By Elizabeth Prata
I was asked about the spiritual realm. It is a huge subject! Angels are an interesting subject, and I am like many of you who wonder why preachers do not preach on the subject. It IS a legitimate feature of most Systematic Theology divisions, after all. It’s called Angelology.
Angels were created by God before He created the world. We know this from Job, because the angels were already created when God made the world. They shouted with joy at the creation of it. (Job 38:6). In Genesis 1:31 which describes the sixth day, they had not fallen and were still holy, because God declared everything at that point, “very good”.
By Genesis 3:1, some angels had fallen into sin and rebelled. Satan visited Eve and Adam in the garden. We do not know exactly how long between the end of creation day 6 and the fall happened, we just know between Genesis 1:31 and Genesis 3:1 that Satan (a title meaning Accuser or Adversary) was one of them who fell. Most theologians believe his name is Lucifer. According to most interpretations of Revelation 12:3–4, he convinced about a third of the created holy angels to follow him into rebellion against God.
Lucifer’s desire and intent is mentioned in Isaiah, a section known as the “5 I Wills”. Isaiah 14:12-15 says-
“How you have fallen from heaven,
You star of the morning, son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the earth,
You who defeated the nations!
13“But you said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.
14‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
15“Nevertheless you will be brought down to Sheol,
To the recesses of the pit.
Ezekiel 28:12-16 mentions satan as one of the highest cherubs who became proud and fell. Sin was found in his heart.
Fallen Lucifer/Satan and his cohorts are now unholy angels, or better known as demons. The demons oppose God by attempting to thwart His plans. They incite sin, make war, lay traps for the unwary, foment chaos, hinder God’s people as one of them did to Daniel in Daniel 10:13, and more. They also have the ability to possess an unsaved person’s body (they cannot possess a Christian, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, (Ephesians 1:13-14; 1 John 4:4).
What do holy angels do? A LOT! I was surprised when I heard a sermon by John MacArthur and he outlined all the things angels do and I had not known how busy they are! John MacArthur preached on what the angels do in a 3-part series I linked below.
Once you listen to that and then see in the Bible how much angels do and how much they are around, you can’t unsee it!
Angels: God’s Invisible Army, Part 1
Angels: God’s Invisible Army, Part 2
Angels: God’s Invisible Army, Part 3
Angelology and Demonology are fascinating subjects, but we are wise to be cautious about what is real and what is not. Both those subjects, particularly demonology, have a LOT of crazies preaching wrong stuff. Those subjects seem to invite a lot of extra-biblical speculation, experiential anecdotes, and just plain weird doctrines that have no place in any serious discussion.
John MacArthur preached for nearly 60 years. He said there were only two times he came across a demon-possessed person. John Piper preached for nearly that long, he encountered a demonic possession only once. It does happen, make no mistake, but it’s less common that the fringe ‘ministries’ would have us believe.
We cannot see demons, they are spirit beings. If a ministering angel incarnates and walks among us, we most often are unaware of his presence (Hebrews 13:2).
There seemed to be a lot of demonic possession in the Bible but the demons intensify their activity when God’s plan is coming to fruition. The times when the Ark was being built, during the time of the Prophets, and especially during Jesus’ earthly ministry, demons were highly active, according to the Bible.
They will again be given opportunity to do their worst during the Tribulation of the last of the last days, as Revelation describes. But demonic possession is not rampant and most Christians never encounter it.Demons ONLY do as much, no more or less, that Jesus orders them to.
Are demons on earth? Yes. The Bible describes both obvious activity (such as possession) and unseen activity such as war, influence, philosophies, and the like. We know angels appear on earth as noted in Hebrews above. If a third of the angels fell, then there is a one-on-three chance that the angel a person suspects is around may be a demonic one. Not ALL angel activity is a holy angel who is ministering in God’s name. Some ‘minister’ in satan’s name.
But they can only go as far as Jesus tells them to. When God told satan he could harass Job, satan was also told not to take Job’s life. When the legion of demons in Gadara met Jesus they begged Him not to send them into the pit (which they knew He could.) He sent them into the pigs instead. Apart from the ones that fell, a few early on disobeyed His orders were locked up (Jude 1:6 and 2 Peter 2:4).
Judas was the only person the Bible records was possessed by Satan. And yet Judas was responsible for his decisions and he freely made them. (The Antichrist will be inhabited by satan in the future, but other people were possessed by other demons, not satan.) So demons are allowed by God to do certain things as part of His desire to push forward His redemptive plan, to test Christians, to sanctify us through trials, to hand over the sinning ungodly to His wrath, and so on.
in 1 Kings 22:20-23 we read that the prophet Micaiah saw the angels both holy and unholy assembled before the throne, and God asked-
‘Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one spirit said this, while another said that. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ 22 And the Lord said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You shall entice him, and you will also prevail. Go and do so.’ 23 Now then, behold, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours; and the Lord has declared disaster against you.”
Here is Randy Alcorn asking a good question,
Since Satan Knows the Ultimate Outcome of God’s Plan, Why Does He Continue Opposing God?
Spiritual battles take place every day but normally they are against our own sin, against the world that wants us to sin, and against satan’s minions who influence Christians to sin. We defeat them by refusing to sin, praying, and staying in the word of God.
If you know someone who swears they have seen demonic activity, consider that it may be real (but unlikely) but also may be made-up. Sometimes it’s not made up on purpose, sometimes it my be seemingly real to the person but they are being influenced by books or movies… Most of the girls at the Salem Witch Trials that swore they saw the devil were making it up, they confessed later. A servant-sorceress had filled their heads with stories and a kind of mass hysteria ensued, perpetuated by peer pressure and influence. There are many reasons to be cautious about such tales.
It’s the same with holy angels. Hebrews verse says we are unaware. We may suspect, we may actually know in some cases an angel (or a demon) has been around, but it’s of no profit to go around saying this. We read in Colossians 2:18 that-
Take care that no one keeps defrauding you of your prize by delighting in humility and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind,
Though there is much more to be explained about that verse, the gist is-
The peril Paul had in mind here was Oriental mysticism, the belief that a person can have an immediate experience with the spiritual world, completely apart from the Word of God or the Holy Spirit. The false teachers in Colossae had visions and made contact with angels. In bypassing the Word of God and the Spirit of God, they were opening themselves to all kinds of demonic activity—because Satan knows how to give counterfeit experiences to people (2 Cor. 11:13–15). Wiersbe, Warren, The Bible exposition commentary.
Take heed: “Satan knows how to give counterfeit experiences to people“. Too many people excitedly describe an alleged supernatural experience they had with an angel, never supposing it can be an unholy angel AKA a demonic experience!
If we excessiely focus on angels or demons as our niche topic, even if you do read and understand the word of God as a believer, the peril is that we may 1) begin to transfer our worship to the angelic being rather than to Jesus, and 2) our prideful heart will want to become puffed up with what we have seen or experienced. (see Revelation 19:10).
I caution my good sisters against following too may rabbit trails toward the holy angels or the demons. Many ministries who focus too excessively on one or the other seem always to lose their way eithr incrementally or dramatically. The resources below, and the Alcorn one above, are credible.
Further Resources:
Ligonier essay: Angels and demons
Costi Hinn at For the Gospel short definition: Theology Terms Explained: Angelology
Costi Hinn at For the Gospel short definition: Theology Terms Explained: “Demonology”
Grace to You sermon: Satan: What is he like?
Grace to You sermon: Satan: How does he operate?
Martyn Lloyd Jones sermon on Good Angels
His companion sermon, “The Devil and the Fallen Angels” audio was lost. But this link is a transcript of that sermon on the unholy angels- follow up to Martyn Lloyd Jones’ first part called Good Angels by clicking the link which goes to a .pdf.
the-end-time.org 