Angels

A loving and gracious Father, we thank you Lord for this morning. We thank you for this extra hour of rest. We pray Lord that as we gather here, that you would be with us. You would instruct us through your word and by your spirit that you would fill our hearts and minds a lot with the glories that you inhabit, that we would be encouraged and uplifted as our minds rest in you and in your splendor.

In Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Okay. Before I say anything more, I don't know if everybody knows, Pauline is leaving tomorrow for a long drive down and she'll be staying in the South. So if you don't, if you, during her, her home will be open and we'll look at a little bit about hospitality to strangers in today's text, but it can be hospitable to people you know as well.

So please be sure to say hi to hi and bye to Pauline before, before the day is over. So angels. So right on the top of the notes here, you see a one definition that is given. They are created spiritual beings and they have certain capacities.

They have moral judgment and they also have high intelligence. And yet they do not have physical bodies. Do we have extra handouts? Oh, it's over there. Thanks. All right. I'll be sure to point out next time.

Why Study Angels in Light of Reformation and Halloween

So before we get into the subject, we want to ask ourselves, is there, why do we want to look at this topic of angels? And to see that answer, let me just remind you of a couple of things that happened this past week.

So this past week we had two big events, I guess, a reformation day. We celebrated reformation 500. We also had on the same day, Halloween. And there was a, you know, very deeply spiritual experience.

I'm sure you all had that day. So with Halloween, you get to see a celebration of things that are supernatural in some sense. And maybe for most people it's just not, but there is a, at least if you turn on the TV, you get to see a lot of stuff about supernatural.

You know, most of the movies are about horror movies. Most of, even PBS keeps running the, you know, the more non-spiritual type of plays. You get to see a lot of conversations about haunted houses. I'm looking at one last night, I'm thinking, hmm, okay.

And with the reformation, the reason I wanted to bring it up is one, there was a lot of last Sunday night, Pastor Steve talked about some of the things that came out of the reformation. One of them being in the Catholic church, there was an emphasis or a wrong emphasis on worship and adoration of Mary and angels.

And there is a sense in which angels are dealt with in a way that is non-biblical. And so we want to, and from, with the reformation, we come back to the Bible and we say certain practices, even if it was done for a long period of time, you know, this angel was the angel of health or wealth or whatever it is.

You don't go talking to these angels. That's not what the Bible calls us to. So we're going to see what the Bible says about angels. And then on the same side, but on the secular world, you have all these spirits and occult and stuff that you think you can do with these demons and angels and what, how we ought to be cautious about that type of behavior.

And then on this extreme, you have the secular, more materialistic, you know, I can't really see ghosts. I mean, I look at this, yesterday I was watching that PBS thing and this person says, you know, I saw some, something closed the door.

I saw this, that, and I'm sure there's a perfectly natural explanation for all of that thing. And it's, you know, you guys just don't have the tools to understand the phenomena that you're experiencing.

And at some point science will figure it all out and there's no spirit. So that's, that's the other extreme. So in the middle, we have the scriptures that talk about these beings called angels that do exist and how we relate to them and how we understand them needs to be informed by the scriptures.

So I don't have any major theme to run through other than just walk us through these scriptures and get a sense of what angels are, how we must, by the end of the Sunday school, how do our minds reflect this knowledge in a way that is appreciative of the God who makes these angels and uses them for his purposes and his purposes in our lives, especially here today as we worship.

So with that, I'm just going to walk us through these scriptures. So I need volunteers to read the scriptures that you have before you. So I need someone to read Nehemiah 9, 6, just raise your hand. Thank you.

Colossians 1, 16. All right. So let's begin with those two verses and then we'll, I'll distribute the rest. Actually, you know what? Let me give the rest of the verses too. Who can read 2 Peter 2, 4. Thank you, Pauline.

Matthew 28, 5. Thank you. I'm going to skip Revelation 4 and I need Hebrews 1, 14. Thank you. And Luke 24, 39, right in the back. And then let's get the other verses distributed as well. Numbers 22, 31.

Whoa. Okay. I'm sure someone there can read it for me. Thank you. Second Kings 6, 17. Thanks Paul. And then Luke 2, 13. Thanks Simon. And let's actually take Hebrews 13 too as well. Thanks. Okay. We have the whole section covered.

Angels as Created Beings in Heaven

Let's begin with Nehemiah 9, 6. When you look at this passage, you know, one of the interesting things about angels is you don't really have a lot that just is intended for you to have a systematic knowledge of angels.

They're just scattered throughout the rest of the scriptures, either in the narratives or in praise or in prayer, where they just happen to be part of the narrative. They're never the main focus of the narrative.

Who's the main focus of this verse here? God. It's all about God and his creation and his splendor. He makes the heavens and the heaven of heavens and everything that is inside the heaven of heavens. They didn't exist by themselves.

They're not eternal, co-eternal with God. They were all created and God is the one who makes them. And right there, tucked in that praise of God and his creation and his majesty are creatures that are listed in passing almost, it seems like.

So the host of heaven is what it calls about. Host. And that's one of the terms used for angels, where it is like these armies of angels that inhabit heaven. This is not just like one or two angels up there.

This is like a wide array of beings that inhabit heaven. And then the verse concludes with, they all worship the God who created them. So that's really the picture you want to leave with Nehemiah 9 .6.

Angels, they are created beings, they inhabit heavens and they worship and they are all made by our wonderful God. So that's Nehemiah 6. Colossians 1 .16 takes that a little bit further. Here again, you get to see, who is the him here?

God, yes. And it's one person of the Trinity. Actually, no, it's Christ. So if you go one verse up, you get to see how Jesus is the preeminent one in all of creation. And if you just read that verse, you wouldn't know the distinction.

It'd be like, okay, this looks like it's talking about God the Father and it actually is the Son. And in fact, the ending of that verse says, all things were created through him and for him. So he is the agent of creation.

And sometimes we want to remember that Jesus Christ is the one who is involved in creation. But what were the things that were created in this verse 16? All things, yes. And if you wanted to categorize them, go ahead.

On earth and in heaven. So things that are in heaven, when you think of heaven, you can think of all the celestial bodies, but specifically here, things that inhabit the heaven of heavens and the presence of God, similar to Nehemiah 9 .6.

These, the visible things, which would be the sun, moon, stars, but also the invisible things, which are these angelic beings that inhabit heaven. Excellent. There is a, Paul uses this again, if I'm not mistaken, Ephesians 1 or 2.

Is it, does anybody remember where it is? In the end of one, I think he uses the same term referring to these principalities in the, in the heavens. And in fact, if you look at the verse, I know not all of you are turned there.

He talks about visible and invisible. And then there is a hyphen and then it says, you know, thrones and dominions and rulers and principalities. And there has been some who thought maybe these four entities are on the human sphere of influence, you know, the king and the judges and the governors and things like that.

But that's not really the meaning of this context. In the context of this verse, it's talking about the invisible beings that are actually, they have a hierarchy, they have a structure, a government, if you will.

Sometimes I just think all angels are like these little cherubs. And by the way, we're going to look at cherubim, they're nothing like the cherubs that you see pictured. But we think of angels in like one monolithic sense, but there are various kinds of angels and not only kinds of angels, but they have hierarchy.

Just like how we understand rule and authority here, there is a structure for these beings. And we think of them in the positive sense, the angelic beings. And likewise, you also have the demons, the fallen angels, who also are called as principalities.

All right, let me stop there for a moment. Any comments, thoughts on these two verses? And in fact, I think we covered this like a year ago. Even when you look at Genesis 1 and John 1, Genesis 1, we have in the beginning, God created heavens and the earth.

And then we look at the spirit hovering over the waters, and then you have God speaking and everything coming into existence. And then that is Genesis 1. And in John 1, we have in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and then all things were made through him.

Without him was not anything made that was made. So you have this sense of this triune role in creation. And then there are places where the role of the second person of the Trinity is kind of emphasized.

You know, it's through him that all things are made. Good point. All right, so let's move to the next section. If you have anything, please raise your hand, we'll stop. So they exercise moral judgment.

Angels as Moral and Intelligent Beings

And this is one of the things that I normally don't think of with regards to angels. Who has that verse? Thank you. Before we look at the angelic part of that verse, what do you think the point of that few verses is?

That's right. And he gives examples of all of those different types of judgments that God has executed. Once again, what is the point of the passage? You know, we have a God who is holy, who is a God who will not wink over evil.

And it is, you know, we can, when we meet him in heaven, there will be no sin, no evil, nothing that is sinful in his presence. And he will deal with all evil, all sin. That's the main point. And by the way, you get to hear something about angels while you're looking at this God in the scriptures.

And what is it that we hear about the angels in this verse? That's right. So not only could they sin, they did sin, and God has executed his judgment upon them. And so really the point that is given here is that they can exercise moral judgment.

And when we think of angels, these are beings, and they're not like little genies that, you know, kind of blindly do things. They exercise certain volitional capacities about moral choices that you make.

They're not like a dog or a cat. They have the capacity to do good or do evil. There is a little bit more to this. I don't know if I'm going to cover this later. Maybe I'll just say this in passing because we may not get to this at a later point.

So, you know what, that might take time. Let's stop. If you have any questions, please raise them. We'll address them as we go. So they are moral beings, and that's the point of this verse. So the next one we'll do quickly, Matthew 28, 5.

Who has that? So looking at this verse, how do you get the implication that angels are actually intelligent beings? In fact, the way you want to be thinking of angels is they are like persons, like us.

We are rational beings who can think and reason. We are beings who observe and can relate to what has happened in the past and what is coming in the future. And that's how we see ourselves. As our brain processes things, our mind puts things together.

And then we communicate those things with the intelligence that God has given us. And in this particular way, we reflect the intelligence of God and his personhood. God is spirit. He doesn't have a brain, physical brain like we do, except the second person of the Trinity who also has the human body added on.

But God is spirit, that he's a person and he's intelligent. And in his image, we are made and we reflect that in all of our being. And so when we think of intelligence and personhood, we normally think of human beings.

And you want to be thinking of angels as having that same kind of capacity that we do in terms of being able to reason. If you look at all the pieces of data that that angel gives these women, it actually knows that these women are troubled.

It's there to give them comfort. And the way it does that is to give information about the state of Jesus, what he had said before. Come and look, his body is not here. He is gone. So there is a lot of pieces of information that is put together in a way that humans can actually understand.

So that's really the point. Maybe all of you are saying, hey, we know about that. Why are we belaboring the point? But it's helpful for us to just reflect upon what constitutes the being that we call angel.

And they are highly intelligent. The next two verses, who has Hebrew 114? And once again, it's like incidental but in passing. You know that they are spirits. And they do not have, while they are persons like us, they are individuals who have the capacity to think, have emotion.

And they have a will, we will see in a moment. But they do not have bodies like we do. They are just spirits, like God is spirit. So also they are spirit without bodies. And who has Luke 2439? Thank you.

And once again, here is Jesus, the resurrected Jesus. He is talking about his resurrected body and that it is flesh and bones. It's a reconstituted body, but it is still a physical body. And it is distinct from that of a spirit, which Jesus clearly states doesn't have flesh and bones.

Again, it's not an angelology one-on-one. Let me tell you all about angels. While Jesus is talking about his resurrected body, he is just comparing it with a spirit and trying to tell these people who are terrified that he is not a spirit.

Or an angel, which do not have a physical body. All right. So with that, all of you are probably thinking of point number four here, or D here, which is, wait, I thought we've seen people connect with angels.

Angels Appearing in Human Form and Interacting with People

So we have these three verses we're going to briefly look at. Who has Numbers 2231? Oh, great. Go ahead. Good job. So, and this is one of those places where we start to connect what happens in our physical, normal world with this invisible world where these angels inhabit, where they encounter one another.

Obviously, you know, this path of, well, if you don't know this, what happens here is you have Balaam, who is going to King Balak, who wants to put a curse on the Israelites. And God has already warned him the previous day, you know, you know, if you go, you must say only what I have, what I put in your mouth.

We don't really know what Balaam is thinking as he's walking. And his donkey can actually see the angel first. And it tries to prevent him from going through. And do you want to add something? Sometimes we might be intelligent beings, but morally, I don't know, not all the time, but many of the times we're going to see that in a moment.

Yeah, in this. Yeah. No, go ahead. That's an excellent point. And that's one of the things I want us to distinguish that are actually Lucifer. And if you have time, you might actually get to Lucifer and demons as well, but probably not today.

We see angels at times take on human form so we can actually see them in the physical world. But that is actually different than what actually constitutes them, because we're going to be seeing in a moment some angels have wings, some angels have certain appearance, not in the assumed form, but in the form that they exist, which we cannot see because they are invisible to us, but they are created in a certain way in the spirit world.

So for us, I think some of these things will necessarily remain as a mystery in terms of understanding what that entity is, because obviously it's not physical. But they do have, as you'll see, some angels have six wings, some angels have faces that look like something that's similar to what we have, and they are not assuming those forms.

This is who they are or this is how they appear in the spirit world. So we're not given much. As I said, certainly, and in fact, both Ezekiel and John will use the word like a lot because they can't really say it is this because they need words that need to describe something that they haven't ever seen before.

And they have to put some kind of analogy so we can get a little bit of a glimpse of what they've seen. Thank you. That was an excellent point. So this angel in Balaam's case is actually appearing, not in an assumed form, but it is actually there with a drawn sword.

In fact, you see a sword even in the end of Genesis 3, and we're going to see that angel in a moment. But these angels had a certain function, and this particular angel was there to kill Balaam if he would disobey the word of the Lord.

So there seems to be, given what Balaam was told before, he had told God, yeah, I will say what you will say. But as he's walking down, only the Lord knows what he was thinking. And he's there, and the angel comes there with a drawn sword.

The donkey sees first and discerns, and then the donkey starts talking, and Balaam still doesn't get it. And then God has to open his eyes, so he's finally like, oh, OK, I'm in mortal danger here. There's an angel before me.

And so you get to see this angel. So the next example is just as spectacular, 2 Kings 6 .17. Thank you, Paul. So here you have the enemy armies, and every time they try to attack Israel, Israel seems to know all their battle plans and strategies.

So the king, I think it's Syria, he says, well, you know, we have a spy in our midst, someone that is telling all our plans to them, and they just know how to avoid all our sorties. And they say, no, no, no, they have a prophet whose name is Elijah.

And he, Elisha, right? Thank you. I sometimes get them mixed up. So Elisha. And he, God reveals it to him, and he's the one who tells the king, and therefore we are unable to. So the king changes strategy.

He says, let's forget Israel. Let's go after this prophet. If we get him, then we should be fine. If I was the king, I'd be thinking, hmm, I'm assuming he will already know if he knows that I'm going to attack Israel, that I'm going after him.

But here he comes to Dothan, and the servant of Elisha is terrified because he sees this entire army against just Elisha and his servant. Then they don't have, I'm not sure they're skilled in warfare.

And Elisha's words are, those who are with us are greater than those who are with them. And the servant, I don't know if it is Gehazi who appears later, but the guy must be like, I don't see anybody. And then Elisha prays, and his eyes are open, which really means he's just given the ability to see into the invisible world that we normally don't.

Let me just stop there for a moment. Why do you think we normally don't have the ability? Why does God not give us the ability to see into the supernatural world? That can be a strong temptation. We're going to be seeing that in a moment.

You see all these glorious beings. Many of the people who first see them get terrified. They're in awe of these glorious beings. And then we would see, you know, don't bash the Catholics too much because John has trouble with that.

When he sees the angels in heaven, he's like falling down, and they have to pick him up and say, no, we are also servants. We are there to serve our God. You must worship God alone. And so that God in his wisdom doesn't show these things that are happening around us because our focus, as we've seen in all of these texts, our focus should not be on the angels, but in the God who created these angels, who uses these angels in order that they may minister to us.

And we need to be aware of them because the scripture reveals God could have chosen to erase everything from the angels about the angels from the scriptures. And we would be blissfully ignorant of the means that God uses in ministering to us.

But God has graciously opened our eyes to that truth. And with that, in that, we rejoice. But you can just imagine the servants wonder as he sees all these chariots of fire around. And God could have wiped out that army.

But again, God graciously in that event chooses not to. And if you are interested, continue reading the rest of the chapter six and second Kings. So the last one is Luke to 13. So here, Christmas time, we think of the shepherds and these shepherds could see these agents.

They had their eyes opened into the splendor of these angels as they proclaim the good news, the wonderful news that we have the savior who is born. And and again, you get glimpses of what these angels look like as you see these eyes opened and we get to see them.

And the last one is Hebrews 13 to who has that? How many of you have done hospitality to strangers in the last year? Maybe ever wonder, you know, in the in the in the biblical. Oh, actually, before we go to our times, who in the Bible do you think was hospitable to strangers?

That's right. When did that happen? That again. But that's that's a good, good reminder of how you want to be hospitable to in that particular case. So you have God himself and two angels with him that come and Abraham invites them and gives them a meal.

And then the two of the angels go forward into Sodom and Gomorrah. And even there, they are received well by a lot. And you get to see how and actually Hebrews 13 is a more explicit verse. You know, we the point is that the point there, again, is not, hey, get as many strangers in.

So maybe you might maybe see an angel. The point there is be hospitable and remembering that sometimes, you know, angels come in human form and you might actually be serving these angels and, you know, say hi in heaven when you see them.

I don't know. Yes. Yes. And that is true. And you need to be a little careful in distinguishing these things, because there is one in terms of their constituent nature. We need we go with what Jesus said.

You know, spirit doesn't have flesh and bones. They don't have the kind of calcium based bones. And I don't know what tissues are made of. You know, this is not the kind of stuff they have. So that's why an angel in and of itself doesn't have these things.

But you have these two other aspects we talked about. One is they take on a body or they appear in human form, which is what I think Hebrews 13 to is talking about. They don't look no different than any other human being.

So when you see them, you're not thinking, oh, this is. An alien or whatever, you know, well, alien may not be a I don't know if I just opened a bad can of worms, but may not be a bad word to use in relation to angels, because as far as we are concerned, they are alien to our understanding of what they are and what constitutes those beings, because they do have.

Like the wings that I talked about, there are certain things that they have, they do that, that angel in Balaam's case had that sword, which I don't know is not the spiritual sword, but it could, I'm sure, cut just as fine as your sword when it came to Balaam.

And the donkey knew that and prevented Balaam from dying. So there are things that they can do. The spirit doesn't mean they they are incapable of doing certain things. They can do much more than we can do, except without the body.

But when they come in this physical form, I think everything you said, you know, everything a human being does, like you said, they grab their hands and move. They did it in the same way that human beings would because they assume this form at this time.

Certainly, yes, there is just one caveat there that I want to emphasize. Their appearance and disappearance is startling because many a time they just appear out of nowhere and then suddenly they disappear or they go up into the sky.

And so the way they enter space, or at least visible space to us, is always, well, we don't know how they do it. Maybe they just turn on the invisible mode and then go away. Whatever it is that they do, they they have they don't come keep unless, of course, they assume a human body and they're a stranger.

They walk in your door and walk out the door. Then you don't know it. But once they cross the corner, they're gone. But when it comes to time and space, they are we need to be very careful because while they are spirit beings, they are different than God in the sense that we know God is omnipresent and omnipresent in space.

Eternal in terms of time, but eternally, we normally think of in terms of line, and that's where I think this in and out of time can come in because God is beyond time as well. But when it comes to these angelic beings, we have texts and I don't know if I have references here where the angels are sent, for example, from heaven to earth.

And in Daniel's case, he is actually coming in response to a prayer, but he's hindered for 21 days by something else, this Prince of Persia. So he's unable to reach his destination until Michael comes and helps him.

And then this angel is able to communicate what God has. And then he goes back. So their travel, while different than our kind of travel, is still they have they have to move from place to place. It's not like they are outside of space the way we would think of it.

They need to still travel when it comes to time. When you said created, there is a starting point of time, but then they are eternal beings like like we are now after our points of existence. And and in that sense, they are, once again, eternal.

But I don't know. I don't know of any text that talks about how they inhabit or exhibit. I think they from everything I see, I think they still inhabit time except their bodies are out there. Our bodies, their beings are different in the sense that they don't age.

They are created in a way that doesn't decay like we do with the fall with our bodies. That's my uneducated guess. So I don't want to take it further. But thank you. And actually, one of the points you mentioned, Charlie and Charlie, please keep bringing these things, because I think these conversations are more helpful than just going through these texts because you have these verses.

We can go back and look. Hospitality is crucial to understand in the context of the Old Testament, because there is no ends. I mean, think of the Old Testament in Abraham's time. You know, here are the people traveling through weary people.

They need a place to rest and a food to eat. And you look at. Even in the New Testament, where, you know, by the time you have ends with the Roman civilization, these ends are disreputable, these are not places that you really want your Christian brothers to travel while you're going on missions.

And which is why you have second John, third John talking about how you must keep your doors open to people who are coming, because this is all part of the body. You are helping another brother or a sister in Christ.

And that's hospitality is built in into that into the fabric of that culture that you live. Here is how you serve your brothers when there is no place for them to go. And and in our context today, it doesn't mean that.

You know, you it's necessarily a meal or a place to stay, which may be the case, depending on who needs the help or if there is a need for such a help, but just the same heart that these saints just displayed in the old and the New Testament.

We want to have that same generosity to those who are in our midst and people that we don't know and a different kind of. We may be seeing different kind of people in our environment, people that maybe you're witnessing to people that you just want to show the love of God to, and you want to be hospitable, knowing that.

No, not knowing you're doing that for the glory of God, and you might end up accidentally serving some angels. And one of the things that where I disagree with Grudem is I don't know if if that happens today, you might actually find out that they are angels and you might find them out in heaven.

I don't know if the knowledge that you're entertaining an angel will be something you will know on this side of eternity. I think that's just up to up to the Lord. All right, so let's any other thoughts, Charlie, anything, anything else you want to add?

Thank you. All right, let's look at the next section quickly. I need someone to read Job one six. Thank you. Psalm eighty nine five. Thanks. Psalm. Actually, can you do both five and seven? Thanks. And then he well, we already saw Hebrews one fourteen.

We'll skip that. Daniel four thirteen. Thank you. All right, let's begin with Job one six. I'm not going to spend too much time on this. Sons of God are here referring to the angelic beings in the heaven that are bringing back and coming back to God and providing them information.

And not let me back up. Angel does. Actually, I forgot to say this. What is the word angel mean? Anglos. What is it? Yes. Messenger. Yes. And they are here. We saw ministering spirits from Hebrew, but they are here as God's messengers.

And here God has these angels come back and kind of report out to him where we have several packs passages. Maybe we'll see a couple of them where we get to see these angels in this in this mode of communicating.

And Satan, who is this fallen angel, happens to show up as well in in Job one. Psalm eighty nine. Again, here it is called the holy ones. And and again, the Psalm is looking at God and the inhabitants of heaven.

You know, the God just stands out. I mean, we need to be always conscious that God is infinite in all of his attributes. And yet he makes these beings holy. In fact, we see them called as the elect angels in certain I think it's in Peter.

And you have these angels that were made. Some fell and these fallen angels do not have a hope of redemption like we do. But the unfallen ones are called the elect. And these are the ones that will not fall.

And they are the holy ones that reflect the holiness of God in the holy presence of the God whom they worship. We already saw how their spirits and Hebrews one and the next one is watches. And that's thank you.

So this is King Nebuchadnezzar. He has his dream. He has this tree that gets cut down. And so he has a vision. And then he describes this vision to Daniel. And then Daniel then explains what this vision really means.

So he gives the meaning of this text. But it's a very interesting word to be used of angels. I realize we're out of time, so we'll probably stop here. But watches. Are you being watched? Right now, one of the things that we see about the angels is their worship.

They are constantly worshiping God and especially here in a corporate worship. You know, you need to be thinking, you know, to me, as I was preparing this thing through this week, it was just a strong reminder.

I know that God is always watching me. And these these angelic beings are not omniscient in the sense that God is because God watches everything at the same time. And he observes all things. But you have these angelic beings that exist.

And we saw the sons of heaven coming back and reporting. Even Satan says, oh, have you seen Jesus? Ask him, have you considered my servant Job? And he's like, yeah, I've seen him. I know all about him, except that he's got a big fence around his spiritual life and I can't get in.

And and the angels likewise also observe. They know. And we have many of these. Actually, we have, in fact, I think it's the Matthew 10, 18, 10, where you talk about the little ones, their angels are looking up to heaven, so to their father in heaven.