Abode & Ministries

What the Bible teaches about angels who have been looking more recently in our last study at some of the classifications and names of angels, some of the special names of angels. And tonight we're going to talk more about where they actually live. Where do angels abide? The abode of angels. And then we'll get into the ministries of angels and talk about what angels actually do. We begin with the abode of angels this evening. And we're going to start with the holy angels. Where do the good angels live? Where do they stay? What would be your guests? Heaven, okay? That's pretty good guess. And certainly that's where we ought to start whenever we think about angels and good angels where they live. Angels often are pictured as being in the presence of God. And we've seen that over and over again in our study. The angels in Isaiah 6 and other passages and revelations and so forth who are around the throne, worshiping God, leading worship, observing worship. And so certainly that is one of the places where angels would be seen. There are lots of other passages that just make reference to the angels in heaven. For instance, look at this verse, Matthew 22 verse 30, we've seen it before. At the resurrection angels will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They will be like the angels in heaven. And other passages, many other passages speak of the angels in heaven. So certainly angels do abide in heaven but is that the only place? They're here sometimes. Yeah, they are. You've seen that they have the ability to travel, to move, change locations from heaven even to the earth. They travel back and forth to the earth. Remember we saw that in Daniel, Daniel chapter 10, we're not going to go back to all those passages but we've seen many appearances of angels to people in the Old Testament and New Testament. They do come from heaven to the earth to minister as God's ministering spirits to people here on earth. So yes, they are in heaven, they're on earth, anywhere else. Okay, what is between heaven and earth? What is the question? Actually angels probably spend most of their time in a place that the Bible calls the heavenlies. Look at this passage, Ephesians 3, 10. A lot of these we're going to put on the screen because we're going to look a lot of verses tonight. We'll probably turn to the ones in Revelation. We'll be looking at some of those there. His intent, God's intent, was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. The book of Ephesians uses this term, the heavenly realms, King James calls it the heavenlies. I think five times it's used in the book of Ephesians and it speaks of a realm of spiritual activity. Sometimes it can be seen as heaven itself but sometimes the term heavenlies or heavenly realm also speaks of the universe, the starry universe. And certainly we know that angels do kind of camp out there at times. Remember the angel that was coming to answer the prayer of Daniel is caught in a battle with the Prince of Persia before he can get to earth. And so this battle is taking place between heaven and earth. And that is often seen or sometimes seen in the Bible as well. So this spiritual, this activity realm of spiritual activity probably takes place between heaven, the third heaven or the presence of God and earth. I used an expression third heaven that sometimes people question and wonder about. So maybe I should explain that. The Bible uses the term heaven in at least three ways. The first heaven and they seem to be kind of closer to the earth than further away than the furthest away. So we speak of them as the first, second and third heaven. The first heaven is the atmosphere around the earth. The Bible talks about the birds of the heavens. Okay, that's around in our atmosphere, in our sky. Then the Bible speaks of a second heaven above the first heaven which is the starry universe, the planets and stars and galaxies and so forth. When I behold the heavens, the work of your hands, that's the stars and so forth. So that's a second kind of heaven. The third heaven, Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians 12 where he says, I was caught up to the third heaven and that's another layer, if you will, or another location higher which is the presence of God. He refers to it as paradise in 2 Corinthians 12. So when I say third heaven, I'm talking about the presence of God. Okay, second heaven is the universe. First heaven is the atmosphere around the earth. So angels do seem to spend time in the heavenly realms or the heavens speaking probably of the universe, the stars and so forth between God's presence and the earth. Okay, those are the holy angels. Any common or question there? Okay, what about evil angels? Where do evil angels live? There's a real misconception about that. Pardon me? Hades? Some of them may, although we're not sure that any of them live there. Some of them may be held in prison there, which we'll get to in just a moment. But interestingly enough, probably most of the evil angels, which are demons, are in that spiritual realm we talked about earlier, the heavenlies. Look at this passage, it'll also be on the screen of Ephesians 6, verse 12. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, probably speaking of that area between earth and God's presence, that's probably where demons hang out the most. Now obviously they also do a lot of work on the earth, don't they? Because they are Satan's emissaries, his messengers to disrupt whatever's going on in the work of God here on this earth and to torment people and so forth. See a lot of demonic activity in the ministry of Christ on the earth as demon possession was very common then. But there are actually two other places where angels may be found, evil angels may be found. One of them is a place called the Abyss. Now we don't know where the Abyss is, it may be in Hades, but we're not really sure because the term is different. But the Bible speaks of the Abyss, or I think the King James usually refers to it as the pit. You may be more familiar with that word. But angels are sometimes, evil angels are sometimes found there. Luke 831, look at this verse on the screen, this is the man that Jesus cast all the demons out, the man in the tombs, they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss. They did not want to be sent to this place. Now what is this place? Where is it? And what happens there? Okay, let's look at the first passage that we're going to look at in the book of Revelation 9. Revelation 9, so that your fingers don't get too tired, will actually turn to the passage of the inner revelation. There's a bunch of references to angels there. But Revelation 9 has an interesting scene that deals with the Abyss. Revelation 9 verse 1, the fifth angel sounded his trumpet. So this is the trumpet judgments during the tribulation, fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss, and out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads, so only unbelievers. Verse 5, they were not allowed to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. In the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes. During those days people will seek death, but will not find it. They will long to die, but death will elude them. He describes what they looked like. Verse 7, 8, 9, just grew some appearance. Verse 10 continues that. But notice verse 11, they had as king over them the angel of the Abyss whose name and he grew as Abaddon and in Greek is a polyon that is destroyer. That may well be the devil. He is the leader of the demons for sure. There are some who question whether or not this is a higher demon that just rules over these particular demons. But these grew some beings, these spirits that come out of the Abyss are released, at least for a period of time, during the tribulation time, to inflict pain on unbelievers. They come out of the Abyss. Now there is one other reference to this in the book of Revelation. Look over chapter 20. Revelation chapter 20. And I saw an angel, verse 1, I saw an angel coming down out of heaven having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil or Satan and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss and locked and sealed it over him to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended after that he must be set free for a short time. Thousand years is the thousand year rule of Christ on the earth, the millennium. Jesus has just come at his second coming at the end of chapter 19. So he sets up his kingdom and during the kingdom of Christ on this earth, Satan is bound. And where he is bound is in this place called the Abyss. A place that evidently is sealed. Remember in chapter 9 an angel unlocked it, unsealed it and these demons come out. So in chapter 20, Satan is locked up there, putting chains and locked up there, not able to roam the earth and deceive the nations anymore during the thousand year rule of Christ. So this place from what we can tell by these three passages is a place of confinement for certain demons. Not all demons are there. Remember the demons in Luke 8 asked Jesus, don't send us there. Let us go into the pigs or let us go into someone else, don't send us to that place because it is a place of confinement for some demons. Now why some demons are put there we don't know, but some are. So demons for the most part are in the heavenly realms. That is where they are spoken of as being, where they have activity on the earth. Some are confined in this place, this pit called the Abyss, but there is a third place. It is even more strange that some angels are kept and it is a place called Tardarus. Okay, there are two passages that speak of this place, one of the mentions it by name, but this is a place where angels are kept in eternal bonds in darkness. They are bound eternally in darkness in this place. One passage will put these on the screen for Ejude 6. The angels who did not keep their positions of authority, but abandoned their proper dwelling, these he has kept in darkness bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day. So the expression here seems to indicate that these demons are not allowed to get out, like they are from the Abyss in Revelation 9. These demons are kept there eternally, everlasting chains, waiting the judgment on the great day. The other passage is in 2 Peter, chapter 2, in verse 4. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment. It is obviously the same thing because it is described as angels who committed some kind of terrible sin, so they are being punished, and they are in chains of darkness awaiting the day of judgment. Same expression as Ejude 6. But here it is called hell. The interesting thing is this is a different word than the normal word for hell. Normal word for hell is Hades. But this is not Hades. The Greek word is Tardarus. And it evidently is a separate place, not Hades, but a different place of darkness where some demons are kept and they cannot escape. They were put there because of some sin. Now what the sin was, why they are there has created a lot of controversy, and we are not going to deal with that right now. We are going to deal with it later. There are many who believe these are angels that are committed sexual sin with women in Genesis 6, and there are many who believe that this is the punishment for them. I personally do not take that view, although it is hard to be dogmatic, about any of the three views of Genesis 6. But we are going to look at that later when we get into the section on demons. We will talk about that passage at some length and get into it more deeply. I personally believe that these are angels that probably were leaders of the rebellion along with Satan, and whatever they did was so grievous that they have been thrown into a place of punishment and change where they cannot get out. So holy angels, we see where they live, sometimes in heaven, sometimes on the earth, sometimes in the heavenlies, between heaven and earth. People angels often spoken of in the heavenlies, sometimes also on earth, but there are some that are kept in the abyss and some that are kept in tarderus. Questions? Comments, John? He does, whether or not there are any other demons that do, we do not really know, that do not appear to be any, but Satan does have access into the presence of God to accuse believers, the historical example of that of course is Job, where he accuses Job before God. And apparently he continues to do that even today because in Revelation 12, in the middle of the tribulation, that's where we'll look at that passage in a little bit here. That's where it is said that he will be cast out of heaven, thrown down to the earth, evidently not able to go back into heaven anymore and accuse believers. So he's mad, he's upset at that, takes out his wrath on the nation of Israel in the second half of the tribulation. So I personally believe that until the middle of the tribulation, Satan does have access into the presence of God where he accuses believers and tries to get them away from the Lord. He's not successful, I think the Lord, but he continues to try. So that for Satan would be another place where he can go. All right, any other questions? Yes, those who are possessed of demons, the demons would actually be in them or at least in control of them, depends on how you look at demon possession, but at least in control of their personality and mind and so forth. And so that would be, you could say that would be another location for demons. As they do their work on this earth, some of that is actual demon possession. Yeah. And again, when we get to the demons, the evil angels, we're going to deal with all that in more depth when we get to the section of our study of angels that's devoted to demons. All right, very good. Any others? Comments, questions? Okay, now let's change gears a little bit and talk about the ministry of angels or the ministries of angels. And we're going to look at their ministries in at least four different areas. And I want to say this is very extensive. There's a whole lot of material in the Bible and what angels do, what their ministries are. We're going to kind of categorize it. We're actually doing what's called systematic theology where you take all the teaching of the Bible about a subject and categorize it, systematize it, make it in a format, easy to grasp. So we're going to divide the ministries of angels into four different areas. First of all, their ministries to God, their ministries in relation to God, then their ministries in relation to Christ, their ministries in relation to believers, what they do for us and then forthly their ministries in relationship to creation, the universe. So we're going to start with their ministry in relation to God. What do they do in serving God, in relationship to God? How do they minister? Okay, first of all, they are ministers of worship. It's very clear that's a major ministry of angels in relationship to God. On your notes, you have the references Isaiah 6 in Revelation 4 and 5. We're going to put Isaiah 6 on the screen. You're familiar passage we've looked at it before. In the year that King Isaiah died, I saw the Lord high and exalted, seated on a throne. This is a vision that Isaiah has of God in glory in heaven. He says, and the train of his robe filled the temple above him were seraphim, each with six wings, two wings they covered their faces with two, they covered their feet and with two, they were flying. And they were calling one to another. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory. So these angels are around the throne. We saw earlier the seraphim angels around the throne, worshiping God, leading heavenly worship services there. One thing is seen in the book of Revelation, if you still have your Bible open to Revelation, look at chapter 4. Revelation 4 verses 6 through 11, there are four worship scenes in heaven in the book of Revelation. One in chapter 4, one in chapter 5, and then two others later in the book. But look at the one in chapter 4, verse 6. So in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center around the throne were four living creatures. We saw that that's a designation for angels. And they were covered with eyes in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion. The second was like an ox. The third had a face like a man. The fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Now notice, they and night, they never stop saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. Verse 9 talks about when they begin worshiping the 24 elders also worship. And that worship scene goes on through verse 11. Then in chapter 5 there's a similar worship scene beginning in verse 8. And when he, the lamb had taken it, the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God's people. And they sang a new song saying, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slaying. And with your blood you purchased for God, persons from every tribe and language and people in nation, you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and they will reign on the earth. Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands and 10,000 times 10,000. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders in a loud voice they were saying, worthy is the lamb who was slaying. To receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise, then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be praised and honor and glory and power forever and ever. The four living creatures said, Amen. And the elders fell down and worshiped. It's an amazing worship scene in heaven. And the four living creatures and multitudes of angels are described as being involved in this worship scene. Now one of the major things that angels do then is they minister in worshiping God. Now certainly angels understand even better than we do the glory and majesty and worthiness of God to receive worship. And so they are always worshipping him in heaven, gladly, joyfully, willingly. So they are ministers of worship. Secondly, they are also ministers of service. They minister by serving God in at least two ways. First of all, they are priestly ministers. Hebrews 1, 7, this will be on the screen for you as well. And speaking of the angels, he says, he makes his angels, spirits, and his servants flames of fire. Now the servants in this verse are the same as the angels. He's making two references to angels here. So the servants are the same as angels. They are priestly ministers. Actually, the word for servant here is a word that speaks of serving in the temple, serving as a priest. Now don't misunderstand this. Angels do not minister like Old Testament priests in representing people to God. They do not represent us to God. We do not pray to angels. We do not go through angels to get to God. The angels are not taking our prayers and taking them to the Lord. That's not the job of angels. But they do serve in God's presence as priests in His presence. They serve as quickly as wind and as fervently as fire. So his angels are spirits or wind and his servants flames of fire. So they serve God. Now exactly what they do in serving God, we don't know except that they do serve as messengers. And so they would leave His presence to go do things that He commands them to do. So they are priestly ministers. And then the second one kind of flows from that. They are personal messengers. Personal messengers. Look at this passage Psalm 103 20. Praise the Lord, you His angels, you mighty ones who do His bidding, who obey His word. So that passage tells us that angels do God's bidding. God gives them commands. He tells them something to do and they carry out His orders. I think we've talked about this before. The word angel, both the Hebrew word and the Greek word, both mean messenger. That's the root idea behind the word. So angels are messengers of God. They carry out His orders. And we see that a lot in the Bible, don't we? Who are some people that they took messages to? Mary, yeah, Mary and Joseph, who else did we sing about tonight? They took angels, angels took messages to Christmas time. Shepherds, yeah, shepherds. We saw they took angels, they took messages to Daniel. And there are others in the Bible like that that we've seen as well, particularly the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament appearing to Hegar and Gideon and Samson's parents and others. So they are messengers, personal messengers, they carry out God's orders, do His commands. So they're ministers of worship, part of what they do in relationship to God is they worship Him in heaven, but they also serve Him in heaven and as messengers to this earth. So they're serving Him as well. Okay, any other question before we get to the third thing they do in relationship to God? The third way they serve God is they are agents of God's government. Now God rules over all things in the universe. He rules over everything on this earth. Sometimes it doesn't look like it because we don't see the big picture. We see horrible things happen and we wonder where's God? What's He doing? Why isn't He intervening? Well God's plan is a big plan and everything will end up exactly where He wants it to be. But in God's plan, obviously He accounts and makes allowance for the destructive effects of the curse, which brings natural disasters. For instance, hurricanes and floods and tornadoes and things like that are a result of the fact that nature is messed up because of the curse. Well God allows that because He's the one that brought the curse on the earth, actually man brought it on the earth, God pronounced it. So all of those things factor into God's purpose and plan in the end and the big picture, everything will end up the way God wants it to end up. So God is in control of all of these things, but angels carry out His orders. As God sovereignly is in control of all things in the universe, He sends angels sometimes to carry out His orders. We looked at some 103, 20. We're going to look at it again, but we're going to back up to verse 19. So let's look at verse 19 and 20. The Lord has established His throne in heaven and His kingdom rules overall. Okay, so that's what we're just talking about. But notice how He rules overall. Praise the Lord, you His angels, you mighty ones who do His bidding, who obey His word. So as God carries out His government over this world and even the universe, sometimes He sends angels to do His bidding and to obey His word, His commands. Now a couple of ways that they do this, that we see in the Scriptures, they are first of all angels of God's government in controlling nature. You know that angels sometimes control nature, do certain things in nature. If you're still in the book of Revelation, look at chapter 7, verse 1. Now these are all in the tribulation, but they're all references to the angels doing something with nature in Revelation. Chapter 7, verse 1, after this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. So it's quite clear that angels can control the wind. God sends them to manipulate, control, restrain the wind here in this particular part of His judgment. Look at chapter 16, verse 3. 16, 3, the second angel poured out His bowl on the sea and it turned into blood like that of a dead person and every living thing in the sea died. So one of the bold judgments of God, a very severe one on the seas, obviously this is God judging, but He does it through angels, doesn't He? It's the angel that actually pours out the bowl of God's wrath and the sea turns into blood. So they can control the winds, they can control the sea and then look down at verse 8 and chapter 16. The fourth angel poured out His bowl on the sun and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God who had control over these plagues but they refused to repent and glorify Him. So once again God uses the sun to be the agent of one of His plagues, one of His judgments in the tribulation, but it is the angels that He sends to do His bidding. The angel pours out His bowl on the sun and the sun scorches people with heat. So they may control nature, secondly they are agents of God's government in controlling nations. Not only nature but also nations. Remember we saw that in Daniel 10, Daniel was getting the answer to his prayer and the angel was held up by the prince of the kingdom of Persia, a demon that had responsibility over Persia. If demons have responsibilities over certain nations then we know that angels do too and remember who came to help that angel. Remember who it was? He is actually named Michael and he is called in Daniel, look at this verse, Daniel 12 1, at that time Michael the great prince who protects your people. Speak God speaking to Daniel, protects your people. People of Israel will arise. So Michael we know has responsibility over the nation of Israel. So evidently angels have responsibilities over nations. That is a very interesting concept by the way. If you are still in Revelation, hope you are. Look at chapter 12. I mentioned earlier this passage, chapter 12 verse 7. When war broke out in heaven, Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth and his angels with him. If you read on through the passage, verse 13 for instance, when the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. We have looked at bits and pieces of this story and this picture. Who is the woman in this passage? Israel. Who is the male child? Christ. The whole story is about the birth of Christ and Israel is the nation from whom he comes. In the middle of the tribulation, when Satan is cast out of heaven completely finally, then he comes to the earth and realizes he is so mad at what has happened that he takes his wrath out on Israel. He says, if I can't get to God anymore, I am going to get to his people. He persecutes the people of Israel. And half of the tribulation are going to be awful for the nation of Israel. Only one-third of the Jews will make it to the end of the tribulation. Zachary 14 tells us, only one-third of them will live through the end of the tribulation. It's a horrible time for the nation of Israel. So here's the unique thing and the interesting thing behind human governments, behind the human scene, angels and demons are exercising influence. Now, think about that for a minute. They are engaged in spiritual warfare and they are exercising influence in nations. I believe that happens right now on planet earth. Why has there always been, continues to be and will continue to be, unrest in the Middle East. And why does it all focus on Israel? Simply because Satan does not want that nation in existence. Because there has to be a national entity in that land for the events of the tribulation to take place. Because they build a temple. There is a nation, Israel, in unbelief, in the land in the tribulation time. Satan knows that. They are not gathered in belief until the second coming. But there is a nation, Israel, there during the tribulation, even before the second coming. Satan knows that. And he does not want God's plan to succeed. And so Satan is going to do everything he can to destroy Israel. And whoever goes against Israel is being influenced by demons. You heard me. You heard me right. I don't care who it is, whether it's a president, whether it's a government leader, a senator, or a nation as a whole. You go against Israel. You're showing that you're being swayed by demonic powers, not God and His angels. Because there is angelic warfare and influence being exerted on world leaders, on nations, and their leaders to either fulfill God's purpose or fulfill Satan's purpose. Okay? It's about as political as you hear me get. But it needs to be said. We must support the nation of Israel. Okay? I know they're not in the land in belief yet. But they are still a part of God's plan and purpose. And there has to be a nation there for the events of the tribulation to take place. So that's part of God's plan. All right? They are agents of God's government. Angels, both good and evil, are doing work behind the scenes with international conflict. I'll tell you this also. To the degree that you see violence and hatred of the nation of Israel, to that degree, you're seeing increased levels of demonic influence. So I think we could safely say one of, if not the most, demonically inspired group of people in the world today would be ISIS. They are bent on the destruction of Israel and any of Israel's allies. So the more demonic you get and you see evidence of demonic behavior with the barbaric acts that are committed by that group, obviously there is demonic influence there. Very heavy demonic influence. Okay? I said it. I don't care if it's on tape. That's all right. Okay. Our time's about up. So we're going to stop there and we'll get back to this next time. Talk about a little bit more about their relationship to God and what they do in relationship to Him, then we'll talk about their relationship to Christ. That'll be very timely because it'll be closer to Christmas. All right. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. And even the insight we can glean about current events and what's happening in our world today from your word. Lord, we believe that you have a purpose and a plan for this world. And we know that Satan is doing everything he can to make sure that doesn't happen. But we know that in the end, Lord, your purpose will prevail. And we thank you for that. As we see the ab and flow of history, what we're seeing really is the tug of war between your angels and his angels, Satan's angels. Lord, we know that in the end you will win and we are grateful for that assurance. Thank you that angels not only do your bidding in regard to you, but also you've sent them to be ministering spirits to us. We thank you for how you minister to us in many ways that we don't even know through your special messengers. Thank you, Lord, for all the provisions you make for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.