Angels: What are they?

All right, so tonight's study is gonna be on angels. So what are angels? Why did God create them? We're gonna go through a nice little study tonight, okay? So let's begin. What are angels? Angels are created spiritual beings with moral judgment, so they know right from wrong, high intelligence, they're smarter than we are, but without physical bodies, similar to God, right?

God is without, God is a spirit and has not a body like man.

Excuse me, have not angels appeared in bodily form?

They appear in bodily form, but they don't have bodies. Right, exactly. We're gonna get into that. Since angels have not always existed, they are part of the universe that God created. In a passage that refers to angels as the host of heaven or the armies of heaven, Ezra says, you are the Lord, you alone, you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their hosts and the host of heaven worships you.

So the host of heaven is referring to the spiritual beings, the angels who are worshiping God and have been worshiping him since the moment they were created. Paul tells us that God created all things, visible and invisible, through Christ and for Christ, and then specifically includes the angelic world with the phrase where the thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

The Nature of Angels as Created Spiritual Beings

And we're gonna learn how angels have a hierarchy, okay? There's archangels, like you've heard of Michael, and then there's angels beneath Michael, right?

We used to have to memorize them in school, in Catholic school.

Well, I'm gonna give you a chance to tap into that memory and tell us about them, okay? So we got a good ways to go. That angels exercise moral judgment is seen in the fact that some of them sinned and fell from their positions.

You can read that in 2 Peter and Jude 6. Do you wanna read that one, Jerry? Yes, 2 Peter.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept unto the judgment. Excellent. In Jude 6. Yeah, sure. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he is kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.

Those are the angels that sinned. They rebelled against God and they're being kept in chains, right? In Sheol right now, until the final resurrection of the dead. Their high intelligence is seen throughout scripture as they speak to people, Matthew 28, Acts 12, and sing praise to God.

You wanna read one or two of those? Sure. Matthew 28, five says this, but the angel said to the woman, do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. And then Acts 12, six to 11. Now, when Herod was about to bring him out on the very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with chains and sentries before the door were guarding the prison.

And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him saying, get up quickly. And the chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, dress yourself and put on your sandals.

And he did so. And he said to him, wrap your cloak around you and follow me. And he went out of and followed him. He did not know that what was being done was being done by an angel.

Excellent. Okay, I wanna read one that sings praise to God, Revelation 4, 11.

Revelation 4, 11 says, worthy are you our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will, they exist and were created.

One of the things you'll see over and over in scriptures, anytime an angel does appear to somebody, they usually say, fear not. They're imposing beings. They're not, you know, it's not like something regular, like, oh, okay.

It's, this is a heavenly being that appearing to you. So the angels over knows they fear not, fear not, okay. Since angels are spirits or spiritual creatures, they do not ordinarily have physical bodies.

Therefore, they cannot usually be seen by us unless God gives us a special ability to see them. In their ordinary activities of guarding and protecting us, Psalm 34, 91 and Hebrews 1, 14, and joining with us in worship to God, they are invisible.

However, from time to time, angels took on a bodily form to appear to various people in scripture, okay. Other names for angels, and you'll read this throughout the scriptures. Scripture sometimes refers, sometimes uses other terms for angels, such as sons of God, Job 1, 6.

Holy ones, Psalm 89. Spirits, Hebrews 1, 14. Watchers, Daniel 4, 13. Thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities, Colossians 1, 16. There are three other specific types of heavenly beings named in scripture.

Whether we think of these as special types of angels in a broad sense of the term, or whether we think of them as heavenly beings distinct from angels, they are nonetheless created spiritual beings who serve and worship God.

I think you remember Tony Costa had said that the cherubim and seraphim were not angels. They're heavenly beings. They may be classified as angels. They may not. Cherubim? Cherubim and seraphim. I think we're gonna go through those.

Here it is. The cherubim. Okay, this is a type of angel. The cherubim were given the task of guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden. Remember the cherubim with the flaming swords? And God is frequently said to be enthroned on the cherubim, or to travel with the cherubim as his chariot.

Wanna read Psalm 18?

Psalm 18, 10 says, he rode on a cherubim and flew. He came swiftly on the wings of the wind.

Okay, so the cherubim are in charge of the chariots and moving the chariot around. There over the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament were two golden figures of cherubim with their wings stretched out above the Ark.

And it was there that God promised to come to dwell among his people. It says, there I will meet with you and from above the mercy sea, from between the two cherubim that are on the Ark of the Testimony.

I will speak with you about all that I will give you in the commandment for the people of Israel. Wanna read Exodus 25?

Exodus 25, 22, there I will meet with you and from above the mercy sea, from between the two cherubim that are on the Ark of the Testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

Okay, so you're getting a feeling for,.

This is what the cherubim are. Okay, again, could be a class of angel. The scripture doesn't actually say, but they certainly are heavenly beings. Now the seraphim, this is another group of heavenly beings, the seraphim.

And they're mentioned only in Isaiah chapter six, verses two through seven, where they continually worship the Lord and call to one another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.

Okay, this is, we actually went through this scripture last week when we talked about who Isaiah saw in chapter six, when he saw the Lord in the temple, high and, thank you, high and lifted up, the train of Israel filled the temple, that was Jesus, okay?

And the seraphim are the ones who are singing, crying out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. So the cherubim over the Ark of the Covenant and they moved the chariot, okay? The seraphim are the ones who worship and praise God, singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The living creatures, okay? This is different than the seraphim and the cherubim. Both Ezekiel and Revelation tell us of yet another kind of heavenly being known as living creatures around God's throne.

Ezekiel one, five through 14 and Revelation four, six through eight, could you read the Revelation four one?

And before the throne, there was, as it were, a sea of glass like crystal and around the throne, on each side of the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. The first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight and the four living creatures, each of them with six wings are full of eyes all around and within and day and night, they never cease to say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.

Okay, so now we have the cherubim, the seraphim and now the living creatures. With their appearances like a lion, an ox, a man and an eagle they are the mightiest representatives of various parts of God's entire creation.

Wild beasts, domesticated animals, human beings and birds and they worship God continually. Day and night, they never cease to say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.

And last time Tony Costa was out, he said that those four living creatures would be a type and shadow of the four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and he went through a whole argument as to why that would be.

Now, I don't quite remember the whole argument. I think it may or may not be 100 true, but hey, Ashley, how are you? It may or may not be 100 true, but he made a good argument at the time.

Calvin actually covers that quite extensively. There's a couple of different twists to it, but it's all basically, we actually looked at that when we looked at Revelation.

Yes, yes, that was with Bruce Gore, right? Yep. Okay, all right, moving on. So we have the living creatures. Now here's the rank and order of the angels. Scripture indicates that there is a rank and order among the angels.

One angel, Michael, is called the archangel in Jude 9, a title that indicates rule or authority over other angels. He's called one of the chief princes in Daniel chapter 10. Michael also appears to be a leader in the angelic army.

Now, war arose in heaven. Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated. And Paul tells us that the Lord will return from heaven with the voice of an archangel, 1 Thessalonians 4.

1 Thessalonians 4 .16. Whether this refers to Michael as the only archangel or whether there are other archangels, Scripture does not tell us. Now, Bruce Gore says that Michael is none other than Jesus.

He is the highest of the angels, which would actually lend credence to what the Jehovah's Witnesses say with Michael being the archangel, which is very, very interesting. There's several prominent theologians who say that Michael is, that is Jesus, that he is Michael the archangel, that he's the highest of the angels.

Remember, just because you use the term angel doesn't mean that you can't also be human in Jesus's case. Angel means messenger, right? You're an angel, you're a messenger of the gospel. In fact, the apostles were called messengers, yes.

If God created the angels, he didn't create his son, they always were. So how could Michael, the archangel, be Jesus? If he was created?

Right, well, this doesn't say that Michael was created. Jesus is eternal, but he's sent by God the Father. This is the same line of reasoning a Jehovah's Witness would say, well, how can Jesus be human if he's God?

He's created, right? So although Jesus comes into the created order, in that sense, he's a messenger from God. Doesn't mean that he's a spiritual, one of these spiritual creatures, follow? So he can preside over the angels in a certain way distinct from the Father, okay?

Jesus is the archangel over all of them. He's the chief messenger from God, okay? All right, names of specific angels. Only two angels are specifically named in scripture. Michael is mentioned in Jude 9 and Revelation 12, 7.

As well as Daniel 10, where he's called Michael, one of the chief princes. And this would be one argument against Jesus being Michael, because he's one of the chief princes, okay? But, you know, one of the politicians doesn't mean that all of the politicians have the same rank.

Joe Biden is one of the politicians, but he's chief. He's above all the others. So when scripture says one of the chief princes, doesn't say that one's not higher than the other. Anyway, the angel Gabriel is mentioned in Daniel 8, 16 and 9, 21, as a messenger who comes from God to speak to Daniel.

Gabriel is also identified as God's messenger to Zechariah and Mary in Luke 1. The angel answers, Zechariah, I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. Then we read, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel, who was sent from God to a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin.

The virgin's name was Mary. This is the very same angel that brought the message to Daniel the prophet, okay? Now appears to Mary to bring her good news. Is there one of those verses that you wanted to?

I think you actually, I could read this one. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God, was sent from God to the city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin, betrothed to a man, whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.

Yeah, okay.

So these are the two angels that are named Michael and Gabriel. Those are the only two out of all the angels in Scripture. Angels can only be in one place at one time. Scripture frequently represents angels as traveling from one place to another, as in the verse mentioned above, where Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee, named Nazareth.

This is made explicit when an angel comes to Daniel and says, I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days.

And we talked about latter days in Sunday school yesterday. So think about this. Angels can only be in one place at one time, right? Think about people who are hyper about demons. There's a demon here, there's a demon there.

It's like demons are fallen angels, and there's less demons than there are good angels. They cannot be everywhere at the same time. Doesn't mean that they can't show up, okay? But they're not, I'm not omniscient.

Thank you, omnipresent. They're not omnipresent. They're not everywhere at the same time. So you don't have to be fearful of walking around, oh, there's demons all around, okay? They can only be in one place at one time,.

And they're limited, okay? Now, you see Well, so you said earlier that there's a percentage of demons that are being held in Sheol, right? Yeah, absolutely. So that cuts the third Down even more.

And then is not the Holy Spirit more powerful than any of these? Certainly. And if the Spirit dwells in us. Right.

Now you see, the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days. So you see that there's battling between angels, okay? So it took Gabriel 21 days to come to Daniel to tell him this. So we don't realize that there is warfare happening in the heavenly realms.

That we're not privy to. The Prince of the Kingdom of Persia is a spiritual

Yes, that's another angel that's fighting against Michael. So this actually has something to do with the way our prayers are answered, okay? I don't know exactly what it is, but there's that heavenly realm that takes place.

Very important.

And then, I haven't read Daniel recently, but wasn't Daniel praying the entire time? I'm sure he took a nap, but 21 days? Wasn't he in prayer that whole time during that spiritual battle? I believe so.

I believe so. I can't pinpoint it. I haven't read through it recently. I know chapter four, seven, and nine stand out in my mind because those are the identifying ones, okay? But yes. Okay, so the idea that an angel can be in only one place at one time is consistent with the fact that angels are created beings.

Unlike God, who is omnipresent, they are finite creatures, and therefore limited to being in one place at one time, as is everything else that God created, okay? Now, that doesn't mean that they're not more powerful than us, they are much more powerful than us, okay?

One thing maybe I don't necessarily know that we're gonna get through it here, but the angels don't have a plan of salvation. It's not like they can trust in Jesus and be saved. There was no plan of salvation for the angels, okay?

That's why the covenant is better for us, right? So let's keep going. How many angels are there? Myriads. Myriads. Myriads. Myriads. Right. Though scripture does not give us a figure for the number of angels God created, it is apparently a very great number.

We read that God on Mount Sinai came from the 10 ,000s of holy ones with flaming fire in his right hand. We also learned that the chariots of God are twice 10 ,000, thousands upon thousands. When we come to worship, we come into the presence of innumerable angels, Hebrews 12, 22.

Their number is even more strikingly emphasized in Revelation 5, 11, where John says, I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.

This expression indicates an amazingly large number from a human standpoint, an innumerable assembly of angelic beings praising God. Could you read that one in Hebrews 12, 22?

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and innumerable angels in festal gathering.

Excellent, thank you. So what we have to remember is that when we come into worship, when our worship service starts, and I pray the prayer of invocation, and we ask that God would be present and provide us with his Holy Spirit, we are now entering into the presence of God with myriads of angels worshiping God at the same time.

That's why worship is not frivolous. It's very serious, what we do. And when people take it frivolously and don't give God the proper reverence and honor that he's due, it's not worship that God accepts.

It's very important that we come in with clean hands and pure hearts. That's why we pray. And that's why we confess our sins before we come to the God who's enthroned on high, who the angels are worshiping, that we're actually entering into the heavenly realms and we're bringing heaven to earth.

And we pray on earth as it is in heaven. So we actually It's a form of battle. It's a form of battle, absolutely. We're joining them and praying now that God would be worshiped and that his word would come forth and his kingdom would come, right?

Any other words on battle? No. Okay, excellent. Okay, so this was a question that we had asked, okay, last week, do people have individual guardian angels? Well, scripture clearly tells us that God sends angels for our protection.

Psalm 91, for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands, they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against the stone, right? Now, we don't know when the angels are around, okay?

But we do know that God sends them to protect us. So if they're sent to protect us, what does that mean? There might be other angels, fallen angels trying to hurt us, right? Or we may be trying to hurt ourselves, right?

And as a child of God, God says, no, I'm not gonna let you do this or that. I'm going to protect you. The same way when we have little kids around, you know, we protect them. We put bumper buddies on the corners of the tables and we follow them around to keep them from falling because you love them, right?

You don't want them to get hurt. Same thing with us and God. But some people have gone beyond this idea of general protection and wondered if God gives a specific guardian angel for each individual in the world, or at least for each Christian.

Support for this idea has been found in Jesus's words about little children in heaven, their angels always see the face of my father who is in heaven. So does this indicate that there are specific individual angels?

May, maybe, maybe not. However, our Lord may simply be saying that the angels who are assigned the task of protecting little children have ready access to God's presence. To use an athletic analogy, the angels may be playing zone rather than man to man defense, right?

So it could be a certain angel who's guarding certain children, not a particular angel for every particular child type of situation. When the disciples in Acts 12, 15 say that Peter's angel must be knocking at the door, this does not necessarily imply belief in an individual guardian angel.

It could be that an angel was guarding or caring for Peter just at that time. There seems to be therefore no convincing support for the idea of individual guardian angels in the text description, okay?

Can you imagine that World War II,.

What, 40, maybe 60 million people, not too many of them had guardian angels?

Well, if they were children of God, they could have guardian angels. Just because somebody dies doesn't mean that they didn't have a guardian, an angel guarding them. Again, all our days are ordained.

Precious in his sight is the death of his saints. So even though you die maybe prematurely or what we would consider prematurely, okay, if God had a reason and a purpose for it, it's for God's glory, right?

You gotta remember too, if God was to take somebody out of the earth early, he may be sparing them wrath that would accrue to their account. So it's actually an act of mercy, God taking somebody out of the earth sooner than normal, sooner than later, I should say, okay?

So if the person dies prematurely or what we would consider prematurely and they're a child of God, they're ushered right into the presence of God. They're not upset at all. They're happy, you know? Okay, angels do not marry.

Jesus taught that in the resurrection, people neither marry nor are given in marriage or are like the angels in heaven. Matthew 22 and Luke 20, this would suggest that angels do not have the kind of family relationships that exist among human beings.

Scripture is otherwise silent on this point. So it is wise not to attempt to engage in speculation. Now, a woman once told me, she was like, you know why heaven is so nice? They're not married. They don't have a guy to bother them all the time.

They're not married.

Anthony, the ones that supposedly came to earth and mated with human women, were those angels or?

I don't think that those were angelic beings because once again, they don't have physical bodies, okay? So when the scripture uses the term sons of God, I believe that those were people who were born of God's spirit.

It would be as if, you know how in scripture we're told not to be unequally yoked? It would be as if Christian men or women started intermarrying with unbelievers. And now you get this mix. You know, the child is confused.

Oh, my dad believes in God, my mother doesn't. Oh, my mother believes in God, my dad doesn't. And that's called syncretism. You start mixing these different things. As Christians, we have a certain worldview.

We have certain things that we're commanded to do in scripture. If we were to marry somebody who doesn't or who comes from like a Hindu worldview or something like that, now you're gonna have these things that are starting to mix.

And that's what happened with Israel. They started intermarrying with the nations around them and started to take on their gods. Rather than worshiping the one true God, they started collecting idols from the Samaritans, from all these different nations who worship different gods.

Again, dangerous.

Dangerous, yes. Wasn't it also, there was a line of Seth and a line of, who's the brother? One brother, Cain. Cain. Right. So, and then the line of Cain was the sons of God, if you looked at it that way, and the line of Seth was

No, Cain was, yeah, Seth was That's okay.

That's okay. And then in the same way that Eve was deceived and then convinced Adam to, you know, if you marry outside your unequal yoke, you're gonna be corrupted and they're gonna win.

Absolutely, yeah. Listen, when you say the name Cain, what should immediately come to mind is the Canaanites. That's where Canaanites come from. They come from the line of Cain. And the Canaanites are always God's enemies, right?

He sends them into the land to drive out the Canaanites, the people who come from the wrong line, the wrong seed, so to speak, okay? Good question. The power of angels. Angels apparently have very great power.

They are called you mighty ones who do his word, Psalm 103, and powers, Ephesians 1 -2, and dominions and authorities, Colossians 1 -16. Angels are seemingly greater in might and power than rebellious human beings, okay?

At least for the time of their earthly existence, human beings are made lower than the angels. Though the power of the angels is great, it is certainly not infinite, but it is used to battle against evil demonic powers under the control of Satan.

Nonetheless, when the Lord returns, we will be raised to a position higher than that of the angels because of Jesus, right? Jesus is better than the angels. If we are united to Jesus in marriage, we too will be above the angels because of him.

The Rank, Number, and Power of Angels

Who is the angel of the Lord? All right, this is a good question, right? Several passages of scripture, especially in the Old Testament, speak of the angel of the Lord in a way that suggests that he is God himself taking on a human form to appear briefly to various people in the Old Testament.

So here we go. We use the term angel, angel of the Lord, not a created being, if this is Jesus, right? So he's a direct messenger from God, okay? In some passages, the angel of the Lord, not an angel of the Lord, is spoken of as the Lord himself.

So the angel of the Lord who found Hagar in the wilderness promises her, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude, Genesis 16, 10. And Hagar responds by calling the name of the Lord who spoke to her, for you are a God of seeing, Genesis 16, right?

So the angel of the Lord is referred to as God himself. Yes, all right, angels don't, angels, created angels don't have that power, but God does. God is the author of life. Yes, absolutely. Similarly, when Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac, the angel of the Lord calls to him from heaven and says, now I know you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.

Yeah, Joe, you had a question? Nope.

Oh, no. Hagar was the mother of Ishmael.

Yeah, she was the slave of the servant of Abraham and Sarah.

But the descendants of Ishmael are the Arab people today?

Yes, that's how it's supposed to go. Yeah, everybody says, oh, they're Muslims, but there's other lines that could be Muslim.

They were Muslims for like seven centuries. Right, exactly, exactly.

Okay. When the angel of God appeared to Jacob in a dream, he said, I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Again, when the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, he then said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

I am, there you go, that term I am. So remember John 118, it says, no one has seen God at any time. The only God who is at the Father's side has made him known or explained him. Okay, again, this goes back to the triunity of God, Father, Son, and Spirit.

Okay, the only God who is at the Father's side has made him known. Jesus is the one who exegetes or explains God the Father to the people who he comes in contact with. Okay, when it says nobody has seen God, it doesn't mean laid eyes on God.

It means understood. Like when I use the term, you see what I mean? All right, it's also John 3, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they're born again. That doesn't mean see with your physical eyes.

Nobody can see the kingdom. Nobody can understand. Seeing as in understanding. Yeah, that's important. Because a lot of people get caught saying, well, how could people see if Jesus is God and people saw him in the Old Testament, nobody can see God.

See, that's why Jesus isn't God. And when we mean see as in eyesight, they're right. But that's not what the term means. No one can see. Take the word see out and use understand. Nobody can comprehend or understand God unless Jesus, the mediator between God and man, explains him to us so that we can understand God.

As human beings who are finite, how can we comprehend or understand something that's infinite unless it's broken down to us? So very similar to when we have children, if you have ever babysat or have children, you get down on their level and you try to explain things to them so that they can understand it.

It's the same thing with God and us. He brings things down to a lower level so that we can understand some things, but we cannot understand everything there is to know about God. It's impossible. He's infinite, right?

Okay. These are clear instances of the angel of the Lord or the angel of God appearing as God himself, perhaps more specifically as God the Son taking on a human body for a short time in order to appear to human beings.

At other times, the angel of the Lord seems to be distinguished from God. See 2 Samuel 24, 16. Could you read that one?

Sure. And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, it's enough. Now stay your hand.

And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of... Yeah, him.

The Jezebel. Can you read Zechariah 1, 11 and 13? Yes. Thanks.

I'm sorry. And they answered the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees and said, we have patrolled the earth and behold, all the earth remains at rest. Then the angel of the Lord said, O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah against which you have been angry these 70 years?

And the Lord answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me.

Excellent. Passages that mentioned the angel of the Lord usually indicate an angel sent by God. Okay, so yeah. Usually when it says the angel of the Lord, you gotta look at the context, but usually that means Jesus.

In fact, when, I forget what chapter in Genesis it is, but when fire was rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah, it says the Lord rained down fire and brimstone from the Lord. So the angel of the Lord was on the earth raining down fire and brimstone from the Lord.

Again, this is an instance where you can see that God is a unity in community and a community in unity. He's not a single person. He's a community. Let us make man in our image, right? Whose image are we created in?

In the triune God, because it's our image. That's not the angels. We are not created in the image of angels. We're created in the image of God. Let us make man in our image. That's a big deal, because our worldview is the only worldview where the triune God.

No one would make that up, okay? When the apostles are teaching that in the scriptures, they're not making that up to confuse you. Because if I was trying to start a religion, I would make the doctrine real easy that you could follow.

Exactly. So this is not something they're making up. This is a reality of the Christian worldview that they're explaining to us. That's very difficult because God is holy. He's other. He's different than everything we see and experience on the earth, but he's not unknowable, okay?

He makes himself known. He reveals himself to us.

Sodom and Gomorrah were not those angels that came into Sodom?

Well, they were angels that took over human bodies. Okay. Right? Okay. All right, let's move on. When were the angels created? Again, this was another thing. We talked about gap theory between Genesis 1 .1 and 1 .2.