The Laborers' Podcast- Angelology

Welcome to The Laborer's Podcast. Thank you for watching. This is our first episode of 2023.

Stick around and we will discuss angels tonight. Welcome to The Laborer's Podcast, which is a part of the

Truth in Love Network. Join us as together we strive to grow up together in all things into Christ.

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Now let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast. So Tyler, it looks like it's just you and I tonight.

How are you doing? I'm doing well. Happy to be here. Good. I can honestly say

I'm a bit nervous. This is a subject that I'm not as familiar with that I would like to be, but I'm interested in the conversation that we're going to have as we talk about angels tonight, and I hope it's edifying for me and for everybody that watches or listens.

How do you feel about the topic tonight? Well, to be honest, angels is not necessarily my forte either, and it is kind of an odd topic oftentimes these days, but I think we will puzzle through it together as two people that don't have all the answers but know where the answers are.

Well, we'll give it a shot. We'll give it a try, and if it doesn't last an hour, that's okay.

We'll give it what we got, but before we get started on angels, I wanted to share with everybody, this will be most people, you got to see a preview before we got started, but this will be the first time most people will be seeing either of these videos, and so I want to encourage folks with these videos and what the

Lord is doing, what's going on. The first one I want to show is if you've seen my

Facebook post recently or if you've seen any of the, I think we put it on the Truth and Love Network Facebook page.

Either way, we have been working on an idea to get the gospel message into one of the local theaters that's local to me.

Hopefully this will be an idea that will spread and will grow. We hope the Lord will use it, and the

Carolina Theater in Hickory, North Carolina is graciously allowing this video to be shown before, and we're talking about real

Hollywood movies that they show in this theater. The gospel presentation is going to be shown before each movie is shown, and so we're so grateful for these folks who are doing this and partnering with us in getting the message out.

So if you are in the Piedmont Foothills, Western North Carolina area near Hickory, North Carolina, please support the

Carolina Theater. Please support those guys. We love them, and we appreciate them, and without any further ado, now this is raw.

I think this is a video taken from a phone, but they wanted to show me that they have the gospel video up and running in the theater.

So without any further ado, here is what that video looks like in theaters.

Tyler, I think that's amazing. Praise the Lord for that, and yeah, and I know we're all gonna be praying that the

Lord will use it and use this gospel message to reach folks who may not be hearing the gospel, and prayerfully we hope that he will save folks from this gospel message and reach out, and we can talk to people.

Oh, we got a comment. Talk to folks who, hey, Matt said sweet.

We miss you, brother Matt. Jump on in if you can or whenever you can if you're available tonight, but yeah, we're praying that the

Lord will save souls, and that they will reach out to us, and we can point them in the direction of a Bible -believing preaching church where they can live with joy and grow in obedience to the

Lord, but yeah, we're excited about that. Here, and before we move on,

I don't know how commercials work. This is not technically, I guess, a true commercial because nobody's paying for the advertisement, but these are supporters of the

Truth and Love Network ministry, and we want to give them some air time. If you are a

Christian individual and you own a business, and you want to say, I support the

Truth and Love Network, reach out. Get in contact with me, and we would love to put you on our website, give you a shout -out, promote your business, and as you pray for and support our ministry.

So here's a little video montage of businesses or ministries that support the network.

And there it is. We hope to have a lot more on there. I guess we'll have to spit them out.

We can't take 20 minutes to show a video, but we would love to have 20 minutes worth of support.

We would love to have it, and thank you guys, your ministries and businesses that are supporting the network, and you can find that video on YouTube, pause it, write down the telephone number, website address.

It's on our website as well with a link to each of those ministries and businesses. If you want to check them out and support them, we'd love to have you check them out.

So here's what we know about angels. Hmm. I love

Renaissance art. Do what? I love Renaissance art. That's right.

It's so beautiful. That was our little angel, Claude Ramsey, right?

It was. So obviously that was a joke, and there's some, would you call them misconceptions of what angels are, and that would be one of them, and I think

Brother Matt, he wanted us to address that tonight. A little chubby baby with wings, that's gonna be a misconception, a misunderstanding of what angels are.

Just a little bit. Another misconception, I think, and this is a sensitive subject, and this type of misconception,

I think, so you have to be careful. You have to be pastoral, and you have to be, in my opinion, you have to be pastoral and selective, and when you bring, you know, if you want to make a correction on this misconception, you will hear folks say that their loved one that has recently passed on is now an angel, has earned their wings, you know, that type of thing, and that would be a misconception of angelology or the study of angels, what we know about angels.

We don't become angels. We don't earn wings, and we'll probably mention this tonight, too, that most angels, and some people may say that no angels actually have wings.

It just depends on how you look at and how you label them, but we don't become angels.

We don't earn wings. Tyler, are there any other misconceptions that you ever heard when it comes to angels?

Well, there is the debate over whether or not there are guardian angels.

I've heard people for and against that as to whether or not there are appointed angels to specific people, so that's a pretty common view as well, and then there's, what's it, the

Nephilim in the Book of Genesis. There's one view that the

Nephilim, like, I think, Goliath, was the descendant of angels intermarrying with mortal women.

That's one I've heard quite a bit, that the Nephilim, or it says the heroes of old, were their descendants, and Goliath is allegedly descended from those unions.

Those are probably the two that come to mind for me. Right, right. I was just looking up some verses.

I was thinking about the misconception of floating on clouds, and sometimes that's referred to angels, sometimes it's referred to us, you know, where we pass away, we're floating on clouds, or angels are floating on clouds, and we're playing a harp, you know.

Playing the harp. Yeah, playing the harp. That's one of the big pictures that we have of angels over the years.

It's a very spiritual instrument. Yeah, I would say so, and I love the harp. It's a beautiful instrument, but I would say, of all the misconceptions that we talked about, and I don't always take the opportunity, but just because I want to be sensitive, and I want to be careful,

I want to be pastoral, but I don't always... that moment is not the time for correction, but it's like I never get an opportunity to, or take the opportunity to go back after that, you know, maybe that grieving period, or never have a chance to talk about that type of theology, but, you know, it's probably a good thing that if we teach our congregation, you know, that...

During the normal seasons. Yeah, during the normal seasons. We don't become angels, and we don't earn wings, you know.

I guess that's one of the things that's kind of looked over, you know, as we were talking about earlier, you know, this subject isn't our forte.

It's not something that we study a whole lot, or many people study, but as far as, you know, heaven, the afterlife, what happens, you know, when we die, being in the presence of God and other spirit beings,

I guess it is easy for people to get those concepts, or get a misunderstanding, because it's not talked about, probably, a lot.

So, go ahead. I was just clearing my throat, sorry. Okay, I thought you were going to say something there.

So, one of the first places, and I was introduced to this gentleman not too long ago, and when

I first listened to one of his talks, you know,

I kind of tilted my head, and my eyebrows went crazy, and I had to listen real close, but I went back and listened to more of what he had to say, and listened to several of his talks, and I really...

I didn't see anything unbiblical. I appreciated his research, and you and I were talking about Logos.

I think the videos were either done or sponsored by Logos, so that's usually... Is this Michael Heiser?

Yes, yes. Michael Heiser is actually part of, I think, the commentary committee with Logos.

Okay, okay. He's part of some of their content curation. Okay. So, it's usually a trusted, you know, place to go, is

Logos, and I think his stuff is okay. I appreciate the hard work that he's done.

He's done, you know, as we've talked about, how this is glossed over and not talked about much.

He has done... I think he did his dissertation on this subject, and has done extensive study on the subject, and so I just wanted to,

I guess, look over some of what he was saying, and maybe...

Oh, we got another comment. I need to leave the comments up. Heiser, carry the crosses with us from YouTube.

Michael Heiser, yeah. I was not familiar with him, was introduced to him, and some people are familiar with him, but, you know,

I appreciate his work. So, let's just look at some of what he had to say from his studies and what

I learned. So, what he did, and Tyler, you just, you give me your thoughts, you know, as we go through this, and let me know what you think.

He made three sections. When he's talking about the subject of angels, he came up with three different columns, three different sections, excuse me,

I guess, to describe or talk about angels. The first one is nature. So, when you're talking about the

Hebrew word, or when Scripture talks about the angel, their spirit being, it's either talking about one of three things, their nature, and the second one is their rank, and then the third one is their function or role.

And so, if you're studying angelology or angels on your own, carry the crosses, the angel theory versus the

Sethite theory. Now, I'm unfamiliar with that. I will have to look it up and give that some study.

Have you ever heard of that, Tyler? Vaguely. Okay. In regards to the descendants of Seth.

Okay. That's about all I know. It makes sense. It's just a passing mention.

Yeah, yeah, and I wish, let's see, do they say, no, it's not

Seth, it's one of Noah's sons that they say, or maybe it's

Jewish tradition, that is the, is Mekilzadek. Have you heard that?

Yes. Yeah. I wish there, and I'm sure there is, I would like to, that intrigues me, that tradition or that study that one of Noah's sons is

Mekilzadek, but that's fascinating as well. Sorry to go on a rabbit trail, but when you're...

And that might come up later. He says when you're studying angels,

I guess to help you understand angels, you can divide them up into these three columns.

That way you're not blurring the lines. You're not misunderstanding.

You are not attributing one attribute to another spirit being that doesn't hold that attribute.

So we use the term angel, and that's kind of like an umbrella or blanket term that we use for all spirit beings, but there's a little bit more going on in scripture than just angels.

So looking at the first column... And the word angel, we actually get that largely from the

New Testament. It comes from the word evangel, which means a herald in Greek.

It's also where we get the word evangelism from, and so typically when you see the word angel, both in the

Old and New Testaments, that is, like you said, a blanket term. It usually is like a stand -in for messenger or herald or something like that, and so absolutely we should give time to defining terms.

What do we mean by angel? Because I would personally take the stance that a good portion of the angels in the

Old Testament would actually be an appearance of the pre -incarnate

Christ, and sometimes when we read about the angel of the Lord, that that is

Christ in the Old Testament, and so sometimes that word angel doesn't necessarily have the connotation that we should put on it.

Sometimes we have a tendency to just blur the lines, but yeah, just define terms.

We have words like seraphim and cherubim and some of those, and so I think that's a great breakdown from Dr.

Heiser right there, just that systematic, what do we mean by these words? Yeah, and context, you know, the translators and the other languages, they're not inspired.

They're not the inspired authors, and so when they translate angel or the

Greek word for angel, you have to look at the context to understand and to do the translation to know which one they're talking about, because it could be, and this is, we'll talk about the word angel and what you just mentioned in a few minutes, but it could be a messenger in Scripture, could be referring to a human being, or it could be referring to a spirit being, and the context will define which one it's talking about, and so, you know, this study, and where I want to take this study from me personally is,

I'm not there yet, but I know that this subject probably of angels or our tendency as human beings as we approach

Scripture is to find out what is it for me? What is there for me?

You know, what is the subject for angels? What is it going to do for me? So when I learn all this stuff about angels, how is it going to affect my life?

How is it going to apply to my life? And then that kind of leads into the guardian angel topic that you were talking about, and we kind of take that and run with it, because we want

Scripture and everything in Scripture to be about us, and I don't want to go there, but what

I want to do is take this subject, just like with any other subject in Scripture, and say, okay, what is

God doing? You know, angels are part of God's creation. He's created order.

They've been active. They were active all throughout Scripture. I'm sure they're continuing to be active.

You know, what is their role? What is their function? What are they doing? And how is that God?

How is that telling me more about God? How is it telling me? What is it telling me about how God is working?

You know, and all those sorts of things. Luke 24 tells us that Christ began with the law and the prophets, and He explained to the disciples all things concerning Himself from all the

Scriptures. And so when we look at angels, ultimately our end game is, what does this tell us about Christ?

Because all Scripture reveals to us the personal work of Christ, who He is, what

He's done, and how we become recipients of that work. That's right.

So ultimately, the angel's point is back to Christ. Right. So here's the first column.

If we're looking at angels, here's the first column, which is what Michael Heiser labeled as their nature.

So if you see this word, or if you see this in your passage that you're studying, it's speaking of their nature or what it is.

So the first one is ruach, which means spirit, and that's what it is.

The second one... Genesis 1 -2, the spirit of God was hovering over the deep waters. Yeah, and that's just saying that's its nature.

That word is describing its nature, not its function, not its rank, just its nature, what it is.

The second one was, and I'm going to probably butcher most of these words, but shamaya,

S -H -A -M -A -Y -I -A, heaven, sky, heavenly ones.

And so when he talked about when you look in Scripture, and this kind of related to me as we've been studying eschatology and how to understand eschatology from Scripture, how to understand passages in the context of the whole of Scripture, go to Matthew 24, for example, and you have all these natural disasters.

You have the sky going dark, the stars falling, and we understand what those things or those concepts mean based on how the original reader would have understood it and how the author, the writer, the reason he wrote it, and it comes from alluding to the

Old Testament passages where they use that type of language to describe certain things.

They use that language figuratively to describe certain things or events. So we're not looking for those things to literally happen, but we want to interpret them in light of how

Scripture uses them. And so the direction that Michael Heiser went was when you see words like stars or stars falling, of course in the context, it could be referring to spirit beings.

So you hear about or you read about Satan falling from the sky or falling, or in Revelation, the heavens open, an angel comes down.

Well, in other places you'll hear or read about star falling, and that could be in context referring to an angel falling.

That comes up a couple times in the book of Revelation even, right?

Because you've got the seven stars of the seven churches, and then I forget what chapter it is, but later on it talks about a third of the stars falling out of the sky.

Right, right. So they use that language because that's, you know, they didn't have telescopes, they didn't have astronomy like we have, they didn't have

Google, they didn't have those things that we have and understand science exactly the way we do now.

But what they did have was they had a sky without air pollution. They had a clear sky.

It was probably way more visible then than it is now. And so it was probably a much more appropriate,

I guess, object lesson to point to the night sky. That's right. I would think.

Yeah, yeah. The next one, Kedoshim, K -A -D -O -S -H -I -M, holy ones or heavenly beings, holy or dedicated for God's use.

And then the other one, and this is interesting, and this is where, this is the one that raises a lot of eyebrows because this kind of, when

I first was introduced to him and was first listening and listening to what he had to say,

I was like, are we going in a Mormon direction, you know, with this?

But he talked about the word Elohim. And we're most familiar with that word from Genesis.

And it's used in a plural sense in Genesis where God says, let's make man in our image.

And that word is Elohim used in a plural. And traditionally, that is a

Trinitarian use of the word Elohim, where God is making man in his image, the father, the son of the

Holy Spirit. And Michael Heiser said that he didn't disagree with that. He is a Trinitarian. And that in this instance, in the context, that would be a

Trinitarian verse where Elohim is referring to the Trinity, the father, the son of the Holy Spirit, where they are creating or making man in their image.

But in a general sense, Elohim, according to his study of the whole of Scripture, Elohim simply means, or could mean

God, deity, or a member of the heavenly host. So it speaks of their nature, or he even said their location.

So if you're Elohim, you live in the spirit world. And even saying that gives me the twitches, because I've always understood

Elohim to be a name of God. But he is saying...

But it's... Go ahead. It's a bit more of a generic term. It also says in the

Psalms that Yahweh, the Lord, is exalted above the gods.

And that's Elohim, that sometimes Elohim, or even the singular El is being used just in a generic term for the gods, say, the gods of Babylon or Egypt, that the

Pharaoh was in that sense an El. He was not the

El, however. So it's a bit more elusive a word than being strictly a name of God.

That is more of a title possibly than his name name, because he is

Yahweh. It gets used a couple different ways in Scripture, I think.

Well, and before people turn this concept off, you do have to wrestle with the other passages.

And my apologies, because I can't remember the reference. But you have in the New Testament where he's referring to David in the passage.

I think it's in Psalms where he says, My Lord said to the

Lord or something, something to that effect. Psalm 110. And then the other passage where he says,

Are you not called gods? And so you have to wrestle with, you know, with those two passages, that terminology that they that they use, that they would have been familiar with, and they would have understood it from the

Old Testament and how the Old Testament used it. And so that's what we're doing here.

That bit with the Lord said to my Lord in Psalm 110, that is Yahweh said to Adonai.

Right, so there are different, even different words used there.

And so it does get, there is somewhat of a complexity to the word choice.

Right, right. So if you're looking for a passage that makes you feel a bit easier about even listening to this conversation about Elohim, you can go to Psalm 82 .1.

And let me just read the English to you. It says, God takes his stand in his own congregation.

Now, listen, listen to that carefully. God takes his stand in his own congregation.

What is his own congregation? He judges in the midst of the rulers.

Now, here's the, here's the interlinear. The first term for God is

Elohim. And then there of the, of the mighty, there's the word

El. And then the second God is plural.

The gods is Elohim. And, you know, we're not us monotheistic.

We, you know, we believe that there's only one true God. And so we're a little uncomfortable sometimes saying that the

Bible uses the word gods and uses the word Elohim to refer to those gods. But, but you have

Psalm 82 here and Michael Heiser is, is just simply saying, it's stating the nature of those beings and their location.

That if you are a spirit being in the spirit realm, you are

Elohim. And the

Trinity, God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, they, they are Elohim.

They are just the highest of ranking. There, there's none like him.

There, there's no other Elohim, no other spirit being like him. And I guess that would be another, that would be another good way to put it that we're more familiar with.

We're not as familiar with saying Elohim, but we are familiar with saying that God is spirit.

And we also use that term spirit to describe other beings.

So we, we do use that term, concept, that mindset, but we, we rarely use the word

Elohim and that's all he's saying. It's similar, similar concepts, similar mindset there as spirit or Elohim.

Um, let's see. Verse, verse six, he quotes to, let me see what it says real quick.

Um, they do not know, nor do they understand. They walk and abound in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.

Okay. No, that was verse five. Verse six, I said, you are gods and all of you are sons of the most high.

So there, you know, there's another, another example of using that word. Um, Psalm 86 says, um, there is no one like you among the gods.

So you see that nestled in there quite a bit in the Psalms actually.

And, and the way I would have understood that before, um, when it says there, there's no one like you among the gods, you know, in my mind,

I'm thinking there, there's not other gods. Um, you know, true living, there's only one true living

God. And that's, you know, Yahweh, that's the Trinity, the father, son, the Holy spirit. Um, so I would have understood that,

I guess as God saying there's, there's no other among the gods as in your false gods that you're worshiping.

Um, but with this concept of Elohim, you, you can understand it in light of there's no one like you among the

Elohim in the spirit world. Well, Mr.

I carry the cross such as throughout the Job one six through seven. You got that one. I do.

It says one day, the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. And, uh, the Satan is literally what the

Hebrew says. Uh, we know that Satan, the, the, the accuser, the adversary, et cetera. And the

Satan also came with them. And the Lord asked the Satan, where have you come from, from roaming through the earth?

He answered him and walking around on it. Yeah. Hey, by the way, thank you.

Thank you for watching. We really appreciate it. And if you don't mind you subscribe to our channel, um, share the video, we would really appreciate it.

We're just trying to, uh, we're nobody's just trying to get the gospel out. So we thank you for participating with us tonight.

And it's interesting that they're the, um, they're described as the sons of God. Yeah. Speaking of sons of God, if you want to stay right there, the, um, the second column that Michael Heiser brings up is, is their rank or position.

And he brings up one of the terms that's used to describe if you read this term, then it's speaking of their, their rank.

So one of those terms will be sons of God. And so go ahead.

And my, um, uh, copy of the scriptures here, the sons is lowercase. Okay. Which is different from say the new

Testament that would capitalize a son of man in reference to Christ. That's right. That, but here it is lowercase.

So we're probably just describing, um, not necessarily the son, but a son, um, in, in line with what

Robert was just saying about rank and where they, they necessarily stand in that, that order on the sons of God.

Yeah. Yeah. And if God has always been, God is eternal and he has created all things that relationship makes sense.

And if anybody's listening or watching and you are an actual Michael Heiser scholar, if you study listening to him more than I have, or because I'm new to this and if I'm misrepresenting him or anything that he's saying, which is highly, highly possible, let us know.

And we'll, I'll, I'll be glad to correct myself. Um, but you know, feeding off what you were just talking about,

Tyler, um, talking about rank, um, from his study, what he's saying in scripture is that you just like here on earth, you know, we have different positions, we have different ranks and it's kind of a mirror of, um, his creative beings there in the spirit world.

Um, they have different positions, they have different ranks, um, and there's councils.

Um, he, he has his heavenly council, um, and the sons of God being a rank, they're, they're going to be ranking higher.

If you are termed, if you are termed sons of God, then you are holding a higher rank than other

Elohim, other spirit beings in the, in the heavenly realm. Um, Daniel is a, is a good place to look.

So if you look at Daniel, um, Daniel chapter seven, we're just going to break open the scriptures and see what comes out.

The chapter seven. Yeah. Daniel chapter seven, um, verse 10. So this is the one, this is one of the passages that, uh,

Michael or Dr. Heiser, uh, I guess he's a doctor, Dr. Heiser.

He, um, he points out Daniel chapter seven, verse 10. This is where he gets the concept of, um, the council, a, a river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him.

Thousands upon thousands were attending him and myriads upon myriads were standing before him, the court.

And there's that court or council sat and the books were open. So there's this concept of in the spirit world among the

Elohim, the spirit beings, uh, there's, um, this, you can hold this or they hold some hold this position of being in the court.

Um, and then if you go back to Daniel chapter four, um, let's see,

I did not write down any of those passages, but, um, let's see. Sorry for the, sorry for the, um, quietness.

Sure. I know I wrote down those verses. Carry the cross says you were doing good brothers.

I'm a Calvinist and a lot of this stuff is not accepted Calvin and Augustine front on this subject, but I found, find it fascinating.

Absolutely. I do as well. And, um, you know, I think,

I think, uh, Dr. Heiser has, um, a lot of good things to say on this.

Are you talking about the dream Nebuchadnezzar had when the, when they cut down the tree? Yes. The where, where the angel comes down and speaks to Nebuchadnezzar and says that you're going to go crazy.

Yeah. So verse 13, it says, as I was lying in my bed, I also saw in the visions of my mind, a watcher, a

Holy one coming down from heaven. And he called out loudly, cut down the tree and chop off his branches, strip it of his leaves and scatters fruit.

Yup. And then there's another passage in here and my apologies. I apologize that I don't have this verse ready.

Um, maybe Tyler can find it for us really quickly, but, um, if I'm not mistaken in this same chapter or vicinity, um, the angel tells

Nebuchadnezzar that this is a, this has been decreed and this is a decree that's, that's coming down.

I'm giving you this message that this has been decreed by the council, um, by the court.

Um, well, verse 24, um, Daniel is, uh, interpreting this to Nebuchadnezzar and says, this is the interpretation your majesty.

This is the decree of the most high that has been issued against my Lord. The King, you will be driven away from people to live with the wild animals.

You will feed on grass, like cattle and be drenched with dew from the sky for several, for seven periods of time until you acknowledge that the most high is ruler over human kingdoms and gives them to anyone he wants.

And then in verse, um, 31, it says that a voice came down from heaven and said,

King Nebuchadnezzar to you, it is declared that the kingdom has departed from you. Yup.

Yup. And that's where it gives credit to the most high. Um, so they're, they are not free, this council.

Um, and I'm looking for that passage that says that the decree comes from the council, um, or something to that effect.

And again, my apologies. Um, it should be right in here somewhere in chapter four, but Daniel's went to Robert's, uh, big books.

So that's, that's a book he spends a lot of time in. Yeah. But Hey, that goes to show you my age and it doesn't take much time to pass before you begin to forget things.

Um, hopefully, hopefully we'll find it soon, but, but it speaks of, and this is coming from, um,

Dr. Heiser as well, that the decree comes from the council, the court, and then later on as Tyler read the decree ultimately come from the most high.

And so they, they don't act outside or autonomously from God.

Um, they, they work, you know, as, as we do with, within his will, um, and they work within his will.

So the, so the decree ultimately came from, from the most high. I feel like somewhere

I had, I'd wrote down all those passages. Um, but I, I guess,

I guess I did not. Oh, well, sorry,

Tyler. I apologize. Let's see. How about Daniel 21 and 24? 21?

Yeah. Chapter four. Chapter four. And whose foliage was beautiful and its frugal minute in which was food for all and under which the pieces.

That's not it either, but that's the reverse that I did actually write down. Well, regardless, that's, that's what

I was learning from, from Dr. Heiser. And, um, I did see that passage at some point.

Now you do see the word, the phrase, a holy one in verse 23 there. Yeah. Let's see.

It might be what you had noticed, um, before. And it says that the

King saw a watcher, a holy one coming down from heaven and saying, cut down the tree and destroy it. What verse did you say that was?

Verse 23. Okay. But you've got, you've got the Hebrew right there in front of me.

Don't you? I do not know Hebrew. Oh, okay. I'm a kindergarten student of Greek, but a

Hebrew. Have I not? All right.

Well, we can move on, but that was, I mean, that's, that's basically, um, well, here's in verse 23.

Um, this may be one of the things that he was referring to.

You know, we talked about the word, uh, Shamaya, um, here's some Mayan, which is going to be, you know, similar concept and it's translated as heaven.

So similar wording there. Right. And then, and that's pretty much court council, sons of God is pretty much the ones that he brought out as far as, uh, when you read this, it's speaking of their rank.

So the third column, when you, when you're reading this subject, studying this subject and you see these words, this, these words are going to be referring to their role or function.

And so going back to the one we started off with Malak, M -A -L -A -K.

However you say that in Hebrew, um, that's going to be angel or, or messenger.

And so he says that's, that doesn't necessarily speak to, it doesn't speak their nature.

It doesn't speak to their rank. He says Malak or angel or messenger speaks to their, their function.

So when you see the word angel, that's, that's how you need to understand it.

It's speaking of that spirit being's function. And that will help us, you know, for me, as I'm studying this concept, angelology, and I see the word angel,

I'm wanting to know that I'm, I'm reading that spirit being's function and that will help me to understand the context,

I believe. And another thing that I've, I feel like I've gleaned from this, and you can give me your thoughts on this

Tyler as well. Um, we, we use angel as like we said earlier, a blanket or umbrella term for all spirit beings.

Um, but really Malak, it doesn't speak of their, their name.

You know, we give them, we use it as their name. Um, it doesn't speak of their nature. It doesn't speak of their rank, but really when we see the term angel, it's, it's a small part of who they are.

It's just speaking of their function. And I guess as we learn and grow in our knowledge and understanding of scripture, um, that's one thing that we can grow up in or, or that I'm trying to grow up in is that instead of using angel as, you know, a generic name for spirit beings, angel is actually just speaking of its function.

Like, uh, Genesis 3, 24, um, after Adam and Eve are driven from the garden, it says, he drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.

That they, it's described in that, that action that they are guarding the entrance to the garden.

You're exactly right. And those are, those are two more that I was, that he brings up, or he puts underneath the list of function or role.

You have the word cherubim and you said, you know, going back to using the word angel as an umbrella term for all spirit beings.

And we get the, this is where we get the concept of angels having wings, but really angels are, when we read angels, we're talking about messengers because that's their function.

But in reality, in scripture, they always look like men. Um, how can you entertain an angel or messenger unawares?

How can you be unaware if they're standing there with, with big wings and you have the angels that come to, um, to lot in his house and they look like men.

And so angels or messengers, they come down, you know, you have, you have

Gabriel who comes in and speaks, um, to Zachariah and to Mary, they are given human form or they, they look, look like us.

And that's how we would be unawares is because they look like us. Um, and, but we get the, the idea of wings from cherubim and seraphim.

So that's, that would be for me, another area of correction for ourselves. I think the subject of angels we would find is beautifully complex.

It's far more beautifully complex than, uh, chubby little babies in Renaissance paintings.

That the fact that it's so complicated, that it doesn't quite fit in our, our mind here, right.

That, that, that doesn't take away from it. I think that makes it even more beautiful that we're, we are talking about heavenly beings that, that are for the most part unfallen.

That while you have, um, some that are, the majority of the angels we see in scripture are not beings that have fallen, that are, um, corrupted by sin.

Yeah. And so it shouldn't quite make sense in our brain any more than the sinlessness of God. Um, we can really picture

God in that way that there's, there's an element that is beyond us.

That's right. And I think that makes it even more beautiful that it's, we can't grasp this.

We can't bring this down to our level because it's not on our level. Well, and let me share with you something else that doesn't make sense.

I had to do it again. Our little angel clawed. He's back with us. I hope he doesn't mind me showing that.

But yeah, what I was saying before, sorry to repeat myself, but yeah, just a correction for me.

And I think it would be, you know, if, if I'm accurate, if I'm correct here and understanding

Michael Heiser correctly, correcting myself that all spirit beings are not angels and they don't all have wings, but cherubim and seraphim are described, you know, as having wings.

And he said their function, when you read these terms, um, it means throne room guardians or guardians of sacred spaces, which is, you know, where you took us to Tyler, you were, you were looking at Genesis, you know, this, this will be a sacred space that you cannot enter.

And, and one of the things that he brought up, which is, I think was a very good point to make, uh, people may ask the question, well, does

God need protecting? Well, no, God doesn't need protecting. What, what they're doing is they're protecting the space.

Or at least communicating the sacredness of the space. Yeah. Because we also have portrayed

God, um, coming down and asking questions and it seems like he's figuring things out, but we know that God is all knowing.

We know that God didn't need to look down on the earth to know that people were wicked before the flood, but he reveals himself as doing that in order to teach us about him.

Right. That he, to some extent, paints himself in somewhat human terms, um, for our benefit.

When we, when we read things like that, or with, um, Abraham talking with him about the destruction of Sodom, um, hey, you missed something,

God. And God's like, really? Tell me more. Kind of silly, but it's,

I think that there's somewhat of a poetic, um, element there that sometimes God does things that seem out of character, but it's more of a, a teaching element that, right, the garden didn't need protecting aside from God, but he stuck a, an angel there, um, probably in part to communicate how sacred that space is and the, the severity of the fact that the man and the woman were no longer in the garden, were no longer welcome.

Yeah. It's very interesting that you use that terminology, Tyler. It brings to mind some of the other things that I was learning through this.

You were talking about identifying or communicating that, excuse me, what this space is, or that this is sacred space, or this space is, is other different.

And, and you're, you're not allowed there or anything, anything here will, anything else that comes in will defile it.

So it communicates or identifies the space. And, and one of the things that was brought up in this, you know, in his study was that looking back at, you know, we talked about how ancient men, we, you know,

I guess we'll call these folks that lived back then ancient men, how they understood the stars and how they communicate the stars and use, use that as figurative language to maybe talk about angels or fallen angels.

If you look back at archeology and, and you look at the, the creatures or the, the imagery that they used he pointed,

Michael Heiser pointed out the fact that Solomon, I think he said that Solomon had lions or something carved at his throne.

And, and so even if you go back to other ancient cultures and you look at maybe this, even the

Sphinx, or just an example, or the, the other creatures that they, they carve out or paint on their tombs or the pyramids or caves or wherever they are, they use this.

The ancient world societies, even when they were pagan had a tendency to spiritualize ideas and elements that we also see in like the books of the prophets, like lions and things.

Yeah. So, so the imagery for say, for instance, the lion that was carved out there in Solomon's throne or in his throne room, it was just to speak to them.

They would have understood that this is, this is an other place. This is a different place.

This is a place where I don't belong. I'm not supposed to come here. So it speaks to the imagery speaks language.

It communicates, it identifies to the one who sees it, what this space is.

And, and I guess for me, I was just trying to think of an example, Tyler, of, and maybe you can help me think of other examples of imagery that we would understand or use in more recent times.

I remember people describing how people would, how we as Christians in more recent times would arrange our church buildings, our sanctuaries.

So if my understanding is correct, if you go to some older churches, you would have a huge door in the middle and then you'd have two smaller doors on the side.

Well, people of that time period knew what the big door was for and the two smaller doors were for.

I mean, just the imagery or in some churches you have the pulpit, it's huge and massive, and it speaks to the importance of the word of God.

Or you have the Lord's supper table front and center. I guess that would be more in the

Catholic church, where their emphasis is. The placement of these certain things is imagery speaking, identifying or communicating where they have their importance.

Some sanctuaries have the pulpit off to the side or elevated. Does that make sense?

It does. I had, last year for school, I had actually written a paper on medieval architecture and I had looked into some of the, all the meaning behind the different elements of how they built cathedrals in the

Gothic period. And they would arrange all of the bracings and the structural elements on the outside and they'd ornament them so that they look like the rest of the building.

But the idea there was that it freed up the inside, that you have one space.

You don't need all the supporting walls and all of these structural elements inside the sanctuary.

It is one unfettered, free space. And it builds that idea of threshold, that we move from the world to something that is sacred, something that is different.

And that there's a lot that was communicated through the way they designed the churches. We meet with God here.

That's right. That's why this place is so huge. That's why it's so beautiful. Because God is huge.

Because God is beautiful. He is bigger and more beautiful than we could possibly build. Yeah. With all the ornamentation.

This massive stained glass wall behind me is nothing compared to the radiance of the glory of God. That's right.

Yeah. And in some places, I'm trying to think of an example, maybe in a tomb or a pyramid or, you would have a door that was smaller than the height of men.

And you would have to bow to enter. It just speaks of your posture that you should take as you enter in.

Things like that. And we don't have time to touch on eschatology. But learning this and learning how

God communicates, how he used men to communicate, how they communed at that time, the original authors, the original readers.

So just to quickly touch on trying to interpret eschatological things.

You know, you had a revelation and you have 10 heads, you have 10 horns. Well, are you going to literally see something that has 10 heads, 10 horns, a bunch of eyes, you know, all these other different descriptions?

Or is it an identifying identifier, a communicator?

Speaking of certain, some type of imagery that is alluding to a truth.

And I think it's the latter. We're not literally going to see those things, but I need to understand what that imagery means.

What is it communicating to me? How did they understand it? And in addition, of every chapter of the

New Testament, there are only six chapters that do not allude to, cite, or reference the

Old Testament in some form or fashion. Six chapters. And almost the entire book of Revelation is

Old Testament, either restated or paraphrased or something that's somehow connected.

And so a lot of this language is, I guess you could say, borrowed from like the prophets and the

Psalms and some of this, even Leviticus. Because you've got Christ who is clothed like a

Levitical priest with Jasper and such. But there's not a whole lot to Revelation that is necessarily new.

Maybe it's being brought into a different light, but the substance of what John is saying is very

Old Testament. We were talking about the stars earlier with that being Old Testament imagery for angels.

We have beasts in the book of Daniel. We have a lot of these carry over into the

New Testament that John is, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he is weaving a tapestry that was begun in Genesis.

Right, right. Well, I'm glad you said what you said because this is a quote that I read

Monday night when Dan and I did the Truth and Love podcast. I quoted this book,

Days of Vengeance, an exposition on the book of Revelation by David Chilton. And he said exactly what you're saying,

Tyler, in the author's preface. Number one, it says Revelation is the most quote biblical book in the

Bible. John quotes hundreds of passages from the Old Testament, often with subtle allusions to little known religious rituals of the

Hebrew people. And yeah, he says it's the most biblical book. Well, let's see.

We have Cherubim, Seraphim, not angels, but throne room guardians, sacred space guardians.

Talked about imagery you read in Daniel. He uses the word watcher. Watcher is another term that speaks of their function.

And if you study the word watcher in scripture, you're going to see where they report to God and, you know, write things down in books,

I think. And God has his angels watching.

And then you have gibberim, G -I -B -O -R -I -M. These are warriors, heavenly hosts.

And then related to that is the term Adonai Sabaoth, Lord of Hosts or Lord of Armies.

So another set of spirit beings that are set aside as the

Yerubim, warriors or heavenly hosts. And then Jesus, of course, is described as Adonai Sabaoth, the

Lord of Armies or Lord of Hosts. It's just so interesting. Well, let's end on guardian angels.

We probably don't have to spend a whole lot of time there, but I think we referenced them earlier.

This one's kind of hard because we do have passages.

And that's what I was trying to look up earlier. You do have like Psalm 91, he will order his angels to form a barrier or something like that.

And you will not so much as hurt your foot on a stone. We do have passages like that.

We've got to reconcile those ideas. You have passages like in Hebrews that they are ministering spirits.

Hebrews 114, are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation.

You got that. And then I think it's Matthew. Let's see.

Yeah. Matthew 18, verse 10. See that you do not despise one of these little ones for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my father in heaven.

So you're right. We do have to reconcile these verses that kind of allude to the possibility of a guardian angel.

But I don't think that we can say emphatically that each individual person or at least each individual

Christian has their own guardian angel that walks with them every minute of every day.

The phrase that I was thinking about today to kind of describe this situation is angels, since we're using that terminology that we're familiar with, angels are given assignments.

Angels are given assignments by God, but they're not necessarily assigned to each individual person.

These verses that we read, I think, maybe hint close to that concept of a guardian angel, but it's, you can't emphatically.

It's a tad of a stretch. Yeah. It's a little bit. And you do have places like Psalm 3,

I believe it is, that says, I lie down and sleep, and I awake again, for the Lord sustains me.

And so when we talk about the Lord sustaining his people, the Lord upholding people by his righteous right hand, by the

Lord protecting his people, by and large, I don't think we can say that he does so by proxy, through an assistant necessarily.

And that's not to say that there are not times where angels are involved, but I think that the main modus operandi here is the will of God.

Right. That's right. That we are held in his hand, not an angel's hand. That may involve angels sometimes, but the end all be all is the act of God.

I think there's a balance there. Yeah. And we do know from Daniel, we didn't cover this when we were in Daniel earlier, but we do know from Daniel that Michael is described as one of the chief priests.

He's described as not priests, but chief angels. I can't remember the exact word that's used to this chief.

I can't remember if it uses the word angel. Is it Daniel chapter? I can't recall.

He's the chief angel, chief something over Israel. And then it speaks of maybe chief prince.

And then it speaks of a prince being over Persia. And in those instances, it's speaking of spirit beings being assigned to certain nations.

And this is an interesting concept too, Tyler, as you're looking that up, the transition that happens between Old Testament and New Testament and a possible function change in some of these spirit beings.

But we do know that, and there's that idea of rank again. So Michael is the chief, a chief prince, but then you have another prince who was assigned over Persia.

So we have spirit beings, Michael being one of them, assigned to a nation, one assigned to Persia.

All right. So Daniel 10, verse 10, sorry, 11 says, and he said to me,

Daniel, you are a man treasured by God. Understand the words that I'm saying to you. Stand on your feet for I now have been sent to you.

And he said this to me and I stood trembling. Do not be afraid, Daniel, he said to me, for from the first day that you proposed to understand and to humble yourself before your

God, your prayers were heard. I have come because of your prayers. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me for 21 days.

And then Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me after I had been left there with the kings of Persia.

Now I have come to help you understand what will happen to your people in the last days for the vision refers to those days.

And one interpretation that I've heard, and honestly, I lean that way myself, is that Michael is an example of the pre -incarnate

Christ. And we talk about the chief of angels, the chief prince, that that is Christ by another name in the

Old Testament. That when we read about Michael, the warrior angels, the chief king, sort of that sort of language, that it's

Christ promised in the Old Testament unveiled in shadows. The only, the only issue on the surface that I would have with that kind of language, and I'm not an expert.

So, you know, I can always be wrong, corrected. But to me, that sounds

Jehovah's Witness -ish. I think that's sometimes how they understand

Jesus and Michael. Jesus being a creative being and sometimes referred to as Michael.

I think that's a Jehovah's Witness thing, but I'm not, I'm not 100%.

So I'm not sure. I think some of that would probably fall down to how that word

Michael came about in Hebrew, where that comes from. Let's see,

Michael. So while you're looking that up,

I'll just bring this up. I'll speak into the possible transition of maybe role and function that we see when we move from the

Old Testament over to the New Testament. We see that this chief prince, Michael, and then you have another prince who's over Israel, and then you have a prince who's over Persia.

So we do know that these assignments are given to spirit beings over nations.

But then you get to the New Testament, you see verses like this, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities.

And some of these words we've already read in verses that we've looked at earlier, principalities against powers, against rulers.

We've read that verse of the darkness of this age against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.

So you've got all these different concepts of spirit beings in even the heavenly realm, in the spiritual realm.

So there's not just this angel concept, and you have angels and demons.

You've got all these different natures of spirit beings. You've got these different ranks of spirit beings.

There's a whole lot going on in the spiritual realm that we just, that's beyond us right now.

And then, and you brought up this earlier, Tyler, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.

So going back to Daniel. Well, before we move on, you might find this very interesting, but Michael, I might be slaughtering that, literally means, who is like God?

It is linguistically similar to Elohim and Israel.

Okay. And so that's interesting, the way that they attribute it that way.

Right. On the notes in the official study Bible, the CSB study

Bible is, they put it as Michael is the guardian angel of, the guardian or patron angel of Israel.

Yeah. Well, that would be an appropriate way to use it.

Like I said, I think this is kind of a gray area where we don't have these massive dissertations for us in scripture on, this is what angels are, but this is something that's kind of shrouded in a mystery a little bit.

Well, and I think that's kind of where we were going with this, that we can't emphatically say that each person has a guardian angel, but what we can say, what we do see in scripture is that there's a guardian angel or a chief prince assigned to Israel.

There's a prince assigned to Persia. So we do see that God is assigning positions of guardianship or some type of role over certain nations, if not all nations.

And we kind of see that concept when we look at eschatology, we look at the

New Testament, you have the idea that when Satan was bound, what was he bound from?

Deceiving the nations. There's that idea of spirit beings having influence over nations.

And then here's the thing I was going to bring up as far as a possible transition, a possible different function from Old Testament and New Testament.

And you brought this up earlier. You referred to the seven churches. So in Daniel, we have an assignment of a prince being over a nation.

But what do we have in Revelation? An angel being over the church or that individual church.

Now, of course, I can't be emphatic about that's a transition that had happened.

They now have different assignments. I think that in Daniel, they were over nations.

And then here, they're over different individual churches. Like I said,

I don't think we can be emphatic about that or dogmatic about that. But we do see there may still be,

God may still have assignments for angels over certain nations and individual churches. It doesn't say if that role had changed.

We just know that God has assigned some over nations and some over churches, at least in those certain passages.

Well, let me pull out the systematic theology here. I've been reading this book called

A Puritan Theology. And it's like a kind of a guided tour of what the

Puritans said on different issues. And it pretty much goes through the main categories of what we call systematic theology.

Let's see if they tackle that. So I didn't see it in there earlier.

Care of the Cross says great book. I'm only like a third of the way through it. I guess he's referring to the

Puritan systematic theology book. Now there is a, what's his name?

Isaac Ambrose, I think is his name. He does say, describe angels as God's watchful sentinels and safe convoys who protect those who fear him until they reach heaven.

So it wouldn't be like all the people that think that are crazy. There are respected people that hold to this view.

Personally, I'm kind of on the fence. But this isn't like all the people that believe this are heretics or anything like that.

That's not our goal today. This is a conflicted issue that we don't know a whole lot about.

It's really what it comes down to. And yes, Care of the Cross, it is a very large book. I am not even close to a third of the way through it.

I am a hundred pages in. It's interesting nonetheless.

Well, and what we can say to wrap up the subject, Tyler, I think is take what we do know.

We do know that God promises to never leave us nor forsake us.

He says in the Great Commission, he will be with us to the end of the age. So we know that God is with us.

We do know that trials, tribulations, and persecutions are promised, that the world will hate us because it hated him first.

So the concept of having a guardian angel that will protect us at all costs from any harm is not an accurate concept.

Harm does come to Christians. Christians do get diseases. We're not exempt from suffering.

And the Bible does promise that we will go through suffering. But what we do know is that we will accomplish

God's will. And angels, spirit beings that have been given assignments for here on earth, they will accomplish

God's will. And that will is going to be him carrying out his kingdom work, his gospel work, his drawing all nations to himself and saving souls.

And he's going to be with us. He will be with us through everything, whether that be his

Holy Spirit, Christ being within us, his word being within us, or one of his angels being assigned to us.

Those are the things that we do know. And we can rest in those things. Any last thoughts?

Well, one of the most angel -rich books in the Old Testament is arguably the book of Ezekiel.

There's a lot in there on angels. And given what we were talking about earlier with the garden and that we're not welcome there now, and so there's a guard.

Ezekiel, on the other hand, ends with the statement, the name of the city from that day on will be the

Lord is there. That there is coming a day where we will be welcome with God, with the angels, with the saints.

And while you're in that stream of thought, tell us how we can enter into that city, into that kingdom.

Well, for that, let me flip over to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter six, which is one of my favorite chapters in the

Bible. I was saved reading this chapter in youth group ones. Isaiah has a vision and it says, in the year that King Uzziah died,

I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne and the hem of his robe filled the temple. And Seraphim were standing above him.

They each had six wings. With two, they cover their faces. With two, they cover their feet. And with two, they flew.

And one called to another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of armies. His glory fills the whole earth.

The foundations of the doorway shook at the sound of their voices and the temple was filled with smoke. And then

I said, woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips.

And because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. The angels were not worthy to look upon the glory of God in this vision.

They were covering their feet. They were covering their eyes. They were suborning it to the transcendent glory of God.

And we are no better. Isaiah looked upon this and said, woe is me.

The reality is we are not holy people. We are not what we should be.

The Bible says that we are dead in sin and trespasses. That we have traded the image of the immortal

God for a lie. We traded the truth of God for a lie, for images, cheap imitations.

But God in his mercy and in his grace did not leave us there. When we went astray, when we figured we knew better, we can make a better God who's more suitable to ourselves.

God sent Christ, his son, to live the life that you and I couldn't live. To live that holy, perfect life.

And he lived a perfect life. 33 perfect years. And he, clean record, knew no sin, no stain of sin, no shadow of change as it says in Lamentations 3.

And he dies. This perfect man goes to a cross. Not because he deserved it.

Not because he had it coming. It wasn't that it was due to him. He volunteered. He died the sinner's death as a criminal that you and I should have.

He died the death we should have had after living the life that we could never live.

And the scripture says that he bore our sins in his body. That on that cross he took on the weight of our unworthiness upon himself.

And for what purpose? So that we might die to sin and live unto righteousness. We who were once far off have now been brought near by the blood of Christ.

He died for sin to make us right with God, to reconcile us to God, to himself.

He took care of it himself. And because he's God, he didn't stay dead. And he rose triumphant from the dead three days later, proving that he had ultimate authority over not just sin, but death.

And the Bible says that he has been given authority over all things on heaven and on earth. And that the final enemy to be conquered will be death.

That the dominion of sin has been broken in Christ. And he calls all people of all nations to repent, to turn from their sins, to turn to the face of Christ, seek the

Lord while he may be found, and be cleansed of their sin by the sacrifice of Christ.

And we at the Truth and Love Network implore you to come unto Christ, to seek the

Lord while he may be found. What we've been talking about with the Lord is near and the glory of the

Lord, this is something that propels us to him. We are unworthy people, but God is worthy.

And in his mercy, he has brought us to himself through the cross, through his son, through the death of Christ.

He has killed death, he has killed sin, and we are called to be reconciled to him.

That we may go back to the garden with Christ. Christ brings us back to the garden after we brought ourselves out of the garden.

We are not welcome there right now because we are in sin. But through Christ and his perfect righteousness being counted to us by his sacrifice, we essentially go back to the garden.

We go back to that perfect world with that perfect relationship with God. Not because we make the world perfect, but because God is reconciling all things to himself.

And so we implore you to be reconciled to God. Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for allowing us to be together tonight, to dive into your word, and thank you for teaching us.

Thank you for your gospel, and thank you for this moment where we just listen and savor your gospel and stand in awe of your gospel.

Father, we pray for ourselves that we would grow in the gospel, and those that do not know you, that you would be saving them, that you would grant them repentance and faith, that they would hear this gospel and flee to you.

And we pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Thank you, Tyler.

I really appreciate it. Amazing stuff, and I thank you for your contributions.

Thank you guys for watching. You new guys, new folks that are watching, we really appreciate that as well.

Remember to like and share, subscribe, and partner with us as we get the gospel out.

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