The reapers are the angels. Can you imagine the awesomeness of it all? This isn’t some science-fiction movie, beloved, this is a true story.
The angelic host will be not only participants, but key figures in the second coming of Christ. They will be present at the rapture, present at the Bema Seat, present at the wedding of the Lamb, and at the process of separating the believers from the unbelievers at the judgment seat of Christ. Though they have been invisibly active, what they have done will seem like nothing when compared to what they will do during those exciting days.
No, God isn’t finished with them, yet. In fact, He has barely begun.
We live in a world where there is good cause to fear. Drive-by shootings, murders, rapes, senseless killings, senseless abuse. But fear is the absence of faith.
Without faith it is impossible to please God. So God’s word to us it this: “Fear not”.
This earth is headed for the graveyard, but God’s children are headed for mansions in glory.
What can Satan do to change that? Absolutely nothing.
So we continue or journey into the recesses of Scripture to see just what angels do all day.
Our tour has taken us to the edge of the sea of New Testament reality. We now enter into the life and times of Jesus and ask just what these winged wonders did all day while Jesus walked this earth.
They didn’t sit around in heaven watching on their big-screen TVs. God was in hand-to-hand combat with His enemy, and the stakes were for everything.
The angels are God’s heavy artillery, too. They are the ones who frame the heavens with unseen chariots, waiting for their Commander-in-Chief to but blink an eye, and they will move into the fray, and the nations who defy God or who deny Israel its proper respect will go down in utter defeat as they always have.
That’s what angels do all day. And aren’t you glad?
Let’s look at just what these winged wonders do all day. We looked at their fallen counterparts for several weeks and saw what they do: they harass us, tempt us, attack us, and in general try to make our lives miserable.
Welcome to the other side of the valley, beloved. Now, let’s look at these wonderful spirit beings whose duties include making our lives fruitful, joyful, and productive.
This lesson will focus on the basics: how angels are structured, how many there are, what they look like, and hopefully what God might be saying to us simply by the manner in which He made them. Scripture again will be our text.
The subject of hell is not popular. It is seldom preached and often ignored; but hell is a necessary part of our study of Satan.
In this lesson we will look at the reason for hell, the reality of hell, and reflections of hell and our response to it.
In this study, we continue our look at Satan’s tactics, and we hope to come to some conclusions about the grace of resistance.
To do that, we must look at another of the names given him and his evil buddies in the Bible, and be thus warned about additional disguises he wears.
The tempter came. What a simple statement. That is his profession, It is his underlying purpose for living. It is a reflection of the deception that dominates his every thought.
He lives to tempt you and me. He lives to trick us by dangling before us something that either appears good (but isn’t), or by luring us with something that appeals to the senses, hoping that we will take the bait, bite on the lure, and be snatched into his basket of captives, out of the reach of our Rescuer.
Of course, we never get out of the reach of the One who lives to make intercession for us. But again, Satan the deceiver, has deceived himself, so he doesn’t realize that. Again and again we see that his one purpose in existing is to get at God, and because he cannot touch God Himself, he pursues his next best option, God’s children.
What must we do to diminish what these demons do all day?
First of all, we must repent. What a dirty word in today’s religious vocabulary. But, it’s a good word in God’s Word.
It means to recognize sin for what it is and turn away from it. Not slightly away. All the way around.
So, what do demons so all day?
One thing they do is pick fights with God’s angels over nations and over you.
Another thing they do all day is try to get God to let them touch your body, or to use a sickness or physical disability as a wedge to get into your life and discourage you spiritually.
It may be a simple nuisance, like hay fever. It may be a more serious problem like the flu. It may be a heart problem or even cancer. These fallen angels, through their misguided leader, Satan, argue with God that by touching you, they reveal your lack of faith.
God, however, only allows it when He knows that given enough time, that very sickness or anguish or emotional trauma will work for His glory.
In the weeks to come, we’ll look at all the things the Bible says that demons do all day.
They are busy little bees. They tempt, they test, they deceive, they distract, they can be a portrait of wickedness, daring you to try immorality, pretending it provides thrills that last.
They can just as well be a portrait of self-righteousness, pretending that moral behavior is enough to justify us before a holy God.
What happened those many years ago that caused such a spiritual upheaval?
Why did God allow it to happen?
What is happening today as a result of that moment?
And what will happen in the future to bring it to an end?
Those are some of the issues we must deal with in this study. We will face the issue of Satan and his demonic host early on, because his revolt is the defining moment in history when spiritual warfare as we know it began.
We will also deal with this issue first because of its chronological place in the history of angels, and because we want to overlay a portrait of the power of God on top of Satan’s limited power, to keep it all in perspective.
In this study of angels, the Word of God will be our only textbook.
Our only purpose will be to find what God is saying to us about the angelic world and what He is teaching us through them.
We will look at these important questions:
Where did angels come from?
How are they organized?
What do they look like?
What do they do all day?
and What is the angel of the Lord?
Once we are saved, how do we know that we cannot fall from His grace?
How can we feel secure in our salvation even though we continue to sin?
This is a subject on which the Word of God is very clear. Your ability to remain saved has nothing whatsoever to do with either your worth or your works, but everything to do with the power of God.
For you or I to be lost once the blood of Christ has saved us, God must either change His mind, nullify His Word, disregard His Son and snatch back His gift; or someone or something in this universe would have to be stronger than He is.
As you read this lesson, you will be comforted in knowing “no man can pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”
It is the will of God to know whether or not we are Christians. If you are having trouble with being assured of your salvation, this lesson will give you both an understanding of what it means to be saved, and the confidence of knowing that once you are saved, it is for all of eternity.
Belief in God is not a matter of feelings, but a matter of the will. Once we have made the decision to follow Christ, there are several ways the Scripture gives us to assure us of the life of Christ indwelling in us.
On the other side – that’s where we are so much of the time when people are hurting.
We see them – or do we? We hear them – or do we? We have all kinds of theological gems to toss their way, or to toss out behind their backs.
It’s costly to get involved and to cross over to their side of the road. Let’s take another look at the Good Samaritan and see what it means to cross over to the side of the hurting.
If we are going to look at the Church’s role in meeting the needs of hurting people, we simply cannot complete our task without looking at one of the most overlooked essentials in the Christian experience: The matter of right relationships.
We have to begin by asking ourselves, “What is a friend?” and what does God mean when He says “Now you are my friend.”
If we are to be the kind of friend to others that God is to us, what must we do?
Let’s look at our call to friendship.
The most famous passage on love in the Scriptures is 1 Corinthians 13. We are going to take a look at that passage of Scripture and see how love works practically in the life of the believer.
We can’t study it in detail, but we need to pause long enough to examine the key points. The very definition of love means that if it is not demonstrated, it is not real. If we don’t give ourselves away in work, talking about love is not love.
Giving yourself away is love.
What is love? It is perhaps one of the most misused words in our language.
In this lesson we need to establish a definition of love as used in Scripture. Love is an active process of giving oneself away without regard to personal cost.
It doesn’t stop to determine whether or not the person is worthy of that love, and it doesn’t wait to see if the person appreciates that love, it simply gives itself away.
How do we do that? This lesson will give us a few suggestions.