The Angels

Well, this morning we're down to chapter 22, angels. And actually, if you look carefully, if you think about it, and we're going to see it this morning, the next three chapters really aren't angels. And we're going to talk about the primary fallen angel, Satan. So that's the next three chapters when we talk about angels. And actually, personally, I have it, it's funny, when you start, there are a lot of verses in scripture. Would somebody like to render a guess how many verses Old and New Testament talk about angels, including Satan?

I mean, you don't have to. Just, you know, you can just... Okay, that's on the high side. That's pretty good. That's pretty close. Less than 300. So actually, there's quite a few that talk about angels. OK, now let's let's look at the division here. Yes, I'm sorry. Oh, yes, thanks. He told me that. OK, before we get to the next last week, when how covered go back to the.

And how covered dispensations and and covenants, this is an extra page. for Dispensations, is that right? It goes with the Dispensations section, right? In the back of... Right, so if you have your notes from the Dispensations chapter, chapter 20, this is going to be the last two pages. Page 7 and...

Okay, thanks Al. Okay. Okay. All right. If you need instructions on that, we'll be happy for an issue. Detail manual. How do you come and ask us if you have confusing. So there is a replacement with what you're saying. How replacing. OK, and that's this page right here, right? So that's a backup, right?

And we discovered something with PowerPoint in the last couple of weeks. You can and you can put a whole page of notes that go with each with each overhead, which is kind of nice. I mean, electronically, that's kind of nice. You know, if you're familiar with PowerPoint, there's there's a chart section, then there's a note section where you get a full page of notes in there, which is kind of nice. Okay, great. So on the topic of angels, I pretty well followed pretty closely what Schaeffer did in Chapter 22. This is his breakdown of the subject. Basically, unfallen angels are people are holy angels, basically, ones that are obedient to God and do His will. Fallen angels, Satan is ahead of those. Those are ones that rebelled against God.

And actually, we're just going to kind of touch on this section a little bit. In the next two chapters, that will be much more expanded, but we'll touch briefly on that. And then the ministry of the angels is the fourth section. Most of our time is probably going to be in the first two sections, the nature of angels and the holy angels or unfallen angels. And just, you know, angels are, this is kind of a quote, angels are beings that execute the purpose of the one who has sent them. And we're going to see that actually, I hadn't realized, the word angel is actually a little more generic than you might think.

And we're going to see it applies to ones that are sent, the sent ones. And we get the definition of that, we'll see that shortly. So, most of the time will be spent in the first two sections. We'll cover a little bit of the fallen angels Finish up with the ministry of the holy angels. Okay, this section here, I think it's really important to kind of look, I kind of alluded to this already, that we need to kind of see how is the word angel used in scripture?

And first of all, the definition, and actually the definition is very close in the Hebrew and the Greek. In the Greek, it's this idea of a messenger, and it's from a root word to deliver a message. And actually, if you look at the Hebrew word, it's a very, very similar kind of situation.

It's a messenger, a sent one, to deliver a message. And the issue comes down to who is the source of the message. And most of the times, not most of the times, For the holy angels, it's God in most cases. There are a few verses, and we'll look at those, that talk about a messenger. And it's usually rendered that way, being sent. But the word actually is the word angel.

So I'll show you those in a bit. And then later on, we're going to see it in the fallen angels, where Satan is the one who is sending out his henchmen, so to speak, his angels, if you will. Okay, so let's look at the... talking about the special class of beings. The first issue is about the fact that angels are created. Let's look at Psalm 148. Psalm 148. And if I could get a volunteer maybe to read – let's see. It would be verses 1 through 5 in Psalm 148. It's a short one, so you don't have to read a lot. And if there's any donuts left, you can get a donut, too. I have no control over that, really. But go ahead, Ray. Thanks.

Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens. Praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels. Praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise ye him, sun and the moon. Praise ye him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. that then praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. Thank you. Okay. So verse 5 kind of sums it up. The first part of this, he makes this list of everything, just about. And he says, and they were created. And he commanded and they were created. He spoke and they were created. And it's interesting, in this list, here we have angels, and then we have his host, And going through this, I kind of have a question here in a second for you. The relationship between angels and hosts, I think, is kind of interesting.

I haven't really come to... There are a lot of verses that talk about hosts as well, and it seems like hosts are related, but I couldn't find in my study, and of course, there's a lot to go through here, the exact relationship. It seems like the hosts are sometimes talking about a group of angels, an army of angels, possibly. In fact, the word host It's kind of the idea of an army. It has warfare in mind. And we see the word host used a lot. Think about at the birth of the Lord Jesus, where the heavenly hosts were there watching over the birth of the Lord Jesus.

See how that refers to the angelic beings as well? And that's going to kind of fold into the question I have for you here. And Hal, help me with this. I can't... With someone like Adventure, when were the angels created? That's a question. When were the angels created? I think that's pretty good.

There are some verses I'd like to look at. Part of the issue is this idea of host and how you render host. Are hosts really collections of angels? You might argue with the verses we're going to talk about the host. And so let's look at some of these verses here.

Go ahead. Now, maybe you have. OK, good. Like, for example, in verse three, it says, we pray to him, sun and moon, and then it goes on to explain sun and moon, pray to him, all stars of light, and often in psalms, Okay. Okay, I see your point. That's excellent. That's excellent. I had to write before we didn't even, you know, that's good. That's very good.

Because I was struggling with because they're different words in the original language. That's where I kind of got off on looking at that. But that's good. Okay. Great. Okay, let's look at Genesis, Chapter 2. Genesis, Chapter 2. May I just go ahead and read some of these just to save a little bit of time here. Genesis, Chapter 2. And if you look, and this is kind of the section, this is after, this is in between the, let's see.

Just in verse 31, he talks about the six, and evening and morning was the sixth day. And then it says, thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all their host. So in verse one there, it talks about the heavens and the earth and all their host. That's one verse that talks about the host or the angelic beings being completed, that creation being completed at that point. And then there's another one. Let's look, and this one kind of sums it up in terms of the six days. Let's look at Exodus 20. Exodus 20. And I'll go ahead and read verse 11.

It says, ìFor in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath and made it holy.î Okay. And basically what this is saying is that everything was completed in six days, basically. and all that is in them. So everything was completed in six days. And then one more, let's look at Nehemiah chapter 9. Let's look at verse 6.

It says, Thou alone art Lord, Thou hast made the heavens, the heavens of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. Thou dost give light to all of them, And the heavenly hosts bow down before thee.

So I think that's really neat, especially that last part of that verse. The heavenly hosts bow down before thee. Part of what the angels are about is giving glory and praise to God. So that's a little bit of a detour, but just kind of interesting. I thought that was just really neat about the heavenly host.

They're created beings. That's important. Secondly, is that they're an innumerable company of them. And that's kind of interesting. There are several verses that talk about that. In Hebrews, I'm going to have to turn to it. Hebrews 12, 22, it says there is an innumerable company of angels. Actually, that's rendered by Weist. Oh, I'm sorry. In the New American Standard, it says myriad, myriads of angels.

Sometimes they'll say myriads of myriads. Let's look at that in like in Revelation. I think Verne went over this maybe six months ago, whenever it was. Revelation 5. Revelation 5 and verse 11. Does someone else have something besides in verse 11 myriads of myriads? Does someone have a different rendering of that? I have a numeric standard and it has, at the end of that verse, it talks about myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands. Does someone else have a different rendering of that? That's Revelation 511. Okay, good, excellent. Well, you know, if you do your math there, that comes out... I saw somebody's math and I didn't get the same number. That's 10,000 times 10,000, which is 10 to the 4th. 10 to the 4th times 10 to the 4th is 10 to the 8th, which is 100...

Somebody got 200 million. I don't know how they got that. But anyway, that's quite a few. But it's kind of fun. What's that? Well, that's exactly what I said. Math is math, right? But in the thousands of thousands, maybe they somehow factored that in there. I don't know. Someone had 200 million and I said, well, anyway. It's a lot.

There's a lot of angels out there. In fact, Dr. Schaefer in his systematic theology says, And he was just kind of talking about that, thinking about... Remember when Abraham was going out and said, look at the stars in the skies, and he says, your descendants will be as many as the stars in the sky. Well, Schaeffer was saying that it's conceivable there are as many angels as there are, or more angels than there are humans. So, I mean, there's a lot, for all time. Has somebody done a calculation on that? I haven't really thought about that. But anyway, there's a lot.

So there's a numeral company of angels. And the third point is that their position is above men. And this point, you know, this is one of these things that I think what this is looking at is the fact that angels, so many times when angels are sent to a man, and we're going to see a lot of those, or women, they tend to fall, they'll fall down because it's from God. It has his glory, his presence, if you will, and they fall down And the angels almost every time say, don't worship me, worship the Lord. Worship God, the true God. So they're above him in the sense that they're in God's presence and they're doing his bidding, if you will, in that sense. But in another sense we're going to see is that as our, when we come to know the Savior, our position is a much more intimate position than the angels ever have. And that's kind of neat. And the angels are wondering about this wonderful relationship that we have, and we're going to see that. So that's kind of what this position is. You've got to kind of qualify that.

That position, I think, is in terms of – and the verses in there – the last one, 2 Peter 1, talks about men falling down. Shouldn't you be falling down before angels? It's kind of admonishing them. Okay, so now I'd like to go on – and actually this is a topic that we covered back eons ago, Class I or II, talking about, and actually it fits a lot better, I think, here, because if you think about the idea of angels, the word angel being a sent one, in the pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, I think in a way, the reason that he's called the angel of the Lord is that he has been sent by the Father to do his bidding, to appear to men for a purpose.

So the Lord Jesus here is being the sent one in this case, the pre-incarnate appearances. And that fit much better, I think, than when we did it before back early on. We did it, and it didn't, you know, it's hard to kind of grasp. Hopefully we can explain a little bit more. If you still have questions, I'll be happy to try to go over those some more. And after looking some more and thinking about this, there's really, there's kind of two classes of these pre-incarnate appearances. in terms of the angel of the Lord.

There's the one that, and we'll look at it again here, where the person who sees the Lord Jesus, or sees the angel of the Lord, God in the flesh, identifies that person must have been the Lord, that must have been Jehovah. Because this is the Jehovah God, in the Old Testament you have Elohim, you have Jehovah, other names. This is Jehovah or Yahweh. So the person recognizes in the first case that it was Jehovah. In the second case, it's a situation where you have both, that the appearance is distinct from Jehovah.

So it kind of shows the aspect of the Trinity, and that's kind of neat. And we'll look at that in just a little bit. So there's kind of two classes, if you will. And let's look at the first one here, the angel of the Lord, in terms of with Hagar here. Genesis chapter 16. I'm going to ask someone to read starting in verse 7. The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert. It was a spring that is beside the road to Shur.

And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? I'm running away from my mistress, Sarai, she answered. And the angel of the Lord told her, go back to your mistress and submit to her. And the angel added, I will increase your descendants so that they will be too numerous to count. And the angel of the Lord who said to her, You are now a child, and you will have a son, and you shall name him Ishmael. For the Lord has heard your misery.

He will be a wild donkey of a man, and his hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers. So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Okay, well actually 13 is a real critical verse in this I think is the fact that you know the angel of the Lord and he found her by the spring of the water in the wilderness And he talks with her. He tells her what's going to happen. He tells her about her descendants and all that.

And then after all that, her response to that, she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. And that's Jehovah or Yahweh. And then she says, Thou art a God who sees, for she said, I have remained alive after seeing him. So she had a face-to-face meeting with the pre-incarnate Christ. And she recognized that to be that he was God, he was Jehovah. So that's kind of the first, where the person who sees the pre-incarnate Christ identifies him as being God or Jehovah. So that's case one.

The next case, and actually what I did, okay, I actually had some more verses there. So let's, I want to look at some more verses before we look at the Zechariah one. Let's look at, Actually, it's very close. In Genesis 24, let me read verse 7. Before I read this, what we're going to see here is, and maybe you'll say this is unfair, but we're not going to see the word angel the Lord used, but it's going to be classified in that category. Let me read verse 7.

It says, The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying, to your descendants, I will give the land. He will send his angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there. So this is Isaac and he's going to get a bride, basically. basically is saying, and the key part, he will send his angel before you. And if you look over in verse, let me see where's the other one, in verse 40, same chapter, it kind of just says this again, he says, and he said to me, the Lord before whom I walked will send his angel with you to make your journey successful, and you will take a wife for my son from the relatives from my father's house. So it's speaking about his angel. It's the Lord's angel. So it's distinguishing between the Lord and his angel. And that's classified in this category. It's a little bit difficult to see, I think, in here.

Okay, let's look at the one in Zechariah here, just real quickly. And I would say all of these take some time to look at and sort it out, to make sure that you're satisfied with that. Zechariah, chapter 1. I think what's neat about this one is we see the Father speaking to the Son, if you will. Okay.

Okay, let me just start back. May I have somebody read this for me? Starting at verse 7. Someone read 7 to 13? I know it's a lot. Yeah, thanks. On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shibat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Zechariah.

I saw by night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and it stood among among the myrtle trees in the hollow, and behind him were horses, red, sorrel, and white. Then I said, My Lord, what are these? So the angel who talked with me said to me, I will show you what they are. And the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, These are the ones whom the Lord has sent to walk to and fro throughout the earth. So they answered the angel of the Lord, who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and, behold, all the earth is resting quietly. Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts, how long will ye not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah, against which ye were angry these seventy years? And the Lord answered the angel who talked to me with good and comforting words.

Okay, good. Well, those last two verses are really, this dialogue is interesting between the angel of the Lord, the angel of the Lord speaking to the Lord. And he says, O Lord of hosts, how long, it's like he's petitioning, how long will you have no compassion on Jerusalem and so on.

So there's an interchange. So that's the idea of being distinct from the Lord. And there's quite a few more. I mean, there's a whole bunch more. But I just want to kind of point this out in terms of the angel of the Lord being sent for a purpose and the two categories, either identified as the Lord or distinct from the Lord. Okay.

Now the third category, this is a case where we have a few cases in Scripture where the word messenger or angel is actually used kind of in a different sense. in Luke chapter 7 here. Luke chapter 7. And verse 24. In this section right here, the Lord Jesus is speaking right before verse 24. And he's talking... I'll just start back in 22.

And he answered and said to them, Go and report to John what you have seen and heard, that the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them, and blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over me. And then it just kind of makes this comment in 24, it says, and when the messengers of John had left, he began to speak to the multitudes about John, and so on.

So that word messenger is the word angel. So there's this case, and not too many cases, this case, And that's actually the word angel. So it's used in the sense of just more generic sense, just as being sent. And in the last category, the last section here, and there's some made difference of opinion in Revelation. Let's look in Revelation chapter 2. There's a whole bunch of times in Revelation chapter 2 where the word angel, the angel of the church of Laodicea, angel of the church of whatever, is used. If you start, like, in chapter 2, it says, to the angel of the church in Ephesus write, and you go down to verse 8, to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, and so on. So, every church, it talks about an angel write.

So, people looked at that and sort of said, well, you know, it looks like, is that really an angelic being doing this? And, I don't know. I'm not sure, I kind of looked at what, you know, I guess I see the point. If someone has a thought about this, I'm open to that.

Dr. Schaffer has kind of classified that in the section where that's really a human, a man, not an angel. And some have said, well, no, I think it's an angel. I'm not sure it's really, really critical, but to be complete, I wanted to cover it. And that's kind of put in the category under Messengers that are human and not angelic.

I wanted to mention it for completeness. So all these cases here. So anyway, that's homework since I think about that. I don't know. So I hope I'll leave you more questions than answers here in that category. Okay. Any other thoughts before we And there's a lot, actually, there's a lot more things you could talk about. One thing that kind of occurred to me... I'll just save that for right now. Anything else on this section?

Go ahead. OK. OK. Hey, Marilyn. Excellent. Excellent. Let's go to the next. Wonderful. Good. Excellent. Excellent. OK. Well, this next section, we're going to talk about the holy angels or the unfallen angels. And we're going to see that it's neat. They really they have come, you know, at times in history and just in general. to men, to render comfort and aid and that kind of thing.

So let's look at a verse in Hebrews chapter 1. Let me ask a question before we... I'll turn to Hebrews chapter 1 and then I'll ask the question. Hebrews chapter 1. I won't tell you the verse so you won't peek. You'll peek if I tell you the verse. Would you mind reading verses 13 and 14? Thank you. I can't sit in everyone's time to try to phrase the question. 13 and 14. Chapter 1? Yes, thank you.

Which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand, and shall I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet? Are they not omnipotent, sitting, set out to render service, which maketh those who Well, I was trying to phrase the question about who are they sent to, and I couldn't pull it off, I'm sorry. But I thought it was interesting to hear that, and I was trying to think, are there ever cases where angels are sent to, well, Hagar. Hagar would be an example.

She wasn't a believer, right? She wasn't a believer, and God sent his son to her. So I was kind of rethinking my thoughts here. That's why I was thinking, oh, Roger, you're going to make one of these statements, I'll put my foot right in the hole. But God's purpose, you know, I don't know, I've seen that many, many times, is to provide His ministering spirits, as it says here, are they not all ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who inherit salvation? So that they're, I think they're primary for believers, really. And that's consistent with what, you know...

Well, I was trying to phrase a question along that line and I was just, Every time I phrased a question, my mind thought, well, no, I put a hole there, and I said, no, Roger, don't go there. So I just gave up. I read the verse. Anyway, so, I think it's good to kind of think about, you know, when you come to a conclusion about my passage of Scripture, how does this apply? Does that apply, you know, where does it apply? Is it total, or is it, you know, specific? I think it's important to see that. So, anyway, here.

So I thought this was kind of a good verse to kind of start off this section, because we're going to see We're going to see Michael and Gabriel, the cherubims and the seraphims, have specific things that God sent them to do. They had specific ministries at critical times to show people who God is and what His glory is. It's really neat. All these are really interesting.

The first one is Michael. Michael is called the archangel. And it's interesting that word archangel, the word arch, it's actually the idea, think about the chief priest, the chief priest, the chief shepherd, the chief tax collector. You've heard those phrases in scripture in the New Testament. That's kind of the same idea. The archangel is the chief or the head.

He's the highest rank in his category. highest angel. He's the archangel, the highest angel, as is the chief shepherd, the chief priest, and so on. He's the highest in his category. And his name, as Dr. Shaffer points out, is who is like God, is what that name Michael literally means, who is like God.

And we see that he appeared, and I won't go through all these. Daniel, it's interesting, Daniel had a lot of angelic help. Because he appears over and over. I was kind of amazed that Daniel, Gabriel appeared to him, Michael appeared to him. It's really neat.

And he talks about how these angels, you know, if someone were to ask you, what does an angel look like? I know the question all the time. Tell me what an angel looks like. Male, female? Short, tall, fat, skinny? I mean, what does he look like? Monica? What's that? I was thinking that if I was really good, I don't watch, what was it, Touched by an Angel? I have no clue. I mean, I watch one show, maybe, but I have no clue about that show. If I was really clever here, I'd have all those really neat things.

What's that? Well, there may be in some cases. You're right. In some cases people fall down. You're right. They're struck by their presence. That's true. What gender? Male. Always? Excellent. Excellent. You guys get it. Go ahead. I have a question. I can't remember the first of a lot of those. It says when you entertain strangers. Okay, all right. You might argue, yeah.

Well, why don't we look at one of these Daniel passages. Daniel had a lot of interface of angels here, so let's look at Daniel chapter 10. How I said that was one of the ones on Touched by an Angel. The one you mentioned, I said, I knew I didn't know it because I haven't watched that show. You get all your information on angels from Touched by an Angel.

Okay. Daniel chapter 10. All right. And let's start reading in verse 18. It says, then this one with human appearance touched me again and strengthened me. And he said to me, O man of high esteem, do not be afraid. Peace be with you. Take courage and be courageous. Now as soon as he spoke, I received strength and said, May my Lord speak, for you have strengthened me.

Then he said, Do you understand why I came to you? But I shall now return to the fight against the prince of Persia. So I am going forth, and behold, the prince of Greece is about to come. However, I will tell you what is inscribed in the writing of truth. Yet there is no one who stands firmly with me against these forces except Michael, your prince.

So in this passage, we see, first of all, he has human appearance. And we also see that, and this is something that kind of comes back over and over again, angels are involved in warfare. It seems between the holy and the unholy, there's this warfare going. And he kind of alludes to that. And we see that that comes to light in other passages, that the angels are involved in this warfare, which is unseen to us. They're involved in this warfare. And we're going to see it later on down here with principalities and powers or rulers and authorities.

There seems to be this allusion, or not allusion, but this scripture speaks about this battle going on that we can't see, that we aren't privy to, but it's happening. And it's between the holy and the fallen angels. And actually, if you just turn over to chapter 12 in Daniel, there's another one in chapter 12. Let me just read verse 1 in chapter 12.

It says, Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as has never occurred since there was a nation until that time. And at that time, your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued.

So he's spoken about there. So Michael basically has also spoken in the New Testament in Jude, he's spoken about the archangel there. And he's actually fighting, he's disputing with the devil in this case, in Jude. All right, so that's kind of, you know, briefly, that's Michael, then Gabriel. Gabriel had really, he was sent to Daniel as well, and he was sent to Daniel to tell him about the end times, or times of the end. That was kind of neat. I don't know, it's funny, I think it's neat when you discover, you hear people use the term end times, and you think, well, is that biblical? Well, you look in Daniel, and you see that when Gabriel came to him, he talks about the times of the end, or the end times, and I think, boy, That is a biblical term.

I never realized that. That's just me. I get kind of excited about that. Times at the end of the end times. So that was neat. And then there's two cases that are just significant. He appears to Zacharias and he appears to Mary. And they're both in Luke. So let's just turn to Luke quickly here.

Luke chapter 1. I don't think I want to go through and read all this, but in Luke chapter 1 in 1119 he talks to Zacharias and he tells him about the fact that he's going to have a son, he's going to name him John, basically. And then I think it's interesting toward the end when he identifies himself Let's look at verse 19 in chapter 1. Luke 1, 19.

I'll just back up to 18. And Zacharias said to the angel, How shall I know for certain? For I am old, for I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. And the angel answered and said to him, I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. I have been sent to speak to you and to bring to you this good news. So he identifies who he is and he's been sent from God to speak to him and tell him about this wonderful news. It's interesting that it says he stands in the presence of God. I don't know whether that just really hit me.

Where are we in our position in Christ? Where are we in terms of God? The angels are standing. Where are we? Isn't that interesting? I mean, that's neat. We are seated with Christ in the heavenly. We have this wonderful relationship. This is where the idea of the angels being, you know, a higher position, I mean, in a sense they are, but we have this wonderful relationship. We're seated with Christ in the heavenly.

I mean, I just, that really kind of struck me. And it says, the other place where it says angels are standing, it says that like with the cherubims or the seraphims, they're standing above the throne. They always say, how about standing, standing, standing. Boy, that's interesting. Angels are standing, but we're seated with Christ. Man, that was neat.

I don't know, that's one of the little things you kind of pick up as you go through these verses. And then with Mary, in verse 30, he comes to Mary, and actually in verse 26, in the sixth month, The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, and so on. So he was sent from God to Mary. All right, so that's Michael, Gabriel. Then we go on to the cherubims. So the cherubims and the seraphims seem to be... And here's a case where Give me some physical characteristics of the cherubim. I can't even say it. Cherubims and seraphims.

What's the distinguishing characteristic of those angels? They have wings. Hence, people in the world are thinking, well, all angels have wings, right? They may be hidden under their clothes or who knows where. Where are your wings at? God can give them wings, and they don't have to have wings. So the cherubims and the seraphims, they have wings, and their ministry seems to want to focus on God's holiness, who He is and what He's done, and they're guardians of that, they're defending His holiness. And their picture around the Ark of the Covenant, on the mercy seat, facing each other with their wings spread out like this, it's just wonderful pictures the holiness of God and how they portray that.

So there's a lot that we can go through the chair. We're going to have to skip that if we're going to go any farther here. So maybe I'll just let you guys read through that. There's a lot of neat verses about that. Most of you are probably aware of the ones about the mercy seat. Some angels are called elect or chosen angels, and Timothy talks about that. I'd like to go down to the principalities and power. I just wanted to show you one verse on that. Let's look at Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter 3. And I'm just going to read verses 8 through 10, Ephesians chapter 3.

Of course this is Paul saying, it says, To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to you Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery, which for all ages has been hidden in God. who created all things, in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places."

So here is the church, those ones that, the believers, are going to make known this manifold wisdom to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places. So this seems to be referring to that the rulers and authorities are the angelic beings. They're going to learn from the manifold wisdom of God. It's going to be revealed through the church. So I thought that was kind of really significant, that the angels have a specific job to do in terms of God, but they don't see the whole picture necessarily. And there are other verses that speak about that. They want to look into the things of God's grace and salvation.

Okay. Let me just quickly look through the rest of the charts here. Actually, next week we're going to be spending a lot more time. Now, for the fallen angels, Satan is the head of the fallen angels, and he drew a multitude of angels. with him, and we're going to look at him a lot. We're going to look at, next week we're going to look at, there are a couple passages that are just significant, and we're going to see how he fell. We're going to see about his, exactly what happened when Satan chose to go his own way. And there are two classes of fallen angels, those that are bound, and those that are free. The ones that are bound are talked about, they're in chains, reserved for judgment. There are verses that talk about that.

The ones that are free are the ones that seem to be able to, in the New Testament, the ones that would enter a man. Demons at that point would enter a man and they wanted to go. And then they asked the Lord, in one case they asked the Lord, can we leave this man and go into these swine? And the Lord said, yes you can. There's some control over the free ones as well. I mean, and obviously Satan has access to heaven but only under God's direction. So their freedom, I'm not sure that word free is They're free under God's direction, I guess I'd say.

And then the doom of Satan, as we've been seeing in Revelation, is the lake of fire. And we just covered that last week in Revelation 10-20. So that's a pretty quick... We're going to focus on, in the weeks to come, the chief of the fallen angels, Satan. And then lastly here, this is kind of maybe even a summary, if you will, of some of the things we've said.

Where were the angels present? They were present at creation, at the giving of the law, at the birth of Christ, at the temptation, Christ's temptation, the Garden of Eden, the resurrection, the ascension. And they're going to be involved in the heavenly scene, in the New Jerusalem, and the Second Coming. So angels are... It's funny, when you read through, sometimes you just read right over that. I know I have. I'll just read right past it, and I didn't realize I even talked about angels. But once you're kind of looking for it, they're there.

They're there. So they're part of God's creation, part of His plan, and part of what He is about, showing who He is and what He's done for a purpose. So they're involved, and they're ministering to the heirs of salvation, which we looked at a little bit already. They're spectators and witnesses of things on earth.

They were involved with Lazarus, taking to Abraham's bosom. And then the last point is, and this is right from Schaeffer, it says, the ministry of angels is essential to understanding God's providential and sovereign direction of His creation. He's chosen to use angels for His purposes, to show who He is, His holiness. If He needs to inform someone, if He needs to provide comfort, He's used angels in that capacity. So they're a part of His plan.

To us in the human world, I guess there's that verse you talked about, but we have very, we have minimal interface with angels. So that's a lot, you know, in 50 minutes there to go over. But any last questions or thoughts or... Lonnie? I'm pretty clever. Oh, a person having a guardian angel? Oh boy. You have thoughts on that? I don't. Guardian angel. We want to rephrase your question, Marilyn. You've changed your mind about your question? Your question was, are there guardian angels? Is that your question? My question is, does the Bible give any? For a guardian angel. I don't know, that's a good question.

Well, if you think about it, I mean, let's take it in terms of believers. Could it be any better? Could it be any more secure to being in Christ? Could it be any better? That's why I kind of just... Angels are standing and we are seated. We are in this wonderful relationship. I don't know. I think in terms of believers, I don't think it's an issue. I don't know about outside believers. We're told we're in Christ, but we're going to have tribulation. I think from the believer's perspective, I don't think angels are...

It's a relation with Christ. That's that's a significant. My thought. What why are there angels. Well I think that they're set for a purpose. To. For a particular purpose that God had. And you know he has chosen to do that. He's chosen to send angels that. specific times in history. And they're on to the heavenly scene, too. We better close.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for your word, Father. We thank you that you know all things, Lord, that you have created everything in this world, Lord. You created angels for your purpose, Lord, And we're thankful that you've given us understanding of what they've done, what they've accomplished, Lord. And we're thankful that, most of all, for your dear son, who has given us this wonderful relationship. And we thank you for that. In Christ's name, Amen.