goodangels

            The book of Hebrews calls angels "ministering spirits
            sent to serve those who will inherit salvation" (Heb.
            1:14). Angels minister in many ways to us, and I'd like
            to look at some of their ministries with examples from
            the scriptures as well as some modern anecdotes.

Provision

            The Lord uses His angels to physically provide for His
            own. It was an angel who brought Elijah bread and water
            while fleeing from Jezebel after his victory on Mt. Carmel
            (1 Kings 19:5-6).

            In 1944, the penniless wife of a pastor and evangelist in
            Switzerland, Susie Ware prayed, "God, I need five
            pounds of potatoes, two pounds of pastry flour, apples,
            pears, a cauliflower, carrots, veal cutlets for Saturday,
            and beef for Sunday." A few hours later, someone
            knocked on the door, and there was a young man
            carrying a basket, who said, "Mrs. Ware, I am bringing
            what you asked for." It was precisely what she'd prayed
            for--down to the exact brand of pastry flour she wanted.
            The young man slipped away, and even though Rev. and
            Mrs. Ware watched at the window to their building, the
            man never exited. He just disappeared.(1)

            Sometimes, angels give guidance so God's people will
            know what He wants us to do. An angel appeared to
            Joseph in a dream and instructed him to take Mary as
            his wife and to name her baby Jesus. (Matthew 1:20-21)

            And it was an angel who told Philip where to go in his
            travels so that he could meet the Ethiopian eunuch and
            lead him to Christ. (Acts 8:26)

            My friend Lee experienced the comfort of guidance from
            an angel when the other men in his army unit were
            pressuring him to visit a red-light district. As he prayed
            for strength, an invisible messenger came to him and
            said, quite audibly from about 10 feet away, "Have no
            fear of them. Do not succumb. I will sustain you and
            deliver you."

Encouragement

            Angelic ministry to us can include powerful
            encouragement. When Paul and his shipmates were
            caught in a horrible storm and faced shipwreck, an angel
            appeared to him, assured him that not a life would be
            lost, and that he would live to stand trial before Caesar.
            (Acts 27:23)

            One mother of a young girl told me that the night after
            her daughter's cancer surgery, a very tall nurse with
            long braids, a real Amazon, ministered to her all night
            long. She was caring for the girl with a strong but gentle
            tenderness, and talking with the mom about how good
            God is. After they went home, the mother decided to
            write a thank-you note to the nurse, and called the
            hospital to ask for her name. Everyone--even the head of
            nursing--insisted that there was no nurse with that
            description working at the hospital. She believes God
            sent an angel to encourage her through that dark night.

            This world is a dangerous place, and angels can provide
            supernatural protection. Daniel 6 tells the story of how
            an angel shut the mouths of the lions when he was
            thrown into their den.

            A young lady named Myra worked in the inner-city
            ministry of Teen Challenge in Philadelphia. One
            neighborhood gang liked to terrorize anyone who tried to
            enter the Teen Challenge building, and they harassed
            Myra as well. One night, when she was alone in the
            building with the gang banging on the door, she felt she
            should continue to try to reach out to them with the
            gospel of Jesus. As she opened the door, she breathed a
            prayer for protection. The boys suddenly stopped their
            shouting, looked at each other, turned and left quietly.
            Myra had no idea why.

            Later on, as the staff people were able to build
            relationships with the gang members, the ministry
            director asked them why they dropped their threats
            against Myra and left her alone that night. One young
            man spoke up, saying, "We wouldn't dare touch her after
            her boyfriend showed up. That dude had to be seven feet
            tall." The director said, "I didn't know Myra had a
            boyfriend. But at any rate, she was here alone that
            night." Another gang member insisted, "No, we saw him.
            He was right behind her, big as life in his classy white
            suit." (2)

            Another young woman walking home from work in
            Brooklyn had to go past a young man loitering against a
            building. She was fearful; there had been muggings in
            the area recently, and she prayed for protection. She
            had to go right by him, and although she could feel him
            watching her, he didn't move. A short time after she
            reached home, she heard sirens and saw police lights.
            The next day her neighbor told her someone had been
            raped, in the same place and just after she had passed
            by the young man.

            She wondered if the man she'd passed was the rapist,
            because if it were, she could identify him. She called the
            police and discovered they had a suspect in custody.
            She identified him in a lineup and asked the policeman,
            "Why didn't he attack me? I was just as vulnerable as the
            next woman who came along." The policeman was
            curious too, so he described the woman and asked the
            suspect about her. He said, "I remember her. But why
            would I have bothered her? She was walking down the
            street with two big guys, one on either side of her."(3)

Rescue

            Sometimes, angels rescue people in danger. It was an
            angel--if not the Angel of the Lord, who is the
            pre-incarnate Christ--who joined Meshach, Shadrach
            and Abednego in the fiery furnace, rescuing them from
            the flames (Daniel 3).

            My friend John told me that he and a friend were walking
            through a rough neighborhood one night when 12 or 15
            gang members jumped them. John took two punches
            and sank to the ground. He expected to be robbed and
            severely beaten, but he wasn't. Instead, he heard a voice
            from about six feet up: "It's okay, they're gone." He
            looked up and saw his friend who mysteriously was now
            about 25 feet away, leaning against a wall with his fists
            still clenched as if he were ready to fight. But there was
            no gang. They just disappeared. And there was nobody
            next to John.

            The ministry of warrior angels catches the imagination
            in a special way. The prophet Elisha prayed that the
            Lord would open the eyes of his servant so he could see
            the mighty angelic army of God protecting them.

            In Nazi Germany, one mother took her little boy, who
            was unchurched, to a shelter run by nuns that had
            become known as a safe place because nothing bad ever
            seemed to happen there. His first night, while everyone
            else was praying that God would protect them, this little
            boy kept his eyes open. After the "amen," he told his
            mother, "It came up to here on them!" and pointed to his
            breastbone. When asked what he meant, he said, "The
            gutter came up to here on them!" A nurse asked, "What
            are you talking about?" and he told her that he saw men
            filled with light guarding each corner of the shelter, so
            tall that they towered above the roof. The shelter was
            protected by huge warrior angels that only a little boy
            could see.(4)

Guardian Angels

            Do we have guardian angels? The Bible doesn't give a
            definitive answer on that, although the Lord Jesus did
            say, "See that you do not look down on one of these little
            ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always
            see the face of my Father in heaven." (Matthew 18:10)
            And Psalm 91:11 promises, "For He will command His
            angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways."

            One day, when my son was a baby, I tripped while I was
            holding him, and he went flying headlong toward a brick
            wall. There was nothing I could do to protect him, but I
            watched as he inexplicably stopped an inch from the
            wall and fell gently to the carpet. I knew immediately
            that an angel's hand had been his bumper pad.

            These are only a few of the stories of thousands about
            angels who protected and rescued people, both
            Christians and non- Christians. But a nagging question
            continues to arise: where are the angels when girls are
            raped, and drunk drivers crash headlong into a car of
            teenagers, and evil people blow up buildings with
            hundreds of innocent people in them?

            The angels are still there, continuing to minister in pain
            and death. We usually don't realize the role of angels in
            the midst of horrible circumstances because their work
            is unseen and often unfelt.

            Behind the question of, "Where are the angels?" is the
            very difficult problem of why a good God would allow
            pain and suffering. The book of Job gives us two
            important insights into the problem of pain: first, when
            disasters and suffering assail us in the physical realm,
            there may be something bigger and more important
            going on in the unseen spiritual realm.(5) Second, God
            never gives Job an answer to his demand to know the
            "why": He just says, "I am the sovereign Lord, acting in
            ways you cannot understand. You just need to trust Me,
            that I know what I'm doing." The fact that God is in
            control, that He allows all pain and suffering for a
            reason, is the great comfort that we need to remember
            when it seems like the angels have forsaken us. They
            haven't, because God hasn't.

            There are good angels, and there are bad angels. All of
            them were created as holy angels, but about a third of
            them rebelled against God and fell from their sinless
            position. Satan, the leader of these demons or unholy
            angels, is a liar, a murderer, and a thief. (John 10:10)
            He hates God and he passionately hates God's people.
            The Bible tells us that he prowls around like a roaring
            lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). We
            need to remember that Satan and all the demons are
            supernaturally brilliant, and Satan disguises himself as
            an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14).

            It's this masquerade as a holy angel that is behind the
            current angel craze in our culture. While there are a
            number of wonderful Christian books available that
            relate stories of holy angels helping people, there are
            many books, publications, and seminars that are filled
            with demonic deception of the ugliest kind. Because
            when you start talking to angels, you end up dealing with
            demons.

The Ugly Angels

            The enemy of our souls is using a new twist on an old
            lie, exploiting the current interest in angels to attract the
            untaught and the undiscerning. Much of the current
            angel mania is simply New Age philosophy, which is
            actually old-fashioned pantheism. Pantheism is the
            belief that everything--an impersonal God as well as
            every part of the creation--is one big unity. All is one,
            God is one, we are God--and New Age philosophy throws
            reincarnation into the mix as well.

            You know you're around "ugly angels," or demons
            masquerading as angels of light and holiness, when you
            see or hear these terms:

1. Contacting or communing with angels.

            There are now books available with titles like Ask Your
            Angels(6) and 100 Ways to Attract Angels(7). But the Bible
            gives neither permission nor precedent for contacting
            angels. When people start calling on angels, it's not the
            holy angels who answer. They're demons, disguising
            themselves as good angels to people who don't know
            how to tell the difference.

            Some self-styled "angel experts" instruct their followers
            to love their angels and call upon them for health,
            healing, prosperity, and guidance. But angels are God's
            servants, and all this attention and emphasis and glory
            should go to God, not His servants. God says, "I will not
            share my glory with another" (Isaiah 42:8). Scripture
            makes no mention of loving angels--only God, His word,
            and people. And it never tells us to pray to angels, only
            to the Lord Himself.

3. Instruction, knowledge, or insight from angels,
particularly ones with names.

            Some angel teachers are proclaiming that angels are
            trying very hard to contact us, so they can give us
            deeper knowledge of the spiritual(8). Invariably, this
            "angel knowledge" is a mixture of truth and lies, and
            never stands up to the absolute truth of Scripture.

            There are four angel names that keep popping up in the
            angel literature: Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael.
            Michael and Gabriel are the only angels mentioned by
            name in the Bible. The other two show up in the
            apocryphal First Book of Enoch, which includes a fanciful
            account of the actions of these four beings. Those who
            report modern day angel teachings are actually
            channelling information from demons.

            Naomi Albright distributes teachings about the deep
            meanings of colors, and numbers and letters of the
            alphabet which she claims is "knowledge given from
            above and brought forth in more detail by the High
            Angelic Master Sheate, Lady Master Cassandra, and
            Angel Carpelpous, and the Master Angel, One on
            High."(9) These same beings told Mrs. Albright to stress
            two main teachings: first, that God accepts all religions,
            and second, Reincarnation.(10) These two teachings
            keep showing up in much of the New Age angel
            literature, which shouldn't be surprising since they are
            heretical lies that come from the pit of hell, which is
            where the angel teachers are from.

            Other angel teachings are that all is a part of God
            (pantheism); the learner is set apart from others by the
            "deep" knowledge that the angels give (this is a basic
            draw to the occult); and that eventually, the one who
            pursues contact with these angels will be visited by an
            Ascended Master or a Shining Angel (which is a personal
            encounter with a demon).

            We need to remember that God's angels are not
            teachers. God's word says they are messengers--that's
            what "angel" means--and they minister to us. God has
            revealed to us everything we need for life and godliness
            (2 Peter 1:3), so any hidden knowledge that spirit beings
            try to impart is by nature occultic and demonic.

5. Human divinity

            The message of the ugly angels is that we need to
            recognize that we are one with the divine, we are divine. .
            .we are God. In Karen Goldman's The Angel Book: A
            Handbook for Aspiring Angels, she says things like, "Angels
            don't fall out of the sky; they emerge from within."(11)
            And, "The whole purpose in life is to know your Angel
            Self, accept it and be it. In this way we finally experience
            true oneness."(12)

            The following bit of heretical garbage was channeled
            from a demon posing as an angel named Daephrenocles:
            "The wondrous light of the Angels, from the elohim to
            the Archangels to the Devas and Nature Spirits, are all
            bringing to you the realization that you are
            magnificent--you are divine now and divine first."(13)

            Much of the angel literature refers to "the angel within."
            But angels are a separate part of the creation. They
            were created before man as a different kind. They are
            not within us. The movie "It's a Wonderful Life"
            notwithstanding, when we hear a bell ring it does not
            mean that an angel is getting his wings. Nor do good
            people, especially children, become angels when they
            die. We remain human beings--not angels, and certainly
            not God.

            What our culture needs in response to the angel craze is
            strong discernment built on the foundation of God's
            word. We need to remember, and share with others,
            three truths about angels:

2. The actions of holy angels will always be consistent
with the character of Christ.

3. A genuine encounter with a holy angel will glorify God,
not the angel. Holy angels never draw attention to
themselves. They typically do their work and disappear.

    It's very true that many have "entertained angels
    unaware" (Hebrews 13:2). But we need to make sure
    we're entertaining the right kind of angels!