"Space, the final frontier." We grew up hearing that some of us. "These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise." Now that's fiction, there is no starship Enterprise carousing around the galaxy exploring gut there are other beings who are, who are non-fictional beings, we call them angels. Back in 1985 there was a ship out in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California I believe it was It was an exploration ship and a biologist by the name of Bruce Robison was let overboard in a one-man sub called The Deep Rover. And they put him down about 500 meters, about 1500 feet, to explore the vast deep regions of inner space, the ocean. He went down deep where the light is very very scarce and it is required to have strong lights on the front of his craft. It's an acrylic bulb that surrounded him and this little craft that took him down where the water was inky black. And he's described and photographed millions of little luminescent creatures around him. "When suddenly from seemingly out of nowhere loomed a semi-transparent creature," he said and photographed, "with thousands of tentacles, dozens of stomachs, measuring about a hundred and twenty feet long. Then, also from out of nowhere were swimming with that one were others that surrounded his ship." And no, I am not going to say they attacked and ate it, because that's what Hollywood would do to a movie. That's a real life situation. These large creatures that people for the most part haven't known existed. Now I'm telling you this because just as those creatures are existing and are a part of everyday life, they're out there all the time. But we disregard them, we don't know about them.
In the spiritual realm, there are a host of other creatures on a daily basis that we don't really pay much attention to but it's in a realm all together different, a spiritual realm. God, demons, angels, and we've discovered some of those the last few weeks. If you were to mention angels to some of your parents, the first thing that might come to their minds would be Jimmy Stewart because they would be thinking of that Christmas film that comes out every year It's A Wonderful Life where Jimmy Stewart plays the key actor in the movie George Bailey, and he's very suicidal and an angel is dispatched from heaven to keep George Bailey from committing suicide. And Jimmy Stewart goes from being very depressed to being very excited at the end and he has something to live for. Well, needless to say we popularized angels to the extent that we made them just decorations now. We put them on trees. We collect them. There are whole lines of angels that one can buy for his or her home. I read an article where one Wisconsin homemaker collected a total 11,161 angel artifacts. Now she's so into this that she's boing to remove doors and windows from walls in thehome, patch them up, to make more room for more shelves for more angel artifacts. She's into it.
Not too long ago Publisher's Weekly said that five out of ten paperbacks sold in our country have to do with angels. And of course there's hosts of articles about them. When the national news magazines but out their obligatory twic-a-year spiritual article they often highlight angels. For instance, Life magazine put out an article, "In Search of Angels." Time magazine put one out, "Angels Among Us," and they took a poll and they discovered that sixty-nine percent of Americans believe in angels, thirty-two percent believe they have felt the presence of an angel at one time or another. You can even get angel screensavers off the internet, you can order angel mousepads. And I heard of a Michigan group with the acronym HALO which stands for Helping Angel Lovers Own Stores. No joke. Why not, "Helping Angel Lovers Come up with a better name than that. But they did anyway. In fact, the article author asked, "Can McAngels be far behind?" I have even heard of angel sightings. Now these are interesting. Every now and then somebody will come up to me and basically come up with the same story and I am a skeptic by nature, I don't deny their existence, obviously and we're talking about them and we'll see in the Bible. But I've found that angel sightings are very much like Elvis sightings. And so I'm very wary to just believe them necessarily. In fact one 48-year-old woman by the name of Eileen Freeman claims to be an angelologist and says her guardian angel helped her lose a hundred and fifty pounds. So there's a whole new heavenly diet for you (laughter).
The Bible speaks about them and one of the most familiar passages is found in Luke. And if you look at chapter 1, in verse 11, "Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him (that is, to Zachraias the priest) Standing on the right side of the altar of incense and Zacharias saw him and was troubled and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard. And your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you will call his name John." And if you skip down to verse 26, "In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to here, "Rejoice highly favored one. The Lord is with you, blessed are you among women." And then in chapter 2 we see him again in the most familiar story of all, verse 8, "There were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night. Behold an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were greatly afraid. And the angel said, "Do not be afraid for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which is to be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign, you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men." Now tonight we want to look at the identity of angels and the ministry of angels. Who are they and what do they do? Do you realize that you may have met an angel? You say, "Oh no, no, no. I would've known if I met an angel. You know the wings give it away. The halo, the whole bit, I would've recognized an angel." Well that's just the point. You may have met an angel and you wouldn't necessarily have recognized that being. For the writer of Hebrews tell us, "Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it." I think perhaps one of the reasons we tend to dismiss the idea of angels, at least some who do, is because of all of the lame caricatures that have been put out there about who angels are supposed to be. Who are these beings? What are they like? Do they have long flowing robes? Do they have wings? Do they really play harps? Is there some rule that says they have play harps? Couldn't they play a guitar? Are they always female like is often portrayed? Who are they, what do they do?
A few things I just want to bring up as a preliminary here, preliminary in the identity of angels. First of all, they're all over the Bible. That is they're referred to often in the scripture. How much? Well, thirty-four books of the Bible, seventeen in the Old and seventeen in the New bring reference to thse angelic visitors, these angels. Now these are real references. These are people who write about them, say they have seen them, not in a vision, not in a dream, not because they ate pizza late at night but a real bona fide experience with angelic beings. Thirty-four different books. The word angel is mentioned 103 times in the Old Testament and 165 times in the New. The term angel, angelos, means a messenger. It is often a word that is used for any kind of a messenger, even a pastoral messenger or somebody who would be a human messenger, but mowt often it refers to this special spiritual being that we normally refer to as an angel. Where' they come from? Well, this is where we need to distinguish between myth and reality, between fact and fiction because truth be told, just about every ancient culture, worldview, spiritual ideology mentions or depicts some form of angel. All the way from the Babylonians who pictured spirit beings going between the gods in the heavens, bringing messages to the gods on the earth to the Greeks and the Romans who pictured gods, goddesses, demigods, very active from the heavens on the earth. A Muslim legend says that when Muhammed was transported into heaven, he saw an angel with seventy thousand heads, each head had seventy thousand faces, each face had seventy thusand mouths, each mouth had seventy thousand tongues and each tongue could speak seventy thousand languages. All of this is myth obviously. Ancient Egyptian artifacts and archeological finds show that the Egyptians as well as the ancient Sumerians believed and taught about angels. So, because of that, because every ancient culture mentions them, it would be quite easy to take the biblical account of angels and relegate it as Bill Moyers has done in his powerful series on the myth and say, "This is the Hebrew myth." "This is the New Testament biblical myth, just like so many other myths." Or, what it could show is that these other ancient cultures preserved at least a distorted memory of actual early experiences and revelations of angels. In other words, there were angelic beings and are angelic beings that intersected in history, they were experienced, they were seen, it was revealed but being unbelievers over a period of time as history unfolded it became a distorted picture. Just like the story of the flood is mentioned in virtually every other cosmology. They see to have been present at the creation of the universe.
I'm going to read you a passage, it's in Job 38, I didn't want you to turn to too many passages tonight, so a couple of them I'm going to read. Now in Job 38, Job is sort of about done with his period of suffering. He's been asking, "Why this..? and "Why that...?" and questioning God and so God has a few questions for old Job. And he comes to him and he says, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" "Tell me if you have understanding." "Who determined its measurements. Surely you know." Or, "Who stretched a line upon it? "To what were its foundations fastened?" Or, "Who laid its cornerstone? When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Or, as the New Living translation puts it, "As the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy." It would seem then then what God is saying is that the angels at the creation had like front-row seats. They had like the best view, just checking it out, watching God fling the planets out and spread out the universe, seeing it all put in perfect order. So these were created beings. Created beings.
According to Jesus in Matthew 22, angels don't procreate. Which means each one (get this) is a special creation by God. Making angels immortal. Not eternal because they had a beginning, they were created, before the material universe. But being eternal in that they are spiritual and they never will died. Because of that reason that they're specially created by God they are sometimes referred to in the scripture as the sons of God. Don't let the term throw you. It means these are specially created beings as a direct creation by God. In Job chapter 1, "The sons of God appeared before God and Satan was among them." We discovered that last week. So, before the material universe God created these spirit being called angelos, angels, a third of them fell with Lucifer as we saw last week, 'The didn't keep their first estate" as the New Testament writer puts it. Two thirds of them remain loyal and it's the two-thirds that we look at tonight.
A second thing in their identity, they're normally invisible. And I say normally invisible. Billy Graham calls them god's secret agents. They are spirit beings, they are non-corporeal, they don't have a body, they are spiritual beings. They are called in Hebrews 1 "ministering spirits," which gives them an advantage, they're unhindered, they're unrestricted like we are. You know we are very restricted in our human bodies and our bodies decay. They are unhindered like humans are and they are not subject to decay. Now I say they're invisible most of the time, on special occasions for whatever reason God has, he clothes them with some form of a body. Now I've been asked to explain this and I have a tough time doing it. I can only give you an analogy. Can I do that? Let's go back to Star Trek (and I'm not a Trekkie by the way, this is just an illustration that comes to mind) you have the Federation starships carousing around the universe, they're taking some long trips. What do they do for entertainment? Do you remember? The Holideck or the Holisuite. And this is this virtual reality where they go into this large room and if they're a human they can program in a scene that is done holographically, three-dimensionally, but it appears, it looks like, it feels like, it smells like reality. So if you're from the earth and you're on this long journey across space you could program in and design the Swiss Alps and climb them. If you're a Klingon you can create a famous space battle in the past and practice your fighting skills. And then when you're all done with it, you can just says, "Computer, end program." And you're back to the room again and you go back and you go on do your duties. So, it's as if in periods of history God clothes these spirit beings with a body. Til he's done and he can just say, "End program."
We see that t he angelic beings appear visually as sort of like divine security guards in the Garden of Eden. They are there with a flaming sword keeping people from coming back in, Adam and Eve. We see them a little bit later as Abraham invites three men who are angels into his tent and they're visitors and they eat with him. What do you feed an angel? (I know you're thinking, "Angel food cake." Probably not.) These guys just appeared like normal human beings. We see that angels are like divine bouncers, a few chapters later, the very next chapter in fact and angels preserve him as they destroy the city. We see angels protecting Peter in Acts chapter 12, spring him from angel, like a Special Op angel. But for the most part thought they appeared now and then, for the most part they're invisible. They're invisible. Why? My opinion: If they were visible all the time humans would have a tendency to worship them. Don't you think? I mean we're worshipping Jesus' face in a tortilla, what would we do if we saw an angel? We'd fall down and worship the thing. Men, we're given to that kind of activity. By the way, even John did this in Revelation. He said, "I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things but he said to me, "See that you do not do this. for I am your fellow servant. Worship God." And that could be a message to anybody who would worship saints or any other personage before God. Even the angel would not accept it, God was to be worshipped.
Third, there's a lot of them, they're mentioned in scripture. There's a lot of them. They're great in number, how many of them? Again we don't know but there's a lot of them. And this, has been actually a theological debate over the years. People have actually tried to assign a number to them. "How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?" Like, who cares? But one theolotian, Albertus Magnus was precise. He said, "There are (emphatically) three hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and twenty thousand and four angels." Where di he get this from? Probably pizza late one night but it's not from the Bible. But we know there's a lot of them. When Jesus was born, we just read it, "A multitude of the heavenly host proclaimed worship to him." In Revelation 5, "I saw ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands." Millions, innumerable amounts of angels. And they're classified. I don't mean they're secret as much as they have rankings, classifications. We don't exactly know what they mean but we know that there's only three angels that have ever been named, at least to our knowledge, we have the names of them. Lucifer, he fell. Michael, called an archangel in the book of Jude. And Gabriel. Michael has a special duty to oversee the nation of Israel. He's called the prince of your people to Daniel. And he was the guardian and I believe still is, the guardian of the nation of Israel. And just looking at their history, I think he's done a pretty good job of it. I look at a nation that has been attacked several times, the city of Jerusalem has been leveled 36 times, raised from the ashes 37 times. Went through dispersions, one for two thousand years almost. They were brought back into the land. They've gon e through Holocausts and persecution etcetera. And they still are in existence. There is the angel Gabriel and Gabriel seems to be a special messenger from God which handles Jesus' stuff, the Messiah. He announced to Mary that she's pregnant and announced to Joseph and was there at the ministry of Jesus Christ on earth. Then there are cherubim. Satan was a cherub, "the anointed cherub that covers." And cherubim as I see it are like those who attend the presence of God and are intimate with the glory of God. There were two cherubim carved over the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant. There are the four living creatures in Ezekiel called cherubim and again seen in the book of Revelation. Then there are seraphim, which literally means burning ones, on-fire ones. These are being who radiate the glory of God but hover above the throne of God. They're crying out, "Holy, holy, holy, in Isaiah chapter 6, "the whole earth is full of his glory." And their voice is so powerful that the doorposts that Isaiah saw were shaking. Just this radiating sound of the seraphim, burning ones, burning devotion, burning worship for the Lord.
Now when I study angels, if there's so many of them, they've got all these classifications, they do all these things, it reminds me of how great God must be and is. But there's this great number of angels and great positions of the angels, it speaks of the greatness of God. Too many people still picture God as being this lonely being stroking his beard wondering what to do from day to day when he's got millions, billions of angelic beings all around him all the time. Majestic, glorious.
That's their identity. What is their ministry? What do they do? Do angels really sit up on a cloud all day? Playing the harp? Watching reruns of Touched by an Angel or whatever. No, they do four things principally and I've summed them up for you. Number one, first and foremost they stand in God's presence. That's what they do, their main job is to hang out with God. Kind of a cool job, isn't it? And they spend a lot of their time standing before him and rendering him praise. And in chapter 7, "He saw ten thousand times ten thousand standing before him. Revelation 4, the four living creatures, they do not rest day or night saying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come."
Now turn with me to Revelation chapter 5, verse 11, "Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, 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, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And every creature which in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, such as are in the sea and all that are in them, I heard saying, "Blessing and honor and glory and power be to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever." The four living creatures said, "Amen." And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshipped him who lives forever and ever." Now I want you to think about that for a minute. You've got millions of angels worshipping God and the Lamb, his Son. That ought to number one, humble us and number two, encourage us. This is what I mean, it ought to humble us because it shows us that God in heaven will never be without worship even if we fail to worship him. If we stop worship, we just don't do it, there'll be multitudes of angelic beings who are. But it humbles us because if angels who know God much better than we do, understand that worship is vital and important as an ongoing activity, what about Us?
And then it encourages us. Not only humbles us, and this is what I mean by that, there is something here that I think is often overlooked and that is this: The angels are not singing. They're not singing here. They're saying something. But it doesn't say they're singing anything. It says in verse 12, "they are saying with a loud voice." Every Christmas season I listen to that famous Christmas carol that I love as well, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." But you know what? It's not accurate. I don't want to mess with your Christmas, but if you want to be accurate it would be, "Hark the Herald Angels speak." Because in Bethlehem, when the multitude of the angelic hosts is there, it says, "They're praising God and saying (the Greek word legos, speaking) "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will toward men."
Now in Revelation 5 verse 8 we have the twenty-four elders which are humans and four living creatures which are angels, they're singing. But the rest of the angelic host is not. So, listen carefully, if Job 38 speaks of angels, it means the angels sang before the fall and they'll sing when the curse is removed, until then they don't sing. It's as if they are restrained while the earth is still under a curse. One day we'll join them in an anthem, these four living creatures, and we'll sing. But until that time there is no singing among the angels. Here's my point: You're not an angel. And you and I are given an incredible opportunity and mandate to sing praises to God. It says in Ephesians, "Sing, lift up y our voices, sing a new song." We're not angels. We, rather are redeemed ones, been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ, you and I have something to sing about. So, in a worship service, don't you dare just sit there and look around. But get involved and sing because you are redeemed ones and you've got a reason to do it. So, A) they stand in the pr essence of God. B) or number two, they share in God's work. That's part of their ministry. You might say they're God's helpers, they help him out. Because angels are a direct creation of God, they have incredible power God has invested in them. And it is used according to the will and purpoases of God. They were there in creation, they were there at the giving of the law, the writer of Hebrews tells us. They gave and helped Daniel receive a revelation, John receive a revelation, they were involved in the life of Jesus Christ, they announced his birth, they attended his birth, they warned Joseph to leave Herod's domain and go down to Egypt, told them when they should go back. When Jesus was tempted out in the wilderness and in the Garden of Gethsemane later on, the angels came and ministered to him. And who was it that rolled the stone away? The angels did and they sat on it, hung out in the Garden, waiting for people to come. So they're very involved in the work of God upon the earth.
Third, they send God's judgment. They send God's judgment. How powerful are angels? I'll give you an example: In the Old Testament there's the story of Jerusalem being surrounded by the Assyrian army under Sennachrib, the Bible tells us that one angel went out and destroyed a hundred and eight-five thousand Assyrians. One angel destroyed a hundred and eighth-five thousand, you don't want to tick an angel off, okay. That's sort of a rule that we should just kind of get along with. One angel destroyed a hundred and eight-five thousand. Then, remember when Lot was in Sodom and Gormorah, two angels, that's all God needed to destroy the city. Two angels showed up and they came into Lot's house. And you know what happened, the men of the city knocked on the door, right? Saying, "Send those men out," and by the way every time you read about angels in the Bible, they appear in male form, never female form. So they knock on the door, "Send those guys out that we may have sexual relations with them." Now, this didn't like upset the angels, they could handle it, but it did bother them a little bit because they smote everybody with blindness. And then destroyed the city. Two angels destroyed the cit, one angel wiped out a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians. This adds new light to what Jesus said to Peter, "Put away your swrod Peter, don't you know that I could call twelve legions of angels?" If I wanted to, I could snap my fingers and seventy-two thousand angels would show up now. Imagine if they did. If one angel destroyed a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians, can you imagine what seventy-two thousand angels would do? Let's even project that into the future, into the tribulation period, who is it that will unfurl the judgments that are the seals on the scroll, the bowls that are poured out on the earth, it is the angels. And you might say, "The earth will be torched by an angel at that time." They will attend to and send the judgment of God upon the earth. Now we're about to wrap up, listen carefully. If you have never had an experience with an angel, and probably most of you don't know that you have, you will one day. Guaranteed. Either in heaven surrounding the throne, worshipping with them, what a cool service that's going to be. Or, you'll experience them in judgment because Jesus Christ said, "The Son of Man will send out his angels and they will gather out of the kingdom all those that offend and who practice lawlessness and will cast them into the furnace of fire where there will be wailing and ganshing of teeth." So one day everyone is going to have an angelic experience of some kind, either in heaven or in judgment. So what is their ministry? They stand in God's presence, they share God's work, they send God's judgment.
And finally, and we close with this, they serve God's people. I left this for last because I wanted you to go away and having the question answered: How do I relate to thse beings? Angels are sent on your behalf. The last verse of Hebrews 1 said, "Angels are ministering spirits sent to minister to those who will inherit salvation, that's you and me. The Bible says, "The angel of the Lord encamps around all those that fear him." You say, "Well what do angels do in particular to serve God's people? Well number one, they protect us. Not always, they don't always keep us from every bad little thing but oftentimes angels protect. Daniel was in a lion's den, right? He got out the next morning, stretched, felt really good And he said, "Aw, don't worry about it king, the Lord sent his angel to shut the mouths of the lions." That would have been great to see. Paul was aboard a ship, prison ship on the way to Rome. Everybody thought the storm was going to sink the ship and the next Paul got up and said, "Hey, last night an angel came and appeared to me and said it's going to be all right." Protecting God's people. I think of the activities that I've been engaged in, whether it's snowboarding or surfing or riding Harley Davidsons, and I just can imagine, I get on that motorcycle, I know my mom always worried, she said, "Don't tell me when you ride that thing." But I'd get on that thing and I'm sure the angels just sort of get on the Walkie Talkie, "Get him, he's on the bike. Send out the angels." They protect us.
So protection. Number two, revelation. Revelation. The angels were there helping when God gave the law at Mount Sinai. So they helped the revelation. Angels appear in Daniel and the book of Revelation helping these two fellas to understand. Often John is interacting with the angel trying to understand, "What is this about?" Now that's for these two men in particular no doubt. I don't think angels give me insight, I think the Holy Spirit does. But there's a great story, you know about it, and angel comes and tells Mary, "You're pregnant." She goes, "I don't understand. I haven't had any relationships with a man." "I know but the Holy Spirit's going to overshadow you and it's virgin birth." But there's a person that needed a good explanation: What was his name? Joseph. Okay, she's supernaturally pregnant, try to explain that to the fiancée. It wouldn't go over well with a guy, "Yeah, right." And so God covers the bases and sends Gabriel, the special angel, to tell Joseph, "Don't be afraid, Joseph to take Mary as your wife." And explains what is going on. Giving hm revelation, helping him to understand.
Number three, supplication. Do you know that angels are sent when you pray? Daniel prayed and immediately Michael was dispatched. It says in Daniel chapter 10 and he says, "I have come to give you understanding for the future." Let me give you and example: Turn with me to Acts 12 and we're going to close with this tonight, this is our last text, it just takes a moment. "About that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews he proceeded to seize Peter also. And it was during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. When he had arrested him, he put him in prison, delivered to four squads of soldiers to keep him intending to bring him out before the people after Passover. Peter was therefore kept in prison but (notice this) constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church." The battle line was drawn, Satan wanted him killed, God wanted him alive. The church is in the middle, they're praying for him. The story gets good. "When Herod was about to bring him out, that night Peter was sleeping." Now that's interesting, you're going to die the next day and you're getting a good night's sleep? There's a good reason, I don't have time to tell you though. "He was bound with two chains between two soldiers and the guards before the door were keeping the prison. Now behold an angel of the Lord stood by him and a light shone around him in the prison. He struck Peter on the side and raised him up. So the guy was sawing logs, the angel had to nudge him. "Arise quickly," and the chains fell off of his hands. And the angel said to him, "Gird yourself, tie on your sandals," so he did. And he said, "Put on your garments and follow me." When he had followed, he went out, he did not know what was done by the angel that it was real. But he thought he was seeing a vision. When they were past the first and second guardposts, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city which opened to them of its own accord and he went out, went down one street, immediately the angel departed from him." Okay, he comes to, he figures, "Wow that was an angel. That was amazing. He goes to the very prayer meeting where they're praying for him to get out of prison. Verse 13, "As Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a girl named Rhoda came to answer and she recognized Peter's voice. Because of her gladness she did not open the gate but ran in and announced that Peter stood before the gate. But they (these are the people with great faith now praying) 'You're nuts.' Yet she kept on insisting that it was so. And so they said, "It is his angel." So Peter kept knocking. You know they left him out there. No I imagine maybe they were praying something like, "Lord you can do anything. Why one angel could kill a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians, and you could send an angel to Sodom. And Lord send an angel to deliver him. Knock, knock, knock, "I'm here." "Aw, you're nuts. It can't be him." Isn't it interesting? An angel gets him out of prison, Peter can't even get into a prayer meeting. (laughter)
Finally, angels attend us when we die. There's several examples of this, the most notable is the rich man and Lazarus. Jesus told the story. He said, "the rich man died and was buried. But with the poor man the angels took him and brought him to Abraham's bosom." One guy dies utterly alone and is buried, the other is surrounded with his heavenly buddies, angels who escort his soul into the very presence of God. And you know Daniel called angels watchers. You know they're like heavenly surveillance spies. That's kind of a scary thought, isn't it, somebody once said that "secret sin on earth is open scandal in heaven." They see it all. And I am sure that as they watch they look at some of our activities and our lack of faith and stuff that we do and they go, "I don't get it, God came to this planet and redeemed them and look at their response."
J. B. Phillips told the story of an angel who was being shown the universe for the first time by an older angel. And they're going out through all the galaxies and the senior angel points to a small sphere turning slowly on its axis. It looked as dull as a dirty tennis ball to the little angel whose mind was filled with the size and glory of what he had just seen. "Watch that one particularly," said the senior angel pointing with his finger. "it looks very small to me," said the little angel. "What's special about it?" He listened in stunned disbelief as the senior angel told hm that this planet, small and insignificant and not overly clean was the renowned visited planet. "Do you mean that our glorious prince stooped so low as to become one of those creeping crawling creatures on that floating ball?" "I do and I don't think he would like you to call them creeping crawling creatures. For strange as it may see to us, he loves them. He went down to visit them to lift them up to become like him." The little angel looked blank, such a thought was almost beyond his comprehension. And isn't it beyond ours?
Heavenly Father, we close tonight and really more than studying angels we get a glimpse into your magnificence, your glory, your majesty, that it's not just people on a planet that you created, it's not just billions of other galaxies besides the Milky way, there are millions at least many millions, multitudes of the heavenly hosts in different positions around your throne doing your bidding, performing your word and watching us. What do they see among us Lord? Hearts of worship, praise, surrender, trust, obedience? Lord, may we who are a little lower than the angels in our humanity live in such a way that exemplifies the reality of this spirit world that is constantly around us, even though to ur eyes we don't see it. In Jesus' name.