Bearers of Tidings
They visited Abraham"s tent with warning of Sodom"s overthrow. Genesis 18.
They visited Lot in the city, and urged him to get his family out.
Genesis 19.
As Jacob, in fear but repentance, was about to meet Esau, whom he had deceived, "the angels of G.o.d met him." Genesis 32. "This is G.o.d"s host,"
he said, and he knew that the G.o.d of Abraham and Isaac, and his G.o.d, also, had not forsaken him.
At a discouraging time in the history of Israel, an angel appeared to Gideon, bringing the message, "The Lord is with thee," and calling him to the work of delivering his people. Judges 6.
[Ill.u.s.tration: JACOB"S DREAM IN BETHEL
"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" Heb. 1:14.]
As Daniel"s prayer reached heaven, even while he still prayed, the angel Gabriel "being caused to fly swiftly," touched him, and said:
"O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee." Dan. 9:21-23.
So close is the communication between heaven and earth.
The gladdest tidings ever brought from heaven to earth since the promise of the Deliverer to Adam in Eden, were brought by angels to the shepherds of Bethlehem. First, one angel appeared, saying:
"I bring you good tidings of great joy.... For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."
Such tidings to earth could never be the mission of one lone angel, when all heaven longed to cry the news to a lost world.
"And suddenly there was with the angel a mult.i.tude of the heavenly host praising G.o.d, and saying, Glory to G.o.d in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Luke 2:13, 14.
Unseen in Halls of Government
One incident related in the book of Daniel draws aside the curtain, and shows how angels doubtless often have worked unseen in kingly courts or halls of legislation. Daniel had prayed for three weeks for light in certain matters that the angel Gabriel had begun to unfold to him. When at last the angel came, overpowering the prophet with the glory of his presence, it was with a statement, first, of the reason for the delay in responding to his prayer. The angel said:
"From the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy G.o.d, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days."
Dan. 10:12-14.
Messengers of Deliverance
The story of deliverance wrought by angels is too long to tell. One need only think of the angels" taking slow-moving Lot by the arms and setting him out of Sodom (Genesis 19); of the angel finding Elijah under a bush in the desert, and first baking a cake for the hungry man before speaking the word to his discouraged heart (1 Kings 19); of Elisha praying that the young man"s eyes might be opened to see that there were more angels with them round about than all the Syrians encamped against them:
"The Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." 2 Kings 6:17.
An angel shut the mouths of the lions when Daniel was cast into their den. Daniel 6. An angel smote off Peter"s irons in the prison at Jerusalem, opened the doors, and led him forth. Acts 12. Amid the angry waves sweeping over the foundering ship in the Adriatic, Paul the apostle bade the despairing crew be of good courage, "for there stood by me this night the angel of G.o.d, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not." Acts 27:23, 24.
All through the ages, the angels of G.o.d have been standing by. Daniel, and Peter, and Paul are dead; but the angels still live. "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" Heb. 1:14.
Guardian Angels
That means that every child of G.o.d is under the guardianship of the angels. "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them." Ps. 34:7.
Thank G.o.d, we are never left alone. Every child of G.o.d has a guardian angel commissioned by the loving Father to watch over him. Christ said:
"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven." Matt. 18:10.
This does not mean that trials never will come, or troubles. In the midst of the trial, the angel of the Lord will stand by to strengthen and to bring help from the G.o.d of all comfort. It was in the midst of the fiery furnace that the "form of the Fourth" appeared, walking with the three Hebrew children--Jesus Himself treading the fiery way with them. And when Jesus, in the days of His flesh, was sinking under the crushing burden in Gethsemane, "there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him." Luke 22:43.
Our Saviour, who knows the comforting power of angel ministry, is the Captain of the heavenly host, and has commissioned them all as ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation.
When He comes in glory for His people, Christ will have "all the holy angels with Him." As the voice of Jesus awakens His sleeping saints and they rise immortal from the opened graves, "He shall send His angels, ... and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Matt. 24:31.
The angels who have watched over the heirs of salvation through all the ages, know where they are, and they know how to gather them, with their loved ones, to meet the Lord.
The angels who rejoiced when the Lord laid the foundations of the earth, who mourned when man fell, who have all along been working with Christ, their leader, to rescue the lost, will yet rejoice when the Lord brings home His own. What a day will that be in heaven!
[Ill.u.s.tration: MODERN INVENTIONS FULFILLING PROPHECY
"Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Dan.
12:4.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: CAREY IN INDIA TRANSLATING THE BIBLE
"So mightily grew the word of G.o.d and prevailed." Acts 19:20.]
THE TIME OF THE END
"Thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Dan. 12:4.
Thus the words of the angel, spoken nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, announced the opening of a new era of enlightenment when the latter days should come.
The Time
At the end of the long period of predicted tribulation of the church--the twelve hundred and sixty years of Daniel"s prophecy--the world entered upon this era of "the time of the end."
"They shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.... And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed." Dan. 11:33-35.
In practically every outline of prophecy touching this time, the events of the last days are represented as following the end of the prophetic period of tribulation. Christ"s prophecy of Matthew 24 so declares. Our Saviour showed that this period of tribulation, would be shortened, "for the elect"s sake," and that "immediately after the tribulation of those days" the signs of the end would begin to appear.
Thus, while the full period of the twelve hundred and sixty years ended amid the scenes of the French Revolution, which gave the papal power a deadly wound in the last decade of the eighteenth century, the shortening of the days of tribulation had begun even earlier to spread increasing knowledge and enlightenment over the earth.