Why did God create angels? 

What is their function? 

Do we have guardian angels?

The word angel (aggelos) means messenger and may be applied to a human or divine messenger. 

According to Scripture there is an order of supernatural creatures. 

I think it would really surprise us if we had any concept of the number of angels in the universe. 

They are called the host of heaven, and that means there are a whole lot of them. 

Their numbers apparently are not diminished or added to in any way, but we have no idea how many angels there are. 

They have an important part in God’s plan.

Angels were prominent in their ministry to Israel in the Old Testament. 

The Law was given by the agency of angels 

Psalm 68:17    "The chariots of God are twenty thousand,  even thousands of angels:  the Lord is among them,  as in Sinai,  in the holy place."

Acts 7:53   "Who have received the Law by the disposition of angels,  and have not kept it."  

Galatians 3:19   "Wherefore then serveth the law?  It was added because of transgressions,  till the seed should come to whom the promise was made:  and it was ordained by angel's in the hand of a mediator."

Wherefore then serveth the Law? 

What was the purpose of the Law? 

Paul says it was something that was added. 

It was added because  -  for the sake of transgressions.

"Till the seed should come"  -  that little word till is an important time word. 

It means the Law was temporary. 

The Law was given for the interval between the time of Moses until the time of Christ.

"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). 

It is very important to see that the Law was temporary 

"until the seed should come"

THAT SEED IS CHRIST.

The Law was added  "because of  transgressions."

It was given to reveal not  remove  sin. 

It was not given to keep man from sin because sin had already come. 

It was to show man himself as being a natural, ugly, crude sinner before God. 

Any person who is honest, will look at themselves in the light of the Law and see themselves, guilty. 

It was not given to prove that all men were sinners,  nor was it given (as many liberals are saying today)  as a standard by which man becomes holy. 

Dear reader,  you would never become holy this way,  because,  first of all,  you can’t keep the Law  in your own strength.

Many folk think that man becomes a sinner when he commits a sinful act,  that he is all right until he breaks over and commits sin. 

This is not true. 

It is because he is already a sinner that a man commits an act of sin. 

A man steals because he is a thief. 

A man lies because he is a liar. 

I find myself  guilty of lying  - although I blame it on other folk. 

I leave my house in the morning and the first person I meet says, 

"How are you feeling today?" 

Well,  to be honest,  I don’t feel well,  but I say,  "Oh, I’m feeling fine." 

Right there in the first few minutes I have lied. 

It’s just natural for us to be that way, dear reader. 

Some of us commit more serious lying than that. 

Why do we do it? 

We have that fallen nature. 

And the Law was given to show that we are sinners, and that you and I need a mediator  -  One to stand between us  and  God,  One to help us in our time of need.

If there had been another way of saving sinners, God would have used that way. 

If He could have given a law by which a sinner could be saved, He would have done so.

Galatians 3:22   "But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe."

THE LAW BROUGHT DEATH.

Ezekiel 18:20   "The soul that sinneth, it shall die …" 

The Scripture has "concluded all under sin;" therefore all died. 

What is needed,  therefore,  is life. 

We have seen that the Law brings death,  which is all that it can do. 

It is not actually the degree of sin  but  the mere fact of sin that brings death. 

Hence, all are equally dead and equally in need. 

You may not have committed as great a sin as Stalin committed, but you and I have the same kind of nature that he had. 

We are to  recognize that we have that  kind of a nature. 

It is not the degree of sin, 

but  the very  fact  that we are sinners 

that brings death.

There are three men on top of the building, and the superintendent goes up to see them and warns them, "Now be very careful, do not step off of this building or you will be killed.  It will mean death for you." 

One of the men says,

 "This crazy superintendent is always trying to frighten people. I do not believe that if I step off this building I will die." 

So he deliberately walks to the edge of the building and steps off into the air. 

Suppose that when he passes the tenth floor, somebody looks out the window and asked him,  "Well, how is it going?" 

And he says,  "So far, so good." 

But, my friend, he hasn’t arrived yet. 

There is death at the bottom. 

The superintendent was right. The man is killed. 

Now suppose one of the other men becomes frightened at what the superintendent said. He runs for the elevator, or the steps, and accidentally slips. He skids right off the edge of the building and falls to the street below. 

He, too, is killed. 

The third man, we’ll say, is thrown off the building by some gangsters because he is their enemy. 

He is killed. 

Now the man who was thrown off of the building is just as dead as the man who deliberately stepped off and the man who accidentally slipped off the building. 

All of these men broke the law of gravitation,  and death was inevitable for all of them. 

It is the fact, you see, and not the degree. 

It is the fact that they went over the edge  -  they all broke the law of gravitation.

Can the law of gravitation which took them down to death give them life?

It cannot. 

The Mosaic Law cannot give you life any more than a natural law can give you life after you have broken it and died. 

You cannot reverse the situation and come back from the street below to the top of the building and live.

Death follows wherever sin comes. 

The law of sin knows nothing of extenuating circumstances. 

It knows nothing about mercy. 

It has no elasticity. 

It is inflexible, inexorable, and immutable. 

God’s Word says,

 "The soul that sinneth, it shall die…"  

To Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden God said, 

Genesis 2:17   "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." 

Exodus 34:7    "… and that will by no means clear the guilty …." 

Therefore, all have sinned and by the Law we are all dead.  

The Law slew us. 

It is called by Paul a

2 Corinthians 3:7    "… ministration of death…"

It is a ministration of condemnation. 

The Law condemns all of us.   

Galatians 3:23   "But before faith came,  we were kept under the law,  shut up unto the faith  which should  afterwards be revealed." 

THE FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST WHO DIED FOR US..

Galatians 3:19   "  ...  and it was ordained by angel's in the hand of a mediator."

Cherubim were woven into the veil of the tabernacle and fashioned of gold  for the mercy seat. 

Isaiah had a vision of the seraphim. 

And according to the book of Revelation,  after the church is removed an angelic ministry of judgment takes place.

The angels of God are wonderful,  but they are,  of course,  inferior to the Son. 

They are His angels, His ministers, and  His worshipers. 

Hebrews 1:7   "And of the angels He saith, Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire"  

This is a quotation from 

Psalm 104:4   "Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire." 

The angels belong to the Lord.

I  believe  that the angelic ministry is not connected with the church at all. 

This subject is becoming exceedingly difficult and dangerous today  because there is a manifestation of demonism. 

Several writers are saying that demons are directing them, but they call them angels. 

Dear reader,  an angelic ministry is not for our day.

But someone is going to say to me, 

"But we have a guardian angel." 

Where did that idea come from? 

I don’t think we have guardian angels.

 Some people say, 

"Oh, but we each need to have a guardian angel." 

Let me ask you a question: 

Are you a child of God? 

If you are,  then you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, who is the third Person of the Godhead. 

What could a guardian angel do for you that the Holy Spirit can’t do for you? 

Do you want to think that over for a while?

The idea of an active angelic ministry in the church came about because some of the early church members who were marvelous artists liked to paint angels.

The Sistine Chapel in Rome has on the ceiling, angels and people  probably feel that angels were hovering over you. 

Michelangelo certainly did like to paint angels. 

Although I have not  seen the Sistine Chapel,  I  would not like to see it because it teaches that there are angels connected with our lives today. 

Today we have a living Savior! 

We do not go to God through angels.

Let’s just push the angels aside and trust the Lord Jesus alone.   

We have the Holy Spirit, and we have Christ, our great intercessor. 

Let us get our minds off angels  and  center them upon the Person of Christ. 

Christ Jesus is superior to angels.

Angels are the creatures; 

The Lord is the Creator.

This verse is a quote from Psalm 110:1,  a psalm that is quoted more than any other psalm in the New Testament. 

The Psalms teach the deity of Christ. 

There is a more complete picture of Christ in the Psalms than in the Gospels.

Hebrews 1:14   "Are they not all ministering spirits,  sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?"

Somebody is going to say, 

"Doesn’t it say here that the angels are going to minister to the heirs of salvation?" 

Let us just  read the verse like it is. 

The angels are going to minister to those "who shall be heirs of salvation." 

This verse is looking forward to the time when God turns again to the nation Israel, and to the Gentile world  -  after  the church is removed from earth. 

Notice that it does not say that the angels are ministering to those who are right now  the heirs of salvation. 

You see,  God is moving according to His program  and  He has a purpose  for everything He does.

Christ Jesus is the Son; 

angels are servants. 

Christ Jesus is King; 

angels are subjects. 

Christ is the Creator; 

angels are creatures. 

Christ at this moment is waiting until His enemies will be made His footstool. 

The Father never gave such a promise to an angel,  but He says that some day  His Son shall rule. 

This tremendous section sets before us the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ  and  the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Christ Jesus is higher than the angels.

Hebrews 1:7   "And of the angels He saith,  Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire   

This is a quotation from Psalm 104:4. The angels belong to the Lord. They are His ministers and worshipers. This is very important to see. 

The writer of Hebrews, who I believe is Paul, is showing that Christ is superior to the angels, and He is using the Old Testament Scriptures to prove it. 

Can you see how absolutely important the first two chapters of Hebrews are? 

They put down a foundation for the rest of the book  which deals with  the present ministry of Christ for believers today. 

My longing is that  we might be conscious of the fact that there is a living Christ at God’s right hand at this very moment! 

He is more real than I am, 

because when you read these words,  there is no telling where I will be.  We just don’t know what a day will bring forth. 

But Christ Jesus is going to be in heaven,  at God's right hand  for us.  

He is the real, living Christ today.

It is easy to understand that angels were very important to the Hebrews because most of them were well acquainted with the Old Testament. 

They thought of angels as next to the very throne of God. 

They had read of the appearance of angels to many of God’s servants and to many of the prophets. 

Angels were very important beings to them.

They were not indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

I do not believe that angels appear to men.

We have the risen Lord Jesus Christ in us. 

Human beings never become angels. 

God has made this universe so that there are things visible and invisible. 

In Colossians 1:16 we read that Christ created things visible and invisible. For example, you cannot see an atom, but it is material and it becomes energy. 

God created intelligences that are above man. 

You and I live in a universe about which the Lord has said, 

"In my Father’s house are many abiding places" (see John 14:2). 

Created intelligences live in these abiding places,  and God has created a great deal more in this universe than you and I could ever dream of today. 

Man did not come from animals. 

There is a material kingdom. 

There is the animal kingdom, the human kingdom, and a spirit kingdom. 

There are creatures below man  and creatures that are above man. 

We did not come from animals, and we will never become angels.

PRAYERFULLY MEDITATE ON:

Hebrews 2:9   "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels 

[a little lower than the angels?  Yes, made a man.  Why?]   

 for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man.    

That is what we are looking at  -  the one who left heaven’s glory and became a man. He became a man to reveal God,  yes,  that is true,  but most of all to  redeem  man.

Hebrews 2:14   "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil."

The Lord Jesus could save no one by His life. 

It was His sacrificial death that saves.

Hebrews 2:15–16, 18   "And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 

For verily he took not on Him the nature of angels; 

but He took on Him the seed of Abraham.… 

For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour [help] them that are tempted."

We see the man Christ Jesus on the cross as the perfect man. 

He had learned to rest upon God. 

He had learned to trust Him in all that He did. 

He said, 

"I do always the things that please Him." 

But in that desperate and despairing hour, He is abandoned of God. 

There is no place to turn either on the human plane or on the divine. 

He has no place to go. 

The man Christ Jesus is forsaken. 

No other ever has had to experience that. 

No one.  He alone.

Why did God forsake Him? 

Turn back to Psalm 22 and read it prayerfully.

"But Thou art holy,  O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel"

Why was He forsaken of God? 

Because on the cross in those last three hours, in the impenetrable darkness, He was made sin.

God cannot look upon sin.

But none of the ransomed ever knew

How deep were the waters crossed;

Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through

Ere He found His sheep that was lost.

He was forsaken for a brief moment. 

The paradox is that at that very moment God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. 

And the Lord Jesus Himself said,

John 16:32   "Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me."

The Father was with Him when He was in prison. 

The Father was with Him when He was being beaten. 

The Father was with Him when they nailed Him to the cross. 

But in those last three hours He made His soul an offering for sin, and it pleased the Father to bruise Him.

Forsaken.

My friend, you do not know what that is, and I do not know what it is to be forsaken of God. The vilest man on this earth today is not forsaken of God. Anyone can turn to Him. But when Christ took my sin upon Himself, He was forsaken of God.

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

It is not the why of impatience. 

It is not the why of despair. 

It is not the why of doubt. 

It is the human cry of intense suffering,  aggravated by the anguish of His innocent and holy life. That awful and agonizing cry of the loneliness of His passion! 

He was alone. 

He was alone with the sins of the world upon Him.

Are you able to sing it with my daughter,  Losinda.

Out there amongst the hills,  

My Saviour died.  Pierced by those cruel nails,  Was crucified.

Lord Jesus,  Thou hast done,  ALL THIS FOR ME,  

Henceforward I would live only for Thee.

Will you dear reader make a decision today to live your life in and through Christ Jesus.

Ask Him right now to be your personal Saviour.

AMEN.

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THIS PAGE UPDATED:  9-4-2007.