Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb20001231.htm

THE BELIEVER AND ANGELS
Part II: The Believer's Biblical Relation To God's Holy Angels
(Hebrews 1:13-14 et al.)
  1. Introduction
    1. Our secular world has a growing fascination with angels and demons: a number of popular television shows handle the subjects even as an apparent "soft sell" to viewers on this subject.
    2. From our last lesson, we found we should avoid seeking contact with the evil angels, the demons. Accordingly, we also need to heed Scripture regarding relating to God's holy angels (Mtt. 25:31) who minister as His servants in doing His bidding (as follows):
  2. The Believer's Biblical Relation To God's Holy Angels, Hebrews 1:13-14 et al.
    1. As we learned before, all of the angels were created by God (Col. 1:16) without sin (Jude 6) before the world was made (Job 38:6-7), cf. Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, p. 1846; Ibid., ftn. to Job 1:6.
    2. We also learned angels are persons with intellect (1 Pet. 1:12), emotion (Lk. 2:13) and will (Jude 6), Ibid.
    3. They are spirit beings (Hebrews 1:14) lacking any power to reproduce (Mk. 12:25) that never die (Luke 20:36) and that have power far superior to those of us mortals, 2 Pet. 2:11; Daniel 10:4-11; Ibid.
    4. From Revelation 12:3-4, we may deduce that two-thirds of the created angels stayed loyal to God when Satan rebelled, and these are the good, "holy angels" who minister as God's servants, Hebrews 1:14a.
    5. As they relate to believers in the Church era, God assigns His angels to address their various earthly needs, Heb. 1:13-14. Some of these ways are mentioned in the New Testament as follows:
      1. God may send His angels to supply guidance regarding God's will for believers, Acts 8:26; Mtt. 2:13.
      2. God sends His angels to provide strength or encouragement for believers to do His will when hard times make this humanly difficult, Acts 27:23-24 with Matt. 4:11; Acts 12:1-7.
      3. Angels are very interested in evangelistic efforts, and can often play a significant role in helping and directing believers under God's leading in their evangelistic efforts, Luke 15:10 with Acts 5:17-20.
      4. God sends His angels to care for believers at physical death, Luke 16:22 in light of Jude 9.
      5. God may send His angels to help us by appearing in human form; thus, the writer of Hebrews tells Christians to treat strangers well as we may entertain God's holy angels unawares, Hebrews 13:2.
    6. Yet, THOUGH God's angels are involved in ministering to the believer's needs, Scripture nowhere orders believers to TRY to CONTACT them: God's Word INSTEAD directs us to look to GOD in faith, and it is GOD'S option to answer EITHER directly or indirectly via His angels (or in visions):
      1. When a believer needs guidance, he should seek God's will from Scripture, not from angels, Isa. 8:19f.
      2. When a believer needs strength for humanly overwhelmingly trying times, he is to look in faith by prayer to God for it, not to try contacting God's holy angels for help, cf. 2 Corinthians 1:8-11.
      3. When a believer anticipates an evangelistic endeavor, he is taught in Scripture to seek God's help by prayer in faith to God rather than seeking God's angels for help, Ephesians 6:18-20; Colossians 4:2-4.
      4. When a believer senses he or another believer may be near physical death, instead of seeking even God's holy angels, he is taught by Scripture to look in faith to God for help, 2 Cor. 1:8-11; Rev. 1:18.
      5. Even if we realize after an encounter with an angel unawares that we had such a visit, as with a vision, we should heed only the Biblical lesson in the event rather than the experience itself, cf. Dt. 13:1-4!
    7. The REASONS we Christians must look to the God of SCRIPTURE rather than God's ANGELS (or vision experiences) are three: (1) Seeking angels (or visions) is an EXPERIENTIAL effort, and EXPERIENCE can lead to our being DECEIVED into ERROR, Deut. 13:1-4; Isa. 8:19-20. (2) God has revealed all we need for godly living in WRITTEN SCRIPTURE, 2 Tim. 3:16-17, and (3) THAT SCRIPTURE is God's SOLE OBJECTIVE and thus verifiable word for us, 2 Pet. 1:20f; Mtt. 5:18.
Lesson: God's angels minister in our lives as God's agents for our welfare. However, due to our being vulnerable to experiential deception were we to try experientially interacting with such beings, or to seek help in visions, OUR focus should be placed upon God's written Scripture, not angels or visions.

Application: GOD'S use of angels (or visions) to minister to us is HIS business! OUR role is to lean on what WRITTEN SCRIPTURE reveals RATHER THAN experience to ensure our walk is TRUE!