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Just the other night in conversation the subject of lions came up. And I had
mentioned that the Eternal LORD God (the Elohim; the family of God,
which at this time consists of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ) has
spiritual lions in the third heaven that stand beside the armrests of God’s
thrones. Along with twelve additional spiritual lions standing on each side of
six steps leading to the thrones. Well, this completely blew his mind! He had
never heard anything like this──and he goes with his sister to Sunday church
nearly every Sunday! “Prove it!” he said. So, I opened up God’s living word
and showed him – cf. 1 Kings 10:19-20. And then I began to speak of
archangels. “Do you want to know what archangels actually look like?” I asked.
And I proceeded to tell him. Again, “Prove it! Where is that in the Bible?” he
asked. “Ezekiel chapter 1 and the Book of Revelation chapter 4,” I answered.
He was dumbstruck.
Do you know about angels? Have you ever seen an
angel? You most likely never have. Have you ever heard anyone──either in a
conversation or a sermon──explain to you just what angels are, and what they
actually look like? Just who are angels? Do they actually exist? What are
angels? And, if they do actually exist──why? What were they created for?
Nearly every day of our life we have heard of
angels and demons. And certainly, when you read God’s living word──the Holy
Bible──you read a lot about angels because there is quite a bit about angels.
Are angels nothing more than silly superstitions?
Are they nothing more than figments of people's imaginations? Or, are there
actual such beings?
Now, I didn’t speak very long on this subject of
angels to my friend, because we were among a group of “nones,” so I cut the
conversation of this short. Certainly the group would rather have heard which
team won the last football game or something of that nature.
The first thing is first. One must prove to
themselves that the Holy Bible is the actual inspired living words of an
Almighty God. Or ── and we have a few articles and booklets that should help,
Just What Is the New Testament?
Many Convincing Proofs, and
Does God Exist?
── Is it just a superstition? Is God’s living word nothing more than (so often
despised in this 21st century) religious writing by a race of Jews with their
concept of God──like Muslims have their concept of a god, Allah? I’ve actually
heard this many times over the years. That Jehovah is nothing more than the
God of the Jews. Or, is God’s living immutable and eternal word from the
Creator that not only created all mankind, but the Earth, the heavens, the
known universe, along the galaxy known as the Milky Way? From the Creator that
created the known laws of thermodynamics? ── from the Creator that created
gravity itself?
Surely, we’ve all heard of the plethora of Greek
gods? In nearly every school (at least is was when I was in high school) in
the United States of America they are taught in philosophy class a good deal
of Greek philosophy, including Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Athena, and Zeus. But,
they DO NOT teach “the God of gods”! – cf. Deuteronomy 10:17; Acts 17:16-34.
Are you able to prove──beyond any shadow of a
doubt──that God’s living word is the inspired words of “the God of gods”? We
can prove that not only is there a Creator God, but also that the Holy Bible
is the inspired word of the Creator God. As an example: When we read what is
written in God’s living word of things that would happen hundreds if not
thousands of years before they actually occurred, about the first known
civilizations ── the Sumerians, the Babylonians the Chaldeans, and the
Assyrians, about ancient Rome (even before the story of Romulus or Remus was
ever conceived). Or about the great fall of the Roman Empire and its various
resurrections. Also, about what God’s living word says concerning the
descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh (which would become
known as the United Kingdom and her Common Wealth Nations along with the
United States of America). There are prophecies in God’s living word that no
mortal human being could have ever conceived of, let alone bring them to
fruition. Yet they occurred! And our written history books help prove the
divine inspiration of God’s living word.
So, again, I say that is the first thing you need
to do──prove beyond a shadow of a doubt──that God’s living word is truly the
inspired words of the LORD God. Because you probably haven’t actually seen an
angel. Now, a scientist can explain to us about gravity. Although gravity has
not been directly observed – though groundbreaking experiments may let us
“see” gravity for the first time! Yet, everybody on this planet knows that
gravity exists. So, just because something cannot be seen with our naked
eye──it still can exist. So, the only source of Authority that we have
concerning angels is the inspired living word of God.
Just like the other night with a friend, I can tell
you what God’s living word says about angels ── and I have before in several
articles and sermons, like
Revelation – A Book of the Past and the Future (Part IV)
── but it’s up to you whether you will believe the LORD our God. Of course,
there are those people who only believe what they can physically see.
Well, in fact, there was a time when the Lord GOD
dealt with a physical nation of Israel while they were camped at the base of a
physical mountain──Mount Sinai. And He manifested Himself to them with
lightnings and peels of thunder that they could physically see and hear. And
they actually heard the booming voice of the Lord GOD! They didn’t see Him,
but they certainly saw His manifestations. He physically dealt with them. And,
of course, we are physical as well, but we can receive the glorious gift of
God’s Spirit ──
Christ In Us!
He can speak to us, brethren, spiritually.
Truly, the LORD God has allotted mankind 6,000
years of permitting mankind to make their own decisions. And the LORD God also
permits mankind to cut themselves off completely from the God family ── from
Their grace, knowledge, and Spirit. We, as physical human beings can truly
only know any revealed knowledge through our natural mind (absent of God’s
Spirit) ── through our five senses, touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste.
And if we cannot touch it, see it, hear it, smell it, or taste it──we really
are not aware that it exists. Spiritual knowledge cannot come through the
physical. Because we can not see, hear, taste, feel, or smell anything
spiritual – cf. 1 Corinthians 15:44, 46. So, to only know of anything
spiritual is if the LORD God reveals it to us. And we then have to accept it
on faith.
So brethren──and this world as a whole is not a
part of this──we have come unto Mount Zion (the living Church of Jesus
Christ), the spiritual mountain of God, and enter into the glorious city of
our living God──the heavenly Jerusalem, “to an innumerable company of angels.”
– cf. Hebrews 12:22. And the LORD God has set this innumerable company of
angels to guard us brethren. Yet, we cannot see them. And we need to know
about them.
Angels are revealed to us in God’s living word.
Originally the Holy Bible was written in a couple of different languages ──
Hebrew, Greek, and a smattering of Arabic. The language of English had not
been developed yet. In fact, English is a West Germanic language and
originated from Ingvaeonic languages that were brought to Britain in the
mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by the Anglo-Saxons. The Old Testament was
originally written entirely in the Hebrew language and the New Testament in
the Greek language. The Hebrew word for “angel” is mal ‘āk. Meaning
messenger, a human representative; angel. And the Greek word for “angel” is
angelos. Again meaning messenger, angel, a human messenger, or agent.
What are angels?
Notice Psalm 104. “Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, You are very
great: You are clothed with honor and majesty, 2) Who cover Yourself with
light as with a garment, Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain. 3) He
lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters, Who makes the clouds His
chariot, Who walks on the wings of the wind, 4) Who makes His angels spirits,
His ministers a flame of fire.” – Psalm 104:1-4.
So, the LORD God has made angels spirits. Now, we
are not spirits. We are mortals. We are made “of the dust of the ground” –
Genesis 2:7. And, the LORD God says that we will return to the ground from
which we were taken – cf. Genesis 3:19. The LORD God has also told us that
“the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord” – Romans 6:23. Sadly, I had a dear friend who was at one time
a young minister with the Open Bible Churches that didn’t believe the LORD God
here in this verse! Notice this – angels are spirits. And we see the exact
same thing in the New Testament – “And of the angels He says:
‘Who makes His angels spirits And His ministers a flame of fire.’” –
Hebrews 1:7. The apostle Paul believed our Lord Jesus Christ when he was
taught by Him personally for about three years in the Arabian desert! Angels
are spirits.
So, the LORD God created them. And they were
created out of spirit. They are spirits. Angels were not created out of some
118 elements of the periodic table ── remember we learned of the elements in
Science class in school? Angels are not made from physical matter. What is
matter? The basic definition is, “a material substance that constitutes the
observable universe and, together with energy, forms the basis of all
objective phenomena.” Interestingly, the Old Testament does not speak directly
of the origin of angels further than what we just read. The time when angels
were created is derived from three basic Scriptures in God’s living word –
Exodus 20:11; and Job 38:4-7.
Another thing to seriously think about is ── that
since angels are spirit, they can travel through different dimensions. We
basically know of four dimensions, but depending on who you ask, there could be upwards of 11 dimensions in the known universe! Do you suppose
there could be an angel right there in the room with you this very second?
Would you know if there was?
In my office, upon my shelf, I have a copy of the
Book of 2 Enoch, which is not an inspired part of God’s living word, which
describes the creation of angels. It is possible that the Books of Enoch were
written by men who had received some knowledge──even though the Books were not
inspired. They certainly wrote and knew that angels were created by the
LORD God. Notice the Book of Colossians ──
“giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has
delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of
the Son of His love [speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ His Son], 14) in whom
we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 15) He is the
image of the INVISIBLE GOD, the firstborn over all creation.” – Colossians
1:12-15.
We are also told in John 1:3, “All things
[including angels] were made through Him [our Lord Jesus Christ], and without
Him nothing was made that was made.” And here it is, “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.” – Colossians 1:16.
Angels A Part of God’s Government
Angels are a part of the glorious kingdom of God──the government of God. And
this is something that all mankind needs to think about and consider. I spent
many nights in my youth looking up at the stars in the night sky pondering
this! Here we are living on a spinning world ── approximately 1,037.5646 miles
per hour! ── with all its beauty, conscious generally of only what we can see,
hear, touch, taste, or smell, and not fully recognizing and understanding that
all the forces that keep this world “suspended” in the darkness of space is a
power greater than we could ever fathom! The Almighty God! Mankind, in
general, does not consider or ponder that the LORD God is the Supreme Creator
of everything we know and love. And that the LORD God has created beings with
Free Moral Agency.
Now, the LORD God can at any time intervene in the
governments of man, whenever They please──and They certainly did on July 13,
2024! The attempted assassination of our beloved President Donald Trump!
And I have been saying this since it occurred and he was saved──the LORD God
may very well have saved his life because the United States of America will
come to need a good war-time president. But, the LORD God does at times
intervene in world affairs, and They will do so again.
Now, the kingdom of God, the headquarters is in the
third heaven. The third heaven is where the thrones of God are located. The
heaven of God’s throne, where our Lord Jesus Christ ascended to at the
right-hand side of God the Father.
Since birth the overall majority of us have heard
one astrologist and scientist ponder and wonder, theorize, and speculate,
concerning life on any other planet in the known universe. And I’m speaking of
life as we know life – of physical matter. Well, I don’t know. And they don’t
know either! It’s just now being discovered that the planet Mars has an
ocean──Geophysicists have discovered a gigantic hidden ocean beneath Mars’
surface, trapped inside a layer of fractured rock 7 to 13 miles beneath the
Red Planet's outer crust! It is far too deep to access by any known means.
Does it harbor life? We don’t know──and we will probably never know, unless
the LORD God tells us. But think of this──considering the known size of the
known universe──there must be a tremendous amount for the LORD God to govern.
And there is a mighty spiritual organization that we could never imagine at
the thrones of the Creator of the heavens and of the earth! We truly are──in
size perspective──less than 1/5,000,000 of the scale of the Earth, which
itself but a tiny speck in a cosmic ocean. On a cosmic scale, we are
miniscule. But, our ultimate spiritual potential is massive! The known
universe is ── which is part of the universe we can currently observe, has a
diameter of approximately 93 billion light-years, or 28 billion parsecs. And,
truthfully, mankind does not know much about the known universe.
But angels are a part of the government of God. And
there are untold millions of them. “an innumerable company of angels”
(myriads—a great but indefinite number). They are spiritual messengers, they
are servants and they are “superhuman.” And they are subordinate to the LORD
God. Yet, they are higher than man. Angels, because they are obedient to the
LAW OF GOD, the ORDINACES OF GOD, the STATUTES OF GOD, and the JUDGMENTS OF
GOD, are within the living word of God pictured as being happy and joyful.
They radiate joy, enthusiasm, happiness, and peace.
Now, God’s living immutable word doesn’t actually
tell us when angels were created, but it was before the earth was created.
Notice ──
“’ Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question
you, and you shall answer Me. 4) Where were you when I laid the foundations of
the earth? … 7) When the mourning stars sand together, And all the sons of God
shouted for joy?’” – Job 38:3, 4, 7.
Of course, there is much evidence, not only
geological but biblical as well, that the Earth was created more than 6,000
years ago! The standard answer is some 4.54 billion years ago. We can
certainly calculate with relative accuracy when the creation of Adam took
place, and that he was the beginning of true Homo sapiens, and we read of this
in the Book of Genesis 1:26──and it was approximately 6,000 years ago.
But besides all that, we know that angels were
created long before the Earth was created. As we just read in the Book of Job,
in which the LORD God asked the prophet Job, “’ Where were you when I laid the
foundations of the earth?’” The morning stars are the angels. And you’ll find
stars are symbolically used ── such as in the Book of Revelation 12:4; and
6:13. □
