Angels

The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

Psalm 34:7 RSV

Years ago there was a television program called Charlie’s Angels. These “angels” were three attractive women who were involved in fighting crime. In the theater, people who finance expensive productions are called “angels” because without them, the shows would never get to the stage. These are modern interpretations of the word angel, but the idea is correct, nevertheless.

Angels are beings who help people against evil forces, and they do perform certain duties, without which we could not always be able to achieve a certain goal or station in life.

In the Bible, there are several instances when angels revealed themselves to man. Although these instances occur mostly in the Old Testament, perhaps the most famous appearance occurs in the New Testament, when Mary is visited by an angel and told that she is to bear the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Mostly, though, angels are invisible. Of course this does not make them any less real than you would be to me if I happened to be blindfolded. Our ability to see angels or not to see them has nothing at all to do with their existence and their role in protecting us from certain harms.

Though we do not pray to angels, and man, for the moment, is only “a little lower than the angels,” they are just one more example of how God cares for and keeps us against the forces of Satan, which are constantly trying to defeat us.

Truly, angels are God’s “secret agents.”

Our Father and our God, thank You for Your angels who protect me daily from Satan’s demons. And thank You for all that these “secret agents” do to keep me from harm. Help me to see them with my heart if not with my eyes. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).