A Divine Revelation of Angels (9 page)

The angel who spoke to Philip guided him to the right person at the right time who needed ministry:

Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.” So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.(Acts 8:26–31)

An angel gave Philip specific direction on what to do and where to go, but the Holy Spirit was with him and continued to guide him on his mission. It is always God whom we are to look to for guidance. Once again, we are to pray only to God, not to the angels, even though He will sometimes use His angels to guide us.

During services, I have sometimes seen, in the spiritual realm, angels go up and put crosses on certain people’s shoulders. God showed me that this means He has called these people for special tasks, that they have been chosen of the Lord. Sometimes the Lord will allow me to call them up to where I am ministering and tell them that God has called them for a purpose. Often, they will say, “Yes, I know that, but I haven’t done it yet.” I respond, “Well, seek the Lord. He will surely direct your path. He will not forget you.”

As we trust in God, He guides all our paths, and one way He does this is through His angels. The Scripture says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

Comforting and Encouraging God’s People

God’s angels also comfort and encourage people during difficult times in their lives. For example, in Genesis 16, the Angel of the Lord gently comforted Hagar when she fled from the harsh treatment of Sarah (Sarai):

Now the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going? She said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.” The Angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand.” Then the Angel of the Lord said to her, “I will multiply your descendents exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.” And the Angel of the Lord said to her: “Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction.”(vv. 7–11)

In Genesis 21, “the angel of God” (v. 17) comforted Hagar when she and Ishmael were sent away from Abraham and Sarah, and Hagar thought they would die in the desert. (See verses 9–21.)

In Genesis 28, Jacob had a dream in which angels were climbing up and down a ladder from heaven to earth. Through this dream, God used angels to help assure Jacob that he was in the presence of God, that he was at the very gates of heaven. (See verses 11–15.)

On board ship during a violent storm at sea, Paul received encouragement from an angel that God would save his life and the lives of everyone on the boat, and that God would be with him when he was on trial before Caesar in Rome. Paul said,

There stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.”(Acts 27:23–24)

Second Corinthians 7:6 says that “God... comforts the downcast,” and at times He uses His angels to bring that comfort to His people. On one occasion, I was going through several crises in my life. I was praying as an intercessor and faithfully preaching the Gospel under a heavy anointing, and I read in the Word about the special ministry of angels to God’s people.

I was staying in a hotel, and as I went to bed that night, I heard what seemed to be angels singing above my head. These were beautiful voices singing praises to God, and as I lay there, I joined in worship with them. As we praised and worshiped the Lord, the Holy Spirit began to comfort me. He truly is a faithful comforter. There is a verse that says, “The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).

Suddenly, I realized my room was filled with angels! God is a comforter, and angels are in action around us doing His bidding all the time. If we will be open and see with spiritual eyes, we will know that we are blessed by God in this way.

Sustaining God’s People

Next, God sometimes sends His angels to strengthen and sustain people. Often, this serves to encourage them, as well.

In Genesis 21, the angel of God who appeared to Hagar in the wilderness showed her where to find water for herself and her dying son. (See verse 19.)

When Elijah the prophet was frightened and running for his life from Jezebel, God used an angel to physically sustain him:

Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of [the executed prophets of Baal] by tomorrow about this time.” And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, “It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.” Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came back the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.” So he arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.(1 Kings 19:2–8)

At Horeb, Elijah encountered God in the “still small voice” (v. 12), and the Lord encouraged him and told him what he should do next. (See verses 9–18.)

In the New Testament, we see that God sent angels to strengthen and sustain His Son Jesus while He was on earth. For instance, at the beginning of our Lord’s ministry, after He had withstood the devil’s temptation in the wilderness, “the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him” (Matthew 4:11). Perhaps they also sustained Him because of the presence of wild beasts in that wilderness (Mark 1:13). Near the close of Jesus’ ministry, after He had earnestly prayed to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane that God’s will be done, “an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him” (Luke 22:43).

As it was with Jesus, so it is with us! Remember that God sent manna or “angels’ food” to sustain the Israelites when they were wandering in the wilderness: “Men ate angels’ food; He sent them food to the full” (Psalm 78:25). Whether the need is for spiritual or physical nourishment, or both, God always comes through for His children and sustains them in times of need.

Protecting and Delivering God’s People

God’s angels also protect and deliver those who belong to Him. As we have already seen, the Bible assures us that angels guard the righteous: “He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up” (Psalm 91:11–12). “The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them” (Psalm 34:7).

Let’s look first at some biblical examples of God’s protection. Lot, who is called a “righteous man” in 2 Peter 2:8, and his family were protected by angels and kept from perishing with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah:

Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them,...he said, “Here now, my lords, please turn in to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way.”...Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city; take them out of this place! For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”...But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking. When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”...And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.
(Genesis 19:1–2, 12–17, 29)

In Exodus 14:19–20, we read that the Angel of God protected His people from the Egyptian army:

The Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night.

Daniel was protected by an angel after being falsely accused and thrown into a den of fierce lions with no way of escape. When King Darius went to discover Daniel’s fate, Daniel testified to him, “My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you” (Daniel 6:22).

Jesus indicated that some angels are assigned to watch over little children. He said, “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10).

Second, the Bible tells us that angels not only give protection, but also provide deliverance for God’s people. In Matthew 26:53, Jesus said He could have asked the Father to send twelve legions of angels to deliver Him from the Romans when they came to arrest and crucify Him. However, He allowed them to crucify Him so that He could provide atonement for the sins of the world—for your sins and mine. (See verse 54.)

In Acts 5, when some of the apostles were jailed, an angel opened the prison doors without the guards even realizing it and freed the apostles so they could continue preaching the Gospel to the people:

Then the high priest rose up, and all those who were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees), and they...laid their hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison. But at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, “Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.”...But when the officers came and did not find them in the prison, they returned and reported, saying, “Indeed we found the prison shut securely, and the guards standing outside before the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside!”(Acts 5:17–20, 22–23)

In Acts 12, an angel intervened in Peter’s imprisonment and led him in another clandestine jailbreak so that the guards Peter had been chained to didn’t even wake up!

That night Peter was sleeping, 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 in the prison; and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, “Arise quickly!” And his chains fell off his hands. Then the angel said to him, “Gird yourself and tie on your sandals”; and so he did. And he said to him, “Put on your garment and follow me.” So he went out and followed him, and did not know that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they were past the first and the second guard posts, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which opened to them of its own accord; and they went out and went down one street, and immediately the angel departed from him. And when Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent His angel, and has delivered me from the hand of Herod.”(Acts 12:6–11)

Through the visions and revelations God has given me, I have come to understand the subtle difference in the roles of what I call “defensive angels” and “offensive angels.” Defensive angels protect us from harm and danger and all kinds of evil devices of Satan. They serve as guardian angels. They protect us even when we don’t know they are there. Offensive angels wage active war against strongholds, principalities, demons, forces of darkness, and everything else that opposes the work of God. We’ll look at the role of offensive angels in more detail shortly.

Promoting the Gospel

God’s angels are also active in promoting the Gospel. They are very interested in the salvation of the lost. In Luke 15, after Jesus told the parable of the lost sheep, He said, “I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance” (v. 7). Jesus repeated this idea after telling the parable of the lost coin: “Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (v. 10).

During the Great Tribulation that will come upon all the earth, a mighty angel will proclaim the blessed Gospel to the nations of the world. John wrote,

Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth; to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people; saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.”(Revelation 14:6–7)