Angels Are Powerful

As you sit in your cold, damp cell, you ponder the events of the day; maybe even the events of the past few years. Life has been a whirlwind of late, but you have never felt more peace and calm than now.

God has blessed your life in so many ways it is difficult to count. He has allowed you to spread the Gospel around the world and see thousands come to Christ. The miracles performed by your hands have been nothing short of amazing.

Watching the Holy Spirit work with the simple mention of Jesus has been something to behold. People have been healed, delivered and changed by the sound of the name of Jesus Christ. But it has not come without a price. Powerful people have been offended and have plotted for your demise.

They have tried to shut you up; they even killed your friend James. Nevertheless, you continue to proclaim the Good News. Now, you have been arrested and put in prison; waiting for the morrow to proclaim your death sentence. Even so, you have the calm that you have never experienced before.

Death no longer holds fear. No, it brings excitement and victory. Tomorrow you get to go home to live with Jesus for eternity. With that thought you gently fall asleep; a sleep like no other; the deep sleep of satisfaction, not the restless sleep of the condemned.

As you sleep you feel a gentle nudge and believe it is part of your sweet dream. You do not awaken. Then, you feel the kick in your side like that of a close friend telling you to, “Wake up!” As your eyes open you see the bright light filling your cell. You think, “I know this is a dream.”

Standing before you is an angel of the Lord telling you to get up. When you do the chains fall off of your ankles and wrists. But you know you are dreaming so you go along with your deliverer quietly. The truth is, you begin to laugh at the scenario, because it can’t be true. You think again, “I know this is a dream; it is even sort of comical.”

As you follow your deliverer your mind goes to tomorrow on the day you are to be killed and think, “This is the Lord giving me even more peace to ready me for what I must face.”

You pass the second and third gate and now you know it is a dream because the guards make no effort to wrangle you into submission. You come to the main gate and it opens automatically. Then you walk into the street and the angel disappears.

At this point you come to your full senses and realize that God has sent an angel to free you from the prison.

This is the scenario found about Peter in Acts 12. The true account of Peter in prison shows the power of the angels who are working on your behalf. Peter was walked through a guarded prison in plain sight, but undetected because of the veil placed over the guards by the angel.

Even though we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, perhaps the Lord sometimes send his angels to bolster our faith.

Angels on Assignment

Angels on Assignment

It is a cool morning. The kind that makes you desire the sun and embrace the aroma of the sky. The clouds hang lazily in the calming breeze. You hear the sheep nearby with the gentle “Bah” of normalcy. 

Suddenly, your moment is interrupted. The herd seems more agitated than before. The unrest is surrounding the camp of peace. The unrest soon grows to chaos and utter despair is heard from your sheep. Unexpectedly, the chaos stops and a calm returns; but only the calm that animals embrace. Your spirit insists, “Something is not right.”

In the quiet of the moment you witness the fruition of your restless spirit. A lion has a sheep in his mouth retreating to the brush; confident that he has acquired his daily meal. Without thought you grab your staff and run toward the danger. As you run you try to devise a plan to retrieve the now frantic sheep, but the plan doesn’t come. 

Your faith in God has always seen you through situations, but no situation has ever appeared with the danger of this one. Still, your job is to protect your flock. No matter the consequences, you are their only hope. 

Running up to the lion you strike him in the back. He is startled and drops the sheep. In his confusion you rescue the sheep and begin to run, but the lion will not give up his meal so easily. He turns and attacks but you step aside and grab his mane; with one fell blow you cut his throat with you knife. The lion falls lifeless and bloody, but you escape unharmed. Saved by the faith you have in God; your Protector.

That must have been one of the scenes of David as he smote the lion to protect his flock. David told the story to King Saul as he made his plea to confront the giant Goliath. 1 Samuel 17:32-36 says:

David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.  

Have you ever been in a situation in which you thought you might have been hurt or even killed? But nothing happened; not a scratch. Your Angel is watching over you.

The Most Powerful Angel

Fear Not! Angels Have Your Back

As she sat by the spring she contemplated her life. How she had planned for it to be different. As a child her mind ran wild with thoughts of baring many powerful children that would change the world. But now, it seems as though her life is over. She has been cast out into the desert to uncertainty of life. Would she even survive the day? Would she find life in an inhabitance far away?

Her disparity must have been great. She must have been thinking, “My life is over.” She was running away to nowhere; to a place far away, but without destination. Her tear soaked cheeks begged the question of her crimes. Not wanting to accept any responsibility she placed the blame solely on those who made her leave the comfort of her home.

Isn’t that the human way? Whatever you are facing in your life, do accept any of the blame or is it the other guys fault; better still, is it God’s fault? When we face struggles in our life we try to justify them away from ourselves. But truly, most of the blame befalls us if we are to honest.

If we would totally trust God, our lives would be much more ordered, but the Bible teaches us that it is impossible for us to trust God in his entirety. That is why he had to send his Son, Jesus. Strangely, the most powerful angel in the Bible is not an angel at all, but we will discuss that later. Let’s get back to our story.

Hagar is the woman in despair. The above scenario was not of “her own” making, but she had much to do with it. Sarai, before she was Sarah, Abram’s wife gave her maidservant to her husband to fulfill the promise of the Lord for Abram to be given an heir. Maybe it is best to start from the beginning.

Abram trusted God. He lived in a place called Haran. When he was seventy-five years old, God came to him and told him to go to an unknown place. Abram didn’t question God; he set out immediately. God said he would make Abram’s name into a great nation.

Sarai, Abram’s wife, was barren; she could not have children. So, Sarai surmised that if Abram was to have a child, it would have to be provided through her maidservant Hagar.  Unfortunately, when Hagar got pregnant she began to claim power she did not have. She must have thought that her stature had been raised because she was to be the mother of Abram’s child and not Sarai.

So, Sarai had enough and told Abram she had to go. So, as you can see, much of Hagar’s predicament was of her own making. Because of her pride, she “lorded” the pregnancy of Abram’s son over Sarai.

But the blame was not solely on Hagar. Abram and Sarai did not believe the Lord and they came up with the plan to fix it. Have you ever done that? God has made a promise, but it wasn’t fast enough. So, you devise a plan to “help” God. When all is said in done, you are in a bigger mess than when you first started. By the time you trust God you are in a desert by a spring crying because you don’t know where to turn.

That brings us back to our story and the Most Powerful Angel. The angel of the Lord appeared to Hagar. She was told to go back to the camp and submit to Sarai. Who is the angel of the Lord? Many believe, as I do, he was Jesus; the pre-incarnate Christ. In Genesis 16:10 it says, “I will increase your descendants . . .” A normal angel has no authority to make such a statement. The normal angel would say something like, “The Lord will increase your descendants . . .” He would not use the personal pronoun “I”.

There are other places in the Bible where the “angel of the Lord” is declared as God. Genesis 22:15-16 says, “The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord . . .” No common angel can swear by anything other than God. 

Jesus came to us in the form of a man, much the same way as he did in the Old Testament as “The angel of the Lord.” An all-powerful God can take any shape he so desires. He can also allow his angels to do the same. Plus, Satan is a spirit as well and he and his minions can take on shapes to deceive. The main difference is, his power is limited by time. There will come a day when he will no longer be able to deceive the masses. He will be thrown into the Lake of Fire for all eternity. Until then, he is allowed to walk the earth, “seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).”

The title “The Angel of the Lord” is proof that Jesus is in charge of the angels. It is he who the angels answer to do his will. It is also possible that he might be one of the “angels unaware” the Bible speaks of in Hebrews 13:2.