The Ministry of Angels

Angels - one of my favorite topics of the Bible after Jesus and Miracles, It is clear that I am hopelessly in love with the supernatural. With all the desperate unbelief in the world, It is so easy to fall into the class of people who view the ministry of angels as nonexistent and if you have fallen within this classification of people I want you to open your heart as you study this topic - I want you to get ready for an encounter because as you begin to know more and understand more, you begin to see angels work in and around you.

We see the Bible record over 50 scriptures about angels, which is a lot for us to ignore, and yes we all know that angels are not to be worshipped, we see this in Revelations 22:8-9, the angel distinctively told the Apostle John to worship God only, also mentioning that he is a fellow servant of the Lord like John.

“Revelations 22:8-9 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But he said to me, “Do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship God.”

However, this does not stop us from having a closer look at angels and most importantly partnering with angels to bring to pass the will of God in and around us. I have to outline that we have seen a huge focus on demons and I’d like to ask you - what exactly are demons? Demons are fallen angels and the focus of the world has been on them, our prayers have been centered around casting them out and I believe it is time we shift focus to what is right to see how God has not stopped moving in our lives by sending us angelic assistance.

There is a golden tapestry throughout scripture where we see angels come into the lives of men and women and this golden thread has hugely been to offer assistance, to deliver messages from the Lord, to bring revelation, and for protection amongst many other things. Hebrews 1:14 says Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? And Psalm 91:11 says For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. We can ascertain from these scriptures that Angels are sent for us to bring the will of the father to pass.

In order to have a grasp about angels - how they move, how they work, what they do, and what they look like, we need to scour the scriptures for them and trust me when you start opening your eyes to a few scriptures about them you will see that even at the creation of the universe they were present. They hold ancient knowledge and the supernatural dimension is one of their characteristics.

We always associated angels with cupid - remember that chubby baby angel with the arrow that caused you to fall hopelessly in love? but when you start looking at scripture you tend to see that in some instances angels take the form of normal human beings. We read of 3 angels in Genesis 18:1 – 33 that came to visit Abraham to tell him about the birth of their son, the text is explicit to say 3 men came to Abraham and they dined with him and delivered the message.

Again the Lord appeared unto him in the plain of Mamre, as he sat in his tent door about the heat of the day.2 And he lifted up his eyes, and looked: and lo, three men stood by him, and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the ground.3 And he said, Lord, if I have now found favor in thy sight, go not, I pray thee, from thy servant. - Genesis 18: 1 – 31

In this narration, we see that the angels appeared as men that could eat and drink, this is the reason we find in Hebrews 13:2 that we should entertain strangers because it may just be an angel.

Hebrews 13:2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it

Your guardian angel can also look like you - we see an account of Peter who was in prison and an angel came to set him free; when Peter arrived to meet with the other brethren, they thought it was his angel instead of Peter.

Acts10: 11-15 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”12 When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13 Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”15 “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

We’ve read a lot of accounts where angels appear and they’ve had to mention the words “Do not fear” because of their sudden appearance and the atmosphere they carry. This has deterred many people from desiring angelic encounters, of course, it will be alarming when somebody just suddenly appears in your room, however, if in your consciousness you expect this kind of supernatural activity the alarm will be less frightening and disconcerting, however, what is beautiful about angels is that they strengthen those they visit, we see this in the account of Daniel whilst in exile.

Daniel 10: 16 – 19 Then one who looked like a man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth and began to speak. I said to the one standing before me, “I am overcome with anguish because of the vision, my lord, and I feel very weak. 17 How can I, your servant, talk with you, my lord? My strength is gone and I can hardly breathe.” 18 Again the one who looked

like a man touched me and gave me strength.

Types of angelic visitations

Messenger Angels - Angels visit us to deliver the Lord's messages, the most famous recorded angelic message delivery was to Mary by Gabriel, we also see a number of passages in scripture where Gabriel is sent to deliver messages - already we can place Gabriel in the class of a messenger angel.