Angels: God's Invisible Army, Part 3

Selected Sciptures

Tonight, we come to the concluding message in our brief series on God's invisible army, study of the holy angels.
 

This is part three in our study. And in the first two parts and in this one as well, we're really kind of preparing our hearts for a study of the book of Colossians. And we're going to begin that study, Lord willing, next week. So, you might be reading the book of Colossians this week and kind of preparing your heart as we'll dive in on the following Lord's day.

Now we've discussed in these messages many facts about the holy angels. In past years and past messages we've covered in some detail the fallen angels, the demons and so we felt that we ought to really give equal time to God's holy angels, the ones that didn't fall. And I hope that out of this study together we all have a greater understanding of angels.

I'm sure we do. But beyond that, I hope we have a greater understanding of God. I think the one thing that I have gained out of this study, the one thing that keeps coming back to me is the tremendous care that God has taken to assure and insure the security of His children in a physical sense. It's alleviated a lot of the burden that I might normally bear over anxieties' for physical accident, or disease, or some kind of danger, just to know that God's angels are ministering to the physical care and protection and guidance of God's children.

Now, we found them to be amazing beings. And I'm sure that we'll never fully understand them until we meet them.

And then maybe our understanding will be increased to really get a glimpse of what they're like. We kind of discussed a little bit last week, and I'll just jump in at this point.

whether angels sing. And Esther Vernon sang that song about the song of the angels and that was the most commented‑on song that's ever been sung in this church. Everybody got up here after that and was analyzing the theology of the song. And the question comes up ‑ Do angels sing? Let me show you something interesting about it, just as a starter tonight, Job chapter S8 and verse 7, describing in this section the creation of God as He creates the world. Verse 4 talks about Him laying the foundation of the earth. And verse 5, measuring it, and so forth. Verse 7 says that all of this creation occurred when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God...and, of course, that refers to angels, shouted for joy. So, we know the angels sang at the creation of the world, at the creation of the universe. "All the morning stars sang together."

So, we know the angels sing.

Now to give you a parallel, look at Revelation chapter 5 verse li Revelation chapter 5, verse 11: "And I beheld and heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures and the elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb." And here the angels are crying out, "Worthy is the Lamb."

Now the question is ‑ are they singing? Verse g, back up:

"And they sang a new song." Did the four living creatures, who are angels, and the four and twenty elders, I believe are representatives of the church, and it appears as though all the rest of the angels join that new song. So, yes ‑ mark this ‑the angels are seen singing twice in the Bible. Once at the creation of the world, once again at the return of Jesus Christ.

Do you know what is particularly interesting about that?

There is no record of them ever singing in between those two things. It seem as though immediately after God made the world and man fell, the angels lost their song. And the thing that will restore the angels' song is the return of Jesus Christ; and then they'll sing again.

Now, in the meantime, while they're not singing, they're very busy doing other things and we've been studying that. We have talked about their existence, their origin, the fact that they were created beings, their nature that they are spirit beings and yet they have a form because they move from one place to the other.

So, we've seen their existence, their origin and their nature, and last time we began to look at their ministry. And we said there are four categories of ministry for angels. They minister to God. They minister to Christ. They minister to the believer, and they minister to the unbeliever. Those are the four categories in which angels minister.

First of all to God we said they are ministers of worship and ministers of service. We see the angels in the Bible just standing around the throne of God saying, "Holy, holy, holy."

Just praising God, just exalting God, just worshiping God.

Then we also see them serving God. God has something to do and He sends His angels as messengers.

Secondly, we said that angels have a ministry toward Christ.

We saw the angels minister to Christ in announcing His birth.

They ministered to Him right around the time of His birth, all through His earthly life. They ministered to Him at His temptation, early in His life. Later at His resurrection and they were there attending His ascension into heaven. And they'll be with Him when He comes back. But we said in all of the life of Christ, there was one period of time when the angels weren't helping. You remember what it was? It was when He died. And that's the time He said if I wanted, I could have called 12 legions of angels but He chose not to in order that He might die for you and for me. Apart from that the angels attended Him throughout all of His life. And they still serve Him and He'll come back with them in His second coming.

Thirdly, in the ministry of angels we began to see the ministry of angels toward believers. How angels minister to us as Christians. And that really was exciting. In Hebrews 1:14 we took a kind of a basic verse, it says: "Sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." Angels are servants, sent forth to minister for the heirs of salvation. That's us.

Angels have as their ministry taking care of Christians. Now that would be a full‑time job. No question about it. God has some of them busily occupied caring for us. There is some indication that there are certain angels assigned to certain believers. People always ask me ‑ Do we have a guardian angel?

Well, I'm not sure we only have one, I would rather think we probably have a whole bunch of them that are on command for our needs.

What do the angels do for the believer? First of all, we saw last time, and this is just a quick review, they are busy watching us. They watch the church. Remember I told you they watch the women to make sure that they're in submission. They watch the preacher. They watch the believer in his life. In fact, Daniel even calls angels by the name watchers.

Secondly, they reveal God's truth. We see them in the Bible days many times as the agency by which God's scriptures are brought.

When God wrote with His finger on Mount Sinai in the stone, the law, the angels then took the law and brought it to Moses, they are the delivery agents of God's revelation...in many cases.

Thirdly, for the believers, they are busy guiding. We see throughout God's history angels guiding men of God to various places. An angel guided Philip. An angel guided Cornelius. An angel guided Peter.

Fourthly, they are busy providing. You remember when Elijah ran down the road and didn't have anything to eat? An angel came and ministered to him and touched him and fed him, nourished him.

And so, they are watching, revealing, guiding and providing.

And then we come to a fifth, and that's where we begin for tonight. The fifth ministry that angels have as we find in the Bible toward believing people is protecting. They're involved in protecting us. They keep God's people from physical danger.

Angels are involved in protecting. Let me give you an illustration of it. Turn in your Bible to Daniel chapter S, in Daniel S, I love this story, this is just terrific. Nebuchadnezzar had an ego problem, to put it mildly, and he wanted everybody to stop worshiping any god except himself. And everybody had to be worshiping Nebuchadnezzar, made a law. Well, there were some...some Hebrew people who didn't care for that. And so they decided they'd worship God ‑ Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. You remember the story. And they said, "Nebuchadnezzar," verse 18, backing up, they said: "Nebuchadnezzar, we're not careful to answer you in this matter." In other words, we aren't even concerned about this...we..we don't even have any anxiety over this whole deal, Nebuchadnezzar, we're just go about doing what we always do.

"And if it so be that our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us our of your hand, O king, but if not, be it known unto you, O king, we still won't serve your gods and worship the golden image which you set up." We're not about to. Well, Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury, he really got mad. And I like this, "The form of his visage was changed." You know what that means? It means he screwed up his face he was so mad...ohhh, he just got furious.

"And he spoke and commanded they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated." Heat that furnace up.

They're going in. "He commanded the most mighty men that were in his army," he was afraid he was going to get a fight so he got the strong arms, "to bind them and throw them in the burning fiery furnace, and these men were bound in their coats, their stockings, their turbans, their other garments and cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace was so hot. the flame of fire slew those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego."

The guys that threw them in all burned to death cause the fire was so hot. "And the three men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, fell down, bound in the midst of the fiery furnace." The other guys are burning and they're just in there.

"Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste and spoke and said unto his counselors, Did not we cast three men, bound, into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto him.

King, true, O king." You're right ‑ three. "He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking around in the midst of the fire and they are not hurt. And the form of the fourth is like the son of the gods." Well, Nebuchadnezzar was shocked, so much so, verse 28 says: "Nebuchadnezzar came near the mouth of the burning fiery furnace and spoke and said, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, you servants of the Most High God, come out of there and come here. Then Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came forth from the midst of the fire."

It's terrific, isn't it? "And the princes and the governors and the cap...king's counselors, being gathered together, saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were the coats changed nor the smell of fire passed on them." Not...absolutely unaffected. "And Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who hath sent His angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him."

You know who the fourth was? Some say it was Jesus Christ.

For sure it was an angel...maybe the angel of the Lord. One like unto the son of the gods, was the comment of the pagans. An angel delivered them from the midst of a furnace that burned to death the people who tried to throw them in.

Let me show you something else in Daniel 8. Angels were busy in the life of Daniel and his friends. This time it's a different king, Darius, who has the same problem Nebuchadnezzar had, he wanted everybody to worship him, and his kind of religion. So verse 18 of Daniel 8 says they called Daniel and brought him and cast him into the den of lions. Well, the king commanded to do that.

"Now the king spoke and said to Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, He'll deliver thee." You know, I really think that this king liked Daniel a lot. And I think he really believed in Daniel's God and he said ‑ Don't worry about it, Daniel. I've had the history of your God reported to me and you're going to be okay. You're going to get in there and he'll take you out. Now that's what's called the faith of a pagan, see. "And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, with the signet of his lords, that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel." And there he is in the den. "And the king went back into his room, in the palace," verse ig, "and passed the night fasting." Didn't eat. "Neither were instruments of music brought before him and his sleep went from him." He just probably paced around all night worrying about Daniel.

"The king rose very early in the morning and went in haste to the den of lions. And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel and the king spoke and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God whom thou servest continually able to deliver thee from the lions?" Are you there, Daniel? "Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live forever.

My God hath sent...what?...His angel and shut the lions' mouths that they have not hurt me." Boy, that's a fantastic story, isn't it? How did God protect Daniel? By sending an angel...or angels in this case...perhaps.

God's angels are busy protecting believers. Look at II Kings chapter ?, and we alluded to this, I think, at the beginning of our study, but look at it again...II Kings 8:S, "The king of Syria warred against Israel," that's verse S, "and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp." So, there's a war between Israel and Syria, just want to establish that.

Now you can go over to verse 1S, and there's some spying going on, verse 14:"Sent he horses and chariots and a great host and came by night and compassed the city about." Now Syria's got Israel trapped, compassed about. "And when the servant of the man of God was risen early," verse 1?, "and gone forth, behold an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots and his servant said unto him,"

this is Elisha, "Alas, my master, what shall we do, look at us we're surrounded by the enemy, the Syrians. And he said, Don't be afraid, they who are with us are more than they who are with them." The servant kind of scratched his head and ‑ What do you mean by that?

"And Elisha prayed and said, Lord. I pray You, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw." What did he see? "Behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." There was an entire angelic army surrounding them.

Do you know what that angelic army did? Interesting...verse iS.

"And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord and said, Smite the people, I pray Thee, with blindness. And He smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha." The angels apparently came down and smote them with blindness. I don't know whether they did it like that again as in Sodom, however they did it, but they did that frequently apparently. And they made them all blind and then they led them off to Samaria where they would be hopelessly out of the territory, just marched them off, stone blind, back to Samaria. And again God delivered, God protected His people.

You say ‑ Well what about in the New Testament? Do we have any illustrations in the New Testament of angels protecting the people of God? Yes. No question about it. In the 27th chapter of Acts. Now you remember this when we studied it, it's a fantastic chapter, Paul's on his way to Rome and he's in this ship and verse 14 of Acts 27, "Not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind called Euraquilo," that's a feared wind in the Mediterranean, a Noreaster, if you will, "And the ship was caught and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive."

In other words, they let go of controls and just let the wind take the ship....let it go. "And running under the lee of a certain island, on the southside of the island, which is called Clauda, we had much work to secure the boat." In other words, they were afraid they were going to lose the dinghy which was tied to the back and so they labored hard to hold it on.

And the storm was getting worse. "Which when they had hoisted it," they finally got the dinghy on board so they wouldn't lose it.

"they used helps undergirding the ship." This is what was called frapping the ship. They would throw ropes around during the midst of the storm. throwing ropes around and securing and tightening and...with wenches, to literally tighten the boards together so the whole ship wouldn't fall apart. "And they were afraid," verse 17 says.

"lest they should fall into the Syrtis." The Syrtis was a graveyard of ships on the North African coast. See, here they were on the North part of the Mediterranean and this northeastern wind comes blasting down, Euraquilo, the most feared wind, it's driving them right toward the graveyard of ships down on the north coast of Africa and they're trying to hold it all together. "They struck sail," literally means they lowered the gear, lowered everything, and just were driven with the wind.

"Being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship." They started throwing the cargo out. "The third day we cast out with our own hands, the tackle of the ship.

And when neither sun nor stars and many days appeared and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away." When the dark, you see, with no sun and no stars there was no way to navigate, and being driven by a tempest like this they had no idea what they were going to smash into.

"And after being long without food," this is terrific, "Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, Sirs, you should have listened to me when I told you not to do this. I told you you shouldn't leave Crete, now you've done it and look what's happened.

And now I exhort you to be of good cheer." Cheer up, men. "For there shall be no loss of any man's life among you but only of the ship." Now you figure that out. How would you like that news?

Folks, nobody will drown, we'll only lose the ship. Right. I mean, what do we do out here without a ship? You say ‑ How do you know that? Verse 2S: "For there stood by me this night...what?...an angel of God whose I am and whom I serve." And you know what the angel said? "Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar and lo, God has given thee all them that sail with thee."

You know. while that little ship was being blasted across the Mediterranean by that wind, there was a whole legion, or whatever, of angels hanging on to everybody and everything. God had sent His angels. The incredible story goes on to show how they came to a wonderful place of landing, they couldn't believe it. Instead of being driven south they were actually driven toward their destination. And they came in, the whole ship disintegrated on the rocks, everybody fell into the waves. A little while later as they began to come to on the shore, they checked and every single solitary person was there but the ship was totally destroyed just as the angel had said. God's angels take care to protect God's people.

One person was telling me one time they were driving on the...

on the freeway. And all of a sudden, they were very tired, and all of a sudden they woke up with a jolt and found themselves parked on the side of the freeway. And the explanation was ‑ I don't know how it happened, I fell asleep at the wheel, I was last? I knew, I was driving in the fast lane. Next thing I knew I was parked on the shoulder. See. It's got to be angels...the way some of you drive, however. you do tax the angels. No use giving them needless worries.

They protect.

You know, I think about that in reference to my children. Don't you? When I realize that God has His angels looking for them, I don't worry about them as much cause those angels can do things I couldn't do if I was there. And as I think about that experience I told you on the airplane, recently, I'm not too sure but what the angels weren't kind of under those wings taking care of that thing.

All right, let me take you to a sixth thought, and this is kind of the same but it's...it's just a little different degree. The angels are also in behalf of believers delivering them. And that's not just preventing trouble, that's getting you out of it...delivering.

I love the story in Acts 5, one of my favorite stories in all the Bible because it's again the evidence of God's care for His people.

Well, you see what happens is the early church is preaching and it's growing and the Jewish community of leaders is becoming very upset about the church. In verse 17 the high priest, probably Caiphas, 4,?

"Rose up and all tat were with him," which is the sect of the Sadducees, they were the wealthy ones, "and were filled with jealousy." Boy, they were really furious about the growth of this new sect, Christianity, they were really upset. "And they laid their hands on the Apostles." And as we've said before, it wasn't to ordain them, believe me. "They laid their hands on the Apostles and put them in the common prison." They threw them in jail...the public prison which was designed for criminals.

Now what I love about this is the next verse: "But an angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life." You see, what's so interesting about that is the Sadducees were the ones who denied angels. And God, just as if to say ‑ Take that, Sadducees ‑ sent an angel to let them out after the Sadducees had put them in. And this is kind of good. it says, "That when they heard that...heard that, they went into the temple early in the morning and they taught. But the high priest came and they that were with him, and called the council together and all the senate of the children of Israel and sent to the prison to have the prisoners brought." Doesn't know they're already over in the temple preaching.

"When the officers came, they found them not in the prison and returned and told, saying, The prison truly found we shut, with all safety." That's a good prison. We went there ‑ all locked up.

"And the keepers were standing outside before the doors." Boy.

the guards were there and the locks are secure. The only problem is, "We found no man within." How did they get out? Yeah, the angel let them out. God's angels are involved in delivering His people. That's exciting to know. You can never get yourself in a situation from which God can't get you out if that's what He chooses to do. Exciting.

You know, that ought to really give boldness to a missionary.

To go into some place where he might be a little bit fearful and realize ii I get into any kind of a problem here and God wants me out of it, that God has all of His angels at His beckon call to remove me.

Now here's Peter in Acts 12, look at this one. And he's in prison again for preaching. Acts 12:5, persecution's getting worse, they've killed James, the brother of John. And now Peter's in prison and prayers being made. Verse 8: "And when Herod would have brought him forth," Herod was going to bring him out the next day, probably kill him. "The same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains and the keepers before the door kept the prison."

Now get this ‑ he's in a prison, maximum security, he's inside the prison, there are guards on the outside of the door of his cell, and inside he is chained to two guards, one on each arm. That's security. Watch. "And behold, an angel of the Lord came upon him and a light shone in the prison and he smote Peter on the side, raised him up, saying, Arise quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands." The two guys there are sound asleep. The angel just touches him, the chains fell off and the angel said, "Gird yourself and bind on your sandals." put your belt on and get your shoes on.

Peter, we're leaving. And so he did. "And he said to him, Cast your garment about you and follow me." Throw on your coat, let's go.

"And he went out and followed him and knew not that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision." He expected to wake up any moment and be lying there still chained to those two guys.

He didn't really realize it was true. "And when they were past the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate that leads unto the city which opened to them of its own accord and they went out and passed on through one street and immediately the angel departed from him. And Peter was come to himself." He finally woke up and realized he's standing in the street, "Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent His angel and hath...what?...delivered me out of the hand of Herod."

And, of course. from there he went to the prayer meeting...

where they were praying to get him out. And he knocked on the door, and they came to the door and said ‑ It can't be you, you're in prison. And shut the door and left him there. Great faith. Right?

And you see. one of the ministries of angels is the deliverance of God's people. A striking modern parallel comes from the experience of the Indian Christian, a famous Indian Christian by the name of Sundar Sing. Some of you may have read about him. By order of the chief lama of a certain Tibetan community. Sundar Sing was thrown into a dry well which had had a lid put on it just for such purposes of throwing people in and it was secured and locked. There Sundar Sing was left to die. He said that there were many bones and there was even rotting flesh at the bottom of the well from others who had been put in there for the same reason.

On the third night when he had been crying to God in prayer. he wrote, he heard someone unlocking the lid. And a voice spoke telling him to take hold of a rope that had been lowered. He did so and was glad to find a loop at the bottom of the rope in which he could place his foot, his arm having been broken when he was thrown down.

He was then strongly pulled up, the lid was replaced and relocked.

And when he looked around in the dark to thank his rescuer, there was no one.

When morning came, Sing returned to the city in which he had been arrested and began pre