What Does the Bible Say About Angels? by David K. Bernard Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript) Kind: teaching Scripture: Hebrews 1, Colossians 2, 1 Corinthians 6, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--what-does-the-bible-say-about-angels Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page. Free to copy and share with attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ yes well if you look at Hebrews chapter 1 it says that angels are ministering Spirits so they're Spirit beings not flesh beings not humans uh they can appear in human form but they don't actually have Flesh and Blood um they are ministering Spirits so their job is to serve they serve God they're agents of God in fact the Greek word for Angel also means messenger so you see this throughout the Bible many times at least how we humans interact with angels they come with a message from God so they're God's agents to do his bidding to do his work and of course God can do anything and everything but he just like he often uses humans for example he uses humans to preach the gospel you know God could proclaim the gospel from you know Mount Everest but instead he uses us and so God could for whatever reason I mean he could uh and sometimes does he might speak through a spiritual gift or dream or Vision but sometimes he may choose an Angelic messenger um and of course Hebrews goes on to say Hebrews 1 that they minister to The Heirs of Salvation so in a very specific way they are are used for our benefit now I don't think we um most of us I have never seen an angel uh we may not be aware of their presence except from the word of God may not and I don't think it's necessary to focus on them we should certainly not pray to angels that would be wrong Colossians 2 tells us that's heresy obviously we should only pray to the one true God I don't think we should even try to command Angels they they're not our servants they're God's servants now if we feel so inclined we say God you know send your angel to protect me right now or send your angel to guard me but really our prayers are to God he can answer it however he wants I don't really care I'm praying for protection if he wants to send a bunch of angels I'm good with that if he wants to do it some other way I'm good with that so um while I might want or ask uh but I don't think we should develop techniques where we try to tell Angels what to do that's not our role now if you look at all the evidence for angels in the Bible it does seem they are intelligent beings they love God they serve god um in some ways we we we're little lower the Angels when we're created as humans we have less ability than Angels but yet by being redeemed in some sense we're greater than Angels because there is evidence that some angels sin but there's no evidence that God Ever Had A Plan of Redemption for them so redeem human beings in some sense are greater than angels and Paul makes the Intriguing comment I don't know if it's in the millennial Kingdom or through eternity that we will judge Angels 1 Corinthians 6 so in some way God is going to elevate us to a position even higher higher than angels will you know we could speculate will be will be will God maybe somewhere future create another Universe with other beings and maybe we'll be the the angel type people of that that Universe I don't know but you you know who knows what God has planned for eternity but what we do see is that of course God created everything and he created everything is good so he created the angels and he created them as good we do find from Revelation that one third of them fell into sin it looks like they rebelled against God and we typically see the devil as originally a good Angel an archangel a leader of angels we often connect uh that with the uh Isaiah 14 ezel 28 even though these are related to human rulers when you read it carefully it's the underlying seems to be Supernatural elements that no human could fulfill and so as often happens in Scripture you know the the human is representing the Demonic force behind that so that human king that's being judged by God is really motivated maybe even uh in in um possessed by the devil himself so that's why we often think of those two passages as actually giving us Insight so if you look at that originally the devil would have been created as an angel uh an archangel leader of angels commonly thought of as Lucifer a uh angel of Light um angel that was serving God but Pride came in his heart and he exalted himself he tried to be a rival with God he tried to pursue his own agenda and so he fell uh by pride and became the devil and he convinced a third of the angels to go with him and I think we normally would think of those Fallen Angels at least a portion of them would would explain what demons are they're still spirits but they're malevolent evil spirits they desire to inhabit humans or to affect humans but of course ultimately Jesus Christ won victory over all of them and we have power in the name of Jesus to cast out demon forces and ultimately the Fallen Angels including the demons will be uh relegated to Eternal judgment without the presence of God so that's kind of a synopsis U it does seem there may be different types or orders of angels that the cherubim the seraphim uh we don't know too much about that we do know two angels are named in scripture Michael the Archangel who seems to be particularly um assigned to help the people of Israel uh we find Gabriel who was a messenger of God for Mary the mother of Jesus and so forth but uh we don't really know a lot more about angels than the ones I've just mentioned um and so I think we should believe there is a spiritual realm that we cannot see and who knows maybe some of the uh alleged UFOs could represent some involvement from the spirit realm we don't know but our main focus of course should always be our worship is to the one true God Alone our faith is in the one true God Alone we do believe he has Angelic beings who assist him and because we are his children they assist us and uh I I do believe it the Psalms talks about angels encamping around those who love the Lord so there is divine protection through Angelic intervention maybe far more than we realize and maybe many of the times that we face whether it's a spiritual Temptation or a physical trauma Angels come to our Aid even Jesus as a human in his times of great struggles Angels Came ministered to him so there was some type of spiritual comfort or encouragement as a human and maybe we experience that and don't always know that uh the book of Hebrews even talks about entertaining angels unaware and it may be referring to some examples in the Old Testament but it's an intriguing thought that sometimes could there be an Angelic visitation so if we are so Cavalier or harsh in rebuking a stranger or someone who tries to give us word could we actually be you know rejecting Angelic intervention we don't know but maybe it should give us pause to treat everyone with respect and try not to judge who they are where they come from I've never personally experienced this but I have talked to ministers or heard them say that they had encountered a time of great need with somebody who seemed to come out of nowhere with a word of encouragement blessing and they were so moved and then when they looked around that person was was nowhere to be found or when they checked to see who that person was nobody could uh account for who they were or where they came from or where they went so I think it could be even today that some of those stories that read about in the Bible God could use um angels and sometimes we're not fully aware of them but in the bottom line I don't think we should create doctrines About Angels or techniques for encountering Angels because there is a big difference that we see from the Old Testament even the gospel that we are filled with the Holy Ghost so maybe there's not the same need of angelic presence because we have the abiding presence of God's spirit and we can see miracles signs and wonders as we pray in the name of Jesus so that's not to Discount the reality of angels it's just to say that U our faith is not in angels our faith is in God and there's some other intriguing references that the angels in heaven worship God but they can't sing the song of the redeemed That's Unique for us they've never been redeemed uh also Peter talks about even the angels are intrigued by our Salvation a desire to understand I think it must be amazing to them that we could actually have the presence of God inside of us they they've never encountered that uh they know God in a greater Dimension than we do externally but maybe we're in in least in the future we we are able to experience God in a deeper Dimension even than the Angels so that's an exciting thought but the bottom line is together they're God's servants we're God's servants and together we will worship and serve him throughout eternity it is going to be great to get to heaven and we're we're going to understand and see a lot of things that we didn't recognize here on Earth to get the rest of the story yeah I wouldn't want to it