Introduction - The Existence of Angels

All right, doctrine of angels or what the Bible teaches about angels, actually on the back of your outline. I want to at least introduce our topic tonight and talk a little bit about the existence of angels. The last couple of decades have seen an explosion of interest in angels and in the spirit world as a whole. Lots of different evidences of that, television programs that deal with angels, movies that have a lot of dealings with angels. And when I talk about angels, I'm talking about good angels and bad angels. Good angels are what we typically think of as angels. Bad angels are called demons in the Bible. And so a lot on both sides of that in the media today. There's even a journal that's put out called Angel Watch Journal, which stays abreast of reported personal contacts with angels. You go into lots of gift shops or stores. They'll have sections devoted to angels or the figurines or glassware or whatever with a lot of angels. And if you collect that, that's fine. I'm not saying anything against that. Just hope you don't worship them. Hope you have a little shrine or something like that. But a lot of emphasis on angels and particularly today, a huge increase in occult activity. The occult, which is the fascination with and dabbling in the spirit world, primarily the world of demons and demonic activity, has over the same time period exploded. To the point that there are evidences of it all over the place, the new age movement, which was popular 20 years ago or so. The new age movement with all of its focus on drawing energy from nature and your little crystals and channeling. So others, all of that is demonic. All of that is contact with the spirit world. And it may look harmless. It may look innocent. It may look attractive. But it is very, very dangerous. There are just all kinds of this. I mean, you go into any Barnes and Noble or books a million and you'll find a whole section devoted to new age thought or Eastern mysticism, which also is rooted in the demonic world. And a lot of new age practices and teachings have infiltrated corporations and businesses and training seminars and so forth. And there's a lot of dangerous stuff there. It looks very innocent. It looks very peaceful, but it's very dangerous. And here's the reason why Satan is a master deceiver. Look at these verses on the screen. 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 13 to 15. For such people, Paul's talking about people who were attacking his ministry. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. They're not real apostles. They're saying Paul's not one, but they're not real apostles. They're masquerading. And he says, look at this. There's no wonder for Satan himself, masquerades. Right there it is as an angel of light. So a lot of what's behind all of this interest in the spirit world really is satanic. And you have to be very, very careful with where you dabble and what you read and what you accept. So when you start talking about the spirit world and then Paul goes on to say, it's not surprising then that his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, their end will be what their actions deserve. In other words, they will receive God's judgment condemnation because of their alliance with Satan himself. So what he's saying is Satan masquerades to look good. He masquerades as an angel of light and his servants do also. There are people serving Satan in churches, in seminaries, in religions that may look very nice and kind and peaceful and good people. That's how deceitful Satan can be. So what should be our response? How should we respond to all this and how do we detect what's true and what's false? You should know the answer to that question already. There's only one measuring stick of true and false since this book. It's the Bible. In fact, we have clear, clear teaching. First John chapter 4 tells us to test the spirits to see whether or not they are a God. And he gives one clear evidence there. Any spirit that does not confess that Jesus has come in the flesh. In other words, any spirit that doesn't have the right perspective on the doctrine of Christ, the person of Christ, you can mark him off right now. That's a spirit sent by Satan. So anyone who rejects the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, the substitutionary tomen of Christ, the work of Christ, the resurrection, so forth is not from the spirit of God. That's one litmus test. But there are others in the Bible as well. And we'll look at those. The only way to know for sure what's right and what's wrong is to have the perspective of what this book teaches. And that's the reason why it is important to know what the Bible teaches about angels. Because there is so much thrust in our culture on this topic that we need a clear biblical perspective. So we're going to spend at least as much time on angels as we have the Holy Spirit probably six months, maybe a little more. I'm not sure depends on the discussion and so forth. But the answers are found only in the Bible and there is a lot in the Bible about the spirit world, both good angels and bad angels. A lot in the Bible about that. So we're not going to deal with speculation. We're going to deal with what God's word teaches and we'll do a very systematic study of angels in the Bible, not just going straight through the Bible, but we'll study. Like, first of all, the existence of angels and then angels do exist. Where did they come from? We'll study the origin of angels and then we'll get into a lot of other things as well. Okay. Before we, let's just pause for see if you have any questions on this introduction before we get into existence of angels. Okay. The existence of angels we've only got a minute or two. So I'm just going to briefly introduce this. There are specific references to angels in 34 of the 66 books of the Bible. So this is pervasive all through the Bible. You find references to angels or angelic activity. There are 108 references to angels in the Old Testament, 165 references in the New Testament. So what is that? 273 references to angels, specific references to angels in the Bible. And they are seen as genuine personal beings. We'll talk about that a little bit later when we talk about the nature of angels, just what kind of beings are they, but they're not illusions. They're not ghosts. They are real personal beings. Now what we want to do next, we'll wait to get into this until next week. What I want to do next is just kind of take you on a, a real kind of skim the surface tour of Old Testament, New Testament, just to show you how well represented angels are in every section of your Bible. And we'll just talk about like in the first five books of the Bible, 32 references to angels. And we'll just mention a few and then we'll go to the next section, mention a few, just to kind of give you an overall feel for the breadth and scope of angels, references or activity of angels in your Bible. And then we'll start to narrow down the scope of our study to where did angels come from? What's their origin? Are there baby angels? Are there really little babies that have wings, playing harps in heaven? You know, those kind of things. We'll get into all that. You can tell what I feel that now already. Okay, our time's up. We need to pray and go. Father, thank you for the opportunity to study your word. Lord, we are grateful that we can come to a place where we really have no fear of being discovered or interrupted or persecuted. And we can just study your word. We thank you, Father, that you have given us this book, which covers so much, really centers around the plan of redemption and your glory and redeeming people to yourself. But along with that, so many other doctrines and topics for study and understanding and learning, and we pray that you'll help us in this study of what the Bible teaches about angels that we will have clear discernment, understanding of your word so that we can clearly smell out the counterfeits and know what they look like, what they sound like, because we know the genuine article. Thank you again for this opportunity in Jesus' name. Amen.