Do Angels Pray For Us?

Do angels pray, and if so, do they pray for us? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Here's the number to call if you have a question. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Feel free to leave a voicemail if you get our voicemail system, and of course you can always email us anytime at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Allison calling in from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Allison, what's your question for Adriel?

Hi, Adriel. Thank you for your show. My question, I guess, is, so anytime I'm aware that I miss an opportunity to share the gospel with somebody, I feel guilty. I don't want to become comfortable, though, with the feeling, with feeling comfortable not sharing my faith. How do I manage these feelings when I feel guilt takes over and causes me to not want to share my faith at all? I know God is merciful to me as his child, but what verses do you recommend to encourage me when I have this struggle? Well, the first thing I would say is, you know, when you feel that guilt or when you feel like, boy, I could be such a better Christian if I shared the gospel more. I missed that opportunity.

It was right there in front of me. Know that you can go to the Lord and you confess that to him and you pray. I mean, what a prayer. I think that this is a prayer that God is pleased with and wants to answer for each of us. Lord, help me to communicate the truth of the gospel clearly to the people around me and give me opportunities, open doors to share the gospel. Oftentimes, in the New Testament, there's that phrase, an open door, and it's typically used by Paul in 1 and 2 Corinthians. In places like the Book of Acts, it's used in the context of the gospel being shared, God opening doors for the advancement of the gospel, for his message to be proclaimed. And so I think each of us, Alison, we begin by saying, Lord, give me those open doors for the gospel.

And when I see them, help me, Lord, to communicate the gospel with simplicity, with conviction, with compassion. And when we fall short, and we do fall short, we confess to the Lord. And so I think that it's just one, beginning with prayer, and two, when we fall short, confessing and just saying, Lord, help me and have mercy upon me. I don't know that it's necessarily like an issue of sin, like I need to confess that I didn't perfectly share the gospel with this person.

I think it's just a longing that each of us has as believers to want to communicate the faith. And so I would say another thing is praying and saying, Lord, help me to do it from a place of joy. And I guess the one passage of scripture that I'm encouraged by and that I like to remind myself of is what Paul told the Romans in Romans 1, where he talked about not being ashamed of the gospel.

And he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, Romans 1 16, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. God, help me to really understand and believe that your gospel is the best news in the world, that it is your power to save everybody, to forgive sins, doesn't matter who they are, what they've been through, and to share that message as good news. And Lord, give me those opportunities. And so, Alison, this is something we all need. And so I want to take a moment to just pray for you right now and pray for all of us as we long to be faithful in sharing the truth of the gospel with the people we love.

Dear Lord, thank you for my sister Alison. Thank you for her desire, Lord, to communicate your word to the people around her. And Lord, we know how often we fall short, Lord, and aren't able to clearly communicate the truth of your gospel or maybe just miss opportunities, Lord, through the fear of man, through shame, whatever it is, Lord, that keeps us from being able to share. I ask that you would give her and that you would give all of us, Lord, open doors for your gospel, to see your word go out in power, and use us, Lord, weak as we are, as poor of communicators as we are at times as well. Lord, would you use us still to share your word with others who desperately need it and give us joy as we do that, Lord. Thank you, Lord, that your gospel has reached us, that we have the forgiveness of sins, and that we have the forgiveness of sins, and that that forgiveness, that justification is not dependent upon how faithfully we go on and share the gospel with others, but that you've forgiven us and freed us to share your love with the people around us. We pray these things, O God, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. By the way, Alison, we have a great resource that might be helpful to you on our website. It's called How Can I Share My Faith? You can find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash questions, again corechristianity.com forward slash questions, and look for How Can I Share My Faith? Well, if you have a question for us on the Bible or the Christian life, you can feel free to leave us a voicemail 24 hours a day at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Yvette, who's calling in from Oklahoma. Yvette, what's your question for Adriel? Yeah, it's interesting that I got behind Alison, because my question is, I'm a Bible study teacher. I teach three or four Bible studies, and I heard a very big-time preacher last week preaching that because we're in the new covenant, confession doesn't need to be part of our prayer anymore, and that doesn't seem right to me.

It's not right. I would say that's, yeah, well, I mean, so two passages that make it clear that confession does need to be part of our prayer lives. Every day, one, you just think of Matthew chapter six, Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray, and there at the heart of the Lord's prayer is that confession, Lord, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Every single day, we sin against God in thought, word, and deed. That doesn't mean that as Christians, we're becoming better sinners than we were before. It's just the reality that when confronted with the law of God and what he calls us to, perfect love, truly loving him and loving one another, that we fall short.

We have improper motivations. We sometimes just basic, I mean, just flat out transgress God's law, and so we desperately need every single day to be coming before the Lord in repentance, asking for forgiveness, and knowing that he gives it to us. That's precisely what John says in 1 John chapter one, verse nine. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. What's interesting, Yvette, based on your question is that in the context of 1 John, the background in a lot of 1 John is the promise of the new covenant, God's gift that he's given to us. When Jeremiah, for example, talks about the new covenant, he talks about the spirit of God living inside of us, the gift of the forgiveness of sins, which is a part of the new covenant. It's precisely why John can say in 1 John chapter two, verse 20, you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you have all knowledge. That anointing that he's talking about, that's coming from this idea of the new covenant, the filling of the Holy Spirit. Yet, to these Christians under the new covenant, he still says, look, if we say we have no sin, if we just think that that's no longer a category for us as believers, then we're deceived. We confess our sins, and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

As believers under the new covenant, we have been forgiven, filled with the Holy Spirit, but we are called day by day to continue to confess our sins, that we might walk in the light and fellowship with God and with one another. Yvette, love hearing that you're teaching all of these Bible studies. May the Lord bless you and lead many into a deeper understanding of the word through your service.

Yvette, thanks so much for what you are doing. It just brings a joy to our hearts to know that you're teaching God's word on a regular basis to others. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. I want to take a moment out to say thank you to a very special group of people. We call them our inner core. Yeah, inner core. Those of you who have joined the inner core just do definitely want to say thank you. Your gifts, your prayers are a huge support, a huge shot in the arm for us, and they help us to continue to do the ministry that we're doing here. The inner core is a monthly donation of $25 or more that really does allow us to continue to broadcast throughout the airwaves and also to create the print materials that we send out, resources like Bible studies that we think will help you continue to grow in your Christian faith. If you've been blessed by the work that we're doing, the Q&A that you hear every day, Monday through Friday, as we tackle your questions about the Christian faith, would you prayerfully consider partnering with us and joining the inner core?

Again, it's $25 a month. As a thank you for joining the inner core, we will send you a copy of the book, Core Christianity, written by Dr. Michael Horton, a wonderful resource that dives right into the fundamental truth of the Christian faith that we know will bless you. So, thank you for your support. You can find out more about that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash inner core.

Again, corechristianity.com forward slash inner core. We'd love to have you join that very special group of people who we just count on for this program, and they mean so much to us. Well, let's go back to the phones. John is on the line calling from Missouri. John, what's your question for Adriel?

Yes, I did want to comment on the last caller too. I agree with you that first John 1-9, I teach in several places a county jail that houses federal and two different towns I have a Christ-centered 12-step program. And when you're working 12 steps, you're doing your accountability thing.

And, you know, we need to, once or twice a week, go over our week, do a self-evaluation. And when we see things that we haven't done properly, we need to talk to the Lord and ask Him to help us do it better next week. But anyway, I have someone in my life that is a kind of got say silver, my grandson, and they're not letting him have Christmas. And I don't believe he can have Easter either, because they're saying that those holidays are pagan holidays.

And my understanding, I'm blind and don't see to study, I'm going to have my wife reduce some reading to me. But my understanding that they are on the date of pagan holidays, but they're not representing the pagan holidays. I was wondering if you could help me understand that better. So I could maybe do a good job of explaining to this person that we're not celebrating the pagan holiday, we're celebrating either the birth of Christ or the resurrection of Christ.

Yeah, John, God bless you in the work that you are doing, brother. Now, of course, under the New Covenant in the New Testament, we don't have quote-unquote holy days. Israel in the Old Testament did have, you know, festival days, days of worship, where God had called them to celebrate particular holidays.

And so under the New Covenant, right, this is not something that you see like in the book of Acts or in the book of Romans where we're told you need to do this. This is the proper way to celebrate Christmas or Easter, that kind of a thing. But very early on in the history of the Christian church, the churches were commemorating, if you will, the resurrection of Jesus Christ on a particular day of the year. And the focus was not on sort of mixing paganism with Christianity. The focus was on the Passover of our Lord, his death and his resurrection. This is why in some Christian traditions, you know, we talk about Easter, they'll refer to it as Pascha.

I mean, this is the name, if you will. And so I would say, look, there's nothing in scripture that tells us that we ought to do, we ought always to be celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. We ought to be meditating upon the mystery of his incarnation. And if we're intentionally doing that throughout the year, I think, great. If we're making sure that that's happening around the time of Christmas and Easter, then I think that that's great.

And that needs to be the focus, right? I mean, you think of how so many people today celebrate Christmas, it's just totally pagan in the sense that it's all about money and gifts. And for so many people, the focus is not at all on the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, but on materialism. And so I think that's, I mean, I understand that concern in particular, but that doesn't mean that we can't worship the Lord and fix our eyes upon him through his word and celebrate those great acts of redemptive history, namely the birth of the eternal Son of God through the womb of the Virgin Mary who came to earth for us and for our salvation and his resurrection from the dead for our justification.

These are the very things that should shape the calendar of our lives and help us to continue to grow in grace as we fix our eyes upon the great things that God has done for us. And so we do have a resource, brother, that we want to get in your hands. And Bill, maybe you can share a little bit about that resource, because I know it talks about the origins of Easter in particular, and that question, is it a pagan holiday? And so we want to get that in your hands, John.

It's actually one on Christmas, and it's called Five Reasons Why Christmas Isn't a Pagan Holiday, and you can find that by going to our website at corechristianity.com. We've got some great resources there on a wide variety of things, so check that out, John. We think it will be helpful to you in your discussion. Well, we do receive questions through our YouTube channel, and here's one that came in. Do angels pray, and if so, do they pray for us?

Yeah, another great question. Off the top of my head, I can't think of passages that talk about angels specifically praying for us. I mean, in the book of Revelation, we see a lot of angel activity, and there's a lot of praise and worship and celebrating what God has done, both in creation and in the redemption of humanity. The author of the Hebrews, in Hebrews 1, verse 14, I think, gives us some good insight into the role of angels, what angels are doing. He says, Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? Sometimes in the Bible, they're seen as guardians.

I mean, God uses them in this way. Some people have this idea of guardian angels. I think people might go to Matthew chapter 18, verse 10, where Jesus talks about the little ones and their angels seeing the face of the Father as though they're these angels who are protecting these little ones. You also have angels that are over nations, if you will, overseeing nations. You see this in the Old Testament in particular places like Daniel chapter 10 or Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 8.

It's clear that they are used by God for our benefit to serve for the benefit of those who are to inherit salvation. I don't know that you see, and I guess part of it depends on how you define prayer because praise is a kind of prayer. We do see that in scripture, but if your question is, Are the angels in heaven saying prayers for me or for you? That's, again, not something that we see, I think, as many examples of in scripture.

Certainly, we are called to pray and to lift one another up before the Lord and to encourage one another in that way. But when it comes to the angelic host, I think seeing them as guardians, as ministers who are sent out by God to accomplish His will, His purposes in the world in different ways, I think that's the clearest thing that we have in scripture. We also have a resource on angels for those of you who are interested.

We do. Nine questions about angels and demons. It's one of our core guides, and you can find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash guides. Look for that one on angels and demons. Didn't you do some research, Adriel, on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Yeah, 18, actually.

I mean, it depends on the size of the angels, because they come in all different shapes and sizes, of course. Thank you. Glad we've got that straight. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go back to the phones. Wallace is on the line from Nashville, Tennessee. Wallace, what's your question for Adriel? Hi, Pastor, how are you doing?

I'm doing well, how are you? Great, great, great. My question today is about the, on Genesis 6, when it talks about the stuns of God going into the dollars and means, and I want to know how these giants will conceive, and if they were enough of them, would it conceive for by evil spirits?

Thank you. Yeah, Genesis 6, I mean, this is a passage we've come to many times, I think, on this broadcast, because it's so confusing for many people. Genesis 6, verse 1, when man began to multiply on the face of the land, and the daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. So the question is, who are these sons of God?

And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, his day shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man, and they bore children to them, these were the mighty men who were of old the men of renown.

So the question is, what in the world is happening here? I mean, this is what was taking place right up until the time of the flood, so this is leading up to the flood. And there are really three, I think, interpretations of this text that are viable. One is the interpretation, this is the sons of God as angels, and of course, often in scripture, in the Old Testament, that phrase, that title, the sons of God, is used for the angelic host. You see this in Job chapter 1, verse 6, for example, you also see this in the Psalms. And so there is biblical evidence, and that was also an interpretation that seems to have been held by many people throughout the history of the Church. It's even, I think, indicated in some New Testament passages as well, so there's that view. There is the view also that what you have here is not angels who are coming to earth and taking human wives and creating this sort of hybrid race, but that you have the good line of God's people, the Sethite line, marrying the line of Cain, and so you have this sort of ungodly intermarriage that's taking place, and that that's what's being forbidden here. Now, contextually, the book of Genesis, the Torah, was given to the children of Israel as they were coming out of the wilderness, and in some sense, there's some, I think, support for this view, just in that one of the big issues as they entered into the promised land was intermarriage with the pagan nations, and so you could see why this would be a concern for the people of God and for Moses as he was communicating these books. The other interpretation is that what we have here is this kind of divine kingship, if you will, these men of renown who are abusing their authority and taking these wives sinfully, also polygamy, so a few different ways to take this and ways in which people have taken it.

Look, here's what I say. The point of the passage is simple. This is the detail, but the point, the main point is things had gotten so bad.

I mean, the sinfulness of humanity had gotten so bad that God needed to bring an immediate judgment, and so this was the sort of catalyst that led to the fall, and so whatever is happening here, it's this kind of sexual immorality, this increase in wickedness that brings about the severe judgment of God in the flood, and that's precisely what we see as the text continues, and so those are, I think, the three big interpretations, and I go back and forth, to be honest, in terms of where I lean, but thankfully, the main point of the passage is clear, which is the fact that God judges and will judge sin. Thanks for your question. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Got a question through our YouTube channel, Adriel, it's from Aaron, and he says, should a Christian leave a church where he isn't fitting in, even if it's a strong doctrinally sound church?

And that's a great question. So look, one, I would say the most important thing about the church that we attend is that it is doctrinally sound, that the word of God is being faithfully taught, and hopefully, as it is being faithfully taught, there is good fellowship that's taking place there in the church, and I'll say that we all, even though we might not feel like it, this is really, I think, one of the ways theology can shape our lives practically, we need to view ourselves as fitting in, quote unquote, through the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who has united us to his people.

Now, he creates the family, he picks our brothers and sisters. We may not have all sorts of the same interests, you know, we might not like the same music, might not have the same cultural background, but we have the main thing in common, which is that we recognize that we're sinners in desperate need of a savior, and we're clinging to the grace of God. And when that's the main thing, when what unites the church is the gospel and the forgiveness of sins, and the topic of our conversations is in our particular affinities, it's what we share in common, it's Jesus and his gospel. And so I would encourage you, and I encourage people when they wrestle with this, to dig into the main thing with the people who are there. We may not be the same age, we might not have the same, you know, life stage or whatnot, but man, can we focus together on the gospel.

And can we grow together in that, as that becomes the topic of our conversations and our encouragements with one another. So I would encourage you, if it's a good church, if you're getting sound doctrine, stay and pray that the Lord would give you those relationships, those friendships that help to continue to edify you as well. God bless. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar, or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time, as we explore the truth of God's Word together.