42 Sermon Illustrations on Angels

Sermon on Psalm 91.

1. Tragedies.

2. God is the great Protector.

a. Versatile protection.

b. Individual protection.

c. Miraculous protection.

3. Paradox of protection.

a. Believers never hurt?

b. Insight from other Bible passages.

4. Jesus and promises of Psalm 91.

a. Temptation.

5. Application of principle to Christians.

6. Conditions of protection.

Letter from a young person to God:

Dear God,

What country has produced the most angels? How are we doing?

Celeste, age 7

ANGELS, ONCE IN A WHILE

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone.

The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two.

Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave 15 dollars a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress. I loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck. The kids stayed, crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour and I could start that night.

I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.

That night when little ones and I knelt to say our prayers we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money - fully half of what I averaged every night.

As the weeks went by, heating bills added another strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home.

One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires.

Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered.

I made a deal with the owner of the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys' pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up. When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning I hurried to the car. I was hoping the kids wouldn't wake up before I managed to get home and get the presents from the basement and place them under the tree. (We had cut down a small cedar tree by the side of the road down by the dump.)

It was still dark and I couldn't see much, but there appeared to be some dark shadows in the car - or was that just a trick of the night? Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to tell what. When I reached the car I peered warily into one of the side windows. Then my jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered Chevy was full-full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.

Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. There were candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll. As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning.

Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December.

And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.

-- Barb Irwin

*

We were created “a little lower than the angels,” and life gives us daily reminders.

If the national bestseller lists are any guide, I [Philip Yancey] may be the only person in America who has not read a book about angels. Moreover, I do not own a single stuffed angel or lapel pin angel. In truth, our culture’s fascination with angels mystifies me, especially since the cuddly curios stocked in gift stores bear such faint resemblance to the majestic, terrifying beings described in the Bible. (Ever wonder why “Fear not!” were usually the first words out of an angel’s mouth?)

I do recall a childhood envy of angels, though. No fingers to catch in car doors, the ability to scare people at will, the magic of invisibility-angels seemed blessed with wondrous Kryptonic powers. Even now, in sober adulthood, a trace of that envy lingers. Angels never get cancer, never lose their jobs and go hungry; never having fallen, they have no apparent need for redemption. In contrast, humans seem frail and vulnerable. We were created, said the psalmist, “a little lower than the angels,” and life gives us daily reminders. Being human is hazardous to your health.

Perhaps for this reason a wistful stream of “angelism” has flowed through church history. When I read the mystical works of Jerome or John of the Cross or Michael Molinos, I sense a nagging resentment against the constraints of humanity. James Agee once described a human being as “A furious angel nailed to the ground by his wings,” and I detect some of that fury in the Christian ascetics-and also in contemporary evangelicalism’s discomfort with the body. We’d just as soon be angels, thank you; the body strikes us as a kind of prison.

In an astonishing inversion of rank, the author of Hebrews defines the role of angels this way: “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” These creatures before whom great saints fell to the ground aquiver are actually our servants. Even Hollywood seems captivated by that notion: in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” for example, the apprentice angel Clarence helps restore hope and self-worth to a man on the verge of suicide.

Two of German director Wim Wenders’s films (Wings of Desire and Faraway, So Close) cover the same ground in more detail. These angels move in a parallel universe from which, unseen, they reach across to offer human beings mild assistance. An angel who sits beside a young man on a ledge may caress him and subliminally soothe him, but may not prevent him from jumping off the ledge. In an interesting twist, after years of accompanying people with all their joys and sorrows, some of these angels choose to descend and join them.

Why would an angel choose to become a human being? In Wenders’s view - much of his philosophy comes through the mouth of Peter Falk, the most incongruous angel in cinematic history-angels grow attracted to materiality. An angel wonders what it would be like to hold an apple, or feel hot coffee sliding down his throat. He wants to feel newspaper print rubbing off on his hand, to trip someone who steps on his foot, to feel a skeleton moving inside as he walks. He wants to fall in love. He wants to feel now instead of just forever, to experience time in discrete packets of days, hours, and minutes, just as people do.

Wenders’s angelology is fanciful, of course, and yet the New Testament contains intriguing hints that being human has its advantages, which even an angel must acknowledge.

“We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men,” Paul told the Corinthians (1 Cor. 4:9). A bit later in the same letter he gave a startling glimpse of the future: “Do you not know that we will judge angels?” (6:3). The apostle Peter, speaking of the mysteries of God’s plan of redemption, said rather breathlessly, “Even angels long to look into these things” (1 Pet. 1:12).

I hardly know what to make of these passages, which give mere hints and leave many blanks unfilled. It seems, though, that inexplicably God has chosen to invest the future not in angels but in us. We humans, frail and subject to death, prone to temptation, notoriously inconstant, feckless and forgetful at worship, we “the scum and glory of the universe,” in Pascal’s phrase, have a central role to play in the reclaiming of the cosmos.

I respect and admire angels, but I no longer envy them as I did in childhood. I can find no clear indication in the Bible how God feels about angels. Yet I do know how he feels about human beings: for some incomprehensible reason, he loves us. A familiar passage in Romans provocatively brings the two creations together:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (8:38-39, NIV)

Could it be that angels wear lapel pins and collect stuffed representations of human beings?

________

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine

Let me be real clear right from the start:

I have never seen an angel -- as far as I know. Hey, when I was a little kid, I didn't even get to play an angel in the church Christmas pageant. (Mrs. Marsh handed me a blue bathrobe and a cane and said, "You're a shepherd.")

On the other hand, my friend Tim thinks he just may have had "a close encounter of the angelic kind."

While on a winter ski trip, Tim was driving along an ice-covered road in the Colorado mountains. "Suddenly my car went into a skid," says Tim. "I hit the brakes. No action. The car spun around backwards and kept sliding downhill and was about to drop off the side of the mountain.

"But my car came to a stop right on the edge of a cliff! It was like somebody had a hold of my back bumper. And there was no way my car stopped just because I was slamming on the brakes. No way. Too much ice.... It was weird."

Tim now believes God was watching out for him in some supernatural way. And as he puts it: "I really think it was an angel."

I want you to understand that Tim's no flake. He's not one to make up amazing stories just to wow me or anybody else. He's a sane, sensible, ordinary guy who thinks he may have had an angel's arms (if angels have arms) wrapped around the back bumper of his Oldsmobile.

And Tim's not alone.

People all over the place are claiming to have crossed paths with supernatural beings. In their book, "A Rustle of Angels," Marilyn and William Webber tell dozens of stories about people who claim to have been encouraged, helped and saved from death by angels. And while not everyone can claim an angelic encounter, around three-fourths of America's teenagers say they believe angels really are out there -- and may be real close by.

Also close by are tons of books and tabloids hoping to get you and me to buy (literally) into the whole angel craze. Tabloids with headlines like "Angels are Everywhere! Real Life Adventures with Heavenly Spirits" line the supermarket checkout line. Every talk show on television manages to dig up someone who's written a book about angelic invasions.

And then there are all those "interesting products." While surfing the Net, I typed in keyword "guardian angel" and found this advertisement:

"Imagine having your personal Guardian Angel! Sterling silver and 14K gold pendants, earrings and necklaces are available now online ... "

The more I looked into angels, the more I discovered some even more bizarre stuff. For example, in "Divine Encounters," Zecharia Sitchin attempts to prove that angels are really super-smart and super-powered aliens from outer space. Then there's Sophy Burnham's best-selling "A Book of Angels." Along with other strange "facts," Burnham lists the names of 12 different angels (the Bible only names two -- Michael and Gabriel) and tells us the "astrological sign governed" by each one.

And in "Angel Energy: How to Harness the Power of Angels in Everyday Life," John Price claims there are 22 angels "dwelling" in everyone us and that these "angels are working at every moment to awaken us and help us to discover the Great Self within." Apart from his impossible-to-understand religious gobbledygook, Price's angels-within-me idea felt like something straight from The Exorcist. After all, nowhere in the Bible have I found angels hanging around inside people. Demons, yes; angels, no. Added to that is Price's emphasis on discovering my "Great Self." Seems like a lot of the current, faddish writing on angels emphasizes "self discovery" and "self actualization." With all this stress on "self," these writers apparently aren't too hip on Jesus' teachings on humility and self denial. (Check out Mark 8:34-38.)

While I was looking into some of these, well, strange teachings about angels, I had an interesting conversation with author Bill Myers. (Myers' books could be called a "Christian alternative" to R. L. Stine's supernatural horror novels.) Since Myers' recent novel, "The Guardian" (Tyndale), is about angels and demons, I asked him what he thought about all the current interest in angels. Here's what he told me:

"I've been to several New Age conferences on angels, and frankly I've gotten bored with them. It's always the same old thing. There's usually a lot of emphasis on us 'evolving to a higher spiritual plane.' The speakers talk about 'channeling' angels ... They stress that angels are dying to dwell in us. As far as I'm concerned, it's just another name for 'demon possession,' that's all....

"When I bring up the cross of Christ to these people, faces go blank.

"Now don't get me wrong. I believe Scripture teaches that angels help us. But angels should never take the place of God -- which I think people tend to do a lot these days."

Myers told me we need to keep a healthy, Christian perspective on angels. That perspective, of course, certainly includes the fact that angels exist. And while I've never seen one of these spiritual beings (as far as I know), I do believe in them. Actually, more so than ever. Through my research for this article, I learned that angels show up around 300 times in the Bible. And my friend Tim is pretty convinced he was saved from almost-certain death by an angel. Even so, Tim is quick to point out that God is The One to thank for keeping him from falling off the side of mountain -- and not the angel who grabbed his bumper.

Actually, angels like it that way. What I've read in the Bible tells me these spiritual beings are not into getting pats on the back (if they even have backs). What they are into is pointing us to God. The word "angel," in fact, means "messenger."

Let me give you an example of what I mean from Matthew's version of The Resurrection Story (28:2-7). With earthquake-like power, an angel shoves aside a huge boulder that blocked the entrance of the cave holding Jesus' body. Two women show up and are terrified by the angel's awesome appearance, which, says Matthew, "was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow."

Here's how Matthew tells the rest of the story:

The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he is risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He is risen from the dead!'"

No doubt about it. That supernatural being in white with the lightning look was a fearsome and incredible messenger. But even more incredible than the messenger was the message itself: Jesus is alive!

It's a message I hope none of us will miss when we think about angels.

WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT ANGELS?

Angels are not dead humans with wings. Contrary to TV shows (like Touched by an Angel) and movies (like Angels in the Outfield), angels are not dead humans who've earned (or are trying to earn) their "wings." Angels are an altogether separate creation from humans (Psalm 8:4-5).

What do angels look like? From human-looking beings to bizarre multi-faced creatures with several wings, angels seem to take on a lot of different looks. But don't let appearances fool you. For the most part, theologians believe an angel is an invisible spirit. And these spirits seem to take on appearances that fit their purpose. If they need to reflect God's incredible glory (as in Ezekiel 1:4-28), they look awesome and scary. On the other hand, Hebrews 13:2 says some of us have helped angels without even knowing it. So angels can look like humans, too.

Angels aren't wimps. They conquer armies (2 Kings 6) and demonstrate superhuman strength (Matthew 28:2-4).

Good angels are very good. The Bible even calls them "holy" (Luke 9:26, Acts 10:22).

Bad angels are very bad. Christians call them "fallen angels" and they include Satan and all of the demons. For a glimpse into their evil activities, see Genesis 3:1-5 and Mark 5:1-5.

Don't call them for help -- or for anything. Angels have a habit of showing up when they want to show up (or at least when God wants them to). But nowhere in the Bible do we find individuals calling on angels for help or guidance. On the other hand, we see tons of examples of God's people going directly to him for the help they need.

Angels are never to take the place of God. Most important, angels are not to be worshiped (Colossians 2:18).

So what's the purpose of angels? In the Bible, the word angel means "messenger." The idea is that angels deliver messages from God (Matthew 2:8- 12). Angels also are known for saving people from harm (Psalm 91:11-12), carrying out God's wrath and judgment (Revelation 16:1) and praising God (Revelation 3:6-8).

Want to know more? First, find yourself a good concordance (like "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance") and read many of the passages listed under "angel." There are also many books on angels written from a Christian perspective. Here are two you may want to check out: "Angels" by Billy Graham (Word) and "Celebration of Angels" by Timothy Jones (Thomas Nelson). And be sure to see your youth pastor or church library for other good reads on angels.

Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./CAMPUS LIFE Magazine

The 1993 Christmas issue of NEWSWEEK had an article on angels. Many points were in conflict with Scripture. For example, Professor Robert Ellswood, a specialist in unorthodox religions, said: “With angels around, people feel they don't have to bother an Almighty God in order to get help.” And Andre D'Angelo, a minister in Carmel, CA, suggested that God is like the CEO of a large corporation, and “an angel is like a good executive secretary.” God is not that distant. There is but “one mediator between God and Man.” We have a direct line!

*

There isn’t a lot about the now-almost-vanished Shakers that I would promote. But there is one notable exception. It has to do with quality and pride of workmanship.

In case you don’t know their history, the Shakers were formed in England in the mid-1700s as an offshoot of a revival movement among the Quakers. Originally known as the “Shaking Quakers” because of the dancing and shouting that went with some of their rites, the group came to America and reached its peak in the 1840s. There were nearly 5,000 members in communes scattered from Maine to Kentucky.

Shakers lived as Brothers and Sisters in celibate groups. This attitude toward marriage combined with an absence of evangelism meant the sect could not survive. Today there are believed to be only six members left in a community in Maine.

Most people who know the Shaker movement at all know it for high-quality handicrafts rather than theology or history. For sheer elegance of style and structure, nothing quite matches their baskets, boxes, tables, wardrobes, cupboards, and chairs. The famous ladderback chair -- which came to be a Shaker symbol -- was sought and prized by people in the world outside their communes. It was a staple item to a once-bustling network of commercial enterprises run by the Shakers.

When one of their craftsmen was asked how he or she built such beautiful and functional items, this was the standard answer: creative work is a gift from God. Thomas Merton, a poet and Trappist monk, once offered that the perfection of a Shaker chair came from the laborer’s belief that “an angel might come and sit in it.”

Wonder what it would do for everyone’s task in your workplace today if such thinking dominated? A receptionist answers every call and greets every person through the front door as if she might be speaking to an angel. Clerks speak to customers, tally their purchases, and make their change with the thought that this person might be a visitor from heaven. A nurse cares for a frail old man with attention and tenderness befitting an angel. Workers on the line and sales personnelmanufacture and offer products to the public in the belief that an angel just might wear this suit or eat this food, drive this car or need the protection of this policy.

Are you thinking that this is too idealistic or simply naive? Then perhaps it has been a while since you read this biblical text: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).

Take pride in what you do today. An angel just might be your next client.

Introduction: There is much that we cannot know about Angels and God’s Providence because: a) it has to do with unseen influences upon the mind, and b) God has not revealed every secret thing to us. There are some things about God Himself that cannot be discovered because they are “past finding out”. See Job 5:8-15; 9:10; Rom.11:33; Deut.29:29. However, there are some things that God has let us know about angels and His providential care for us. Let us consider SEVEN FACTS:

1. ANGEL INFLUENCES HAVE UNKNOWINGLY BEEN INVOLVED WITH POLITICAL DECISION MAKING.

A. The battle between good and evil angels seem to play out into rising and falling of political or governing officials.

B. It was revealed to Daniel that an angel was delayed for 21 days in coming to him because of “the prince of the kingdom of Persia”. Dan.10:12-14

a. One very impressive and sobering point is that the angel told Daniel that his Heart, humility, and his PRAYER had a lot to do with how things were playing out in the heavenly realm and on the coming political scene.

b. Prayer works “above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us”. (Eph.3:20). Isn’t it amazing how much power is in our hands when we pray?

c. Fervent prayer of a righteous man AVAILS MUCH. Jas.5:16. Prayers effect angels and God. In turn, God and angels go to work in ways past finding out, yet effecting the affairs of mankind.

2. OPPOSING FORCES ARE DOING BATTLE IN “THE AIR”. Eph.2:2

A. Satan is the PRINCE of the power of the air.

B. He has something to do with “working” in the sons of disobedience.

C. The exact methodology of how he comes to influence the mind or to tempt us or to bring thorns and trials into our lives is not spelled out. He has man “devices”, and he can hurl “fiery darts” at us.

D. The book of Revelation is largely a word-picture of how the forces behind the political scene represent a battle. Notice that God’s angels have something to do with winning on the political front through their influence in “the air”. Rev.16:17-19.

a. The angel poured out his bowl into the air and things started happening on the earth.

b. The evil city became divided. Notice, Satan had done his job in turning the city evil. But, the angel of God sent destruction (perhaps through an army) upon the city.

3. WE PARTICIPATE IN THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE FORCES OF GOOD AND EVIL. Eph.6:10-13

A. We “wrestle” against “the rulers” of the dark.

B. We “wrestle” against “spiritual hosts” of wickedness.

C. We can “resist the devil” and he will “flee”, OR we can keep compromising with him and sooner or later, we will find that Satan has established his “throne” in our town. Rev.2:13

D. By being “salt that has lost its savor”, we become useless in places where we need to be making a difference. Our influence for good must be sustained at all times and in all places.

4. THE DARK SIDE WAS GIVEN A MOMENT OF APPARENT VICTORY.

A. When the Jews were ready to execute Jesus, Jesus said it was their “hour” and the power of darkness. Lk.22:53

B. Just before Jesus was to be crucified, He described it as a time when “the ruler of this world is coming”. John 14:30

C. The Jews were not aware that they were tools in the hand of Satan. Nor, did they realize that the “power of darkness” was at work through them.

D. Peter probably did not realize that Satan had “sifted him as wheat” or that behind the scenes Satan had “asked for” Peter. There is a lot going on behind the scenes that we just do not know about.

5. GOD WOULD TURN SATAN’S MOMENT INTO AGONIZING DEFEAT.

A. Jesus’ death and resurrection would cause the fall of Satan. His ability to stand before God as our “accuser” was defeated when our sins were paid by the blood of The Lamb. This cast him to the ground. John 12:31-33 B. The picture of Satan’s effort, the angelic war, and the defeat of the dragon is played out in the heavenly realm in Rev.12. See vs.7-9

a. Notice the fighting among the good and evil angels.

b. Notice how the defeat played out to the victory of the saints on earth.

6. THE WORLD IS UNDER THE POWER OF SATAN UNTIL WE OPEN EYES WITH THE GOSPEL.

A. See Acts 26:17-18.

a. Notice that Paul would be protected from the Jews. Yet, the Jews would not realize that it was God who was protecting Paul from them.

b. Notice also that the gospel is a powerful tool that can “open” the eyes of Gentiles.

c. Thus, the forces of darkness can be defeated by Christians.

B. 2 Cor.4:4 - Yet, some people can be so blinded by Satan that they cannot see the meaning and light of the gospel.

C. Col.1:13 - But, others would be delivered from the power of darkness.

D. It is amazing how much power is placed in our hands to help in the defeat of the dark angelic forces of Satan.

a. Not only do angels fight against Satan and his angels, but God has ground troops in us as well.

b. The more people we can share the gospel with, the smaller Satan’s influence will be. Want to slow down the evil of divorce, adultery, fornication, abortion, drug abuse, etc.? The gospel will slow down the spread of evil.

c. We must be convinced that the best thing we can do for our country and for our community is to spread the gospel. Hold up the cross constantly.

d. When Aaron and Hur held up Moses’ hand and the rod of God, God’s people were winners in the battle. Likewise, as long as we hold up the hands of those who hold up the gospel, we will be guaranteed winners over the power of Satan.

7. GOD HAS PROVIDED YOU THIS MOMENT TO LEAVE THE FIELD OF ETERNAL LOSERS.

A. You live and have your being right now, because God gives it to you.

B. You may be here today to hear the gospel for the last time. This may be your last moment to start making a difference in the battle. Esther 4:14

C. The winners are all in fellowship with Jesus Christ. 1 Cor.15:57-58

D. Only those who have been born again through faith in Jesus will be the winners and watch the ultimate defeat of Satan as he is cast into OUTER darkness. 1 John 5:4

a. You will join in the eternal misery of Satan and his angels if you persist in stubbornness and disobedience to the gospel.

b. Victory is through the exercise of faith in Jesus, not through the mere admission of His existence or of His greatness.

c. Faith must lead through the new birth. John 3:3-5

CONCLUSION: There are many unseen forces at work. Angels are fighting for us. God is the sure winner. Which team do you want to be on? There would be lots of joy in heaven if you turned from sin today and was buried with Christ in baptism. Will the power of darkness continue to hold you in the losers realm? Will darkness yet persuade you to keep waiting? Who knows but what now is your final moment? Wouldn’t it be sad for Jesus to have died in vain for you? Please come to Him now.

Terry W. Benton

*

*

Whether all of the angels have yet had the privilege of visiting this world, and looking about over its rivers and seas, its mountains and valleys, and its great variety of beauties, and understanding its revolution among other worlds, or not, I do not know.

I know when this world was dedicated, many of them attended and sung together at the dedicatory service. These saw it launched, and shouted with great joy. But there may be millions of them who have never had time to see this planet yet.

Many years ago I heard the fiction of an angel visiting this world, and looking at its beauties, and wondering at what he saw, and becoming greatly delighted with the scenery about him. The flowing rivers and restless seas, the high mountains towering up toward heaven in their grandeur, the deep, wide spread valleys and their great productions, the trees and flowers all seemed so beautiful and wonderful that he was almost inclined to make his home here, until he was passing a graveyard. Seeing so many monuments and little mounds, he inquired what it meant. He was told:

“There is where we bury our friends when they die.”

He started with the greatest astonishment, exclaiming:

“Die, die! Do you die here?”

“Yes we all have to die in this world.”

“Then I do not wish to stay here. If all have to die let me go to that world where they do not die.”

What a discount to every blessing in this world that we must so soon die and leave it all. What an argument for seeking a country where there is no death. Let us lay up our treasure there.

The only child of a poor woman one day fell into the fire by accident and was so badly burned that he died after a few hours' suffering. The clergyman, as soon as he knew, went to see the mother, who was known to be dotingly fond of the child. To his great surprise, he found her calm, patient, and resigned. After a little conversation she told him how she had been weeping bitterly as she knelt beside her child's cot, when suddenly he exclaimed, “Mother, don't you see beautiful man who is standing there and waiting for me?” Again and again the child persisted in saying that the beautiful man was waiting for him, and seemed ready, and even anxious, to go to him. And, as a natural consequence, the mother's heart was strangely cheered.

*

I once heard actor Mickey Rooney tell about an experience he had before he became a Christian. He was enteraining at a hotel in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and when he went down to breakfast one morning a busboy with long golden hair and wearing a white jacket suddenly walked up to Rooney's table. Without introducing himself, the young man said: “Mr. Rooney, I want you to know how much Jesus Christ loves you.” With that, the busboy disappeared.

When Rooney went to pay his breakfast check, he inquired of the lady at the cash register about the busboy with the golden hair because, Rooney said, he wanted to talk to the boy. But the cashier said no such person worked there. Mickey Rooney went on to say to millions of people watching by television that he believes it was an angel who appeared to him.

_________

J. B. Fowler, Jr., “Illustrating Great Words of the New Testament” (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1991), p. 15.

The son of Bishop Berkeley once asked his father what was the difference between the cherubim and seraphim. His father replied that the word “cherubim” came from a Hebrew word signifying “knowledge,” and that “seraphim” came from a Hebrew word meaning “burning,” from which it was inferred that the seraphim were spirits famed for there burning love. The boy said, “I hope when I die I shall be a seraph, for I would rather love God than know all things.”

- from "Pure Religion" by the Rev. W.L. Mackenzie

*

In October 1993, police sharpshooters in Rochester, New York, surrounded a car. In the back seat of the car was a man with a rifle. The police attempted to negotiate with the man. No answer. The police watched and waited. No movement. Finally the police discovered the truth: The armed man in the back seat was a mannequin.

When the authorities tracked down the owner of the car, he told them he keeps the mannequin in his car for protection. "You've got to do this," he said. "With the car-jackings, it helps if it looks like you've got a passenger."

These are dangerous times. Whom do you rely on for protection? A mannequin or the Mighty One?

________

Contemporary Illustrations For Preachers, Teachers, & Writers

Editor, Craig Brian Larson, Baker Books, p. 192.

A missionary on furlough told of this experience while visiting his home church in Michigan:

While serving at a small field hospital in Africa, every two weeks I traveled by bicycle through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. This was a journey of two days and required camping overnight at the halfway point. On one of these journeys, I arrived in the city where I planned to collect money from a bank, purchase medicine and supplies, and then begin my two-day journey back to the field hospital. Upon arrival in the city, I observed two men fighting; one of whom had been seriously injured. I treated him for his injuries and at the same time witnessed to him of the Lord Jesus Christ. I then traveled two days, camping overnight, and arrived home without incident.

Two weeks later I repeated my journey. Upon arriving in the city, I was approached by the young man I had treated. He told me that he had known carried money and medicines. He said, "Some friends and I followed you into the jungle, knowing you would camp overnight. We planned to kill you and take your money and drugs. But just as we were about to move into your camp, we saw that 26 armed guards surrounded you.

"At this I laughed and said that I was certainly all alone out in that jungle campsite. The young man pressed the point, however, and said, "No sir, I was not the only person to see the guards. My five friends also saw them, and we all counted them. It was because of those guards that we were afraid and left you alone."

At this point in the sermon, one of the men in the congregation jumped to his feet and interrupted the missionary and asked if he could tell him the exact day that this happened. The missionary told the congregation the date, and the man who interrupted told him this story:

"On the night of your incident in Africa, it was morning here and I was preparing to go play golf. I was about to putt when I felt the urge to pray for you. In fact, the urging of the Lord was so strong; I called men in this church to meet with me here in the sanctuary to pray for you. Would all of those men who met with me on that day stand up?" The men who had met together that day stood up. The missionary wasn't concerned with who they were -- he was too busy counting how many men he saw. There were 26.

[Another source gives this credit: "Anonymous---Submitted to Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul by Murray Moerman"]

______________________

TruthorFiction.com makes these comments at http://truthorfiction.com/rumors/twentysixarmedguards.htm -

This is one of the most widely circulated stories on the Internet. We've never been able to get close to a first-hand source for it, but there are other, similar stories for which there are sources.

Overseas Missionary Fellowship, which is named in the rumor, says this version about an African missionary is not from among them because they don't minister in Africa. They are in East and Southeast Asia.

One of the most widely-circulated versions of this eRumor states that the origin is a man named Steve Huffman. He's received requests from all over the world asking for substantiation of the event, but never intended to be regarded as the source for the story. He was given the story at church and posted it on an email list and it circulated from there. He says he has no first-hand validation for the account.

Here are some of the stories for which there are sources:

... In her book "The Spirits of Mindoro" published in 1988 by Overseas Missionary Fellowship, Catherine Davis talks about a woman who worked in the jungle on Mindoro Island in the 1950's. She was sleeping alone in her house one night when she heard men outside talking about killing her. She prayed for protection and the men suddenly grew quiet, then ran away. The next day a woman from the village said that the men did not carry out their plans because of two large people dressed in white who were standing on each side of the path to the house.

...Dr. Billy Graham relates a story in his book "God's Secret Agents" about missionary John Paton and his wife in The New Hebrides. It is said that one night they were surrounded by hostile natives who wanted to kill them. They prayed through the night for protection and at daylight, saw that the attackers were leaving. A year later, the chief of the tribe of the attackers became a Christian and Paton asked him about the night of the attack and why nothing had happened. The chief was surprised and said it was because of all the men who were there protecting them, hundreds of them in shining garments and with drawn swords. [see HolwickID #10810]

Variations:

...The missionary is speaking at his home church in Michigan.

...The missionary hears of a planned attack on a village by bandits and gathers everybody in a school building for safety. The bandits approach the school, but then turn away because they see guards with fiery swords protecting the school.

This is a wonderful story. Too bad all teachers are not like the one in the classroom.

A pastor read a letter from an elementary school teacher who attends East Hill Church. The gist of the letter was as follows:

Last school year, her classroom was made up of little third graders, every one of which came from either a single parent family, or a dysfunctional family, was undernourished and/or uncared for, lived in an abusive home and was either beaten, bruised, or raped by other family members; one little girl’s dad died of AIDS, and the list goes on. Her heart bled for these kids. Before the ’99-2000 school year started, she and her husband went to her classroom and prayed over each desk in the room. They prayed that God would place an angel behind each and every child throughout the coming year to watch over them and protect them.

A month or so after the year had started, she gave the kids an assignment to write about what they would like to be when they grew up. Everybody was busy with his or her assignment, when “Andrew” raised his hand. When she asked him what he needed, he asked how to spell “mighty.” After telling him how to spell mighty, she asked him why he needed to know. Andrew said it was because when he grew up he wanted to be a “mighty man of God.”

When he said this, little ‘Mark’ sitting next to him asked, “So, what’s a mighty man of God?” The teacher, swallowing back her tears, and knowing she could not say anything in the classroom, told Andrew to go ahead and tell Mark what it was. So Andrew says, “It’s a man who puts on the armor of God and is a soldier for God.”

After observing some conversation between Andrew and Mark, the teacher, with a lump in her throat, started to walk away when Andrew motioned with his little forefinger for her to come closer. He whispered to her, asking if she believed in angels. She told him yes, she did. Then he asked her if she thought people could see angels, and she said she thought some people probably could. Andrew said that he did, and he could see an angel standing behind each kid in the room. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the church that night! We need to remember to pray for all of the teachers, that although there is no prayer in school, that they are dedicated enough to pray for the protection of God’s angels over the lives of their students. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt, even at work. And Jesus said unto them, “I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” John 6:35

« Leader’s notes shown in these braces. »

A. Hebrews 1:13–14 (NAS):

But to which of the angels has He ever said, “Sit at my right hand, until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet”? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?

B. The Bible and Angels

1. The Bible «does not, in fact, tell us a great deal about angels. Yet what it does tell us makes it abundantly clear that they are quite different from what is portrayed by the TV show of that name. In that show angels are depicted as going about helping those who are luckless, unfortunate and suffering; without respect for or even despite the spiritual state of the one that they are helping. They have some super-human powers but by and large they muddle through to a solution, with the older angel teaching the younger.»

a. «well that just is not the way it is! The Bible portrays » two groups of angels;

(A) the first consists of the fallen angels« (sometimes called demons)

(1) who are led by Satan, also known as the devil

(2) who now, it appears, are restricted from the presence and counsels of God

(3) who make their appearance in the world, principally if not solely, by the possession of human beings

(4) except that Satan has great powers and can, we are told in 2 Corinthians 11:14 (NAS): … for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

(5) and these evil angels are engaged in spiritual warfare with Christians and with»

(B) the second group, the good or “elect angels” (1 Timothy 5:21), who have maintained their “first estate” (Jude 1:6) in which they were created«

(1) whose praise and worship is to the Triune God

(2) spending time in His presence

(3) but able, under the dispensation of God, to make their appearance in this world in His service, either visibly or invisibly as God may see fit

(4) so the Bible tells us in Hebrews 13:8 (NAS) that Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.»

C. Prayer and Angels

1. there are two religious errors for us to avoid

a. worshipping angels«, as we are told in Colossians 2:18 (NAS) Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels,

(A) so those that advocate such worship are false cults

(B) and, since prayer, along with praise and thanksgiving, is but a form of worship, we also have to avoid»

b. praying to angels«

(A) which again is a mark of a false cult»

2. but as we see in the verse that we read, angels do have something to do with our prayers! Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?

a. which is but one aspect of God’s anticipating our needs in prayer, while«

(A) we are living in an alien environment, as with the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, we are but “strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”

(B) and we are engaged in a spiritual warfare, as Ephesians 6:12 (NAS) says: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.»

b. even before «we ask, or think, God walls us around with His protection so that when the Enemy and his demons press us, had we but the spiritual eyesight, we would discover as did Elisha’s servant, that we should “… not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” (2 Kings 6:16 NAS)»

Sermon on angels. Hebrews 1:14

CALLING ALL ANGELS

==================

I. Angels are hot.

II. What the Bible really says about angels.

A. Modern views of angels are too tame and watered-down.

B. Angels should invoke awe.

C. Angels are motivators. Acts 12:7, Judges 6:14, 1 Kg 19:5

III. Angels come in several varieties.

A. Spiritual creatures associated with God's throne.

B. Angels associated with human contact.

C. Angels are not deceased humans.

IV. What angels do.

A. The give us messages from God.

B. They look out for us. Hebrews 1:14

C. We are a little lower than angels, but only for now. Psalm 8

V. Worship carefully.

A. Bible warns us not to worship angels. Colossians 2:18

B. Jesus alone should be the focus of our worship.

My wife was on an airplane flight not long ago, and she was sitting on the isle seat. A mother was sitting next to her in the middle, and a little four-year-old girl, of course the daughter of that Mom, was at the window. She had never flown before, so she wanted to be where she could see everything. So, they taxied out to the runway, and the little girl was kind of looking straight ahead like a little businesswoman. Then the plane went up through the clouds, and it was one of those cloud-covered days. Occasionally the little girl glanced out the window, but when they got above the clouds, oh, then all of a sudden she pressed her nose to the glass. She was looking intently all over, back and forth, and after a few minutes of inspecting the sky, she turned to her Mom and she said with real concern, “Where are they?” And her Mom said, “What are you talking about?” She said, “I can't see them, Mommy. Where are they?” And her Mom said, “Where are what?” She said, “The angels, Mommy, where are the angels?” Poor little girl. She thought she knew where to find spiritual beings, but they weren't where she thought they would be.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Looking Out the Wrong Window.”

My wife watched a girl on a search for the spiritual - a girl whose search ended in disappointment. She's not the only one that's happened to. It may have happened to you. A lot of people are looking for spiritual reality today. They're looking intently. They just don't find it where they thought they would. And we look out the window spiritually, but where is God? Where is spiritual peace? Where is eternal life? Where's the love I'm looking for? Jesus answers that in our word for today from the Word of God in John 6:35. He declared, “I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Jesus is addressing something that's throbbing inside each of us - this spiritual hunger and thirst. It's what the Bible calls eternity in our heart. I think you know that we need something spiritual to fill that hole in our heart. Maybe you would even classify yourself as a spiritual seeker. I hope so. You've lived long enough to know that earth stuff and earth relationships just aren't enough to complete us.

Jesus said He is the end of your search. We're always seeking, but we're never finding. Maybe in a sense you've been looking out of a lot of spiritual windows hoping to find some peace and some reality. Maybe you've looked in the Protestant religion, or Catholic religion, or Jewish religion, or Moslem religion, or maybe crystals, or horoscopes or psychic powers. Maybe you've checked out an unconventional spiritual group that maybe some would call a cult. So many windows to look through, but each view has ended up unsatisfying and disappointing.

There are reasons why all the roads except the one that has Jesus and His cross on it leave us hollow inside. It's because what we really need is not spiritual experiences, or warm feelings, or beliefs, or even a caring group. We need to remove the sin that is blocking us from a relationship with our Creator. The sin wall, the Bible says in Isaiah 59:2, “...have separated you from your God.” Romans 5:8 says, “But God proved His love for you in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Only one person can remove that wall, and that's Jesus.

Are you tired of looking out the window for spiritual reality and coming up disappointed? Where is God? Where is the love and peace I need from Him? Well, it begins at the cross, where you say those two words with all your heart - “for me.” If you want to belong to this Jesus, would you tell Him that right now? A religion won't do it for you. An experience won't, or a group. You're looking for a love relationship with the One you were made by and made for. Why don't you look His way? Jesus is everything your heart has ever looked for.

________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

*

[A skeptic’s take on souls, spirits, ghosts, gods, demons, angels, aliens and other invisible powers]

Souls, spirits, ghosts, gods, demons, angels, aliens, intelligent designers, government conspirators, and all manner of invisible agents with power and intention are believed to haunt our world and control our lives. Why?

The answer has two parts, starting with the concept of “patternicity,” which I define as the human tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise. Consider the face on Mars, the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, satanic messages in rock music. Of course, some patterns are real. Finding predictive patterns in changing weather, fruiting trees, migrating prey animals and hungry predators was central to the survival of Paleolithic hominids.

The problem is that we did not evolve a baloney-detection device in our brains to discriminate between true and false patterns. So we make two types of errors: a type I error, or false positive, is believing a pattern is real when it is not; a type II error, or false negative, is not believing a pattern is real when it is. If you believe that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator when it is just the wind (a type I error), you are more likely to survive than if you believe that the rustle in the grass is just the wind when it is a dangerous predator (a type II error). Because the cost of making a type I error is less than the cost of making a type II error and because there is no time for careful deliberation between patternicities in the split-second world of predator-prey interactions, natural selection would have favored those animals most likely to assume that all patterns are real.

But we do something other animals do not do. As large-brained hominids with a developed cortex and a theory of mind — the capacity to be aware of such mental states as desires and intentions in both ourselves and others — we infer agency behind the patterns we observe in a practice I call “agent­icity”: the tendency to believe that the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents. We believe that these intentional agents control the world, sometimes invisibly from the top down (as opposed to bottom-up causal randomness). Together patternicity and agent­icity form the cognitive basis of shamanism, paganism, animism, polytheism, monotheism, and all modes of Old and New Age spiritualisms.

Agenticity carries us far beyond the spirit world. The Intelligent Designer is said to be an invisible agent who created life from the top down. Aliens are often portrayed as powerful beings coming down from on high to warn us of our impending self-destruction. Conspiracy theories predictably include hidden agents at work behind the scenes, puppet masters pulling political and economic strings as we dance to the tune of the Bilderbergers, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers or the Illuminati. Even the belief that government can impose top-down measures to rescue the economy is a form of agenticity, with President Barack Obama being touted as “the one” with almost messianic powers who will save us.

There is now substantial evidence from cognitive neuroscience that humans readily find patterns and impart agency to them, well documented in the new book SUPERSENSE (HarperOne, 2009) by University of Bristol psychologist Bruce Hood. Examples: children believe that the sun can think and follows them around; because of such beliefs, they often add smiley faces on sketched suns. Adults typically refuse to wear a mass murderer’s sweater, believing that “evil” is a supernatural force that imparts its negative agency to the wearer (and, alternatively, that donning Mr. Rogers’s cardigan will make you a better person). A third of transplant patients believe that the donor’s personality is transplanted with the organ. Genital-shaped foods (bananas, oysters) are often believed to enhance sexual potency. Subjects watching geometric shapes with eye spots interacting on a computer screen conclude that they represent agents with moral intentions.

“Many highly educated and intelligent individuals experience a powerful sense that there are patterns, forces, energies and entities operating in the world,” Hood explains. “More important, such experiences are not substantiated by a body of reliable evidence, which is why they are supernatural and unscientific. The inclination or sense that they may be real is our supersense.”

We are natural-born supernaturalists.

________

Note: This article was originally published with the title, “Agenticity”.

With sweat beading on my forehead, a lump in my throat and a knot in my stomach, I stood behind a funeral home podium staring at a crowd of a couple hundred people.

Between the crowd and me was a casket three feet in length with a child inside it who was way too young. I repeated the only thing I believed could help in this dreadful moment -- hope from the Scriptures.

The funeral for a short life is never easy to officiate, but no matter the age, death is an inescapable reality for all of us. Many of us fear the death of family and friends more than we fear our own death. Their death produces extreme pain that stirs our emotions to grasp at any hope we can muster to give our hearts a brief moment of rest from the brokenness over unbearable loss.

In grasping and searching for the right words to help others, or even to soothe our own souls, we tend to believe and say things that are not necessarily biblically true.

Too many times to count in seasons such as these, I’ve heard people say and/or post on social media, “God gained another angel today.” I believe it’s not helpful to dive into theological debates while someone is in the midst of extreme hurt. Often, the best thing we can do is to hurt with them, hold them and just listen. In moments, then, when cooler heads and hearts can prevail, we will be significantly more empowered by biblical truth than we will ever be by pithy statements, especially ones that aren’t true.

Here is the plain and simple truth: Humans are humans, and angels are angels. This remains so even in eternity. In fact, angels are intrigued by the interaction between God and His “image-bearing” humans. As we read in 1 Peter 1:12, for example, “angels long to catch a glimpse of these things” (CSB).

It’s actually better for you to be human than it is for you to be an angel. Most Bible scholars believe that the scriptural accounts of Ezekiel 28:12-18, Isaiah 14:12-14 and Revelation 12:4 describe the fall of Lucifer (a former angel) and one-third of the angels (now considered demons) that joined his revolt against a holy God. What’s sobering about the accounts of these fallen angels is that their judgments were final, with no hope of redemption, forgiveness or grace.

But God so loved humans that He sent His Son to become a human (although, He also never stopped being God) to die as a human for humans. “But God proves his own love for us,” we read in Romans 5:8, “in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (CSB).

And through His resurrection, Jesus conquered sin and death for people, not angels. Through faith in the Son of God, we get to experience grace, hope and complete forgiveness of our rebellion against Him -- angels never get to experience this.

Here is our ultimate hope: When a loved one dies knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior, God does not gain another angel. Rather, God calls another worshiper to come home. Your loved one gains the opportunity to see Jesus face to face, to leave this temporary place for a home in the arms of a loving Father.

Let the promises of the Scriptures mend your broken heart knowing that your loved one, if they knew Jesus, is more alive today than you are -- not as an angel but, rather, as a fully glorified human being with a perfect heart that is no longer susceptible to sin, a mind that is no longer susceptible to depression or a body that is no longer susceptible to disease or death.

If you’re a believer and follower of Jesus, one day you’ll see your Christian loved one again, and together you’ll see the perfect Jesus who loved humans so much that He laid His life down for our redemption.

There isn’t a lot about the now-almost-vanished Shakers that I would promote. But there is one notable exception. It has to do with quality and pride of workmanship.

In case you don’t know their history, the Shakers were formed in England in the mid-1700s as an offshoot of a revival movement among the Quakers. Originally known as the “Shaking Quakers” because of the dancing and shouting that went with some of their rites, the group came to America and reached its peak in the 1840s. There were nearly 5,000 members in communes scattered from Maine to Kentucky.

Shakers lived as Brothers and Sisters in celibate groups. This attitude toward marriage combined with an absence of evangelism meant the sect could not survive. Today there are believed to be only six members left in a community in Maine.

Most people who know the Shaker movement at all know it for high-quality handicrafts rather than theology or history. For sheer elegance of style and structure, nothing quite matches their baskets, boxes, tables, wardrobes, cupboards, and chairs. The famous ladderback chair -- which came to be a Shaker symbol -- was sought and prized by people in the world outside their communes. It was a staple item to a once-bustling network of commercial enterprises run by the Shakers.

When one of their craftsmen was asked how he or she built such beautiful and functional items, this was the standard answer: creative work is a gift from God. Thomas Merton, a poet and Trappist monk, once offered that the perfection of a Shaker chair came from the laborer’s belief that “an angel might come and sit in it.”

Wonder what it would do for everyone’s task in your workplace today if such thinking dominated? A receptionist answers every call and greets every person through the front door as if she might be speaking to an angel. Clerks speak to customers, tally their purchases, and make their change with the thought that this person might be a visitor from heaven. A nurse cares for a frail old man with attention and tenderness befitting an angel. Workers on the line and sales personnelmanufacture and offer products to the public in the belief that an angel just might wear this suit or eat this food, drive this car or need the protection of this policy.

Are you thinking that this is too idealistic or simply naive? Then perhaps it has been a while since you read this biblical text: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).

Take pride in what you do today. An angel just might be your next client.