- Who are angels, and what do they do?
Angels are spiritual beings who assist God
especially in the work of salvation
conveying His Word to human beings,
and attending to the needs of God's people.
We see that angelic beings are mentioned at least 273 times
in 34 books of the Bible.
And the Bible says more about angels than about demons.
Few things you must understand before we talk about
the ministry of angels.
We must understand there is different types of angels.
First and foremost, in the Old Testament we see this being
called the angel of the Lord, who's actually Jesus Christ.
showing up in the Old Testament.
For example, He came to Abraham.
There were three people, three men who came to Abraham.
And then we see two angels went to Sodom to rescue Lot
and the Lord stayed with Abraham.
So this wasn't just an angel; this was the angel.
Same thing happened with Moses.
We see that at the burning bush, the Lord was in the bush.
And it says, "The angel of the Lord spoke."
And it uses interchangeably "The Lord", and it was no other
but Jesus Christ who claimed that He was before Abraham.
So He should show up in the Old Testament
before even He was incarnate and born through the virgin Mary.
We see also the similar occurrence
that happens with the parents of Samson
where this man showed up, the man of God
and they offered the sacrifice and He went up in the flames.
And then the parents said, "We've seen God."
So this wasn't just an angel.
This was the angel of the Lord that came.
There is also another type of angel,
and that's actually the devil.
He takes on the form of an angel of light.
Let's read the verse, what it says in 2 Corinthians 11:14.
So not only the Lord Jesus Christ would show up
in the Old Testament as the angel of the Lord,
but Satan instead of showing up as the devil,
instead of showing up as a Lucifer, Leviathan,
showing up as Jezebel or showing up as one of the demons,
his favorite mask is actually the angel of light,
an angel of truth.
That's how he deceived people who had angelic visitations
and then started religions that contradict the gospels.
That's why Apostle Paul tells us, "Even if the angel comes,"
and angel, the angel, whoever; and he contradicts the gospel
he said, "let it be anathema,"
meaning like you got to throw that away and reject that.
There's a huge obsession with the angelic
in the culture of new age, and in the culture of spirituality;
when they also are encouraged to develop a relationship
with the archangel Michael.
They begin to really kind of develop this thing.
And most people don't realize they're in a pure deception
because the devil doesn't transform [himself] into the devil
he transforms himself into an angel of light.
The third type of angel is the angel in the church
or of the church.
And we see this in Revelation 1:20.
It says the following:
So it's actually talking about the ministers.
It's talking about the pastors, the overseers
of a particular local body of believers.
And it represents them with the word angel.
Now it kinds of makes sense because angels are messengers.
And so these men of God or women of God,
they are the preachers.
They herald the word of God to their generation.
We also see that we have-- number four is angels with wings.
Now we know that most likely all angels do not have wings.
But there are categories of angels like seraphim and cherubim.
We know for sure that Seraphim, they have six types of wings.
They cover their face, they cover their body
and they also cover their feet, and they fly.
And we see cherubim most likely they have wings
because they are portrayed in the ark of the covenant
with wings covering the mercy seat.
The first mention of angels in the Bible
was actually a cherubim was placed to protect
the Garden of Eden.
While we most likely know that all the angels do not have wings
because most of the time when they would show up
they appeared as normal men. Sometimes as young men.
But these types of angels like seraphims and cherubims
they most likely have wings.
Number five the type of angel is the archangel.
So there are normal angels, which is number six.
Angels that function in the capacity of worshipers, warriors,
messengers and ministers. But then there is the archangel.
Pretty much like the boss angel,
like the main guy over the angels and his name is Michael.
Now we don't know any more of archangels.
There is speculation that Gabriel is also an archangel.
There is also other extra-biblical sources that say
that Raphael and others are also archangels.
But basing on what the Scripture teaches
we only see one mention of the archangel which is Michael.
And his main responsibility or oversight
is over the nation of Israel, as it says in Daniel 10:13
and Daniel 12:1.
There is also one more category of angels
and these are the fallen angels, in Jude 1:6.
So we see the angel of the Lord,
we see the angel of light- the devil,
we also see angels as the pastors of churches,
we also see angels with wings: seraphims and cherubim.
We also see angels as ministering spirits.
And then the archangel, and the fallen angels.
Now let's look at the four main functions of angels.
You must understand that angels don't roam around like demons
looking for a place to inhabit.
Angels are not trying to inhabit a body.
Angels don't struggle with that.
They are not disembodied spirits. Angels are on assignment.
They don't just roam around the earth looking for something
or someone to help.
Contrary to popular or Hollywood version of angels.
They're not among us walking around, roaming aimlessly.
Angels are on purpose. Angels are on assignment.
Angels get sent.
And God the Father, He sends them on particular missions.
And when they complete these missions, they go back.
For example, if you remember the first function of angels
which gives us a little insight how they are so focused on
their assignment is that angels are worshipers.
When Jesus was born there was a bunch of angels,
a host of them.
They started to actually declare the praises of God.
We don't know for sure if they were singing or not
but they said, "Glory to God in the highest."
And it says afterward that when they were done
they actually went up to heaven.
The Bible says in verse 15 of Luke chapter 2.
Have you noticed that they came, they presented the message,
they worshiped God and then they went back to heaven.
The Bible doesn't say they kind of hanged around
you know, went with the shepherds.
We see that angels were created to worship
but they were not created to be worshipped.
That's why when John the Revelator
bowed down to worship an angel,
he says, "Stop." He says, "Worship God."
He says, "Do not worship me. I'm just your fellow servant.
"I am the guy who carries the testimony of Jesus Christ
just like you do."
But he says, "You should not worship angels."
In Psalm 148:2, the Bible says, "Praise Him, all His angels."
So they are not creators, they are the creation of God
who are called to worship.
The second function that the angels occupy
is they are warriors.
Angels are fighting spiritual beings.
We see that in the last days in Revelation 20:1-3
that actually will be an angel that will bind Satan
and hold the key to hell;
open this pit and throw the devil for a thousand years.
And then these angels will be dispatched to bring people as well
and bring them all to Jesus for judgment.
These angels will also carry judgment out on this earth.
We see that one angel went and hit the Syrian army
and a lot of people died by just one angel.
One angel opposed Prophet Balaam
and almost killed him on the road.
And so these angels are not like kind of very cool
cute little beings with hair over their head.
They are warriors of God.
One angel came and he killed Herod
because Herod didn't give glory to God.
And so we see this all throughout the Bible.
Even in Israel there was a time when David committed sin
and the Lord sent an angel and a plague broke out.
Guess who was executing and accomplishing that plague
that killed people? It was an angel of the Lord.
And so angels are not only worshipers, they're also warriors.
Number four function of angels is angels are messengers.
In fact, the very word angel means a messenger.
Angels are messengers.
You will see many times that they would bring a message.
You know actually angels gave the Law to Moses
according to Acts 7:38, Acts 7:53
Galatians 3:19 and Hebrews 2:2?
We see that angels called Gideon into the ministry
into being a judge of Israel, in Judges 6:11-12.
We see that angels announced Samson's birth,
they announced John the Baptist's birth,
we see that they announced Jesus' birth.
We see that the angel gave Cornelius an instruction
where to find Peter.
We see actually in the Book of Revelation
that the angel was flying and declaring the gospel
in Revelation 14:6.
Now we know that we are assigned to preach the gospel
not angels, but it does not mean that angels cannot preach
because they are messengers so they can release the message.
Typically angels would come and they would tell you
where to go and hear the gospel.
But we also see in Galatians 1:8 where Paul says:
But the indication there is that angels can preach
because one of their roles is to bring the message.
It could be a prophetic message.
It could be a message of encouragement.
Like for example, an angel came to Paul and told him
he will arrive safely in Rome. He encouraged him.
Angel came to Zechariah and said, "You're going to gave a son."
Gave him a prophetic message and Zechariah didn't believe it.
Angel gave him pretty much a little gift.
He says, "You know what, you won't be able to speak.
You're going to go mute."
Angels are able to bring a message from God.
The last one is that angels are ministers.
So they are worshipers, they are warriors,
they are messengers, and they are ministers.
In Hebrews 1:14 it says:
Angels minister. They can minister deliverance.
For example, they delivered Israel out of Egypt.
We see that an angel was sent to deliver Daniel
out of the lion's den by causing lions not to attack him.
We see also there were angels that took Lot
out of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Jacob said that it was the angel of God
that redeemed him from all his evil.
We see that the angel of God pulled Peter out of jail
gave him a jailbreak twice.
So angels are ministers.
They are also ministers of provision.
We see that angels served Jesus after His temptation,
they strengthened Him in the Garden of Gethsemane.
We see that angels also gave food to prophet Elijah.
We see that Israel ate angel's food
during their time in the wilderness.
So angels are ministers of provision.
Sometimes they can bring financial provision
to a believer's life through their ministry.
So they are able to minister deliverance,
they are able to minister provision,
they are also able to minister marriage.
Now this is interesting.
If you remember in the Book of Genesis 24:7,
Abraham gives instruction to his servant
and some people think it is Eleazar,
the oldest servant in his house,
and he says the following. He says:
So in order to find this matchmaking,
Abraham says that the Lord will send an angel.
He will help you to find a wife.
So for those of you single and ready to mingle
hey, ask God to send you an angel.
Like, an angel to help you find your angel,
meaning help you find your spouse.
Like when Joseph wanted to divorce Mary who he was engaged to
because she was pregnant, the angel came to him and said,
"Hey, take Mary as your wife and don't be afraid."
So the angel helped him to kind of get reconnected
to his wife.
And so I want to encourage you today
whatever ministry that you need, look to God.
Ask Him for help. Ask Him to send the angels.
I have another video that deals with us,
we're not given the authority to dispatch angels
but we can ask our heavenly Father and He will send an angel.
We can ask Him and He can release His angelic help
and blessing to help us.
Sometimes we experience the presence of angels
when we feel alone
and some kind of invisible presence is covering us.
Sometimes during worship you feel like you're hearing sounds
that are outside of this world.
It's almost like choirs of heaven. That's angels.
Sometimes maybe you're driving and you're about to
experience a tragic accident and you feel like
somebody just diverted that or stopped that.
Maybe some kind of a stranger that stopped
something bad from happening and just disappeared
into thin air. That's an angel.
And so angels are a lot more common.
A lot of times they take the face and personality of
a human being and they can show up right in the midst of us.
That's why the Bible tells us to keep extending hospitality
because Lot extended hospitality
not knowing he extended hospitality to angels.
We should not be obsessed with angels
but we should also expect our heavenly Father
will take care of us by sending His angels to minister,
sometimes to give us a message,
sometimes to fight on our behalf
and sometimes lead us into worship of God.
The Bible never tells us to worship angels
but we should learn from angels to worship our God.
Have you ever experienced angelic visitation?
Have experienced angelic presence in your life
that you felt like it was not the Lord but it was His angels?
Drop that in the comments below. Let us know.
Let me know what your experience was like.
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Thank you, and God bless.