April 10, 2024 • 39 mins
In this episode we step into the divine world of guardian angels and we discuss the depiction and role of guardian angels in Christianity. We tie in elements of popular culture and everyday stories, adding relevance and modern connections to this intriguing topic.
We dive into how angels reveal themselves to humanity and the potential signs of their presence. We broaden our understanding of their apparent manifestations and their divine duty to bring joy and strength to humans. Lastly (and most importantly), we underline the crucial importance of focusing on Christ, touching upon fascinating stories of angelic intervention while reminding of Christ's pivotal spiritual role.
Lastly, we share your questions with on the spot answers and discussion - so stay tuned to the end!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Music.
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Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be talking about your guardian angel.
We'll start off with Psalm 91, verse 11, and we'll have several other scriptures
that we reference and read today, and we'll put that in the overview.
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But with our heavenly guardians under the microscope of the Holy Scriptures,
let's just dig right in. All right. Thank you, Randy.
And good day to everybody out there.
Well, Scripture has much to say about angels, but we're restricting ourselves
just to the subject at hand, which is guardian angels. What about them? What does the Bible say?
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There are stories about people testifying to angelic help that are voluminous all over the place.
It seems to be always current, having a testimony about an angel.
There have been many TV shows, too, like Touched by an Angel.
Touched by an Angel, absolutely, yeah.
So the classic word on angels as guardians, as we begin here, is from Psalm 91, 11.
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For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
Guard you. There is the word, the operating word. word, the operative word,
guard you in all your ways.
All means all. All means all. Very interesting, is it not?
This is fulfilled by Jesus as he indeed fulfills all the Psalms.
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But as is so often the case, Psalms apply also to those of us who follow Christ.
So this Psalm begins with these two verses, 1 and 2.
He will dwell in the shelter of the Most High, will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, My refuge and My fortress, My God, in whom I trust.
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Yes, and that's for us who have faith. faith, Old Testament faith, New Testament faith.
I will say to the Lord, you're my refuge, my fortress, my God in whom I trust.
And therefore, we have these angels, so says this rest of the Psalm, to guard our ways.
Psalm 91 is also, it's called the paratrooper's Psalm.
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When I went to airborne training in Fort Benning, Georgia, it is actually immortalized
on the back of the the packing house, the wall, all of Psalm 91 is written there.
Really? Yeah. Oh, well, interesting.
Yeah. Military and guardian angels. Yeah.
Well, Satan knows that this passage, Psalm 91 we're just now talking about,
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this passage above all others applies to Jesus since he tries to tempt Jesus
to do something rash during those three temptations.
Listen to this, Matthew 4, verses 5 through 7. Then the devil took him to the
holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple,
and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,
for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you,
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and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.
Jesus said to him, Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.
And the wise word there, of course, is just because we have guardian angels
doesn't mean we get to be reckless.
Or flippant. Or flippant. Yeah. Or stupid.
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Hey, watch this. Yeah. Yes.
Famous last words. Maul, no hands. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
In that case, maybe the guardian angel will teach us a lesson by just stepping aside, huh?
This is from Guidepost. And if you're interested in angel stories,
Guidepost has a slew of them. and with all stores, of course,
vetted according to the Word of God, which we're going to do with this one here. Listen to this.
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Beverly Hughes, who was the co-founder of Sweetwater Youth Ranch in Asheville,
North Carolina, says the following.
It was the day after Christmas in 1994, and with two toddler girls, I was exhausted.
Past few days had been hectic with shopping, baking, wrapping gifts,
and making rounds to visit grandparents.
This was the day I was looking forward to. I already had plans to stay home,
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sleep late, and watch my babies play with their new toys.
But now I was in a huff because I had been awakened abruptly.
It was almost like someone had hit me to wake me up.
I rolled over and looked at the clock to see what time it was,
and 6 a.m. glared at me in bright red letters.
Well, what happened was, of course, there
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was was a fire and she got
up and put out the fire they lived in a trailer and she
concluded she said clearly angel woke her up now inventing stories it's got
to be done by scripture because just because someone says they've had an angel
experience doesn't mean they really had an angel experience so we here at current
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events of christian expectations are just interested and using the Word as our guide.
For instance, having read that story, listen now to this from Acts 12, verses 6 and 7.
And the background, of course, is Peter's in prison. He's going to be martyred.
He's going to be executed within a day or so. And he's awaiting that.
Now, when Herod was about to bring him out on that very night,
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Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains,
and sentries before the door were guarding the prison.
And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell.
He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, Get up quickly.
And the chains fell off his hands.
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Angels like to hit people. Angels don't waste time with beating around the bush. Pleasantries.
Excuse me. Excuse me. Kind sir, would you mind rousing yourself up now?
Yeah, he struck Peter on the side and woke him up and told him to get up quickly.
It sounds like the story of Beverly Hughes, who said, sounds like someone had
hit me, you know, to get me up. And she concluded it was an angel.
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To add to that, back in the 60s, there was a family that lived about three houses
down from us there in the eastern hills of Campbell County. And they were church members.
And they told us this story just in the week it happened.
All of a sudden, they were awakened in the middle of the night.
Boom, you're up. And what's going on?
And their fire had started in the kitchen. And they went out there and put it out.
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And the rest of us concluded, well, that was a providential thing for sure.
I've had that happen to me at least twice when I've been driving. I've dozed off.
And I've heard somebody scream my name, and I've been the only person in the car.
It's happened twice. That sounds like it's a good story. Yeah.
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Do angels know our names? Yes. Clearly. Clearly, yeah.
Well, stay tuned for the top 10 questions, too, at the end of the podcast,
because one of them is, do angels have names?
Oh, do angels have names? That's a – you get that one for free.
The rest will be on the spot. Okay, yeah.
We're looking forward to that. Well, the internet has videos of supposed angel sightings.
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And for this podcast, I viewed not a ton of them, but enough to say,
this is ridiculous. I'm sorry.
No, we're not sure. And here's the point. This is why you vet things scripturally.
I'm not convinced angels want to be subjects of modern photography.
No. I'm not convinced that. If they can help it, why would they? Yes.
They are servants. servants so and of course we
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know servants are supposed to be in the background and listen
to this hebrews 1 13 and 14 and to
which of the angels has he ever said sit at
my right hand until i make your enemies a footstool for your feet are they not
all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit
salvation they're sent out to serve serve who us who are going to inherit that's
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the big hope we have in jesus in his return inherit a final salvation.
Now, servants are meant to stay in the background, to have an unobtrusive presence.
Not to mention, we have this again in Hebrews 13, verses 1 and 2.
Let brotherly love continue.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
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Yes, and that's current then and that time.
Of course, the reference can go back to Genesis 18-19, when Abraham entertained
a couple of angels along with the Lord God concerning the topic of Sodom and Gomorrah.
So according to this scripture, they're still showing up in the Christian age,
strangers, strangers who come to be kind to us, to help us.
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Granted, in the Bible, they show up and are visible, and sometimes gloriously so.
Listen to this from Luke 24, verses 1 through 5.
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb,
taking the spices they had prepared.
And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in,
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they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling
apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground,
the men said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead?
First of all, they've got a dry sense of humor. Why do you seek the living among
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the dead? What are you doing here?
Are you confused? And there's no pleasantries. There's no pleasantries.
Hi, women. Glad to see you. We've been watching you. Yeah, no, straight to the point.
But again, the phrase dazzling apparel, you know, stuns your eyes.
They know how to dress. They know how to dress. They know how to put on,
what's the word, the bling? Yeah, they're dazzled.
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This is heavenly bling. Yeah. Matthew 28, verses 1, 2, and 3.
Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended
from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.
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And once again, a little humor there. He rolled back the stone and then just
sat on it. Does it say, see what I did?
Like that. And lightning, his clothing white as snow, just, you know, go snow blind.
Well, these are special times in biblical history with prophetic words that decide history.
The angels who would serve us would have to have excellent reason,
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I think, to manifest themselves as depicted here.
There are suggestions that one can tell an angel is nearby, though.
My research, some people believe if you feel some heat, might be.
Joy, of course, angels are in the midst of joy, receiving strength.
And we'll just use this one to sort of orient us in the right direction.
Listen to this from Luke 22, 43, angels giving strength.
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And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him.
That's Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. And the angel there comes and gives
him strength because he was, as Mark's gospel graphically says,
he was depressed to the point of death. Yeah.
However, we should not be looking to angels to give us strength,
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though they might, sure.
But we are to look to Christ for strength. So, listen to this, Philippians 4.13.
I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Yes, and that's Jesus, and that's where our focus should be.
And the angels understand this.
If we spend too much time with an angel, apart from Christ, we're liable to
end up having wrong ideas about angels.
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So, listen to this from Revelation 22.8.
I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw
them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me.
And then it goes on to say, But he said to me, You must not do that.
I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets,
and with those who keep the words of the book.
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Worship God. Yes.
So, very clear. If you spend a lot of time on an angel because of their majesty,
the particular glory they have, have.
They're called the glorious ones in the book of Jude, 2 Peter as well.
So- All the angels, they seem to say, don't do that.
When they are worshiped, they're like, stop that. Stop that.
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Immediately, yeah. There's no, yeah, it's immediate. Yeah.
Here's another one from Revelation 19.10. Then I fell down at the feet to worship
him, but he said to me, you must not do that.
I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of
Jesus. Jesus, worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
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Well, people say, I would love to be an angel. You want to be like an angel?
Put God first and the word of Jesus right up there with the Lord God,
and you'll be like an angel. All right.
To sum up, an angel may make such a visual appearance as we see in the Bible,
but the testimony down through the church age is not one that parallels the biblical narrative.
Angels will help us. And in retrospect, we may very well decide that must have been an angel.
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This is the intuitive sense of many who have so testified.
My father tells a story, and it's the only incident he ever had with an angel,
but he He was going up on a roof of the ladder, and somehow the ladder,
the rung broke and fell, and he should have gone all the way down to the ground.
And all of a sudden, he found his feet on the next rung. He said,
which is impossible because it's wrong angle. Yeah.
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And he said, I had this just sense it was an angel. I was placed there on that right rung.
Now, we're going to go into a brief history of angelic hierarchy just to get
to where we're going. So bear with me.
Why do we have guardian angels at all? Well, first of all, they're a hierarchy,
and they were meant to originally guard nations, and then we'll see them with
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churches, and then we'll look at them as it pertains to the individual person, right?
Well, they're also a military unit. I think it's important that we say that, right?
They're a military unit. Yeah. Yeah. Which they're going to have rank and file.
Did they have Psalm 91 written on their jackets? No, no, no. They may have. Yeah.
Deuteronomy 32, verse 8. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
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when He divided mankind, He fixed the borders of the peoples according to the
numbers of the sons of God.
Yes, according to the number of the sons of God. Now, what does all that mean?
We're going to come back to it, but first listen to Daniel 12.1.
At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people.
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And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time.
But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be
found written in the book.
Okay, notice that Michael is in charge of God's people, Israel,
as he is all Christians now, Jews and Gentiles together in the New Testament,
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as we've sort of done that in other podcasts.
But this verse from Deuteronomy, it says that when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of peoples, that's the Gentile nations,
Gentiles, according to the number of the sons of God.
In other words, what's numbers got to do?
What are the numbers? Well, here is the answer to that from the Judaic Christian
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tradition, and studied it over the years, I believe it.
When Jacob, in chapter 46 of Genesis, finds out that Joseph is alive,
he's delighted, and they're all going to go down to Egypt, it says that there
were 70 who went down to Egypt, and that's a big number in Jewish tradition.
When we go back to Genesis 10, and we have the nations lined up after the flood
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of Noah, And the next chapter, chapter 11, is the Tower of Babel,
which tells us how they got in those various lands.
But Genesis 10 tells us who went where.
There are 70 of them. You go through and count them. And so the belief arose
that according to the number of nations, corresponding to the number of people
who went down to Egypt, there are 70 angels over the 70 nations.
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That's the belief. That's why in some translations, I think it's the NIV,
will say mankind was divided according to the number of the sons of Israel.
The preferred reading by just about everybody, though, is the one that follows
the Greek translation, which we have, which is the sons of God, which refers to angels.
And so the number of the sons of Israel were 70.
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And this number turns out to be the number they use for the nations.
Angels are placed over the 70 nations.
And you say, where does this come from? Well, part of it comes from Daniel 10.
Because in Daniel 10, toward the last half of that chapter, Gabriel says,
I've been delayed for 21 days because I was stopped by the prince of Persia.
And it wasn't until Michael came, now he's the big archangel, who helped me out.
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And he stayed with the prince of Persia to deal with that while I came here to finish the message.
And at the end of the chapter, he says, I got to go back now and help Michael.
Besides that, the prince of Persia is going to leave and the prince of Greece
is coming. And in Daniel's book, of course, that's the prophetic interpretation
of how the nations come to pass. There's the Babylonian nation.
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There's the nation that's next, which is Persian. And then there's the next one, Greece.
And then you go down to Rome. And so just about everybody understands that these are fallen angels.
Originally, they were not, but they fell. And like Satan, they kept their position and power.
If you want to know what that's about, get our podcast on UFOs and angels.
We listen to the previous podcast. Because that's all about fallen angels and
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the connection to UFOs. Right.
The angels then, these fallen angels, who originally were upright,
are still over the nations.
But now they work for Satan and not for the Lord.
So they stopped Gabriel from getting to Daniel with the prayer request that he had asked for.
So, and it's important to understand that these fallen angels say,
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well, why does God allow that? Well, why does he allow Satan?
I mean, and Satan is called the ruler of this world three times in the Gospel of John by Jesus.
So he has his help. Well, he has all these angels of his in places,
and that's why it sometimes seems like he's almost omnipotent,
which is why he's called the God of the sage by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4.
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So we have the, as Randy mentioned, this military hierarchy.
And the words that are used in the New Testament, we'll give you a verse here
where they all come together at once, are ruler, which is where we get archangel,
authority, which is a Greek word, exousia, power, which is dynamis,
that's where we get dynamite.
And dominion, that's a Greek word, kreotes.
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Now, in Ephesians 121, we find these words used.
Listen to this, Ephesians 121, referring to these fallen angels.
Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name
that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
Yeah, that's referencing Jesus. Jesus has been exalted far above every rule,
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authority, power, and dominion, all four of them.
Every name is named in this age and also the one to come. So he's a ruler over
that, over those fallen angels.
And here's another place where we find it. This is interesting.
It makes it even clearer. 1 Peter 3, 21, verse 22 says.
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt
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from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels,
authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Right. Now, when Peter says he's gone to the right hand of God,
he's been exalted, that's the same basic scenario we're looking at from Ephesians
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chapter 1, where he's been exalted above every name in this age and the age to come.
When Peter says, with angels, those are not good angels. Good angels were always
submitted to him before he was exalted.
They came to give him strength in the Garden of Gethsemane.
But in exaltation, it was made clear that Jesus rules and they don't,
even though they are in these positions of power, just as Satan has a position
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of power, but only according to the will of God.
So angels, authorities, there's that word, powers have been subjected to him.
And, of course, this one is really clear, and I hate to belabor it,
but we want to make certain we understand what we're talking about when we talk about guardian angels.
Ephesians 6, 10 through 12 is about putting on the armor to fight spiritual battles.
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Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness,
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
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They're in the heavenly places, like the prince of Persia, who ruled over Persia,
the prince of Greece that was to come.
You have earthly rulers, but you have spiritual rulers. These are fallen angels.
They're in a hierarchy, and they oppose the will of God. And sometimes angels
like Gabriel and Michael have to contend with that situation.
So nations have angels and people. And people. Yeah. Right.
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So what about having a good angel for our nation?
Well, we have one that's probably an evil angel, like the rest of the Scripture points out.
But we have angels for churches, which in God's sight are the nations now he's concerned with.
We do have good angels. Here's 1 Peter 2.9. But you are a chosen race,
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a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light.
Right. The key word there, you're a holy nation, and that's the people of God.
Keep that in mind. America is not a holy nation.
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It's made up of people who hopefully are holy, but only the organized people
of God, Christians, are considered a holy nation.
So the good angels, the elect angels who never fell, are now stationed by way
of the Christ event over individual churches to guard and protect us from the hierarchy of Satan.
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Based on the pattern found in the book of Revelation, each church now has an
angel over her to serve and protect.
For example, let's look at 1st Revelation 1.20.
As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the
seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches
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and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
This is why each church is addressed to an angel, not to the leadership or to
the congregation. Of course, each letter is for the churches,
and obviously, since it's sent out there, they read it and hear it in their congregations.
But Revelation is primarily about spiritual warfare. You just had to read that
once to get that picture, just like we saw in Ephesians 6, 10, 11, and 12.
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Revelation means a revealing, so the curtain is pulled back.
So we see beyond flesh and blood as to what the spiritual forces are,
and that involves angels and all that they're doing. Well, and we see that pulling
back of the veil that separates the physical world and the spiritual.
We see that numerous times in Scripture. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, from when Elisha is shown, you know, who is for us.
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Those who are for us are greater than those against us.
And pulls back the veil so he can see, you know, the hillside and numerous other
examples. Right, right. Right, and that's in 2 Kings 6, where,
yeah, Elijah's servant is upset because all he sees are the chariots of the flesh and blood enemy.
And Elijah says, oh, no, no, we've got more here than they've got.
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The Lord show them, and all of a sudden he sees chariots of fires,
and of course the angels who are manning them. So-
Revelation being about primarily spiritual warfare, such as Ephesians 6,
10, and so forth, it's imperative that each church know they have an angel,
and that angel there is to serve and protect in this spiritual battle.
That's why it's addressed to an angel. Angels help churches.
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I mean, most of the talk is always about individual garden angels,
but the Bible is very specific. First, it's churches.
So if you want an individual angel, you know, be in a church.
Be in a church. So listen to this, Revelation 2, 1. To the angel of the church
in Ephesus write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand,
who walks among the seven golden lampstands. Right.
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And then next one would be to the church at Smyrna, to the church,
and it goes all through seven churches.
Each church has its angel.
So what is assumed here? It's assumed that the angel will know how to respond
to the letter and do what he has to do in his realm, even as we are learning
what we must do in our realm, okay?
Jesus is concerned that each church responds appropriately, but particularly
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with starting with the angels.
And please note that the angel is not named.
Why? Well, to prevent worship or wrong-headed curiosity, because we just saw
how John twice worships an angel.
And of course, if you start saying, well, I want to find out the name of the
angel that watches over us, it's the wrong direction.
You're not going to find it out. And the work they're doing,
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you're not going to know about, out, unless for some reason God shares that
with you, which is possible. Absolutely.
That's why we said that for we who are Christians, we who are organized as individual
churches, angels serve in the background.
They do not manifest themselves to the church that they are over to guard and protect.
Guardian angels of us personally. Now let's get to that.
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Hebrews 1.14. Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the
sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
Right. So we have ministering spirits. That's a reference to angels,
of course, because that section of Hebrews is dealing with angels.
And they are sent out from heaven by God to serve who?
Those of us who are on our way to glory land. That's a paraphrase of that verse.
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Now, for this to happen, they must know us in some personal sense,
for we are all on the same road, but at different times in our lives and different places on that road.
So, we're going to look at some key passages here for guardian angels who are
over us, and we're going to start with Matthew 10, 41-42.
Now, this doesn't mention an angel, but listen carefully.
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The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive.
Right.
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And whoever gives one of these little ones a cup of cold water because he's a disciple.
So the disciples are referred to as little ones. ones.
And the person who gives a cup of cold water to the little one,
that person won't lose whatever reward he's got coming for that.
That's a promise of Jesus.
Now it gets more specific here as we go to Matthew 18. We're going to look at
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first verses one through four.
At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said,
truly, I say to you, unless you turn.
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All right, and the key there is you'll become like children. All right.
Children, of course, no age of accountability, and certainly if they die,
they're in heaven. I have no problem with that, but that's not what Jesus is talking about.
He's referring to his disciples to be like children, to be like little children, to humble yourself.
Don't make a big deal out of yourself. Kids get involved in lots of things,
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but usually they don't get arrogant until they get a little older. Right.
Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Then we go to chapter 18, verses 5 and 6.
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one
of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to
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have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
All right. Whoever receives one such child, what is that? That is like a small
child, a disciple who humbles himself.
And whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me,
that's us, and we're described here as little ones.
Now, keep in mind, you're saying, why is he calling little ones?
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Because the subject, as you will see, is guardian angels.
And who, throughout all of history and every epoch, who needs guardians?
Children, especially smaller children. But whoever causes one of these little
ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone
fast around his neck and be drowned.
God takes ever so seriously the protection of his own. If you didn't know that
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before, take it to heart now.
Because here's what's going on in heaven right,
Listen to this, Matthew 18, verses 10 through 14. See that you do not despise
one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always
see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray,
(29:41):
does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?
And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than the other
99 that never went astray. Right.
So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
And who are the little ones? The stray sheep. Who are stray sheep? Us.
(30:04):
Who are the little ones when he begins this? Their angels always see the face of my Father.
Don't despise believers.
Don't do it. Clearly, the sheep that strayed is also the little one that God protects.
Little Little ones are the sheep that strayed, was found, and now there's rejoicing.
It's God's will that we not perish, then certainly the angels stand by to help.
(30:27):
That's the point. They are there.
And Christians are described as little ones as found out in the New Testament.
And we could do a slew of references here. We'll just do a couple.
Here's one from Jesus in John chapter 13, verse 33.
Little children, yet a little while I am with you.
You will seek me. And just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you,
(30:49):
where I am going, you cannot cause them little children.
And John, when he writes his first letter, picks up on that because seven times
in 1 John, starting in chapter 2, he calls the congregation to whom he writes little children.
Paul does it as well. Galatians 4, 19.
My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ
(31:12):
is formed in you. you, my little children.
Now, all this goes back to the teaching of Jesus.
So they protect and they serve during our life.
We will not always know how or why, but it's foundational truth that we do have guardian angels.
Or as we shall see here in just a second, a guardian angel. And they protect us in our life.
(31:35):
But Jesus also teaches they protect us in death.
And you say, well, why in death? Well, I don't know, but we do know there are
evil things in heavenly places, principalities, powers, authorities, and all that. that.
And so, listen to Luke 16, verse 22.
The background is that there was a rich man. He ignored Lazarus,
(31:55):
who was very poor and sick and needed help.
The rich man dies. He's in the flame in Hades.
But listen to the death of Lazarus. The poor man died and was carried by the
angels to Abraham's side.
The rich man also died and was buried. Yes, and lifted up his eyes and said,
I've got issues now, for sure.
(32:17):
The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.
He's been protected. He's being served.
Absolutely. Throughout history, who has guardians?
Children, especially little children need guardians. And we certainly,
as God's little children, have angels.
So that one of them might be assigned to us personally would not be surprising.
(32:39):
Because it just makes sense.
You have all those angels. how many angels do you need for one person?
Unless you're a real mess, I would think one angel would be sufficient.
So the Bible never says specifically one angel per person, but clearly we have
angels who look over us, who come to know us, and that's how they serve and
protect us because they got to heaven some knowledge of us.
(33:00):
And so it wouldn't be surprising if we have one assigned to each individual
just as they are assigned to each church.
And that's the Christian expectation. Right?
Well, instead of ending like we normally do, we decided that we would start
taking some of your questions and answering them on the spot.
So on the spot. Here we go. So can we have a second guardian angel?
(33:25):
Can we? I mean, if the first one leaves? Can you have two at the same time?
It's possible depending upon the trouble you're in.
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you really only want one because if you have two,
you're in some deep situations.
Yeah. More basic things. Do angels have wings?
No. In the Bible, when you have the classification of angels,
(33:47):
you have seraphim. They show up in Isaiah 6.
You have the strange beast in the book of Revelation as well, chapter 4.
And you have the cherubs, and you see them in Ezekiel chapter 1 and 2.
Cherubs are assigned to protect the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. They all have wings.
In fact, some of them have six multiple wings. Yeah, three wings on each side.
(34:09):
Angels are never depicted ever as having wings.
So it's just a fact that they just don't. That's something that came along just through tradition.
Through tradition. And if you think about it, it makes sense because cherub
in the Garden of Eden, they're there. They're always associated with the presence of the holiness of God.
They're there at one place. They don't go out on assignment.
(34:30):
They protect the tree. They don't go anywhere.
The cherub the seraphim which means the burning flame
the burning ones in book of hebrews chapter one refers to angels as flames
that comes from the book of psalms the seraphim
and isaiah 6 when he has that great vision of god on the throne up in heaven
they're surrounding the throne going holy holy holy is lord god almighty the
whole world is full of his glory and that's where they stay put they don't leave
(34:55):
and come down here with messages angels come with messages and then the the
same thing in the book of Revelation.
When John gets up there in chapter 4, he sees these beasts, and they're very
weird. They've got eyes everywhere.
And they're saying the same thing. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
And they stay put. They don't go anywhere because they're not messengers.
Angels, as the name applies, means a messenger.
(35:18):
You mentioned the angels having different jobs and assignments.
So when we die, Why is our angel reassigned to someone else?
Wouldn't surprise me. Absolutely.
Yes. They need a new job. Yeah. Need a new person to serve.
Yeah. Need a new person to serve. Yes. So when the angel that came and shut
(35:40):
the lion's mouth for Daniel, who protected and served him, Daniel passes away.
The next prophet that had an issue, God said, go down there and help him. Well, yeah.
Speaking of assignments, when is our guardian angel assigned to us, do you think?
Well, that's a good question. And there's not much scripture on that other than,
obviously, when you become a Christian,
(36:02):
because that passage from Matthew 18 we read talked about when you make one
of my little ones who believes to sin. So you're talking about believers.
So God in his benevolence watches, I'm sure, many times over children and babies,
absolutely. Absolutely.
But they would not be assigned until we are Christian. But there's nothing in
(36:23):
the Bible that tells us how that is done.
Is it when we repent? Is it when we come to baptism? We're not told.
Does every human being have a guardian angel?
No, they have potential guardian angels. If they believe.
Right. And of course, just because they're not Christian doesn't mean angels
are not going to assist them. They may very well assist them.
(36:45):
They assisted Lot and his family, Now, Lot was, says Peter, 2 Peter 2,
a righteous man, but there's no indication that his wife was.
But she got the same benefit of the angels as did Lot. But then she turned back and turned to salt.
So there you have an example of. Yeah.
Can angels or demons know our thoughts?
(37:07):
No, but they know how to read our personalities. They watch and observe.
And if you're a good observer of human beings, you can deduct a lot just by
sitting in the mall one day.
Yeah, you can just being a people watcher. Just being a people watcher.
You can discern some things, yeah. And they've had a lot, many more years. Yes, yes.
And 2 Peter 1 talks about the gospels come down from heaven with the Holy Spirit,
(37:30):
and the gospel has many things that angels are looking into, want to look into.
Yeah. So angels are curious. So if they're assigned to us, they're going to
be curious of who we are, what's our activity, what's our schedule,
how do we do things, because that's how they serve and protect.
A servant in a flesh and blood world must know his master's ins and outs, his ups and downs.
(37:50):
Otherwise, he's not a good servant. Indeed. Are there male and female angels?
We have no female angels in the Bible. When they appear, make manifestations
and appear visibly, they're always men.
The time that Abraham was visited, Genesis 18, the Lord came down with two angels,
and the Lord stayed to talk to Abraham about Sodom. And the two angels went on to visit Lot.
(38:14):
But they looked just like men. They were accepted as men. Lot cooked a meal
for them, and they ate it.
But they're described as men. Resurrection, all the angels are described as men or young men. Hmm.
Will we become like angels? Well, only in the sense that you have in the Gospel of Luke.
But it's the same passages elsewhere, but I'm remembering it from Luke.
(38:37):
When the Sadducees try to trip Jesus up on the question of whose husband is this wife going to have?
Because she had seven husbands, they all died. So in the resurrection,
which they did not believe in, the Sadducees, you know, how's that going to work out?
And Jesus says, well, you err, and you know you err because you don't know the
Scriptures or the power of God.
But those who are considered worthy to attain into that age and the resurrection,
(39:00):
neither marry nor are given a marriage. They're like the angels. They never die.
So they're like the angels, never die. But would there be a hierarchy then?
We have a hierarchy now in the Bible. Man, then woman, right?
Yeah. Adam over Eve. You have that in the Bible.
How will that work out in the age to come? Be interesting. It will be interesting. I don't know.
(39:20):
Well, Sam, you've given us a lot to think about. and maybe you have questions or comments about it.
So please send your questions or comments to eventsandexpectations at gmail.com.
That's the word events, the word and, and the word expectations all together
at gmail.com or send your question or comment via the comment section of this podcast.
(39:44):
We will always answer you. This has been Current Events and Christian Expectations
and until next time, keep looking up.
Music.
(00:07):
Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be talking about your guardian angel.
We'll start off with Psalm 91, verse 11, and we'll have several other scriptures
that we reference and read today, and we'll put that in the overview.
(00:28):
But with our heavenly guardians under the microscope of the Holy Scriptures,
let's just dig right in. All right. Thank you, Randy.
And good day to everybody out there.
Well, Scripture has much to say about angels, but we're restricting ourselves
just to the subject at hand, which is guardian angels. What about them? What does the Bible say?
(00:51):
There are stories about people testifying to angelic help that are voluminous all over the place.
It seems to be always current, having a testimony about an angel.
There have been many TV shows, too, like Touched by an Angel.
Touched by an Angel, absolutely, yeah.
So the classic word on angels as guardians, as we begin here, is from Psalm 91, 11.
(01:17):
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
Guard you. There is the word, the operating word. word, the operative word,
guard you in all your ways.
All means all. All means all. Very interesting, is it not?
This is fulfilled by Jesus as he indeed fulfills all the Psalms.
(01:40):
But as is so often the case, Psalms apply also to those of us who follow Christ.
So this Psalm begins with these two verses, 1 and 2.
He will dwell in the shelter of the Most High, will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, My refuge and My fortress, My God, in whom I trust.
(02:02):
Yes, and that's for us who have faith. faith, Old Testament faith, New Testament faith.
I will say to the Lord, you're my refuge, my fortress, my God in whom I trust.
And therefore, we have these angels, so says this rest of the Psalm, to guard our ways.
Psalm 91 is also, it's called the paratrooper's Psalm.
(02:23):
When I went to airborne training in Fort Benning, Georgia, it is actually immortalized
on the back of the the packing house, the wall, all of Psalm 91 is written there.
Really? Yeah. Oh, well, interesting.
Yeah. Military and guardian angels. Yeah.
Well, Satan knows that this passage, Psalm 91 we're just now talking about,
(02:46):
this passage above all others applies to Jesus since he tries to tempt Jesus
to do something rash during those three temptations.
Listen to this, Matthew 4, verses 5 through 7. Then the devil took him to the
holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple,
and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,
for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you,
(03:09):
and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.
Jesus said to him, Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.
And the wise word there, of course, is just because we have guardian angels
doesn't mean we get to be reckless.
Or flippant. Or flippant. Yeah. Or stupid.
(03:31):
Hey, watch this. Yeah. Yes.
Famous last words. Maul, no hands. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
In that case, maybe the guardian angel will teach us a lesson by just stepping aside, huh?
This is from Guidepost. And if you're interested in angel stories,
Guidepost has a slew of them. and with all stores, of course,
vetted according to the Word of God, which we're going to do with this one here. Listen to this.
(03:54):
Beverly Hughes, who was the co-founder of Sweetwater Youth Ranch in Asheville,
North Carolina, says the following.
It was the day after Christmas in 1994, and with two toddler girls, I was exhausted.
Past few days had been hectic with shopping, baking, wrapping gifts,
and making rounds to visit grandparents.
This was the day I was looking forward to. I already had plans to stay home,
(04:18):
sleep late, and watch my babies play with their new toys.
But now I was in a huff because I had been awakened abruptly.
It was almost like someone had hit me to wake me up.
I rolled over and looked at the clock to see what time it was,
and 6 a.m. glared at me in bright red letters.
Well, what happened was, of course, there
(04:41):
was was a fire and she got
up and put out the fire they lived in a trailer and she
concluded she said clearly angel woke her up now inventing stories it's got
to be done by scripture because just because someone says they've had an angel
experience doesn't mean they really had an angel experience so we here at current
(05:04):
events of christian expectations are just interested and using the Word as our guide.
For instance, having read that story, listen now to this from Acts 12, verses 6 and 7.
And the background, of course, is Peter's in prison. He's going to be martyred.
He's going to be executed within a day or so. And he's awaiting that.
Now, when Herod was about to bring him out on that very night,
(05:27):
Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains,
and sentries before the door were guarding the prison.
And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell.
He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, Get up quickly.
And the chains fell off his hands.
(05:47):
Angels like to hit people. Angels don't waste time with beating around the bush. Pleasantries.
Excuse me. Excuse me. Kind sir, would you mind rousing yourself up now?
Yeah, he struck Peter on the side and woke him up and told him to get up quickly.
It sounds like the story of Beverly Hughes, who said, sounds like someone had
hit me, you know, to get me up. And she concluded it was an angel.
(06:12):
To add to that, back in the 60s, there was a family that lived about three houses
down from us there in the eastern hills of Campbell County. And they were church members.
And they told us this story just in the week it happened.
All of a sudden, they were awakened in the middle of the night.
Boom, you're up. And what's going on?
And their fire had started in the kitchen. And they went out there and put it out.
(06:33):
And the rest of us concluded, well, that was a providential thing for sure.
I've had that happen to me at least twice when I've been driving. I've dozed off.
And I've heard somebody scream my name, and I've been the only person in the car.
It's happened twice. That sounds like it's a good story. Yeah.
(06:53):
Do angels know our names? Yes. Clearly. Clearly, yeah.
Well, stay tuned for the top 10 questions, too, at the end of the podcast,
because one of them is, do angels have names?
Oh, do angels have names? That's a – you get that one for free.
The rest will be on the spot. Okay, yeah.
We're looking forward to that. Well, the internet has videos of supposed angel sightings.
(07:19):
And for this podcast, I viewed not a ton of them, but enough to say,
this is ridiculous. I'm sorry.
No, we're not sure. And here's the point. This is why you vet things scripturally.
I'm not convinced angels want to be subjects of modern photography.
No. I'm not convinced that. If they can help it, why would they? Yes.
They are servants. servants so and of course we
(07:40):
know servants are supposed to be in the background and listen
to this hebrews 1 13 and 14 and to
which of the angels has he ever said sit at
my right hand until i make your enemies a footstool for your feet are they not
all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit
salvation they're sent out to serve serve who us who are going to inherit that's
(08:04):
the big hope we have in jesus in his return inherit a final salvation.
Now, servants are meant to stay in the background, to have an unobtrusive presence.
Not to mention, we have this again in Hebrews 13, verses 1 and 2.
Let brotherly love continue.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
(08:30):
Yes, and that's current then and that time.
Of course, the reference can go back to Genesis 18-19, when Abraham entertained
a couple of angels along with the Lord God concerning the topic of Sodom and Gomorrah.
So according to this scripture, they're still showing up in the Christian age,
strangers, strangers who come to be kind to us, to help us.
(08:51):
Granted, in the Bible, they show up and are visible, and sometimes gloriously so.
Listen to this from Luke 24, verses 1 through 5.
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb,
taking the spices they had prepared.
And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in,
(09:12):
they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling
apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground,
the men said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead?
First of all, they've got a dry sense of humor. Why do you seek the living among
(09:32):
the dead? What are you doing here?
Are you confused? And there's no pleasantries. There's no pleasantries.
Hi, women. Glad to see you. We've been watching you. Yeah, no, straight to the point.
But again, the phrase dazzling apparel, you know, stuns your eyes.
They know how to dress. They know how to dress. They know how to put on,
what's the word, the bling? Yeah, they're dazzled.
(09:55):
This is heavenly bling. Yeah. Matthew 28, verses 1, 2, and 3.
Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended
from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.
(10:19):
And once again, a little humor there. He rolled back the stone and then just
sat on it. Does it say, see what I did?
Like that. And lightning, his clothing white as snow, just, you know, go snow blind.
Well, these are special times in biblical history with prophetic words that decide history.
The angels who would serve us would have to have excellent reason,
(10:40):
I think, to manifest themselves as depicted here.
There are suggestions that one can tell an angel is nearby, though.
My research, some people believe if you feel some heat, might be.
Joy, of course, angels are in the midst of joy, receiving strength.
And we'll just use this one to sort of orient us in the right direction.
Listen to this from Luke 22, 43, angels giving strength.
(11:04):
And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him.
That's Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. And the angel there comes and gives
him strength because he was, as Mark's gospel graphically says,
he was depressed to the point of death. Yeah.
However, we should not be looking to angels to give us strength,
(11:24):
though they might, sure.
But we are to look to Christ for strength. So, listen to this, Philippians 4.13.
I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Yes, and that's Jesus, and that's where our focus should be.
And the angels understand this.
If we spend too much time with an angel, apart from Christ, we're liable to
end up having wrong ideas about angels.
(11:46):
So, listen to this from Revelation 22.8.
I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw
them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me.
And then it goes on to say, But he said to me, You must not do that.
I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets,
and with those who keep the words of the book.
(12:08):
Worship God. Yes.
So, very clear. If you spend a lot of time on an angel because of their majesty,
the particular glory they have, have.
They're called the glorious ones in the book of Jude, 2 Peter as well.
So- All the angels, they seem to say, don't do that.
When they are worshiped, they're like, stop that. Stop that.
(12:31):
Immediately, yeah. There's no, yeah, it's immediate. Yeah.
Here's another one from Revelation 19.10. Then I fell down at the feet to worship
him, but he said to me, you must not do that.
I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of
Jesus. Jesus, worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
(12:51):
Well, people say, I would love to be an angel. You want to be like an angel?
Put God first and the word of Jesus right up there with the Lord God,
and you'll be like an angel. All right.
To sum up, an angel may make such a visual appearance as we see in the Bible,
but the testimony down through the church age is not one that parallels the biblical narrative.
Angels will help us. And in retrospect, we may very well decide that must have been an angel.
(13:17):
This is the intuitive sense of many who have so testified.
My father tells a story, and it's the only incident he ever had with an angel,
but he He was going up on a roof of the ladder, and somehow the ladder,
the rung broke and fell, and he should have gone all the way down to the ground.
And all of a sudden, he found his feet on the next rung. He said,
which is impossible because it's wrong angle. Yeah.
(13:39):
And he said, I had this just sense it was an angel. I was placed there on that right rung.
Now, we're going to go into a brief history of angelic hierarchy just to get
to where we're going. So bear with me.
Why do we have guardian angels at all? Well, first of all, they're a hierarchy,
and they were meant to originally guard nations, and then we'll see them with
(14:03):
churches, and then we'll look at them as it pertains to the individual person, right?
Well, they're also a military unit. I think it's important that we say that, right?
They're a military unit. Yeah. Yeah. Which they're going to have rank and file.
Did they have Psalm 91 written on their jackets? No, no, no. They may have. Yeah.
Deuteronomy 32, verse 8. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
(14:25):
when He divided mankind, He fixed the borders of the peoples according to the
numbers of the sons of God.
Yes, according to the number of the sons of God. Now, what does all that mean?
We're going to come back to it, but first listen to Daniel 12.1.
At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people.
(14:46):
And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time.
But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be
found written in the book.
Okay, notice that Michael is in charge of God's people, Israel,
as he is all Christians now, Jews and Gentiles together in the New Testament,
(15:08):
as we've sort of done that in other podcasts.
But this verse from Deuteronomy, it says that when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of peoples, that's the Gentile nations,
Gentiles, according to the number of the sons of God.
In other words, what's numbers got to do?
What are the numbers? Well, here is the answer to that from the Judaic Christian
(15:28):
tradition, and studied it over the years, I believe it.
When Jacob, in chapter 46 of Genesis, finds out that Joseph is alive,
he's delighted, and they're all going to go down to Egypt, it says that there
were 70 who went down to Egypt, and that's a big number in Jewish tradition.
When we go back to Genesis 10, and we have the nations lined up after the flood
(15:51):
of Noah, And the next chapter, chapter 11, is the Tower of Babel,
which tells us how they got in those various lands.
But Genesis 10 tells us who went where.
There are 70 of them. You go through and count them. And so the belief arose
that according to the number of nations, corresponding to the number of people
who went down to Egypt, there are 70 angels over the 70 nations.
(16:15):
That's the belief. That's why in some translations, I think it's the NIV,
will say mankind was divided according to the number of the sons of Israel.
The preferred reading by just about everybody, though, is the one that follows
the Greek translation, which we have, which is the sons of God, which refers to angels.
And so the number of the sons of Israel were 70.
(16:38):
And this number turns out to be the number they use for the nations.
Angels are placed over the 70 nations.
And you say, where does this come from? Well, part of it comes from Daniel 10.
Because in Daniel 10, toward the last half of that chapter, Gabriel says,
I've been delayed for 21 days because I was stopped by the prince of Persia.
And it wasn't until Michael came, now he's the big archangel, who helped me out.
(17:02):
And he stayed with the prince of Persia to deal with that while I came here to finish the message.
And at the end of the chapter, he says, I got to go back now and help Michael.
Besides that, the prince of Persia is going to leave and the prince of Greece
is coming. And in Daniel's book, of course, that's the prophetic interpretation
of how the nations come to pass. There's the Babylonian nation.
(17:22):
There's the nation that's next, which is Persian. And then there's the next one, Greece.
And then you go down to Rome. And so just about everybody understands that these are fallen angels.
Originally, they were not, but they fell. And like Satan, they kept their position and power.
If you want to know what that's about, get our podcast on UFOs and angels.
We listen to the previous podcast. Because that's all about fallen angels and
(17:45):
the connection to UFOs. Right.
The angels then, these fallen angels, who originally were upright,
are still over the nations.
But now they work for Satan and not for the Lord.
So they stopped Gabriel from getting to Daniel with the prayer request that he had asked for.
So, and it's important to understand that these fallen angels say,
(18:07):
well, why does God allow that? Well, why does he allow Satan?
I mean, and Satan is called the ruler of this world three times in the Gospel of John by Jesus.
So he has his help. Well, he has all these angels of his in places,
and that's why it sometimes seems like he's almost omnipotent,
which is why he's called the God of the sage by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4.
(18:28):
So we have the, as Randy mentioned, this military hierarchy.
And the words that are used in the New Testament, we'll give you a verse here
where they all come together at once, are ruler, which is where we get archangel,
authority, which is a Greek word, exousia, power, which is dynamis,
that's where we get dynamite.
And dominion, that's a Greek word, kreotes.
(18:50):
Now, in Ephesians 121, we find these words used.
Listen to this, Ephesians 121, referring to these fallen angels.
Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name
that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
Yeah, that's referencing Jesus. Jesus has been exalted far above every rule,
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authority, power, and dominion, all four of them.
Every name is named in this age and also the one to come. So he's a ruler over
that, over those fallen angels.
And here's another place where we find it. This is interesting.
It makes it even clearer. 1 Peter 3, 21, verse 22 says.
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt
(19:37):
from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels,
authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Right. Now, when Peter says he's gone to the right hand of God,
he's been exalted, that's the same basic scenario we're looking at from Ephesians
(19:59):
chapter 1, where he's been exalted above every name in this age and the age to come.
When Peter says, with angels, those are not good angels. Good angels were always
submitted to him before he was exalted.
They came to give him strength in the Garden of Gethsemane.
But in exaltation, it was made clear that Jesus rules and they don't,
even though they are in these positions of power, just as Satan has a position
(20:21):
of power, but only according to the will of God.
So angels, authorities, there's that word, powers have been subjected to him.
And, of course, this one is really clear, and I hate to belabor it,
but we want to make certain we understand what we're talking about when we talk about guardian angels.
Ephesians 6, 10 through 12 is about putting on the armor to fight spiritual battles.
(20:44):
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness,
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
(21:04):
They're in the heavenly places, like the prince of Persia, who ruled over Persia,
the prince of Greece that was to come.
You have earthly rulers, but you have spiritual rulers. These are fallen angels.
They're in a hierarchy, and they oppose the will of God. And sometimes angels
like Gabriel and Michael have to contend with that situation.
So nations have angels and people. And people. Yeah. Right.
(21:28):
So what about having a good angel for our nation?
Well, we have one that's probably an evil angel, like the rest of the Scripture points out.
But we have angels for churches, which in God's sight are the nations now he's concerned with.
We do have good angels. Here's 1 Peter 2.9. But you are a chosen race,
(21:49):
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light.
Right. The key word there, you're a holy nation, and that's the people of God.
Keep that in mind. America is not a holy nation.
(22:10):
It's made up of people who hopefully are holy, but only the organized people
of God, Christians, are considered a holy nation.
So the good angels, the elect angels who never fell, are now stationed by way
of the Christ event over individual churches to guard and protect us from the hierarchy of Satan.
(22:31):
Based on the pattern found in the book of Revelation, each church now has an
angel over her to serve and protect.
For example, let's look at 1st Revelation 1.20.
As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the
seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches
(22:52):
and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
This is why each church is addressed to an angel, not to the leadership or to
the congregation. Of course, each letter is for the churches,
and obviously, since it's sent out there, they read it and hear it in their congregations.
But Revelation is primarily about spiritual warfare. You just had to read that
once to get that picture, just like we saw in Ephesians 6, 10, 11, and 12.
(23:16):
Revelation means a revealing, so the curtain is pulled back.
So we see beyond flesh and blood as to what the spiritual forces are,
and that involves angels and all that they're doing. Well, and we see that pulling
back of the veil that separates the physical world and the spiritual.
We see that numerous times in Scripture. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, from when Elisha is shown, you know, who is for us.
(23:43):
Those who are for us are greater than those against us.
And pulls back the veil so he can see, you know, the hillside and numerous other
examples. Right, right. Right, and that's in 2 Kings 6, where,
yeah, Elijah's servant is upset because all he sees are the chariots of the flesh and blood enemy.
And Elijah says, oh, no, no, we've got more here than they've got.
(24:03):
The Lord show them, and all of a sudden he sees chariots of fires,
and of course the angels who are manning them. So-
Revelation being about primarily spiritual warfare, such as Ephesians 6,
10, and so forth, it's imperative that each church know they have an angel,
and that angel there is to serve and protect in this spiritual battle.
That's why it's addressed to an angel. Angels help churches.
(24:27):
I mean, most of the talk is always about individual garden angels,
but the Bible is very specific. First, it's churches.
So if you want an individual angel, you know, be in a church.
Be in a church. So listen to this, Revelation 2, 1. To the angel of the church
in Ephesus write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand,
who walks among the seven golden lampstands. Right.
(24:49):
And then next one would be to the church at Smyrna, to the church,
and it goes all through seven churches.
Each church has its angel.
So what is assumed here? It's assumed that the angel will know how to respond
to the letter and do what he has to do in his realm, even as we are learning
what we must do in our realm, okay?
Jesus is concerned that each church responds appropriately, but particularly
(25:13):
with starting with the angels.
And please note that the angel is not named.
Why? Well, to prevent worship or wrong-headed curiosity, because we just saw
how John twice worships an angel.
And of course, if you start saying, well, I want to find out the name of the
angel that watches over us, it's the wrong direction.
You're not going to find it out. And the work they're doing,
(25:34):
you're not going to know about, out, unless for some reason God shares that
with you, which is possible. Absolutely.
That's why we said that for we who are Christians, we who are organized as individual
churches, angels serve in the background.
They do not manifest themselves to the church that they are over to guard and protect.
Guardian angels of us personally. Now let's get to that.
(25:57):
Hebrews 1.14. Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the
sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
Right. So we have ministering spirits. That's a reference to angels,
of course, because that section of Hebrews is dealing with angels.
And they are sent out from heaven by God to serve who?
Those of us who are on our way to glory land. That's a paraphrase of that verse.
(26:21):
Now, for this to happen, they must know us in some personal sense,
for we are all on the same road, but at different times in our lives and different places on that road.
So, we're going to look at some key passages here for guardian angels who are
over us, and we're going to start with Matthew 10, 41-42.
Now, this doesn't mention an angel, but listen carefully.
(26:42):
The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive.
Right.
(27:05):
And whoever gives one of these little ones a cup of cold water because he's a disciple.
So the disciples are referred to as little ones. ones.
And the person who gives a cup of cold water to the little one,
that person won't lose whatever reward he's got coming for that.
That's a promise of Jesus.
Now it gets more specific here as we go to Matthew 18. We're going to look at
(27:27):
first verses one through four.
At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said,
truly, I say to you, unless you turn.
(27:49):
All right, and the key there is you'll become like children. All right.
Children, of course, no age of accountability, and certainly if they die,
they're in heaven. I have no problem with that, but that's not what Jesus is talking about.
He's referring to his disciples to be like children, to be like little children, to humble yourself.
Don't make a big deal out of yourself. Kids get involved in lots of things,
(28:11):
but usually they don't get arrogant until they get a little older. Right.
Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Then we go to chapter 18, verses 5 and 6.
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one
of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to
(28:32):
have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
All right. Whoever receives one such child, what is that? That is like a small
child, a disciple who humbles himself.
And whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me,
that's us, and we're described here as little ones.
Now, keep in mind, you're saying, why is he calling little ones?
(28:54):
Because the subject, as you will see, is guardian angels.
And who, throughout all of history and every epoch, who needs guardians?
Children, especially smaller children. But whoever causes one of these little
ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone
fast around his neck and be drowned.
God takes ever so seriously the protection of his own. If you didn't know that
(29:18):
before, take it to heart now.
Because here's what's going on in heaven right,
Listen to this, Matthew 18, verses 10 through 14. See that you do not despise
one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always
see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray,
(29:41):
does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?
And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than the other
99 that never went astray. Right.
So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
And who are the little ones? The stray sheep. Who are stray sheep? Us.
(30:04):
Who are the little ones when he begins this? Their angels always see the face of my Father.
Don't despise believers.
Don't do it. Clearly, the sheep that strayed is also the little one that God protects.
Little Little ones are the sheep that strayed, was found, and now there's rejoicing.
It's God's will that we not perish, then certainly the angels stand by to help.
(30:27):
That's the point. They are there.
And Christians are described as little ones as found out in the New Testament.
And we could do a slew of references here. We'll just do a couple.
Here's one from Jesus in John chapter 13, verse 33.
Little children, yet a little while I am with you.
You will seek me. And just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you,
(30:49):
where I am going, you cannot cause them little children.
And John, when he writes his first letter, picks up on that because seven times
in 1 John, starting in chapter 2, he calls the congregation to whom he writes little children.
Paul does it as well. Galatians 4, 19.
My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ
(31:12):
is formed in you. you, my little children.
Now, all this goes back to the teaching of Jesus.
So they protect and they serve during our life.
We will not always know how or why, but it's foundational truth that we do have guardian angels.
Or as we shall see here in just a second, a guardian angel. And they protect us in our life.
(31:35):
But Jesus also teaches they protect us in death.
And you say, well, why in death? Well, I don't know, but we do know there are
evil things in heavenly places, principalities, powers, authorities, and all that. that.
And so, listen to Luke 16, verse 22.
The background is that there was a rich man. He ignored Lazarus,
(31:55):
who was very poor and sick and needed help.
The rich man dies. He's in the flame in Hades.
But listen to the death of Lazarus. The poor man died and was carried by the
angels to Abraham's side.
The rich man also died and was buried. Yes, and lifted up his eyes and said,
I've got issues now, for sure.
(32:17):
The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.
He's been protected. He's being served.
Absolutely. Throughout history, who has guardians?
Children, especially little children need guardians. And we certainly,
as God's little children, have angels.
So that one of them might be assigned to us personally would not be surprising.
(32:39):
Because it just makes sense.
You have all those angels. how many angels do you need for one person?
Unless you're a real mess, I would think one angel would be sufficient.
So the Bible never says specifically one angel per person, but clearly we have
angels who look over us, who come to know us, and that's how they serve and
protect us because they got to heaven some knowledge of us.
(33:00):
And so it wouldn't be surprising if we have one assigned to each individual
just as they are assigned to each church.
And that's the Christian expectation. Right?
Well, instead of ending like we normally do, we decided that we would start
taking some of your questions and answering them on the spot.
So on the spot. Here we go. So can we have a second guardian angel?
(33:25):
Can we? I mean, if the first one leaves? Can you have two at the same time?
It's possible depending upon the trouble you're in.
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you really only want one because if you have two,
you're in some deep situations.
Yeah. More basic things. Do angels have wings?
No. In the Bible, when you have the classification of angels,
(33:47):
you have seraphim. They show up in Isaiah 6.
You have the strange beast in the book of Revelation as well, chapter 4.
And you have the cherubs, and you see them in Ezekiel chapter 1 and 2.
Cherubs are assigned to protect the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. They all have wings.
In fact, some of them have six multiple wings. Yeah, three wings on each side.
(34:09):
Angels are never depicted ever as having wings.
So it's just a fact that they just don't. That's something that came along just through tradition.
Through tradition. And if you think about it, it makes sense because cherub
in the Garden of Eden, they're there. They're always associated with the presence of the holiness of God.
They're there at one place. They don't go out on assignment.
(34:30):
They protect the tree. They don't go anywhere.
The cherub the seraphim which means the burning flame
the burning ones in book of hebrews chapter one refers to angels as flames
that comes from the book of psalms the seraphim
and isaiah 6 when he has that great vision of god on the throne up in heaven
they're surrounding the throne going holy holy holy is lord god almighty the
whole world is full of his glory and that's where they stay put they don't leave
(34:55):
and come down here with messages angels come with messages and then the the
same thing in the book of Revelation.
When John gets up there in chapter 4, he sees these beasts, and they're very
weird. They've got eyes everywhere.
And they're saying the same thing. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
And they stay put. They don't go anywhere because they're not messengers.
Angels, as the name applies, means a messenger.
(35:18):
You mentioned the angels having different jobs and assignments.
So when we die, Why is our angel reassigned to someone else?
Wouldn't surprise me. Absolutely.
Yes. They need a new job. Yeah. Need a new person to serve.
Yeah. Need a new person to serve. Yes. So when the angel that came and shut
(35:40):
the lion's mouth for Daniel, who protected and served him, Daniel passes away.
The next prophet that had an issue, God said, go down there and help him. Well, yeah.
Speaking of assignments, when is our guardian angel assigned to us, do you think?
Well, that's a good question. And there's not much scripture on that other than,
obviously, when you become a Christian,
(36:02):
because that passage from Matthew 18 we read talked about when you make one
of my little ones who believes to sin. So you're talking about believers.
So God in his benevolence watches, I'm sure, many times over children and babies,
absolutely. Absolutely.
But they would not be assigned until we are Christian. But there's nothing in
(36:23):
the Bible that tells us how that is done.
Is it when we repent? Is it when we come to baptism? We're not told.
Does every human being have a guardian angel?
No, they have potential guardian angels. If they believe.
Right. And of course, just because they're not Christian doesn't mean angels
are not going to assist them. They may very well assist them.
(36:45):
They assisted Lot and his family, Now, Lot was, says Peter, 2 Peter 2,
a righteous man, but there's no indication that his wife was.
But she got the same benefit of the angels as did Lot. But then she turned back and turned to salt.
So there you have an example of. Yeah.
Can angels or demons know our thoughts?
(37:07):
No, but they know how to read our personalities. They watch and observe.
And if you're a good observer of human beings, you can deduct a lot just by
sitting in the mall one day.
Yeah, you can just being a people watcher. Just being a people watcher.
You can discern some things, yeah. And they've had a lot, many more years. Yes, yes.
And 2 Peter 1 talks about the gospels come down from heaven with the Holy Spirit,
(37:30):
and the gospel has many things that angels are looking into, want to look into.
Yeah. So angels are curious. So if they're assigned to us, they're going to
be curious of who we are, what's our activity, what's our schedule,
how do we do things, because that's how they serve and protect.
A servant in a flesh and blood world must know his master's ins and outs, his ups and downs.
(37:50):
Otherwise, he's not a good servant. Indeed. Are there male and female angels?
We have no female angels in the Bible. When they appear, make manifestations
and appear visibly, they're always men.
The time that Abraham was visited, Genesis 18, the Lord came down with two angels,
and the Lord stayed to talk to Abraham about Sodom. And the two angels went on to visit Lot.
(38:14):
But they looked just like men. They were accepted as men. Lot cooked a meal
for them, and they ate it.
But they're described as men. Resurrection, all the angels are described as men or young men. Hmm.
Will we become like angels? Well, only in the sense that you have in the Gospel of Luke.
But it's the same passages elsewhere, but I'm remembering it from Luke.
(38:37):
When the Sadducees try to trip Jesus up on the question of whose husband is this wife going to have?
Because she had seven husbands, they all died. So in the resurrection,
which they did not believe in, the Sadducees, you know, how's that going to work out?
And Jesus says, well, you err, and you know you err because you don't know the
Scriptures or the power of God.
But those who are considered worthy to attain into that age and the resurrection,
(39:00):
neither marry nor are given a marriage. They're like the angels. They never die.
So they're like the angels, never die. But would there be a hierarchy then?
We have a hierarchy now in the Bible. Man, then woman, right?
Yeah. Adam over Eve. You have that in the Bible.
How will that work out in the age to come? Be interesting. It will be interesting. I don't know.
(39:20):
Well, Sam, you've given us a lot to think about. and maybe you have questions or comments about it.
So please send your questions or comments to eventsandexpectations at gmail.com.
That's the word events, the word and, and the word expectations all together
at gmail.com or send your question or comment via the comment section of this podcast.
(39:44):
We will always answer you. This has been Current Events and Christian Expectations
and until next time, keep looking up.
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