Pop culture may celebrate angels, but the motive is clear: selling the image is more important than telling the truth. Do you know the difference? Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah turns to God's Word for the facts on these heavenly beings as he continues the series, Angels: Who They Are and How They Help. Here's David to introduce today's message: What are angels anyway?
I imagine that many of you remember the Angel Program on television, where angels came down among us and interacted with us in our daily walk and had a positive influence in the things that happened. I'm not going to make any comment on that. I'm just going to say it brought angels right back to the front. Everybody talking about them. Everybody wondering what do they do.
Who are they? We're going to talk about that today again as we open our Bibles to the discussion of what are angels anyway. Hey friends, if you don't already get it, I hope you are at least thinking about getting our magazine every month. Turning Points Magazine and Devotional is really full of information to help you grow and add value to your life. The November edition of Turning Points Magazine and Devotional is called More Than Meets the Eye.
And it will help you understand a lot about the doctrine of angels. The magazine is sent to you when you ask for it. I hope you will get on the list and receive it. It goes out to several hundred thousand people every month. It's part of our family tradition, and we'd like you to be a part of it too.
So, the question we have before us today is: What are angels anyway? What are they? Where did they come from? How did we get them? What is their origin?
Let's find out. On more than one occasion, Corrie Ten Boom has written of the intervention of angels in her life. One such story records the experience that she and her sister Betsy had as they were sent to a concentration camp for the crime of sheltering Jews. In the horror of all they met there, a prayer for angels' help saw a remarkable answer, and it's all recorded in a book that was written called *A Prisoner and Yet* by Corrie Ten Boom. In this book, she tells this story.
She said we were standing on the great open square in front of the administration building of the concentration camp. We had thrown our arms around each other and drawn more closely to us the blanket that we had carried. It was very cold. We had already spent two days and nights outside, and now we were standing in a long line waiting in front of the bathhouse. At the door of the somber, dark building was a pile of clothing, packages, suitcases, provisions, and blankets, all thrown together in a colorful, chaotic heap.
Gradually, it became a mountain. It was all the possessions of all the new arrivals, and their possessions were all being taken away from them. The women coming out of the shower rooms had on a thin dress, an undershirt, and a pair of wooden shoes—nothing more. I felt Betsy shivering and pressed her closely to me. O Lord, I prayed, save us from this evil.
Betsy is so frail. An officer appeared in the doorway and screamed at us hoarsely, "Do you have any objections to surrendering your clothes? We'll teach you Hollanders what Ravensbruck is all about." The light shone on his cruel face. For a few minutes, we were quiet and spoke softly with the Savior. He was with us and knew what we were suffering, and he loved us.
Lord, I prayed, if Thou dost ask the sacrifice of us, give us the strength to make it. Corey, I am ready," whispered Betsy softly. Then everything is all right," I answered. I took her arm, and together we entered the frightful building. At a table were women who took away all of our possessions.
I asked a woman who was busy checking the possessions of the new arrivals if I might use the toilet. She pointed at a door, and I discovered that that convenience was nothing more than a hole in the shower room floor. Betsy stayed close beside me all the time, and suddenly I had an inspiration. Quick, take off your woolen underwear. I whispered to her.
I rolled it up with mine and laid the bundle in a corner. The Lord is busy answering our prayers, Betsy. I whispered. We shall not have to make the sacrifice of all of our clothes. We hurried back to the row of women waiting to be undressed.
A little later, after we had our showers and put on our shirts and shabby dresses, I hid the roll of underwear under my dress. It did bulge out obviously through my dress, but I prayed, Lord, cause now thine angels to surround me and let them not be transparent, for the guard must not even see me. I felt perfectly at ease. Calmly, I passed the guards. Everyone was checked from the front, the sides, the back.
Not a bulge escaped their eyes. The woman just in front of me had hidden a woolen vest under her dress. It was taken from her. They let me pass, for they did not see me. Betsy, right behind me, was searched.
But outside awaited another danger. On each side of the door were women who looked every one over for a second time. They felt over the body of each one who passed. I knew they would not see me, for the angels were still surrounding me. I was not even surprised when they passed me by, but within me rose this jubilant cry: "O Lord, if Thou dost so answer prayer, I can face even Ravensbrook unafraid." End of story.
Now I know if I could peer into your hearts right now, that many of you would be saying, if not out loud, at least in your heart. Did that really happen? Does God really still allow events like that in our world? Can He surround a woman with angels in such a way that she passes through a line of inspection and is not even seen?
Well, if you study what the Bible says about angels, you know that that little caper is child's play for an angel assigned by God. To a distressed child, but what are angels anyway, and where did they come from, and what are they like? There's so much that's being said about them today that it's important that we go back to the beginning and start where the Bible starts. And I need to tell you at the very outset of this message that the Bible teaches that angels are God's created beings. God created the angels.
For instance, Colossians chapter one and verse sixteen tells us that for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for him. In the middle of that verse, there is a listing of the hierarchy of God's creation: thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. Wherever that appears in the New Testament, the word "powers" is the word that stands for God's angelic creation. In Psalm 148, verses two and five, we read this: "Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts." Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded, and they were created.
Nehemiah nine six says it this way: "You alone are the Lord; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host—that's the angels—the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them—and you preserve them all. And the hosts of heaven worship you." Now these verses just plainly state that the Lord created the angels. They are not the result of the Big Bang. They did not come in the hierarchy of some evolutionary process. God created the angels, but that's really not the issue that is debated by most who study this subject.
The issue isn't did God create them. The issue is when did He do it.
Some people believe that angels predate everything, predate all the creative acts; that they go back to the primordial eternity. One thing we do know is this: that the angels were present very early in the creative process. Job chapter thirty-eight verses four through seven. Tells us this. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know. Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened?
Or who laid its cornerstone? When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Now, if you read the passage carefully, what you notice is that in the book of Job, we are told. That the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy when God was in the process of creating the world, which says they were there at the beginning. The morning stars mentioned in this verse are almost universally understood to refer to the angels of God, and they cannot possibly refer to the stars of the heavens because they were not created until the fourth day of creation. And the sons of God who are mentioned here are also mentioned in the first chapter of Job. You remember the story when the sons of God came before the Lord, and Satan was among them as a part of the angelic hosts.
So here we have in Job thirty-eight four through seven the angelic hosts present at the very beginning of God's creative process. Psalm one hundred and four. I want to read the first few verses, but we're going to center on verses four and five. Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord, my God, you are very great.
You are clothed with honor and majesty. You cover yourself with light as with a garment. Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain? Who lays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters? Who makes the clouds his chariot?
Who walks on the wings of the wind?
Now, watch this. Who makes his angels spirits, his ministers a flame of fire? Who laid the foundations of the earth?
Now, in Psalm 104, this great psalm, which was written to praise God for His creative acts, tells us when the angels were created. According to the record, the next act after the creation of space, time, cosmos. Here in Psalm 104, verse 5 is. The creation of the angels, and immediately after the angels were created, according to the psalmist, then God laid the foundation of the earth. What day was that?
Probably on the second day. It is an incredible thing to think that one of the most important creations of God, before man was created, before much of what we know in our world was created, was God's creative act. When he created all the angels, now while we have our Bibles open to Psalm 104, we can learn just a little bit about the substance of these angels. For the Bible says that they were created as ministers, a flame of fire. This remarkable verse seems to state that these servants of God are actually composed of flaming fire.
This is really beyond anything that we can imagine, because we think in the natural realm. We do not know what the nature of angels really are, but we do know that they are unlike us. Men are made of natural and chemical elements and are subject to the electromagnetic and gravitational forces which control these elements, but angels are not. They are different. They are unique.
They are very much connected with the fire that is mentioned here. In fact, I'll give you a little hint. When you read your Bibles, watch how often angels and fire appear in the same text, and we'll see a couple of them even yet today. You see, angels are able to defy the electromagnetic and gravitational pull which men are so controlled by. They are able to move swiftly from one place to the other.
In fact, on one occasion in the Book of Daniel, Daniel chapter nine and verse twenty-one, we read: "While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning," Being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering. Daniel prayed; God heard his prayer, and immediately the angel was dispatched. I do not know anything at all about the space between the two places, except that angels are not bound by all of that. They are totally different than we are, and they are able to do that which we are not able to do. Often in the scriptures, angels are associated directly with the stars of heaven, which of course are orbs of flaming fire.
That's the substance of angels. Let me add just one other thought while we're talking about their creation, and we'll move from that in a moment. And that is, I want you to think with me about when the angels were created, and the fact that all of them were created at the same time—the simultaneous creation of all the angels. It is important to understand that angels were all created just like that. Their full number was created in the beginning, and there has been no addition to that number since the second day of creation.
Unlike human beings who are conceived and born at different times in history, all of the angels were created at a single moment in time. And listen to me: there are no little angels. All the angels are the adult angels that God created at the moment of His creation. In fact, Matthew twenty-two and verse thirty tells us that angels do not marry, nor are they given in marriage. And that means that angels don't procreate, so there aren't any other angels being born.
The number of angels that were created on the second day of creation is the exact number of angels that we have today. And that is very important for us to understand.
Now, that's a little bit about where they came from, and we won't spend any more time there. Let's talk about what they're like. What are angels like? If one should appear, if we should become acquainted with an angel, what should we expect? And I want to say quickly five things about angels that I hope you will write down.
Number one, they are innumerable. I mean, they are just a multitude of them. In fact, Hebrews twelve twenty two actually uses that term to describe them, have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels. How many angels are there? They're innumerable.
That means you can't count them. You can't possibly know how many there are. Second Chronicles eighteen eighteen says it this way. Then Micaiah said, "Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all." All the hosts of heavens, standing on his right hand and on his left, he looked into heaven and he saw the entire heavenly expanse just filled with the angels of God.
In Daniel chapter seven and verse ten, we read this: A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him. A thousand thousands ministered to him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated and the books were opened. Daniel says there were just myriads of angels. Revelation chapter five and verse eleven.
Do you remember that verse? It says, "Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders. And the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. And we did our math, and we said that meant there were a hundred million angels at least. That's a lot of angels.
So, if you wonder, are there enough up there so that if I need one? It's available to me. I think you're probably in good shape. All right, angels are innumerable, but let me tell you something else that's very important for us to understand about them. They're invisible.
Angels are invisible.
Now, most of you are like me. We've been sort of oblivious to angels most of our lives, so there's really no telling how many times they've intervened when we've needed them.
Some years ago, when I had my ordination for the gospel ministry, I was in ordination council, and they asked me a question. We were discussing angels, and they asked me, "Do you believe in guardian angels?" And before I could answer, my mother, who was sitting there, said, "Well, if he doesn't, I do." That's what she said in the meeting, and she had watched me grow up and all of the close calls I had had along the way. But we are not usually aware of the intervention of angels in our lives because they're invisible.
Well, you say, Pastor Jeremiah, if angels are invisible, then how is it that so many angel sightings have been reported, both in the Bible and in today's world? There has to be an answer to that, and frankly, there are two answers to it, and they're both right from the Word of God. Turn in your Bibles to the 18th chapter of the Book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 18, and let me teach you a little bit from this passage in the life of Abraham. You remember the story of how Abraham was so concerned about his nephew Lot because Lot was in a lot of trouble. He was in Sodom.
And so he was pleading to God that Lot would be rescued. And the Bible tells us in Genesis chapter eighteen that God heard his prayer. And beginning at the beginning of the chapter, it says, "And the Lord appeared to Abraham by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him. And when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the ground.
Now, if we had time to read the rest of this text, we Would discover that one of these three men were actually Jehovah, the Lord. He's mentioned several times in the passage, and the other two men were angels. But when Abraham saw them, they just appeared to him like three men. Here's the point. One of the reasons why people see angels is because angels have the ability to appear to us as human beings if they choose to do so, or if God so ordains.
In this story, they appeared to Abraham as Jesus. And two angels, all three of them looking like men. And I went through the story and wrote down in my notes that if you read it carefully, you will see that these angels ate, they washed, they walked, they held hands, and they took a physical form. They looked like men. But in the midst of the story, as you know, as Abraham was pleading with them for his nephew's life.
The Lord said to the other two who were with him, "You go down there and take care of Lot and get him out of the mess that he's in." And so we read in chapter nineteen and verse one. Watch this. And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening. Who are the two angels? The two angels are the two men of the eighteenth chapter.
They were disguised as men and looked upon as men, and then the Bible tells us who they really were. They were angels.
So that's why some of you. Have told me the stories you've told me, how that somebody was in the hospital and you went in and there was a man there in the hospital room that nobody could identify. You didn't know where he came from or where he went, and he was there in a helping, ministering way. And you believe it was an angel, and it very well may have been because angels have the ability to put themselves in human form so they can be seen. That's one of the reasons why angels have sightings these days.
But there's another reason. And it's even more exciting to me. And that is, not only can angels appear in the form of a human being, but oftentimes God can open the eyes of individuals so that they can see what otherwise would be unseen. And I want to tell you two stories to illustrate that from the Bible. One of them is one of the most humorous stories that I have ever read in the Scriptures.
It's found in Numbers chapter 22 and 23. And it is a very interesting story. It is the story of Israel in their military campaigns, and Israel had developed a reputation of defeating everybody they fought against because they had Jehovah God on their side.
Well, the king of Moab was a man by the name of Balak, and he had heard about how Israel was being so rough on their enemies. And Balak got this idea that the way he could keep Israel off his back. Was to go and find the prophet Balaam, and pay Balaam enough money so that he would curse Israel, and then Israel wouldn't be a threat to him.
So, if you read the story, you know he goes and he finds Balaam, and he says, "I want you to go and curse Israel." And Balaam says, "Well, I'll tell you what; I'll talk to the Lord about it and see what He says." So he talked to the Lord. Lord said, "Don't do it." He went back and he said, "I can't do this." The Lord said, "I can't do it." And so Balaam says, "Well, I'll tell you what; I'll up the ante." I'll give you some more money. I'm making more attractive to you.
So he says, "Well, let me go tell the Lord." And he went back and told the Lord, and Lord said, "I want you to do this." And so he came back the third time, and finally the Lord said, "You go with him, but you tell him only what I tell you to tell him." So here's the story: Balaam gets on his donkey, and along with the king of Moab, Balak, they head off toward Moab. And on their way, they get to a place, and the donkey stops.
Now Balaam's a little upset about this because the donkey stopped and won't go forward, and he starts—you know—I'm imagining a little bit—but he starts working this donkey over.
So finally, the donkey goes off the path, over out of the way, and runs up against a wall. Just about breaks old Balaam's leg, and he's really getting upset about this now. And the more upset he gets, the more angry he gets. In fact, in one place in the scripture, he says to the donkey, "If I had a sword, I'd kill you." The donkey just finally sat down. And wouldn't move, and Balaam is really frustrated.
And finally, what we discover as we read the story is that the reason that the donkey sat down was that the angel of the Lord was standing in the pathway in front of the donkey, and it terrified the poor animal. The donkey saw what Balaam couldn't see, and there is some discussion as you read the story as to which of the two is really the donkey.
Now I'm not sure in this whole story which one fits where. But then I want you to notice what happens. All of a sudden, in the midst of this story, and read the verse Numbers twenty-two thirty-one. Then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand, and he bowed his head and fell down on his face. What happened was, the angel was there all of the time.
The donkey saw it first. And then God opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw it.
Well, those are just a few of the experiences that we read about in the Bible concerning angels. We're building our case. Don't miss a day, because every day we'll add some more information to get a really important impression of what angels are and what they are not. It will make us better. Living the life in the midst of the divine creatures that God has given to uphold and strengthen us.
We are so thankful to have the opportunity to put this material in writing, and we have a book now called Angels, Who They Are and How They Help, What the Bible Reveals. This 240-page book is our gift to you. When you invest in Turning Point during the month of November, what that means is when you send a gift of any size to Turning Point this month, simply say, "Please send me the Angel Book," and it will be on its way. All revved up, ready to do that. We have everything prepared to send your book to you.
So ask for it when you send your investment. We'll see you tomorrow. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, "Angels: Who They Are and How They Help," visit our website, where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio.
That's davidjeremiah.org/radio, or call us at eight hundred nine four seven nineteen ninety three. Ask for your copy of David's book, "Angels: Who They Are and How They Help." What the Bible Reveals. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the New International and New King James versions, available in several handsome and durable cover options. Get all the details when you visit our website, DavidJeremiah.org/radio.
This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series "Angels: Who They Are and How They Help" here on Turning Point.
