Video Transcript: Angels and Demons

Let's think first of all about the good angels, those wonderful heavenly beings. Sometimes the Bible speaks of God as Yahweh of hosts, the God or Lord of angel armies. Psalm 89, says, who among the sons of God is like the Lord, a god greatly to be feared in the counsel of the holy ones, and awesome, above all, who are around him, oh, Lord, God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, oh, Lord, with your faithfulness, all around you. 

Sometimes the Old Testament speaks of the sons of God. And these are the angels of God, those who are part of his heavenly council, the council of the holy ones. And the Bible says that God is awesome, above all of those amazing creatures that he's made. All the angels, all the angelic beings, cherebim them serafim, whatever, mysterious beings that we might not even fully understand at all who they are exactly what they're like, one thing we know they're made by God. And we know that God is awesome above all of them. 

Sometimes when we think of the Divine counsel in the Bible, there is God and then there is his heavenly counsel. And sometimes God communicates with them and sends them out. But always God is supreme. And one of the things that this shows us is not just how great angels are, but how great God is. There's no comic strip that I always found amusing called Hagar the horrible and it's about a fat little viking who goes around pillaging or thinking he's going to pillage various countries. 

And that one occasion he goes to a great big castle and stands before a huge door and knocks on it. And demands that Og the awful come out to meet him. And then the next part of the cartoon, there's a huge person standing there with weapons all over and he looks monstrous and terrifying. And Hagar looks really scared. And he says, Are you Og the awful? And the man says, No, I'm his butler. 

Well, so that's what the Butler is like, I'm not sure he wants to run into the main man. And when you think of, of the angels of God, when angels would appear to human, sometimes the humans would be tempted to fall down and worship them. The angels were so awe inspiring. And yet they were the humans are always so no, no, no, don't worship Me, worship God, because God is so much greater than all of his angels. 

Angels are worshippers. I heard the voices of many angels numbering 1000s upon 1000s and 10,000 times 10,000, says the apostle John in the book of Revelation, in a loud voice, they were saying Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth, and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise in the earlier vision of Revelation. He hears the heavenly being saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty. And Isaiah is vision. Here's that same thing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory. 

And that's what the angelic beings, the Serafim are saying, in God's presence, they are constant worshipers of God. Another fact about angels is that they are messengers. In fact, that's what the word angel means. It simply means messenger. And angels would carry messages from God angels spoke to Abraham, to Moses, to Daniel to Mary to Peter to Paul to many other people in the Bible, and they carried messages from God. 

And those messages were very important to listen to because they came from God. And so you didn't want to mess around when an angel brought you a message. Zechariah was a priest and an angel came to him to tell him that he and his aged wife would have a baby even though they were past childbearing years, and that baby would become John the Baptist, who would prepare the way for Jesus. And Zechariah says, Well, how do I know that's going to happen? My wife is old. And the angel says to him, I am Gabriel, you little pipsqueak. Basically, I am Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God. And I have been sent to speak to you and tell you this good news. And if the only thing you can say is words of unbelievable and you're not going to be able to speak again, until it's come true. 

And Zechariah couldn't talk again, until Baby John was born. And then he opened his mouth and praised God. So these Angel messengers when they bring messages, they are great and weighty messages to be believed the message of the birth of John the Baptist. 

The birth of Jesus Christ is announced by angels angels spoke to Paul, in his missions of Mary had a visit from the angel Gabriel. And unlike Zechariah, she believed right away and said, May it be to me, as the Lord has said. So the angels still do God's work today. Don't think that the angels have all gone on vacation. Since the time the Bible was written, the angels continue to be worshipers of God, they continue to help and bring messages from God. 

In fact, in the book of Revelation, John sees an angel midway between earth and heaven proclaiming the eternal Gospel. And so when we're doing our work on earth, there are angels accompanying us, we may not always see it, but the angels are there. And they're helping us as we're God's messengers. They too are God's messengers. They're God's guardians, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. 

Jesus said, See that you do not despise one of these little ones, the children, For I tell you that their angels in heaven, always see the face of my Father in heaven. It's a great thing to stand in the presence of God, and to see his face. And these mighty angels who are standing in the presence of God, and to whom God has lent some of his majesty and power to do his works in the earth. 

They are the ones who are watching over the little ones, the vulnerable ones, the children, the fragile ones and Jesus don't to mess with them. Because if you do, you've got angels against you, nevermind the might of God himself. 

So it's a comforting thing to know that God and His angels guard you. It's also stern warning, that if you're gonna mess with those whom God cherishes, you're going to have God's mighty warriors against you. And angels are ministering spirits, in a sense, as great as they are as majestic as they are. God sends them to serve Him. They carry out His commands and they minister to us. 

Hebrews 1:14 says, are not all angels, ministering spirits, sent to serve those who will inherit salvation. There's a sense in which the angels are working for our well being.

 And in the future. The Bible says, Don't you know that will judge angels, we'll be evaluating angels, maybe we'll be judging the fallen angels along with the Lord Jesus Christ, but maybe we'll also be in command, or ranked even above the wonderful mighty angels of God, it not sure about that. 

But the Bible seems to suggest it in a verse like this one, or in Hebrews chapter 2, where it says, oh, it's not angels, that he helps but Abraham's descendants, Jesus didn't become an angel. He became one of us. And in coming into human nature, he lifted human nature to unimaginable heights. 

So the angels wonderful as they are, are serving God's people, and will continue to work together with us when we see them or when we can perceive them more clearly, in the new creation, sometimes now I know of stories from people who believe they saw an angel where he rescued them where and then was gone. You hear of car accidents, I heard the story of a couple who belong to my church and aged couple who had been rescued from the Nazis searching for Jews who are hiding in their house. And a man was there and those Nazi soldiers all of a sudden turned and went away. And that man that they thought was there was gone. And they were convinced that an angel had rescued them. 

Now that raises questions. Why don't the angels always rescue people? I'm not going to get into all those questions here. I'm just saying that they are ministering spirits, that they're guardians, that they're real, and that they still do God's work today. 

The Fallen spirits, these mighty spirits that God has made wonderful and splendor and knowledge, some of them fell. And the Bible says that they're very dangerous. We need to put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil schemes for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. There are unseen forces of great power and horrible evil, and that's what we're up against.

It's foolish and naive to deny the reality of the devil and the powers of the evil one. Many of the evil things that are done even among humans have been prompted to go far beyond any human power in the wickedness and devastation that they brought, because demons are behind what's happening. But though they're dangerous, they're defeated. 

The Bible says Having disarmed the powers and authorities, Jesus made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross at the cross, He paid for our sins. And sin is the only reason Satan even tries to have a claim on us. So because Jesus pays the price for sin and sets us free from sin, he triumphs over the devil and makes a public spectacle of them. 

The Devil's favorite tools are sin and death. The worst sin in the history of the world was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the worst death was the death Jesus died. But it was in that very weapons of the devil sin and death that Jesus triumphed over and made a public spectacle of the demons. And the Bible says that the Holy Spirit of Jesus is greater than that evil power that's in the world. 

And because Jesus has triumphed, the Bible says, your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. But resist him, standing firm in the faith, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. When you have the power of Jesus, when you sent Jesus to the door to meet Satan, when he's trying to get his way with you, then the devil has to flee. 

If you just give in and let your fallen human flesh go along with him, then the devil can win triumphs in your life. But if you resist, he can't make you do what he wants some pipe. Sometimes people say, Oh, the devil made me do it. Not if you belong to Jesus Christ, the devil did not have the power over you to make you do anything, because you have the Spirit of Jesus. So resist the devil, and he will flee from you. That's the truth about the devil and about his demons. He's dangerous, but he's defeated and never forget it. 

So live in the victory of Jesus over those evil powers. The final end of the demons has been revealed the reason the Son of God appeared, was to destroy the works of the devil. He's destroying the devil's work as He sets us free from sin and makes us his own. And he will destroy the devil completely, and send them to hell into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 

At the end of history, we see the devil thrown into the lake of fire, the demons are doomed. And so God tells us both about His angels, and about those demons so that we can be encouraged that he has these wonderful worshipers, messengers, servants of righteousness and guardians all around us, and also to know the evil powers that we're up against and be ready to resist them. God's holy angels descend and help God's people. Satan and other Fallen Angels are dangerous, but doomed, Christ is Victor.