The Existence of Angels (2); The Origin of Angels

We started a new study last night or last night. Yeah, last night. Were you here last night? I wasn't either. We started a new study last week on what the Bible teaches about angels. And we began last week by introducing our study, just talking about the popularity of this subject and the popularity of angels in popular culture, television programs, the media, the occult in particular, and the new age emphasis has a lot to do with angels. And we saw, as we introduced the study, that we have to be very careful, all of this seems very attractive, might even seem biblical, but we have to be very careful because of this verse, these verses that we saw last week in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, for such people, Paul's talking about false teachers, for such people to false apostles, the seatful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ, and no wonder for Satan himself masquerades notice as an angel of light. Satan himself can masquerade as a good angel. He is very deceptive. And so he goes on to say it's not surprising then if his servants also masquerades servants of righteousness. So we have to be careful about all the interest in angels because Satan may well be behind a lot of it, not all of it of course, but Satan may well be behind a lot of it to get people off of a focus upon Christ. And what it really means to know God through Christ is so we just have to be real careful. The only reliable source we have, totally reliable source we have regarding angels is the Bible. You see, wait a second, I experienced, or I saw or I heard an angel, never forget that even your experience is suspect. Don't ever forget what Peter said in 2 Peter chapter 1, he said, when we talk to you about the coming of Christ, we're not talking about just made up fables. We experienced what Jesus will look like at his second coming. We saw him on the amount of transfiguration. We heard him. So our senses were experiencing, our sight, our ears, and then he goes on to say, and we have a more sure word of prophecy. In other words, the scriptures, the prophetic truth about the coming of Christ, was more certain in Peter's mind even than his own experience, what he saw and what he heard. So we have to be careful even about our own experience. And the reason is because Satan is such a deceiver and such a great masquerader, he can cause us to experience all kinds of things and think we're seeing the real thing when in reality we're seeing a counterfeit. So we have to be very careful. Be very, very skeptical and careful about what you hear from the popular culture about angels. I think it's the reason why we need to stick closely to the scriptures and what the Bible teaches. And the Bible has a lot to say about angels, a lot. In fact, we began last week just briefly introduced the subject of the existence of angels. And I mentioned to you the number of times that angels are mentioned in the Bible, 273 times in all, 108 of those in the Old Testament, 165 in the New Testament, 34 out of 66 books of the Bible mention angels. So what I would like to do tonight in picking that up is I would like to talk about the witness of the Old Testament in general, then we'll talk about the witness of the New Testament in general, and then we'll talk about the actual witness of Christ to the existence of angels. Now what we're going to do now is not go to every passage. What I want to do is do kind of a flyover, just kind of, you know, a skim over the Bible and look down and just show you that throughout the entirety of the Bible, there are evidences and references to angels. This is not like just one chapter of the Bible that talks about angels. In every portion of the Bible, you'll find information about angels. That's how pervasive this doctrine is in the Bible. And what we're doing is we're taking all of those teachings and references and so forth to angels, pulling them all together, systematizing them into an organized study that is the discipline of systematic theology, by the way. And so that's what we're doing with this topic of angels. So let's just kind of do a flyover. And we're going to look at the Old Testament first and we're just kind of looking down every once in a while. Oh, there's an angel. There's an angel. Well, there's a couple angels over here. We're just going to do a flyover and just get a few glimpses of angels in the Bible to give you an idea of how pervasive this is. First of all, in the books of the law. Now, what are the books of the law in the Old Testament? First five books. Yes, first five books of the Old Testament are the books of the law. There are 32 references to angels in the first five books of the Bible. And just to remind you of some of them, Heygar. You remember when Heygar was sent away from Abraham's house? First of all, by Sarah, Abraham's wife. And an angel encountered her and supplied her need. And then later in chapter 21 of Genesis, Heygar has sent away again this time by Abraham at God's command. And again, an angel meets with her and meets a particular need that she has. Then you get to Genesis 18 and there are three angels that visit Abraham. Remember that? He's in his tent and he stops him and fixes a meal for them and so forth. That's chapter 18. Then in chapter 19, two of those angels go on to Sodom and Gomorrah and whisk a lot out of town before God rangel down judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. In Genesis 28, do you remember Jacob sleeping the night before he actually leaves the promised land to go back to his family's place, Abraham's family's area? And he dreams that dream of the ladder or the staircase reaching from earth to heaven and their angels ascending and descending on that staircase, often called Jacob's ladder. Then in chapter 32, when he comes back, he gets into the land and he wrestles with an angel before he actually gets into the land of Canaan. In Exodus chapter 3, Moses sees the angel of the Lord in a burning bush. And so he encounters an angel, a particular angel, it will study later in our study. Then later in Exodus in chapter 14, it is an angel that goes between the Egyptians and the Israelites at the Red Sea before God miraculously parks the waters and this will go through the Red Sea. There's an angel that goes between the two and keeps them separated all night before this happens. And then in Exodus a little bit later in Exodus 23, God promises that an angel will go before his people to guide them to the promised land. Then there's just one other mention that I want to mention, many others of course, but one others I want to mention in numbers 22. And it's the amazing story of Baillum. Remember the story of Baillum and his donkey? Baillum is a prophet and Baillak, the king of Moab, sees all these Israelites traveling through the area and he wants some cursed. And so he wants to hire Baillum, this prophet, to curse God's people, the nation of Israel. And at first Baillum refuses and then they offer him some money and he decides to go and actually God tells him to go but to say only what he has told him to say. But in numbers 22 is where this story is, it's fascinating story. Baillum saddles his donkey, goes with the Moabite officials. The angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him and Baillum is riding his donkey. This angel standing in the road, blocking their way when the donkey sees the angel of the Lord, the donkey veers off to the side into a field. Baillum gets upset with the donkey and beats the donkey. So they get back on the road, then they get in a narrow gorge between two stone walls and there's the angel of the Lord again and the donkey sees the angel and veers off to the side. And Baillum hits Baillum's foot against one of those stone walls. Well Baillum gets hot again and beats the donkey and the donkey gets going again. And this time they get to a very narrow place where there's no way to pass on either side. They see the donkey, sees this angel a third time and this time just sits down and Baillum by now is furious. And so Baillum starts beating the donkey again and that's when the Lord opened the donkey's mouth and it said the Baillum, what have I done to you to make you beat me these three times? I think that's amazing, isn't it? The donkey would speak. You know what's more amazing to me? Baillum answers him. That's what's amazing to me. I mean, I read this story and it's a miracle that the donkey would speak but I can't understand Baillum answering the donkey. If my dog or something would start talking to me, I'd get out of there. I wouldn't start talking back to him. But Baillum talks back to him. Baillum answered the donkey. You have made a fool of me. Only I had a sword in my hand. I would kill you right now. Then the donkey speaks again. This is crazy. The donkey speaks again. Am I not your own donkey, which you've always ridden to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you? And Baillum answers again and says, no. I mean, carry on a conversation with the donkey. That's really strange. But it happened. And it happened because the donkey saw an angel. It's one of the greatest angel sightings in all of the Bible. Well, that's the books of the law. The books of history, books of history, the books of history would begin with Joshua and go all the way through Esther. So you've got 12 books there. 37 references to angels in the books of history. Some of them were familiar ones. The angel of the Lord appears to get in. In Judges, chapter 6, the angel of the Lord appears to Manoa, the father of Samson in Judges, chapter 13. An angel is God's instrument of judging the people, the nation of Israel, because of David's sin of numbering the people. Those are just three of the 37 references to angels in the historic books, but just a scattering of them throughout those 12 books. Then the books of poetry. The books of poetry begin with Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. Those five books are books of Hebrew poetry, and they're grouped together for that reason, because they fit in the same category. Job mentions the angels. They are called the sons of God in the book of Job, and we'll see them maybe even later tonight in that book. Then Psalms has a lot of references to angels, angels protect and deliver God's people. They are called servants of God. They are worshipers of God. They are messengers of God in the book of Psalms. And so lots of references there. And then finally you have the books of prophecy. You've got five major prophets and 12 minor prophets, five longer ones and 12 shorter ones. And in those books of prophecy, there are lots of references to angels, especially in two books. Daniel and Zachariah. In those two books, there are 20 references to angels. Can you remember a reference to angels or an angel in the book of Daniel? Anybody to remember one in the book of Daniel? The lion's den, and then someone else mentioned Shadrachmi Shakhen of Bednego. Right. Both of those, those are the first two references, actually. In chapter three, Shadrachmi Shakhen of Bednego, Nebuchadnezzar says, the angel of the Lord has delivered, or an angel of the Lord has delivered them from the fiery furnace. And then in chapter six, Daniel says to King Darius that the Lord sent his angel to stop the mouths of the lions. But there are several other angel encounters in the book of Daniel, too. In chapter eight, an angel comes Gabriel, actually, to give Daniel an explanation of a vision. In chapter nine, it happens again in chapter 10. An unnamed angel is sent to answer Daniel's prayer and says, I was sent three weeks ago, but I was intercepted by the prince of the kingdom of Persia. And that is a fascinating little glimpse into angelic warfare. This good angel sent to answer a prayer of Daniel, which was an amazing prayer describing an amazing vision that God was going to give him about the future of Israel. A demon intercepted him and they did battle and warfare in the heavens. The demon trying to keep him from getting through to answer Daniel's prayer. And that angel says, then Michael, one of the chief angels, the prince of the angels, actually the prince of the kingdom of Israel, came to my aid. And this amazing little glimpse of angelic warfare is described in the book of Daniel. So a lot of references in the prophetic books. Any question before we jump to the New Testament? Kind of give you an overview of the New Testament as well. Question or comment about Old Testament references. Okay. In the New Testament, you find a lot of angelic activity in the gospels. And there are heightened, there is really heightened activity because of the incarnation, because of Christ coming to this earth. There is a lot of activity on the part of good angels. Remember angels introduce and announce the birth of Christ, don't they? There are six different announcements by angels surrounding the birth of Christ. And you can study them out sometimes. Six different angelic announcements regarding the birth of Christ. We're most familiar with the one with the shepherds out in the field, but an angel also announced the birth of John the Baptist to his father Zacharias. An angel came to Mary, an angel came to Joseph, and then twice came to Mary and Joseph in regard to taking Jesus to Egypt and then taking him back home. So a lot of angelic activity surrounding the birth of Christ. Angels will minister to Jesus during his ministry. And then of course, angels also give another very important announcement about Jesus. What is that? His risen, yeah, his risen. At the end of his life, after his death, the resurrection, it's angels who announce the resurrection to the women who first came to the tomb. But that heightened activity is actually much more obvious in the evil angel realm. And we'll talk about that quite a bit later in our study where Jesus has a lot of contact with demons. And I think there was an increase, kind of an uptick in demonic activity because Christ was on earth. And so there were lots of attacks and lots of demonic activity during the reign of the time of Christ on the earth. So the gospels have a lot of angelic activity. The book of Acts also has quite a bit. Anybody remember any angel activity in Acts? Do you remember any specific instances? Yes. In chapter one, two angels standing by when Jesus ascends into heaven and the disciples are looking up into heaven to men clothed in white apparel. Say the same Jesus who has taken up for you into heaven shall come in like manners you seem to go. So yeah, two angels announced the second coming of Christ. Any other angel activity you remember? Paul and Silas in jail and angels are ministering in that time. There are lots of, lots of jail appearances of angels in the book of Acts. Peter was released from prison twice by angels in chapter five and chapter 12. So a lot of angels hanging around jails in the book of Acts. Angels also directed Philip to the Ethiopian unit, directed Peter to Cornelius. Remember angels came and gave them these visions or directed them to go. And then remember when Paul was on his way to Rome in chapter 27 and the ship is about to go down and have difficulty. And an angel appeared to Paul at night and told him to tell the captain don't let anybody get off the ship. Because God will take care of everybody. Because they were at the Romans were going to abandon the ship and just leave the prisoners to die. And so all that was angelic activity. The epistles have a lot of teaching about angels and of course we'll get into all this in more depth. But let me just mention a few to you to give you a flavor. In Ephesians 1 and 1 Peter 3 the Bible says that Jesus ascended above the angels in his glory and his power. He is above the angels in his victory. Ephesians 6 talks about Satan who fights against us. James 4, 1 Peter 5 also says the same thing. Our opponent, our adversary is not flesh and blood but spiritual wickedness in high places. Colossians 2, Jesus defeated evil angels at the cross. Also Colossians 2, he warns us against the worship of angels. A very key warning that we'll look at a little later. 1 Timothy 5 talks about the elect angels, the good angels. 2 Peter 2 talks about the fallen angels, evil angels or we know them as demons. And Hebrews 1 talks about Christ being higher than the angels. The angels are a little lower than him. So lots of information in the epistles as well. What about the revelation? Is there any angelic activity in the book of Revelation? That's a rhetorical question, isn't it? There are angels all over the place in that book. There are angels 65 times. Angels are mentioned in the book of Revelation. And if you include the references to the pastors of the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3, some translations translate the word messengers as angels. And it's talking about the pastors of those seven churches. So the word angel, depending on what translation you have, is sometimes used there as well. But there's a lot of scenes in heaven, aren't there of angels worshipping around the throne and proclaiming their allegiance to Christ? A lot of times angels are preserving saints and helping believers, but also administering the wrath of God, of the 21 judgments that are mentioned as being poured out on the earth, the seals, the trumpets and the bulls, angels open the seals, they blow the trumpets and they pour out the bulls. And so they're very active in being God's judgments, instruments of judgment. So a lot of activity. Okay, that's kind of a flyover of the whole Bible just to see that there are angelic references throughout every section of the Bible. So not just concentrated in one or two sections, really every section of the Bible has quite a bit of activity with angels. I do want to talk a little bit about the witness of Christ, because I think it's important to listen to the witness of Christ on this topic, there is abundant testimony from the lips of our Lord Himself about the existence of angels. And Jesus was not just accommodating to popular belief, he didn't do that. He's God, he knows what's going on with angels. And so even those who may say, well, the other authors of Scripture were just, you know, swayed by the popular beliefs of their day, and of course we would not believe that. We believe that all Scripture is inspired of God. And the men of Scripture wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, so they're writing truth. But people who deny the inspiration of Scripture just say that, well, these guys were, they were influenced by the popular concepts of their days. Well, you can't say that about Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God, come down from heaven. He is God who knows all things, knows all truth, and he had a lot to say about angels and a lot of interaction with angels. Three particular areas, let me just call your attention to. First of all, his testings. Remember in the, what we typically call the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, he had a monumental battle with Satan, and Satan threw the heavy artillery at him. He tempted him in three ways in the three basic categories that Satan tempts people with. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. Those three elements that formed this whole world system under the menu of Satan, Jesus was tempted on each of those in the wilderness. Do you remember what happened after Jesus successfully thwarted each of those temptations? And Satan had to leave him for a time. What happened to Jesus? The Bible just makes a very short reference to it. Angels came and ministered to him. Look at this reference in Matthew 4-11. Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. I wouldn't you like to have seen that and experienced what that was like? When angels came, he had eaten for 40 days and 40 nights. And so in his humanity, in his physical body, he's weak. And so maybe they encouraged him, maybe they fed him, maybe they strengthened him, tended to physical needs. We don't know. But they ministered to him, they attended him. That was just a brief reference, but you'd love to know more about what that was like. So angels were involved in his testings, both Satan and good angels, and then in his teachings. I'm going to show you several verses just to give you an idea of some of the teachings of Jesus on angels. First of all, Matthew 22, 29 and 30. Jesus replied, you are in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God at the resurrection. People will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They will be like the angels in heaven. Now Jesus tells us something about angels there that we'll look at later when we get into the nature of angels. But he references the fact that our status in a resurrected body will be like that of angels. There will not be any marriage in heaven, although whatever relationships we have there will be far better than they are here. So don't say, well, if I can't be married to my wife or my husband in heaven, I'm not going to go. Well, please don't bail out for that reason. I think it will be satisfied with whatever relationships we have there. I think we'll know each other and have much deeper and richer relationships and more perfect relationships than we do now. But there will just not be a marriage relationship as we know it here. That's a fascinating passage by the way. Jesus was speaking to Sadducees, which Sadducees was the kind of the liberal religious party in Israel. They denied both the resurrection and angels. And so Jesus told a story that combined the two. It's just like why I'm going to get you guys good. And he combined those two and told a story about the resurrection and angels. Matthew 24, 31, Jesus says, he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call. They will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other. This is at the second coming. So at the second coming versus 29 and 30 prior to this, I've just talked about the signs in the heavens and then Jesus comes in glorious power. And he brings his angels with him and they gather believers from all over the world to be judged and then go into the millennium. Matthew 25, 31 and 32. And the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with them with him. He will sit on his glorious throne. This is the judgment of the nations, the Gentile nations. So angels return with him. Matthew 25, 41. At the end of that very judgment, he says to those who are being cast into the lake of fire, depart from me. Or actually at this point being cast into hell. Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me, you who are cast into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So hell was actually prepared for the devil and his angels. It was never prepared for mankind, but it is the only alternative when mankind does not receive Christ. And so it was actually prepared as a place of punishment for Satan and the evil angels. Then one of the reference, Matthew 26, 53, this is a wonderful one. Jesus is talking to the disciples and Peter and announcing this to the Roman soldiers when he's being arrested. After Peter cuts off Malkus' ear in the garden, remember that? Jesus says, do you think I cannot call on my father and he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels? Now a Roman legion was 6,000 soldiers, do the math at 72,000 soldiers or 72,000 angels. Perched on the precipice of heaven ready to come at Jesus' command. All Jesus had to do, say the word, and 600 Roman soldiers, temple guards in the garden would have been no match for even one angel, much less 72,000 angels. Amazing. So his teachings, a lot of teaching about angels, and then in his ministry, I just want to focus on one thing. We've talked about some of his relationship with angels during his ministry already, but just one thing. An outstanding feature of Christ's ministry was his casting out of demons. You find that over and over and over and over again in Jesus' ministry. He would speak to them, he would rebuke them, he would actually cast them out of the bodies of people who were demonized or indwelt by demons. And that was very real. We're going to talk about that later in our study when we get to the subject of demons. We'll talk about demon possession and how Jesus dealt with that. But it was a very common and outstanding feature of his ministry was his interaction with evil angels. Okay, so just have tried to give you a little bit of a flavor of the breadth and scope of angelic references and activity in the Bible. It is widespread throughout the Bible and certainly Christ gave very profound witness to the existence of angels. So the Bible is very clear that angels exist. I mean, there's an abundance of evidence that angels are very real beings that exist throughout the history of mankind. Questions or comments before we move on to begin to talk about the origin of angels where they came from. Right. There are quite a few references to the appearance of angels. You have to understand, first of all, we'll deal with this more fully when we get to this. But angels are spirit beings to begin with. They do not have physical bodies, but they can appear in a physical form when God wants them to carry out his bidding on this earth. And so many times in the Bible they do every time they appear with the possible exception of one in Zachariah. I believe maybe it's chapter four for Zachariah season image of a woman carrying a basket that may be an angel every other time angels appear. They're men. You know, you'd kind of expect that wouldn't you? Angels men. I mean, you know, just kind of fits. Forget that one. I'm getting a lot of interesting looks here right now. Just forget I said that. Get that one off the tape if we can somehow back there. But they do appear in male form every time they appear in the scriptures with that one possible exception. Yeah. Yeah. For those of you in the back who may not be hearing John is talking about men who preach false doctrine. I'm trying to summarize what we're saying. Preach false doctrine so forth. Would we link them with with evil angels? Most definitely so. In fact, first second time of the four and first time of the four both talk about doctrines of demons. Doctorance motivated by demonic influence. And first John four talks about test the spirits whether they be of Christ. Because not every spirit is a spirit of Christ. He says and so there are evil spirits too. So yeah, one of the major influences of demons in this day is to cause people to teach false, false doctrine. That is motivated by Satan himself. What? Yes. Yes on all counts. And we'll spend at least one whole study on that. So I'm going to hold off on that. But that there are references to. And it's very specific terminology. The angel of the Lord, the angel of Jehovah. It's not just an angel appears the angel of the Lord. And whenever that expression is used, it's typically a reference to Christ. And we'll look at those and show you why we believe that because of the things these angels do and the worship that is given angels on those occasions, whereas the Bible clearly says we're not the worship angels. So this has got to be a divine being and most people believe it is it is a presence, the presence of Christ in bodily form. But he is, he is the angel. Again, we're going to get to all this. But the word angel literally means messenger. And so sometimes when God wanted something special done like the angel that appeared to get in and the angel that appeared to Samson's father or mother were both the angel of the Lord, sometimes one of something special done. He sent Christ to the Christ was his messenger, his angel. So yes, it's a very interesting feature of the study of angels and we'll deal with that somewhat in depth. Okay. Yes, Jean. If you will come the next 30 weeks, I promise we will answer that. Being a little facetious, I'm being just a little facetious. Please forgive me. There will be lots of things that we will see as we study the nature of angels, the ministry of angels, what they do, what they don't do, what demons do, what demons don't do. I think that will all become a little more clear. But the major test and what first John four is talking about, test the angels to see or test the spirits to see whether they're Christ. The major test is their reaction to Jesus Christ, what they would believe or do or teach or respond in regard to the person in work of Christ. But also obviously the word, the Bible is our determiner of truth and error. And so anything that supposedly comes from an angel that conflicts with this book, you can mark it down automatically regardless of how good it looks, how sweet and kind it may appear, how beautiful it may be, it's demonic if it's against the word of God. So there will be a number of tests that we'll talk about. That's a great question. Anything else? I can tell by your questions that this is going to be a fun study because we're going to deal with all these things you're asking in much more detail as we go through this study. So right now everything we've done at this point is kind of introductory. You know, we introduced the topic then we took a flyover and said, here's an angel, there's an angel. Okay, that's kind of cursory, you know, introductory stuff. Now let's get into the real meat of the study and we'll take about five or seven minutes that we've got left on this, the origin of angels. Where did they come from? Well, it's clear that angels were created. And so let's begin there. They're original creation and we'll show you why we believe that, why we believe it's the only option that angels are created. And we'll begin with the agent of creation. Who was it that actually created angels? Let's back up a little bit and get the big picture. Remember where we were, Genesis 1-1 on Sunday in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now I want you to look at Psalm 148. Because Psalm 148 talks about God's creation and it lists a number of things and people or beings that he created. Psalm 148 verse 1 says, praise the Lord, praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights above. Now verse 2, praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his heavenly hosts. Now heavenly hosts are the same as angels. This is an example of Hebrew poetry. Hebrew poetry usually is in two lines. Those lines sometimes complement each other. They sometimes contrast with each other and they sometimes complete each other. Those are the three major forms of Hebrew poetry. You find all of them, for instance, really clearly in proverbs. But in this one, they complement each other. Praise him, all your angels, praise him, all his heavenly hosts, the same thing. Angels, then verse 3, praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all your shining stars, praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies. Now look at verse 5, let them, what's them? It's everything he's just referred to in verses 2-4. Let them, praise the name of the Lord for at his command they were created. And he established them forever and ever, you should have to create that will never pass away. So what was created? They were created. They who? Angels, heavenly hosts, sun, moon, stars, highest heavens, waters above the skies. All of that is a part of God's creation, which leads us to believe angels were created. And they were created by God. But specifically, who is the one doing the creating? Now we know from other studies that all three of the Trinity were involved in creation. But I want you to look at these two passages, which kind of tie down what we're talking about here, who the actual agent was. First of all, John 1, 1-3 is on the screen. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Who's he talking about there? Christ, I think I heard it. We were somewhere, talk about Jesus. It's the beginning of the book of John to introduce the word becoming flesh. He was with God in the beginning through him. Okay, this is the, he is the agent through whom God created all things through him. All things were made without him. Nothing was made that has been made. Now we can get even a little more specific than that. Colossians 1, 16 says for in him, again speaking of Christ, all things were created. It's things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether, and here you go, thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. Now we're going to see later in our study. Take my word for it now. But we'll see later in our study. You see these terms right here, thrones, powers, rulers or authorities. Those are different ranks of angels. They can be good angels or bad angels, but they're different ranks of angels. They're mentioned several times in the New Testament, particularly in Paul's Epistles. And here the Bible makes it clear that Jesus is the one who created all things, things in heaven and earth, visible, that's the universe, and invisible. That would include spirit beings, angels. And then he specifies whether those invisible things are thrones, powers, rulers or authorities, all those are angelic beings, different categories and ranks of angels. All of those things were created by Christ. So the Bible makes it very clear from the big picture in the beginning, God created heavens and the earth to Genesis 1-148 that includes the angels to the very facts specifically that Jesus was the agent through whom God created all things, including the angels, Colossians 1-16. So angels are created beings. They have not existed forever. The only being that has existed forever is God. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have existed forever in eternity past. Everything else and everyone else has been created, including angels. They were created. Now, the act of creation, let's talk a little bit about that. Oh, we're not going to have time to get into this. This is a real juicy part when they were created. First of all, let me say that I believe angels were all created at or near the same time. Colossians 1-16 again. Notice how it stated, for in him all things were created. Now, that's in a particular tense that English does not have, kind of, but not quite the same. It's in what's called the erus tense in Greek. The erus tense always indicates an event that happened in a moment in time. It is not a progressive thing. It is not something that happened over a period of time in the past or in the future or is presently occurring. The erus just simply says, this happened. It was an event. It was not a process. It was just an event. It happened. So I take this to mean that the angels were all created at the same time. It was not a process, not like some of them were created back on the six days. And then a little bit later, got tired of some of the angels and said it like a few more, created a few more. I think they were all created at the same time. I think at least this would imply that and lean that way. Now, here's the question. It's going to burn in your hearts and minds the rest of the week if I don't answer it right now, but don't have time to prove it. I believe they were all created on day one of creation before the earth was created. I can't get any more specific than that. I can't say it was on Monday at 4.34 in the morning. I can't get specific, but I think we can show you from the scriptures that they were created before the earth was created. So it would have to be on day one with that our times up. We'll actually look at some verses that describe that next time. And we'll get back to the creation of angels. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your glorious word, your amazing word, which is a reflection of your character. You say it in the book of Psalms that your word is revered above your name. And that shows us how seriously you take it and how holy it is. Thank you for this wonderful book that you've given us the opportunity to study. We are so grateful for this opportunity. And may we not take this opportunity lightly. May we use it well. May we buy up every opportunity, redeem the time to be careful students of your words so that we can detect the truth. We can detect truth from error, especially in this regard. When it comes to angels, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.