Word of Salvation – July 2018
B.C.12 – God’s Guardian Angels
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Bible readings: Psalm 91 (esp.vs.11)
Introd: It’s an indisputable fact that ours is a very materialistic age.
Most people have little time for anything they can’t touch or see… or prove in a test tube.
So most people today don’t really take the existence of angels seriously.
People generally put them in the same category as elves and fairies.
They look cute… chubby little cherubs in medieval paintings.
And on Christmas cards… and in nativity plays for Sunday School – fine!
But nobody seriously expects angels to be a part of real life here and now.
Angels belong in comic books… and back in history when people didn’t know any better.
Only trouble is… that from time to time things do happen for which no one has any answers.
Except maybe – a supernatural being… like maybe an angel.
Like the story which once appeared in Readers Digest.
Dr. Mitchell was a successful neurologist in Philadelphia (U.S.)
He had gone to bed after an exceptionally tiring day.
Suddenly he was awakened by someone knocking on his door.
Opening the door he found a little girl, poorly dressed, deeply upset.
She told him that her mother was very sick and asked if he would come.
It was a bitterly cold, snowy night and the doctor was bone tired.
But Dr. Mitchell dressed and followed the girl.
The story went on to report that Dr. Mitchell found the woman desperately ill.
She was suffering from advanced stages of pneumonia.
After arranging for medical care he complimented the woman
on the intelligence and persistence of her little daughter.
The woman looked at him strangely and then said: “My daughter died a month ago”.
She added, “Her shoes and coat are still in the closet over there.”
Dr. Mitchell, amazed and perplexed, went to the closet and opened it!
There hung the very coat he had seen the girl wearing
when she had come and called him to tend to her sick mother.
But the coat was warm and dry and could not have been out in the winter’s night.
Materialists who deny the reality of a spirit world have all sorts of problems with a story like that.
How do you explain something like that?
In contrast there is another group of people in our society…
people who react against the emptiness of materialism.
They recognise that there is more to life than what we can touch and see.
So we also have a renewed interest in angels… especially in New Age circles.
Go to a New Age bookshop and you’ll find any number of books on angels.
Many of them with fascinating stories to tell.
And there’s a whole range of New Age CD’s available with angels as their theme.
One that I saw was called, “Angels: Voices from Eternity!”
In a sense we as Christians find ourselves in between these two extremes.
OTOH we as people who have just read in the Bible of God’s angels
know that the Lord is still able and willing to send them to us… they are for real.
And tonight I could tell you quite a number of stories about angels.
OTOH we also want to avoid the excesses of the New Age movement.
So we need to be guided by the clear teaching of Scripture.
We must understand that world of spiritual beings only from a Biblical perspective.
A] A GOD-CREATED SPIRIT WORLD.
1. The first thing we need to say about that spiritual world is that it is a part of God’s created universe.
Angels are created beings who are therefore subject to God.
It’s true… Scripture doesn’t tell us the details of their creation.
In the book of Job there is a hint that they were witnesses to the creation of the world
and therefore they must have been created before the events of Genesis 1.
All we need to know is that they are created beings…. brought into existence by Almighty God.
And that is an important starting point in our thinking about angels.
Important because it means no spiritual being can threaten us or ever rob us of our salvation.
They are under the control and authority of the God who loves us for the sake of Jesus Christ.
And that’s why Paul could say in Romans 8:
“For I am convinced that (nothing in all creation, not even) angels nor demons….
will be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
So whatever else we may yet learn about them from the Scriptures
it is clear that they are created beings… under God’s authority.
And that counts for the good angels as well as for the bad angels.
They are not equal to God… so Scripture shows that they are never to be worshipped.
Nor is it as some have suggested that the reason why there is sin and evil in the world
is because alongside the good God there is an equally powerful, ever-existing devil…
who has always been, and always will be, evil…
and who now is fighting it out with God in a gigantic power struggle.
No! That whole realm of angels and spirits was brought into existence by the Lord.
And tonight I want to remind you of the reality of that part of God’s creation.
You see, we are not Sadducees… do you know who the Sadducees were?
The Sadducees were a group of Jewish people who didn’t believe in the resurrection…
nor in spirits… or in angels… and that’s why they were always sad-U-see!
In contrast we believe that all around us there is a world of spiritual beings.
Normally it’s an invisible world… just as it was to Elisha’s servant in 2Kings 6.
But from time to time God gives people glimpses of their reality.
2. The second thing we need to stress is that originally all these spiritual beings were good and pure.
God originally made them all that way.
It is NOT so that the Lord made good angels and then He also made wicked demons.
No! God ONLY made good angels.
In Genesis 1 we read that God saw ALL that He had made… and it was good.
There is not a hint of discord in Genesis 1.
God’s creative activity ended with that assessment that everything was very good.
That means that sin and evil are foreign elements in God’s creation… and so are demons.
They do not belong there…. all that God made was very good.
Yet Scripture also makes quite clear that evil exists in the spirit world.
That in fact – somehow – it all began there.
Genesis 3 pictures Satan taking centre stage.
And beyond a shadow of a doubt, his intentions are evil.
Somewhere along the line part of the spirit world fell into sin.
There were good, angels who became depraved.
So there are now two opposing sides in the spirit world.
There are those depraved angels who are enemies of God and all that is good.
And there are those, who by the grace of God, remained in a state of purity.
So… not only is there a world of spiritual beings all around us
but there is a spiritual warfare going on between them…
a conflict that has raged throughout the ages.
On one side are the good angels who take the side of God.
On the other side are those who turned against the Lord their God.
Tonight we want to look briefly at both sides:
The good spiritual beings – angels… and then also the fallen angels – which we now call demons.
B] THE FALLEN ANGELS.
1. The Bible does not tell us a great deal about the actual fall of the angels.
Apparently the Lord doesn’t consider it important for us to know much about it.
There are however some very brief references to it here and there in Scripture.
Turn please to Isaiah 14:12f where, I believe, we have a glimpse of the fall of Satan.
Satan was certainly the leader of the fallen angels.
Many think that He was in fact the chief angel… the most glorious and powerful…
and there may be some hints of that here in Isaiah 14:12.
READ Isaiah 14 : 12-15.
One of the problems with this passage is that it is actually a taunt directed at the king of Babylon.
The context in verse 4 makes that clear.
That’s why some have been reluctant to see here the fall of Satan.
However we often find in Bible prophecy two different levels of application and fulfilment.
The human level but also a deeper spiritual level.
For example, God promises David (1Chron.17) that his son will reign after him.
That prophesy is first of all about David’s son Solomon.
But behind that is a deeper reference to David’s great Son – the Lord Jesus Christ.
In a similar way this is directed at the king of Babylon who in pride exalts himself against God.
Yet behind that looms (I believe) God’s taunt against Satan.
It certainly cannot be said that the king of Babylon literally fell from heaven.
But that is certainly said elsewhere in Scripture of Satan.
In the 6th verse of Jude’s small letter there is a very clear reference to the fall of angels in general.
And in the book of Revelation there is a hint
that Satan led a third of the angels with him in rebellion against God.
In the Isaiah passage we also see that the essential sin of Satan was pride.
And there are other hints of that in Scripture.
Indications that the fallen angels were not content with their state of glory and honour
but they fought for a higher position of being equal to God.
The devil and his fallen angels wanted to be worshipped as God.
2. All this is important for us as a warning.
Because Satan and his hordes have never been content with their situation or with their numbers.
Genesis 3 is the story of the devil successfully enlisting man in his army.
There we see Adam and Eve willingly taking the side of Satan.
So God in grace and mercy again and again has to call man to serve Him only.
IOW humanity too is now involved in that conflict of the ages that is being fought out in the spirit world.
The battle is also fought out in our human, physical world.
That’s why this is not a perfect world anymore but a broken and distorted world.
This world has become the battlefield between God and Satan.
And you and I are one side or other of the battle whether we like it or not.
Our Belgic Confession calls the fallen angels “the enemies of God and all that is good”.
Of course they particularly oppose God’s wonderful plan of salvation
whereby the Lord seeks to win back humanity to Himself.
In fact the O.T. is simply the story of God preparing for the coming of Christ into the world…
and so opening up the way for rebels to return to Him.
But the O.T. is also the story of Satan trying to stop Christmas from ever happening.
It’s the story of him trying to destroy the royal line of David and the people of Israel.
Now that he has failed… all Satan’s fury is now directed at the followers of Jesus Christ.
And his one great purpose now is to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ. (cf. Rev. 12)
The amazing thing today is that many people wilfully worship Satan and demons.
Many people feel the emptiness of our materialistic society.
And they are looking for spiritual realities.
But many are looking for those spiritual realities in the occult and in the demonic.
Tarot card reading, psychic channelling and séances are at an all-time high.
In my adult lifetime we’ve had a whole host of films subtly promoting the side of Satan.
It began with the film “Rosemary’s Baby” in the late 60’s
Anton LeVey – the head of the Satanist Church – played the part of Satan.
That was followed by the very popular film The Exorcist in 1973.
Then we had The Exorcist (II) and (III), The Omen, and The AntiChrist.
And many of these films are still popular thru video outlets today.
In music it is no different.
The Rolling Stones sang their song, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ to the top of the charts.
Bon Jovi, in a song Homebound Train speaks of the Devil taking his hand & leading him.
And much of that is mild compared to some of today’s heavy metal music.
These things are powerful reminders that we live in a world in which spiritual forces are at work.
And you are involved… whether you like it or not.
Your only choice is on which side of the battle you want to fight.
C] GOD’S GOOD GUARDIAN ANGELS.
1. All this is strange when we realise that there is also that other side to the spirit world.
There are also the good angels.
Why are people so preoccupied with the occult and the satanic when there is a good spirit world?
In fact the Bible has far more to say about the angels than the demons.
Angels are mentioned some 340 times in the Bible.
And we as Christians ought to be much more aware of the reality of these glorious beings.
We ought to be encouraged by their existence and their work.
Scripture portrays angels as the servants and messengers of God (‘angel’ literally = ‘messengers’).
In fact, a study of angels shows that their greatest concern and their highest joy
centres around God’s plan of salvation.
In the O.T. at all the important stages of God’s preparation for the birth of His Son
we read of the involvement of angels.
In the N.T. they announced the great event to Mary… to Zechariah… and to shepherds.
And when Jesus came to carry out God’s saving plans the angels played key roles.
There were angels ministering to Him in His temptation in the wilderness.
When He prayed in Gethsemane in utter agony an angel comforted Him.
An angel rolled away the stone on that first Easter morning.
And angels were there when Jesus ascended into heaven.
All along they are involved in God’s saving work for His people.
In fact Jesus says that when even one sinner repents then the angels of heaven rejoice.
2. All this is again a reminder that we are involved in a universal conflict.
And in that conflict God calls us to His side by giving our allegiance to Jesus Christ
When we do that then we find that the angels of heaven are on our side.
They take up our cause in that age old battle between good and evil.
One of the encouraging teachings of Scripture is that angels are sent to serve God’s elect children.
We read of that in Psalm 91… they are God’s guardian angels.
Jesus on one occasion spoke especially of the angels of little children.
So not only are they God’s messengers but they also keep a watchful eye on God’s people.
The trouble is that we in our materialist age rarely think of these things.
We need that picture of the angels surrounding Elisha.
An army of angels bringing protection so that the enemy could not harm him.
There are many similar stories that God’s people thru the ages have told.
Let me share with you one modern story from the mission field.
It is told by Rev. John Paton, a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands.
READ from Billy Graham’s “Angels” p.3 (or Appendix A – below)
There are many similar accounts – esp. from the mission field.
And that is beautiful and very comforting for us.
When you become a Christian not only are your sins forgiven and you become a child of God…
You actually change sides in the battle that has been going on ever since Satan rebelled against God.
Christians are on the side of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Called to fight the good fight of faith.
But in that grim battle that has cosmic dimensions to it.
…that battle that is a death struggle against all that is demonic and evil…
…in that battle the angels are on our side… they are here to help us.
This evening we have seen that angels are God’s creatures.
You and I may never pray to them… they are creatures along with us.
But what you may do is ask God to send His angels to help you.
In times of difficulty… in distress and danger… when we need protection
ask God to send His angels to minister to you.
Let me close by repeating that there is an immense cosmic struggle going on.
And whether you like it or not you are caught up in it.
You just need to make up your mind as to who’s side you are going to be on.
Unless you are on the side of Jesus… you are on the losing side.
Surrender your life to Him… He has already won the major battle.
And He still sends His angels to watch over those who fight for Him.
That’s part of His assuring us that we too will share in the victory of Jesus Christ. Amen.
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.
Appendix A
John Paton was a young man growing up in England and felt called of God to the New Hebrides, which were inhabited by man-eating cannibals. He was married. And he put his little wife on this ship, steamer ship, and they went by the New Hebrides and dropped them off in a little rowboat and they rowed ashore, and that’s how they started their ministry–just rowing ashore, didn’t know the language, and it’s an island full of natives. People had gone there in the past, but they were invited to lunch and never came back…you know how that goes.
So when Paton and his wife got off this little boat, they built a little lean-to on the beach. John writes in the biography that at night he could see the natives peering at him from out of the jungle. He tells stories about how that sometimes when he felt that they were coming after him, he would be in the river breathing through a reed. There were other times when he was completely exposed and they never bothered him.
After a period of time, God began to do some incredible things. First his wife gave birth to a baby, then she died, then the baby died, and he slept on their graves for three straight nights to keep the natives from digging up their bodies and eating them. He still hadn’t contacted anybody… It wasn’t long after that that there was a native thrown out of the tribe and they made contact and he began to use that native to learn the language and led that native to Christ. He finally had the privilege of leading the chief to Christ, along with all of them. In fact, it says there was something like 35 churches on those islands by the time he left.
But, toward the end–and you find this in that book written by Billy Graham, called, Angels–towards the end, when these people started coming to Christ, the chief came to him one time and asked him “Who were those soldiers that guarded your lean-to on the beach every night?” And he said, “What soldiers?” and then he realized that what he didn’t see, God allowed them to see. That’s a very unique situation. We don’t see them–they’re in a different dimension–but they are nonetheless there, active.
John MacArthur