Angelology

By Ken Chant

You are about to begin a fascinating adventure: a quest to penetrate the veil, to step into another dimension, to learn what is happening in the world of spirits.

Our quest is in two sections, the first (this book) deals with the kingdom of light, and the second (my book Demonology) with the kingdom of darkness. You will find familiar things here; you may also find things that startle and amaze you. Unless you are already full of knowledge, I am sure the following pages will enrich your understanding of the place occupied by angels and demons in God's world. Even well-informed students may find themselves encountering here some new ideas, some new ways of looking at the realm of both good and evil spirits.

You will find no anecdotes about angels or demons, except those that come out of the Bible. I have refrained from building doctrine either on my own experiences or those of others. Other books that I have read about the subject abound in such stories, but I find many of them unconvincing.

"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children for ever". (De 29:29)

Let God keep secret what he pleases; let us be content with what he reveals

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vision Colleges
• Release date: Jan 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311292223

Ken Chant

Dr. Ken Chant (M.R.E. Th.D), is the President of Vision Christian College (Australia) and is on the International Board of Directors for Vision International University (USA).Dr Ken Chant is an Australian pentecostal pastor who was ordained in Melbourne in 1954. He has been actively involved in Christian ministry for over 50 years (ten of which he and his family spent in the USA). A brief summary of his ministry would include the following -He has pioneered eight churches and Pastored several others, including serving for five years as the associate pastor of what was then Australia's largest Pentecostal church (the Adelaide Crusade Centre).For several years he was the editor of two of Australia's most successful charismatic/Pentecostal journals.He has been the principal of four Bible colleges (in Australia and the USA), has taught at Christ for the Nations (Dallas), Oral Roberts University (Tulsa), Youth With a Mission (Hawaii), and spoken at crusades, conferences, and seminars in Australia, the UK, the USA, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, and New Zealand.Dr. Chant is the author of many of Vision's textbooks on Christian life, Doctrine and Theology.

Book preview

Angelology

A Study on the Secret messengers of God

by

KEN CHANT

COPYRIGHT © 1994 BY VISION CHRISTIAN COLLEGE.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WORLDWIDE.

ISBN 9781311292223

Published at Smashwords by

Vision Colleges

PO Box 84, Macquarie Fields,

NSW, 2564, Australia

Ph: 02 9603 2077

Fx: 02 9603 3277

Email: [e-mail]

Web site: www.visioncolleges.net

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A World Of Wonder

Chapter One

Angels, Ancient And Modern

Chapter Two

Angels And The Church

Chapter Three

What Are Angels Like?

Chapter Four

Mighty Host

Chapter Five

A Splendid Hierarchy

Chapter Six

Angels At Work

Chapter Seven

How The Angels Help Us

Addenda

Bibliography

Endnotes

More Books by Vision Colleges

College Information

A NOTE ON GENDER

It is unfortunate that the English language does not contain an adequate generic pronoun (especially in the singular number) that includes without bias both male and female. So he, him, his, man, mankind, with their plurals, must do the work for both sexes. Accordingly, wherever it is appropriate to do so in the following pages, please include the feminine gender in the masculine, and vice versa.

FOOTNOTES

A work once fully referenced will thereafter be noted either by ibid or op. cit.

ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations commonly used for the books of the Bible are found at the end of the book

A WORLD OF WONDER

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You are about to begin a fascinating adventure: a quest to penetrate the veil, to step into another dimension, to learn what is happening in the world of spirits.

Our quest is in two sections, the first (this book) deals with the kingdom of light, and the second (my book Demonology) with the kingdom of darkness. You will find familiar things here; you may also find things that startle and amaze you. Unless you are already full of knowledge, I am sure the following pages will enrich your understanding of the place occupied by angels and demons in God’s world. Even well-informed students may find themselves encountering here some new ideas, some new ways of looking at the realm of both good and evil spirits.

You will find no anecdotes about angels or demons, except those that come out of the Bible. I have refrained from building doctrine either on my own experiences or those of others. Other books that I have read about the subject abound in such stories, but I find many of them unconvincing.

The devil and demons entice some writers to present as normal and necessary quite sensational behaviour and quite speculative notions. I am certain many of those conjectures are spurious, and much of the erratic behaviour reported by some authors is merely psychic. I have grave doubts even about some of the things I have observed in my own ministry of exorcism, let alone what I have seen in the ministry of others. So I resolved in these pages to avoid personal testimony, and to stick to scripture.

I regret having had more discernible contact over the years with demons than with angels - yet I am confident the holy angels have been continually and effectively active in my life, and I hope what I have written will show this, along with the honour and gratitude I feel toward them.

Writing these two books has reinforced my belief that it is unwise to desire too much knowledge about either angels or demons. We should be content with what scripture tells us. To yearn for more is perilous, and may lead to deep deception. These pages will serve you well if they do no more (nor any less) than sufficiently expose you to the world of angels to enhance your confidence in God, and to the world of demons to ensure your personal mastery over Satan and all his works.

For the rest, Henry David Thoreau’s admonition may serve us all well -

Most people with whom I talk, men and women even of some originality and genius, have their scheme of the universe all cut and dried - very dry, I assure you, to hear, dry enough to burn, dry-rotted and powder-post, methinks - which they set up between you and them in the shortest intercourse; an ancient and tottering frame with all its boards blown off ... The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no scheme; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb against the heavens. It is a clear sky ... (Yet your) scheme must be the framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins. The perfect God in his revelation of himself has never got to the length of one such proposition as you, his prophets, state. Have you learned the alphabet of heaven and can count three? Do you know the number of God’s family? Can you put mysteries into words? Do you presume to fable the ineffable? Pray, what geographers are you that speak of heaven’s topography? Whose friend are you that speak of God’s personality? ... Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you; but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce you mad.¹

Thoreau was a little cavalier in his dismissal of all dogma. It is foolish to reckon that no certainty about anything is possible. But he was true enough in rejecting those mad prophets who are certain about everything! Some honest ignorance will do us no harm. Moses had a good balance -

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children for ever (De 29:29)

Let God keep secret what he pleases; let us be content with what he reveals.

DID YOU MEET AN ANGEL TODAY?

Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him; and when he saw them he said, This is God’s army! So he called the name of the place Mahanaim - The Two Armies! (Ge 32:1-2)

You are setting out on your journey into tomorrow. What will you meet? If your way is God’s way, and you have the right eyes, the first thing you will see coming to meet you out of the unknown will be God’s mighty host! You will be able to laugh with Jacob, Two armies! I and the angels of the Almighty!

Of course, that will mean nothing to you if you do not believe in angels. But if that is the case, and unless you are willing to change your mind, you may as well discard these chapters right now. For we are not like the Sadducees (Ac 23:8), we do believe everything the Bible tells us about the angels. We expect that shining host of heavenly messengers to be as much at work today as ever they have been in the past. Although it may be unawares (He 13:2), we have no doubt the servants of God today may just as readily meet with an angel as ever Jacob of old did.

Who the angels are, what they do, and what your relationship with them should be, are the themes of this book. But before we begin, let these promises of God whet your anticipation -

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them! (Ps 34:7)

He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. (Ps 91:11-12)

See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven (Mt 18:10)

Are the angels not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation? (He 1:14)

I believe the angels are still doing just what they did in Bible days: guiding, revealing, warning, instructing, protecting, helping.

Chapter ONE

ANGELS, ANCIENT AND MODERN

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The ancients were fascinated by angels. All kinds of arcane angelic lore became the subject of enthusiastic and heated debate. Those grave scholars zealously argued about how many angels could stand on the point of a pin, or whether an angel could be in two places at one time - topics that were not as frivolous as they may at first seem, for they dealt with the relation of angels to space.

The savants also wondered: do angels have a specific size, or can they expand and contract themselves? Are they wholly spirit-beings, or do they have some substance? Perhaps they are merely mobile intelligences, not having any form? Perhaps they have bodies composed of some ethereal matter, malleable, and able to assume any required shape, visible or invisible? Since they apparently have knowledge of many things, is this knowledge based on observation, reasoning, and argument (like man’s), or does it arise from immediate intuition? Can angels feel, or are they wholly dispassionate?

The endless and fervent debates continued. How great was the interval between the creation of the angels and their fall? Did the sin of the first angel cause the sin of the rest, or did each corrupt angel fall in proud isolation? How many of the angels fell, and how many retained their integrity? Is our atmosphere the place of punishment for fallen angels? Do guardian angels have charge of children from baptism, from birth, or while the infant is yet in the womb of its mother?

Even those questions did not satisfy them. Still they pondered: how many are the angels; what are their names; what ranks do they have? Are some of them guardians of nations, cities, communities, or individuals? Is God creating more angels, or is their number fixed? Will the righteous become angels? Do angels carry our prayers into heaven? And so on, and on!

A. H. Strong says that even the excrements of angels were subjects of discussion, for if there was ‘angel’s food’ (Ps 78:25), and if angels ate (Ge 18:8), it was argued that we must take the logical consequences.(²)

Even the Koran reports Allah as saying with a perplexing ambiguity -

(Hell) is guarded by nineteen keepers. We have appointed none but angels to guard the Fire, and made their number a subject for dispute among the unbelievers, so that those to whom the Scriptures were given may be convinced, and the true believers strengthened in their faith ... and that the infidels and hypocrites may say: What could Allah mean by this? Thus Allah misleads whom he will and guides whom he pleases. None knows the warriors of your Lord but Himself.³

Mohammed seems there to keep his coin while spending it. He says there are nineteen angels guarding the Fire of perdition, but then mocks both his own number and those who debate such matters. Are there nineteen? Or is that just a fiction intended to mire infidels in futile disputes? Is the number real or symbolic? Perhaps it is only divine trickery, since no one but God knows the warriors of heaven! At least it shows an exasperation with the endless arguments of the Jewish and Christian divines!

FOUR INFLUENTIAL STREAMS

The four great Western religions (Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam) have all believed in angels. They mostly agree that angels are obedient servants of God, and that they are ranked in a hierarchy of importance, function, and power.

The basis of that common belief was probably an instinctive assumption that there must be a correspondence between the structures of earthly kingdoms and the kingdom of heaven. If God is a King, then surely he rules a kingdom, and echelons of princes, courtiers, and other authorities, must surround his throne. We are going to look at three of the four great religions, beginning with

Judaism

The Old Testament contains little definition of the heavenly realm, which shows that the ancient Israelites probably had only vague images of the nature and functions of angels. But after Cyrus made himself master of Palestine, Persian mythology began to exercise a profound influence upon Jewish beliefs. Some of that mythology happened to be true, and Christ endorsed it. So also did the apostles. But much of it was spurious.

The Seven Angels - And More!

The rabbis were enthusiastic in their speculations about the angels. They divided the heavenly host into many orders and ranks, and found names for at least seven archangels:

● Uriel commander of the battalions, and governor of Sheol

● Raphael bringer of healing, and protector of souls

● Raguel wreaker of divine vengeance

● Michael mighty warrior of Israel

● Sariel avenger of the spirits

● Gabriel special messenger of God, and ruler of Paradise

● Remiel keeper of the souls in Sheol/Hades.

● One ancient work, still extant, The Book Of Enoch, cites the names of about 150 angels! Here are some of them -

There are seven great, beautiful, wonderful, and honoured princes who are in charge of the seven heavens. They are Michael, Gabriel, Satqi’el, Sahaqi’el, Baradi’el, Baraqi’el, and Sidri’el. Each of them is a prince over a heavenly host, and every one of them is attended by 496,000 myriads of ministering angels ... Under them is Galgalli’el, the Prince, who is in charge of the orb of the sun, and with him are 96 angels, mighty and honoured ... Above them is a prince, noble, wonderful, mighty, praised with all manner of praise: Kerubi’el ... a valiant prince, full of boundless power; a majestic prince ... a prince glorified by thousands of hosts, a prince extolled by countless legions. At his wrath the earth quakes ... His body is full of burning coals; it is as high as the seven heavens, as broad as the seven heavens, as wide as the seven heavens ...⁴

● The rabbis claimed that one vast angel, Sandalfon, was taller than his fellows by the length of a journey of 500 years; and they had a marvellous array of sayings about the huge dimensions of other angels. They argued about the number of the angels; their connection with the four elements; whether they took material bodies when they appeared to men, or merely seemed to do so; how many gradations of angels there are; does God still create angels; do the righteous turn into angels; are angels jealous of man; and the like.

● The sages placed particular emphasis upon the role of angels as mediators between God and man. They taught that one of the great functions of angels was to carry the prayers of the saints into the throne room of God, and to present these petitions to the mighty King. They delighted to think the Shining Ones were interceding for them, face to face with God. They talked about