Articles
Angelic Visitation

Crossing the borderland of emotional stability and entering the dark swampland of despair, how was I to know that my prayer was about to be answered by a morning filled with joy and a real angelic visitation. Jesus said, “Do you think I cannot now pray to my Father and He shall presently give me more than 72,000 angels (12 legions)?” (Matthew 26:53) Did it ever occur to you that, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all?” (Psalms 34:19) Positionally, if we belong to the Lord, we are in Christ at all times, but experientially we are only in Christ when we are in the spirit.

When we are in the spirit, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ that liveth in me.” Now the Lord is the Spirit. I am coming to see that in reference to the above Psalm 34:19, it says our afflictions are many, but it doesn’t say the Lord delivers them out of them all but rather the Lord delivers him out of them all, which implies to me that when we set our mind on the spirit and are in the spirit, deliverance manifests. In other words when we are in the spirit He, who is our new identity, is perpetually delivered and being that “those that are joined to the Lord are one spirit with Him,” we are delivered with Him. If you don’t get this don’t worry about it, it is not the point of this story but I believe it will help you to look away from your afflictions that do come upon most of us from time to time and look unto Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith. Part of the arsenal that Jesus uses in spiritual warfare is His companies of angels.

When God delivers us He often does it by revelation or a word fitly spoken or by a change in circumstances and sometimes He does it through angels. Whether you believe you deserve angelic help or not is a decision I would like to help you make. God says He gave you His only begotten son so how will He not with Him give you all things freely? If you never have the awareness that angels are assisting you, it is often simply because you have not asked God to send you angelic help: “You have not because you ask not.” You can put your angels to work simply by asking the Father, in Jesus’ name, to send them to rescue you as required!

I am one of those guys who never thought I’d live to be 30 and I’m now 60 something. Yesterday I was feeling those years and then some. Both the trips to the King Sanctuary and the barn a few city blocks from where we live had exhausted me and bone on bone in my knees made the pain accentuate that exhaustion. Feeding the wild creatures and songbirds at the Sanctuary was more than rewarding and made each step through the snow with the toboggan worthwhile. Hauling buckets of hot water and grain to the barn was another story. Frostbite got a few good nips at my fingertips, my torso was perspiring and my extremities cold. I was enjoying the possibility that I would finish before I collapsed and could work on my book during the second half of the day after temperatures took a deep dive. At 10 PM I headed out for the kennel to give our two dogs their evening meal. I was having a little difficulty standing due to knee stress and pain, and stopped in the entry to the garage to pray something I have rarely requested: “God, in Jesus’ name, please send an angel to help me.”

If you are familiar with my web site, you are certainly aware that I sometimes use photographs of so-called statues of angels in articles to indicate some significant spiritual mystery is contained in it. I use these figurines much as some renaissance painter used the halo to indicate some being in the painting was a holy one of God. I never worship angels, pray to statues or figurines, or even think that these representatives of the angelic realm accurately resemble real angels. To do so would be unbiblical, perhaps spiritually dangerous, and dishonoring to the Creator. Another problem concerning angels may be an even more debilitating one: many of us possibly don’t, in any practical way, believe angels exist.

Now we must return to visit my affliction which began immediately after I prayed for an angel and went into the night to feed my dogs. There is a large steel gate to my pastures just before one arrives at the kennel and this is where my heart sank as my fingers were snagged by the frost in the metal and my visually impaired eyes met the ground. The tracks of my best trained royal yak and his black yak friend (both bulls) had compromised the gate and gone off into the blackness and properties far beyond our own. Completely out of character, their tracks told a bizarre and chilling story. These buddies had fought all the way from the barn to the highway as if they had become possessed by some evil entity. The crusted snowfield was trampled flat in an area the size of several football fields and as I checked the barn, I discovered all their food from early in the afternoon had gone untouched which meant they had been out and on their own for many hours. Just to do that bit of investigation left me chilled to the bone. I no longer drive and I didn’t savor waking my wife to go on a near midnight scenic adventure. We went for several miles noticing countless tracks where these two temporarily deranged animals battled and often found snow mobile and other animal tracks crisscrossing theirs. Frequently their trail crossed the road, entered parking lots and driveways eventually disappearing into a swamp and a forest. My huge rechargeable flashlight was now very dim and I did not know how much longer I could withstand the 7 below zero temperature or the stress from wondering if my wife, sitting in her chilled car would have any idea where I had gone!

We came home when the light gave out approaching 2 in the morning and prayed for those animals to keep off the highways and to stop going further cross country. We called the state police to let them know that these fellows were on the run and left them our number in case anyone saw and reported them. My head was swirling with thoughts of what might happen if an unsuspecting motorist ran into the black one or if a surprised and terrified homeowner shot them out of fear of the unknown. It must have been near 4 AM before I prayed through and got spiritually unflustered enough to sleep.

After sleeping a bit, I awoke to ponder how and why something like this could have happened on a night when it hurt just to take one step…and on our coldest night of the winter. As I consciously drew near to God again, I felt my soul being renewed and my spirit being strengthened, but still wasn’t certain that this grief that endured for a night would be negated by joy’s morning arrival. The final segment of my sleep before the 7 AM alarm was sweet. At one point I neared the edge of consciousness and heard, what sounded like the doors of a pickup truck opening and closing, followed by a masculine voice shooing those two yaks all the way down my lane to the barn. From the sound they had driven a good ways behind our home and beyond the dog kennel with that truck, which I knew wasn’t possible for the snow at the roadside was a deep bank and the driveway itself had not been plowed. I got a warm fuzzy feeling as I dreamed of such an impossible possibility, but remembering this must be a dream, returned to unconsciousness.

I awoke with the alarm, filled the bird feeders in the yard and encouraged my sleep deprived wife to get dressed to resume the search as soon as possible. The car had to be warmed to defrost the windows for ten minutes, so she asked me to go down and check the barn just in case the animals had returned. I did so immediately and sure enough they were snuggled up together like newborn kittens. They both looked at me as if to say, “What fight?” Right away, I thought about what I had relegated to dreamland and went looking for tire tracks or any signs that a person or vehicle had “driven” them home. The only tracks were of the Yaks where they crossed from the road to the barn driveway through the three-foot deep bank of snow and headed straight for the barn. There were no truck tracks or human footprints. I figured I must have imagined the sounds of truck doors and a kind, shepherding voice deep behind our house.

These animals had never acted the way they did before that hideous night and I had questioned God over and over about why He allowed it to happen. Suddenly I remembered the prayer I had prayed asking God to send me an angel to help me right before I discovered and experienced that horrible episode. I still didn’t see why it all came down that way, until God spoke to me during the afternoon. He said, “I had to permit that to happen in order to have a reason to send your requested angel!” From this I understood that it was an angel I had heard bringing home those yaks and the help I really needed even more than retrieving them was a realization that angels are always available, deputized to serve us who are heirs of salvation.

I have had one angel live in my home for over a week in Nevada and that was a remarkable experience which deeply affected my commitment to follow Christ. That was undoubtedly a real angel that comes under the instruction of the scripture, “Be sure to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (Hebrews 13:2) For your benefit, I think it best if I reiterate the words of the inspired writer of Hebrews 12:22 which says, “But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.” How many is an innumerable company? It’s probably enough for you to have some of your own angelic encounters and get some real help!

Just a note on Hebrews 12:22: The Christian life is a spiritual journey and a spiritual experience. Spiritual doesn’t mean imaginary or unreal, it means more real than you have ever known before. Visible things are all temporary but the invisible things are eternal. I must conclude this article shortly so you’ll have to do your own homework, but you will find a story in the Old Testament where a young prophet was concerned about a visible and massive army coming against God’s people until the older prophet prayed and said, “Open his eyes Lord.” After he had prayed, the younger prophet saw the invisible armies of God on all of the mountains surrounding the enemies of God’s people. Then, the older prophet said, “Those who are with us are far more than those who are against us.” We must have our spiritual eyes open to see angels and we must know they are at our beckoned command. This article cannot give you everything you need to know about angels but I hope it will get you interested. One man who died and returned to his operating table said there were some very bored angels in Heaven because those humans to whom they were assigned never asked God to send those angels to help. They just waited around and never got your call!

Angels are often supernatural messengers of God such as those who carried the messages to the Seven Churches in the beginning of the Book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ. The name angel means “to dispatch as a deputy; an attendant; messenger; and also light made visible.” There are fallen angels, although none of God’s angels will ever tell you anything that contradicts the Word of God. The weakness with that precautionary advice is that (crime though it be) very few people obey God by studying God’s Word or listening to His voice in these days where distractions abound.

While we are speaking of abounding, where iniquity abounds, there Grace much more abounds, so if you receive Jesus Christ as your master and you become His disciple, guess where God says you have come to…not will come to? You have arrived at the very spiritual place where angels abound. Now that you have been reminded that angels are your ministering servants and that there are plenty of angels to go around, I anticipate you will abound in spiritual progress, in fulfilling your purpose, in enjoying God, and in helping to change the world by bringing Heaven to Earth and overcoming evil with good. Good!

FYI: Although I have not read it, Pastor Ron Phillips of Abba’s House has a fast selling book called “Our Invisible Allies” which many people are claiming is very biblical and informative. It is available on his website or from Amazon.com.

 

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