they choose to use it as messengers for God.
This story also tells us where demons come from. They are angels with the same power we see God’s angels display. The difference is that they used their free will to rebel. As a result, the Bible tells us where the demons are all going to end up one day – the same place we will end up if we remain in our sin and rebellion against God.
Matthew 25:41 – Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Purpose of Angels
We now know where angels came from and that they are categorically different from humans. This raises another question. We know humanity was created to be in a love relationship with God and to glorify him, but what role do the angels play? Do they have the same purpose as humans? Wouldn’t that be redundant?
Messengers of God. All through the Bible we see angels delivering God’s messages to humans. In the birth story of Jesus alone, an angel tells Zechariah that he will have a son named John, and angels appear to Mary and Joseph. Angels appear to the shepherds when Jesus is born. Another appears to Joseph again to tell him to flee from Bethlehem because Herod wanted to kill the baby.
However, a messenger of God doesn’t always bring good news or a simple message. Sometimes the message is the wrath of God. When the King of Assyria was mocking the God whom King Hezekiah worshiped, God sent an angel to take care of the issue.
2 Chronicles 32:20-21 – 20King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, cried out in prayer to heaven about this. 21And the Lord sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the commanders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king.
Ministry to humans. I’ve already touched briefly on a lot of the activities of angels, but I think the book of Hebrews explains most concisely the purpose of the role God gives to angels.
Hebrews 1:14 – Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
How do these spirits minister to us? We see many various examples in the stories sprinkled through the Bible.
Psalm 91:11 – For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways.
We see glimpses of this happening when Daniel is not eaten by the lions after the king throws him into the lions’ den. We are told that an angel shut the mouth of the lion. In the same book, when Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego are put into the fiery furnace, King Nebuchadnezzar sees a fourth person in the fire with them – a being he deems to be an angel.
In the New Testament, an angel opens the prison door to let the recently arrested apostles out of jail.
Even Jesus has angels who attend to him and help Him.
Matthew 4:11 – Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Here’s something important for us to consider: do we actually believe that angels still work in our world? Do they still show up in our lives? Might we experience an angelic visit? For many Christians this seems way out in left field, but that’s what the writer of Hebrews told his readers.
Hebrews 13:2 – Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.
While I don’t have an angel story of my own to share with you, I want to pass along one from someone else. Several weeks ago, when I asked you to share testimonies of how God has worked in your life, Dr. Larry shared a story that I want to read to you today. I wish he were here to share the story himself, but he and Connie are visiting their son in Wisconsin.
[Dr.Larry’s Testimony]
The Angel of the Lord – Jesus
The final topic I feel we need to address regarding angels is a phrase that shows up over and over in the Old Testament. “The Angel of the Lord.” Often the same story will refer to “the Angel of the Lord” in one sentence and then go on in the next sentence to say GOD is communicating with the person. This is the case in Exodus 3, where Moses meets the Angel of the Lord in a burning bush. The rest of the story tells of Moses conversing with GOD, who speaks from the burning bush.
While some scholars would debate this, I personally believe that most times when we read of “the Angel of the Lord” (or sometimes simply “an angel of the Lord”), it is the pre-incarnate Jesus. I base my conclusion on the following verse:
Colossians 1:15 – He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Paul says that Jesus has always been “the image of the invisible God.” If the Angel of the Lord is the image of the invisible God in the days before Jesus took on flesh, then that would make the “Angel of the Lord” Jesus.
Additionally, the Angel of the Lord never appears in the New Testament, not after Jesus was born or after His resurrection. The only mention of such a person in the New Testament is described as “an” angel of the Lord, but never “the” Angel of the Lord. Once God the Son appeared as flesh, there was no longer a need for Him to appear in any other form as “the Angel of the Lord.”
Conclusion
In studying this Cosmic Battle we have seen that God has given us armor, prayer, and His very power to do battle against the enemy. Beyond all that, He even sends angels to this earth to minister to us, guard us, protect us, provide for us, and help us do God’s work. These angels may not be “Nana,” but that’s good news because that means they are powerful, holy beings able to do otherworldly deeds on our behalf.
The Bible does caution that while angels are spiritual, unique beings, they are not to be worshiped. Their role is to help us worship and glorify God with our lives. In the end of the Bible, when the Apostle John encounters an angel while receiving a vision from God, he makes this mistake and learns his lesson quickly.
Revelation 22:8-9 – 8I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!
“Worship God!” I love that final command. Just like everything else God gives us – the sun and the moon, the beauty of our surroundings, the plants and animals for food, the Armor of God for protection – all of it is for our good and from God’s incredible love for us. All these gifts God has lavished on us, including His own servants who come to earth to serve us in times of need, should elicit our worship of God.
0 Comments