A Theology of Angels (Hebrews 1:7)

Please turn your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, to chapter 1. Hebrews chapter 1. When you've found your place, let's begin with prayer before we read this together. Our Father, we are so thankful for all that your word reveals to us about the seen and the unseen world, including your will for us in Christ Jesus and how we ought to think of of all that you have done on behalf of your people.

We pray that you would bless our time here as we study your word and our attempts at understanding it. We pray that you'd give us clarity of thought and keep us from going beyond what is written in Scripture concerning the angelic world.

Help us to think clearly about these things so that we may have a right and proper theology that is grounded upon Scripture and Scripture alone, a theology that honors and glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that he is worthy of being honored and glorified.

We ask your blessing in this time and to that end today in Christ's name. Amen. We are in Hebrews chapter 1, so we're going to read together verses 5 through the end of the chapter. I'm going to catch again the context of what we are looking at as we work our way through this passage.

Verse 5, for to which of the angels did he ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you. And again, I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me. And when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, and let all the angels of God worship him.

And of the angels, he says, who makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. But of the sun, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. And the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. And you, Lord, in the beginning, laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of your hands.

They will perish, but you remain, and they all will become old like a garment. And like a mantle, you will roll them up. Like a garment, they will also be changed, but you are the same and your years will not come to an end.

But to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who inherit salvation?

Christ Superior to the Angels in Hebrews 1

We're in this section of Hebrews that compares Jesus to the angels. And this section is most of chapter one and most of chapter two. And in this larger section, the author is arguing that Jesus is superior to the angels for a number of reasons.

And it occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that in 21 years of preaching here with you, not that all of you have been here for 21 years, but in 21 years of preaching here, I have never once preached a message on the subject of angels.

It's not that I haven't. We haven't talked about angels or haven't mentioned passages that deal with angels or talked about the nature of angels, but I've never really gone and given a comprehensive overview of the theology of angels and what angels are and their role and their purpose.

And that's not intentional. It's just how it has been. So since we're dealing with verse seven, which is really just a short reference to angels, I thought this would be a good opportunity to do that very thing to kind of give an overview of the theology of angels.

Since verse seven is so short, I could probably explain it in 10 minutes, which means that I could get up here, we could explain it. And then we could, I could pray and we could all walk away from here with extra 30 minutes on our hands.

Or I could take this opportunity to kind of dive into what the Bible says about angels and kind of give an overview, sort of a bird's eye view, as it were, of the doctrine of angels so that we can then have a benchmark by which we are comparing Jesus with the angelic hosts.

The author to the Hebrews assumes that his readers will understand what the Bible, the Old Testament in their day, taught regarding angels. He would have assumed that that common understanding, so he could just mention angels and that the Old Testament talks about angels and what they understood about angels and what they knew about angels was somewhat assumed was scripture revealed.

But we don't necessarily in our day have that advantage. In fact, there's a lot of weird and wacky ideas of what angels are and what angels do. And so this would be a good opportunity to kind of deal with some of those issues.

So in chapter two, the author is making the point that Jesus is greater than angels. This is the first of a number of comparisons that he makes in the book of Hebrews. He does this in this series of quotations from the Old Testament by describing how it is that the Father speaks of the Son, and then how it is that the Father speaks of angels, and how it is that the Father speaks of the Son.

And you'll notice that even though the contrast is with angels, he doesn't give equal time to discussing angels. Just one verse, verse 7, which describes the angels and what the Old Testament says about them.

And he doesn't give a point by point comparison of Jesus and the angels. He doesn't say Jesus is this and the angels are that. Jesus is this and the angels are that. He doesn't go back and forth. Just in the context of describing the Son, he gives one statement about angels, almost as if that one statement is enough to show that Jesus is certainly no angelic being.

He wants to show us the glories of Christ. It is almost as if the author is thinking this way. If I tell them everything that is true of the Son, of the Lord Jesus Christ, it will be obvious and beyond question that he is not an angel, and that he is superior to the angels.

Once we understand who the Son is, then we say, well, obviously, the things the scripture affirms regarding Christ can never be said of an angel. So there's obviously a difference here. Contrary to, as we said, what Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons might teach about the beginning of the Son and him being the firstborn, and even Jehovah's Witnesses would say that Jesus is an angelic creature, that he was Michael the Archangel in the Old Testament.

That's their doctrine of Christ. Obviously, that is not true, because scripture says things about the Son that could never be affirmed of any angel. So here's what we're going to do today. We're going to deal with verse 7, kind of in its context.

We're going to go back to Psalm 104, which we read at the beginning, and we're going to work our way through that to show why the author takes that statement from Psalm 104 and uses it here in Hebrews chapter 1.

And then we're going to use verse 7 as kind of a gateway by which I'm going to address the idea and the theology of angels, and see just in a very general way what the Bible teaches about angels. So turn back to the book of the Psalms, to Psalm 104 again.

Verse 4 is the passage that he quotes, Psalm 104. Now this Psalm, since it's 35 verses, is obviously longer than Psalm 2 and Psalm, what was the last one we dealt with, Psalm 97, which we were able to kind of work our way through those Psalms and give more attention to the context and what the Psalms teach.

I'm not going to be able to do that with this Psalm, Psalm 104, because this would be several messages just by itself. But what I do want to do is highlight kind of what the author does here in this Psalm and what the Psalm is teaching.

So Psalm 104, in this Psalm, gives an overview of the power of God in creation, the provision of God for his creation, and the providence of God as he rules his creation. Power, provision, and providence.

And the author of this Psalm kind of goes back and forth between those ideas of God's power as demonstrated and what he created and how he created it, the provision of God for the creation which he has made, and the providence of God whereby he rules all of these various elements and creatures that are within his creation.

So the psalmist is kind of dancing about amongst those ideas, weaving those three elements of praise to God into this one Psalm, and he begins with God describing God's creation. Verse 1, bless the Lord, O my soul, and we're not going to read every verse, but I just want you to notice the highlights of these elements.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, O Lord my God, you are very great. You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a cloak, stretching out heavens like a tent curtain. He lays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters.

He makes the clouds his chariot. He walks upon the wings of the wind. He makes the winds his messengers, flaming fire his ministers. Verse 4 is the verse that is quoted in Hebrews chapter 1, and we'll return to that momentarily.

Verse 5, he established the earth upon its foundation so that it will not totter forever and ever. You covered it with the deep as with a garment. The waters were standing above the mountains. At your rebuke, they fled.

At the sound of your thunder, they hurried away. The mountains rose. The valleys sank down to the place which you established for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass over so that they will not return to cover the earth.

And the elements of God's wisdom and his power in creation is what the psalmist is describing here. Very poetic language that God has created those things. He has made in verse 4, the winds his messengers, and flaming fire his ministers.

All of these elements of creation, everything in creation, God has made, and that demonstrates his power, demonstrates his wisdom. It also demonstrates his provision. Provision of God is verse 10. He sends forth springs in the valleys.

They flow between the mountains. They give drink to every beast of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst. Beside them, the birds of the heavens dwell. They lift up their voices among the branches.

He waters the mountains from his upper chambers. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of his works. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the labor of man so that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine, which makes man's heart glad so that he may make his face glisten with oil and food, which sustains man's heart.

God has not only created creation, but in his wisdom, he has created creation so that that creation provides for itself. Isn't that amazing? That miracle of evolution, isn't it? That all this came into being and then it sustains, it almost looks as if it sustains itself, and it almost looks as if it provides for itself.

The waters go up and the waters come down. The cycle of life that we see, the plants sprout and they give forth seed and we eat some of the seed and we plant some of the seed. Magnificent how God has provided all of this.

He has not only demonstrated his power in creating all of these various elements of his creation, but he has created it in such a way that it's, you know what I mean when I say this, it sustains itself.

I know it doesn't sustain itself, but from our vantage point, creation just provides for itself. Now, ultimately, God is the one who does that, which he's going to describe later on in the psalm, that God is the one who he takes away the breath and the creature dies up and returns to dust.

It is God who does this through the means that he has created through this creation, which he also provides for. Verse 18, the high mountains are for the wild goats, the cliffs are a refuge for the shepherdom.

He made the moon for the seasons. The sun knows the place of its setting. You appoint darkness and it becomes night in which all the beasts of the forest prowl about. He rules over all of his creation as well.

The young lion roar after their prey. They seek their food from God. When the sun rises, they withdraw. They lie down in their dens. Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until evening. Verse 24 is probably, I think, the key verse of the central verse of the psalm.

Oh Lord, how many are your works in wisdom you have made them all. Look at creation, see the wisdom of God. This is why an atheist is held accountable for eternity for his denial that God exists, because he sees in creation and he knows in his mind and in his heart that there is a God.

There's a God who has made this, there's a God who sustains this, and there's a God whose wisdom and power is demonstrated in the things that are made. So verse 24, oh Lord, how many are your works in wisdom you've made them all.

The earth is full of your possessions. He rules it all, he owns it all, he has created it all, and all of it is dependent upon him. Verse 27, they all wait for you to give them their food in due season.

You give to them and they gather it up. You open your hand. They are satisfied with good. You hide your face. They are dismayed. You take away their spirit. They expire and return to the dust. You send forth your spirit.

They're created and you renew the face of the ground. In other words, though we look at creation, we see it as it looks as if it sustains itself. He has created the cycles by which all of these things provide for creation, provides for itself.

Ultimately, all of that goes back to God because in his providence, he is the one ultimately gives to all of his creatures everything that sustains them and makes their hearts glad. So we don't thank creation for providing these things for us.

We thank God who has created in such a way that he has provided through his creation for all of his creatures. And so we give him praise and glory for that. And so what is the response of the believing heart, the regenerate one towards seeing the providence, the power and the provision of God in creation?

Verse 31, let the glory of the Lord endure forever. Let the Lord be glad in his works. He looks at the earth and it trembles. He touches the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.

I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. Let my meditation be pleasing to him. As for me, I shall be glad in the Lord. Let sinners be consumed from the earth and let the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord on my soul.

Praise the Lord. There is a desire in the heart of the believer that the wicked be consumed from the earth. Why? So that God may be glorified rightly and appropriately and infinitely for this, his wisdom demonstrated in creation.

There's a desire in the heart of the upright that God be glorified by that, be glorified by creation. And there's a desire in the heart of the believer that our meditation may be pleasing to God and that he be honored.

And we, so we bless the Lord and we sing to the Lord. Verse 33, that's the response of the believing heart to this creation. Now, back to verse 4. At first glance, it appears that verse 4 is not describing angels at all, but natural elements of creation.

Do you see that? In fact, if you have your little piece of paper that I told you you can't live without several weeks ago, you'll notice that there is a translation difference between what is quoted in verse 7 of, yeah, verse 7 of Hebrews chapter 1 and Psalm 104 verse 4.

Hebrews 1 says he makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. Psalm 104 verse 4 says he makes the winds his messengers flaming fire his ministers. Now that translation difference is a difference.

It's not as serious as the difference we looked at last week, but it is a difference of translation. And so now the question becomes, how is it that the author of Hebrews looks at Psalm 104 verse 4 and sees that talking about angels when apparently on the surface, it appears as if the verse is describing the natural elements of creation.

Look at verse 4. He makes the winds his messengers flaming fire his ministers. Now, if you just had to take that in isolation from Hebrews chapter 1, what would you think that Psalm 104 verse 4 is describing?

Would you think that it's describing angels, or would you think that it's describing fire and wind? Especially in light of verse 3, which talks about the waters, the clouds, and the wings of the wind.

Verse 4 describes the wind that God makes as his messengers and he makes flaming fire his ministers. So Psalm 104 verse 4 doesn't appear to be talking about angels. Instead, what Psalm 104 verse 4 is describing is the natural elements of creation.

And the psalmist is saying, God makes wind and he makes fire, and wind and fire, they do his bidding. They serve his purposes. They obey his commands. So that the winds become servants of God in that every gust of wind is there by his decree.

And this is something to remember, that every gust of wind and every snowflake and every drop of rain and every drop in temperature is by the sovereign providential and caring hand of God. Now, when we bicker against that, what are we bickering against?

The providential and sovereign and caring hand of God, right? We need to remember that. We need to remember that there is not a renegade element in all of God's creation. When the wind blows and destroys a city, that is by the hand of God.

He is not in heaven, clenching his fists and wringing his hands, wishing he could stop it. He foresaw it. He knew it. He decreed it. In some cases, he sends it. Why? Because the wind, which serves to purify the air and spread the pollen and fertilize the trees and fertilize your garden and blow away the smoke and bring in the rain clouds which nourish all of our plants.

The same wind that does that is under his control. God uses the wind as his messenger to bless his creation, and God uses wind to judge his creation. He uses them both ways. Same thing with fire. Fire obeys his command.

Keep that in mind this next summer when the wildfires are out of control in some area of our country. Seems like it happens more and more, right? Who controls the fire? The fire is God's minister. God could put out a fire like that if he wanted to.

He can start a fire like that if he wants to. It serves his purpose. It does his bidding. It is underneath his command. It is all part of his sovereign, providential rule of all of his creation. These things obey the command of God.

They are under his hand, and God uses fire to bless his creation. We're warned by it. God uses fire to judge his creation, right? And he is free to do that because he is God, and we are not. And so the wind obeys his command, and it does what God appoints it to do.

The fire obeys his command, and it does what God appoints it to do. And when wind and fire are working together, it's very destructive, isn't it? So we need to remember that. Those things are under God's providential, sovereign control.

They obey his command. So that's, it seems, what verse 4 is talking about. Now, how does the author of Hebrews look at that and say, well, this refers to angels? The answer to that is the same reason that there is a translation difference in the previous verse that we looked at last week, and I already laid a lot of the groundwork for this, so I don't have to go back and do all of that again.

But it comes down to the fact that the author of Hebrews is quoting from the Septuagint. Remember that? The chloroform word that likes, wants to put you to sleep? Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.

It was the Bible translation used by Jesus and the apostles. The author here is familiar with the Septuagint, and he is quoting from the Septuagint. And the Septuagint uses the Greek word, angelos, for angels, or its messenger.

The Septuagint uses for the word wind, the Greek word pneuma, which means spirit, is sometimes translated, sometimes refers to human spirit, sometimes to the Holy Spirit, sometimes to wind, the natural element of wind, and sometimes to angels.

So in the Septuagint, it says in verse 4 that he makes pneuma, his angelos, it makes the wind his messenger, his angel, and the end of verse 4, flaming fire, his ministers. So the author of Hebrews looked at Psalm 104, and he says there is another meaning, another essence, sense, in which this is true.

So here's what's curious. Whether you're talking about the Hebrew Old Testament or the Greek Septuagint, Psalm 104, verse 4, can be equally read, legitimately read, in either of two ways. It doesn't matter which language you're talking about, the essence of the verse can be understood two different ways.

It can be understood as referring to the natural elements that God controls, that does his bidding, which God has created, and it can be understood to refer to angels themselves, which are created by God, and they do his bidding.

So the Psalm, so the author of Hebrews looked at the Psalm and said, it is true that the elements of creation are created, the wind and the fire, are created by God and do his bidding. They obey his every word.

It is also true of angels in the exact same sense. So he takes two meanings there, and you could read it in the Hebrew, you could read it in the Greek, and it has this, you could read it either way. It is a completely legitimate understanding of the text.

So the question then becomes for us, did the author of Hebrews twist the Old Testament text to fit his understanding of angels? And the answer to that is no. What the author of Hebrews is doing is showing us that you can take this to refer to either winds or angels.

It is equally true both ways, and the psalmist, and he can use it to apply to either winds or to angels validly both directions. That make sense? That kind of accounts for the different translation. That's a little bit easier than last week's problem that we had.

So now that we understand that, I could close in prayer and we could all go home, but we instead decided, well, you didn't decide, but I decided that we're going to go into an understanding of the theology of angels.

So we'll use verse seven as a kind of a gateway to talk about what does the Bible say in relationship to angels. There's a fascination in our world, in our day, and I would say this is probably true in every day with angels and the angelic.

Angels are popular in our culture. They're featured guests on the Art Bell program, in literature, in movies, and in television. There seems to be a fascination even by with unbelievers with angels, and I think that that is understandable because angels offer even to pagans an opportunity to be in touch with the divine without actually dealing with the divine.

In other words, they can have a connection with things spiritual and God on a deeper level that's just more than just superficial in this world, and yet they don't have to deal with difficult subjects like sin and the need for blood atonement, and repentance, and faith, the wrath of God, and all the things that make us uncomfortable.

So a lot of unbelievers think that angels are there, and they would even say that they believe in angels, and that angels are there to comfort them, and to guide them, and to talk to them, and encourage them, and to strengthen them, and to look over them while they sleep, and then when they die, sort of bring them to heaven, and slip them in the back door while God's not looking, so to speak, and get them in.

And many people view angels as sort of an intermediary, a mediator between men and God. I don't have to deal with Jesus and the Father, but I can deal with an angel, and the angel will be there. He'll recommend me when I get to heaven.

There are a lot of bogus and almost sometimes blasphemous ideas of what angels are and what angels do, and I want to give you a couple of false views of angels before we get into what the Bible says about angels.

The first false view is that angels should be worshiped, and I know I don't need to correct this in our context. Paul did in the Colossians context. In Colossians 2, verse 18, he mentions the worship of angels and how that defrauds us of our reward, and so there are people who do worship angels, and I would just say to you that all the worship of all the false gods of the face of the planet, every false religion, is nothing more than the worship of demons.

Paul talks about unbelievers who worship demons. Allah is not a true god. Allah is a demon, and the worship of Allah is the worship of the demonic. That needs to be said, that there are people who then also try and worship good angels, and as I said, view them as meteors between men and God.

Second, angels, this is second false view, that angels are departed human spirits, and if you were to go and poll the unbelieving population, people who are spiritually minded, not atheists obviously, but people who are spiritually minded, this is probably the most common view of angels that you would find in our culture, is that we, when we die, go to the spiritual realm and we become these disembodied spirits that then get our wings, that angels are departed human spirits.

A lot of people believe that. That is not true, and also since we're on that subject, angels don't come back into this realm and help out human beings to earn their wings. Like in a Clarence Oddbody AS2, it's a wonderful life type fashion, okay?

When teacher says that every time the bell rings, an angel gets its wings, that's cute from a little girl in a Christmas movie, but it makes for horrible theology. That's not what angels are. The third false view is that angels are employed by us to wage spiritual warfare, and this was kind of the idea that came out in the books Piercing the Darkness and This Present Darkness in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Frank Peretti.

How many of you have read those books? Okay, they were wildly popular when I went to Bible College, and they were so wildly popular when I went to Bible College that a lot of people that I went to Bible College with viewed those books as sort of a how-to manual in waging spiritual warfare rather than the fiction that they actually are.

And unfortunately, those books went a long way toward influencing entire generations view of angels and what angels do. If you think that angels are spiritual beings that we pray into action to beat back the forces of darkness and gain spiritual territory from the enemy, that's your view of spiritual warfare.

Then I have a book I would like to recommend to you, and you can see me afterwards, and I'll give you a copy. So what does the Bible teach about angels? The Bible mentions the word angel in the Old Testament 213 times.

The word translated angel in the New Testament is used 176 times, so that is a lot of material for your study. And I would recommend another resource to you, and this one I'll name by name, Biblical Theology by John MacArthur.

It's edited by John MacArthur. It's a big, thick theology text. If you have one theology textbook on your shelf, this one should be it. I think that the outline is the best I've seen, and it treats subjects in a very comprehensive manner, a very thorough manner.

His section on angels is about 75 pages. In that book, it's very thick, but he does a good job of going through all of the different theology regarding angels and what the Bible says about angels, and that would give you another reference that I would suggest for you if you want to look into this deeper.

Angels as Created, Spiritual, Personal, and Powerful Beings

Let's begin with the beginning. Angels are created beings. They're created by God. They're created during the creation week. When? We don't know because Scripture doesn't tell us exactly when angels were created, though it does say in Genesis chapter 2 verse 1 that by the seventh day of creation, God had created everything that exists, all the world, the earth, and the heavens, and everything that is in them.

So sometime in that creation week, when God created all things, he created angels. After the creation week, there was no more creation of any more angels. Creation was done after six days. So at some point in those first six days, angels were created.

There's a verse in Job which talks about the sons of God rejoicing or singing when God laid the foundations of the earth. It seems to suggest that angels were there almost toward the very beginning of the creation week.

Maybe that they were one of the first things that were created before he laid the foundations of the earth, or they were created in day one or two very early on, and they witnessed the entire creation week as God unfolded creation before the angels.

I would also suggest to you that Satan fell probably very soon after the creation week. I don't think that there was a large gap of time between the end of God creating and the fall of Satan, and thus the temptation of Adam and Eve.

These things in Genesis seem to happen very quickly. So I think that probably very soon after the creation week, that is when Satan fell, and according to scripture, he took a third of the angelic hosts with him in his rebellion.

The scriptures do not give a number of angels, though the words that they use to describe the angelic hosts are words like innumerable and myriad and 10 ,000 times 10 ,000. That's the idea. Deuteronomy 33 verse 2 says of God that he came from the midst of 10 ,000 holy ones, and at his right hand there was flashing lightning for them.

Psalm 68 verse 17, the chariots of God are myriads, thousands upon thousands. The Lord is among them at Sinai in holiness. Hebrews 12 verse 2 says, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels.

The word myriad there literally meaning innumerable angels. So even amongst God's holy angels, it is an innumerable company. It is 10 ,000 times 10 ,000, and it is a numberless mass of angelic hosts that God has created.

When Satan rebelled and when the angels rebelled, they are no longer holy angels. They are deceiving spirits and evil spirits, and the numbers that I gave you earlier, 213 times in the Old Testament, 176 times in the New Testament, that is not counting references to Satan or to his angelic hosts that rebelled against God.

That's just a reference to the word angel. So there is a whole other field of study if we wanted to, talking about the demonic and what demons are able to do and the influence the demons have. Angels are not physical beings.

They are spiritual beings. They're not corporeal, meaning they don't have a body. They weren't created with a body. Though when they appear in human form, they always appear as men, never as women, never as women, always as men.

Though angels are not sexual in that they have a sexual nature or a gender in that sense, but when they appear in Scripture, they appear in bodily form as men, as if they were men. They have the appearance of men, never the appearance of women.

They can appear and disappear and do that rather quickly. They move quickly. They have the ability to be present and be invisible, and they have the ability to be present and be visible. When they're visible again, they're visible as men.

We see this with Balaam. Do you remember Balaam and his donkey? The donkey saw the angel, but Balaam did not. He was present there. Balaam didn't see him, but the angel was present. We also see that with Elisha in 2 Kings 6, when Elisha prays that his servant may have his eyes opened and see the chariots of the angels that were all around him at the time.

They were there, present, and Elisha saw them and knew they were present, but the servant of Elisha did not see them. Angels are also personal beings, and this is kind of curious to me, and I wish I had more time to think about this and to talk about this.

Angels have attributes of personhood that are attributed to them in Scripture. For instance, they have a will. They have an intellect. They are smart. They're called wise creatures. They have aspects of personality.

They can converse. They can study the doctrines of salvation. They can learn certain things. 1 Peter describes angels longing to look into our salvation because it is a curiosity to them that God would create an order of beings lower than they that he would then send down his son to redeem, and that God would choose, and that he would love, and so angels look at our salvation, and it is a curiosity to them.

They're intrigued by it, and they long to look into it. They can worship God, sing praise, and recite God's works. Jesus speaks of the experience the angels have of joy at the thought of salvation at the sight of one sinner coming to faith in Christ, so they experience joy.

In other words, angels have personality. It doesn't mean that they're persons in the sense that they're human persons because God has personhood, but it means that they have an angelic personhood, and the elements and attributes of personality.

They're not automatomic android-type robots without any personality that are just sort of cookie cutter, and every last one of them is the same. Angels have a unique personality. They're not spatial in that they do not have a body.

They're not bound by physical space. They can travel very quickly. They're not omnipresent. Neither is Satan. He's not everywhere present. I don't know if he's here. I think he's somewhere else, probably Congress right now, but he's not here with us, and he's not omnipresent in the sense that he can be everywhere at the same time.

Angels are glorious beings. They tend to, when you see them in scripture, strike fear into the heart of those who see them. John was so overwhelmed by the angel's glory in Revelation 22 that he bowed down to worship the angel, and there was something in the presence of the angel and in the soul of John that wanted to worship such a glorious being, so there is a sense in which these angels are so glorious that they want to inspire worship in us because they're so otherworldly glorious that it's almost like it sparks a desire to worship them.

They are powerful beings. They're quick. They're strong. They possess strength on orders of magnitude above human strength. One angel in 2 Kings 19 destroyed an entire Assyrian army of 185 ,000 soldiers.

One angel did that work. It gives you some idea of how strong they are. They are not to be toyed with. Holy angels or fallen angels, not to be toyed with. We should be stupid enough to think that we can control them by words that we say or by mantras and incantations or prayers that we pray.

We're talking about creatures that are powerful and wise and quick and smart beyond anything we have ever experienced in this world. The kinds of angels in scripture, there are four different kinds of angels mentioned.