Genesis 32:1-2

THE ANGELS OF GOD

‘The angels of God.’

Genesis 32:1

To the Christian, to the member of the Church of England, with his Prayer Book in his hand, there is a prayer in which we speak to God and recall the existence of a world unseen around us, and beyond us a great realm, the realm of holy souls, the angels and the archangels of God. Some of us, with our Churchman’s Almanack in our hand, look up the passages of Scripture, or at least one of the passages set down for this day, and as we read the passage about Jacob and the angels, our thoughts go out from the littleness of man’s little world to the greatness of God’s great world, and go from the little number of men and women of God to be seen on this globe to that immense army of holy souls made perfect in God, His angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim, and to the hosts of heaven; and we feel that our thoughts are lifted up rather than kept down, our imagination is made stronger, we live for a few seconds in a bigger world than that in which we are living from day to day while it pleases God that we should remain here on earth.

I. All the Company of Heaven.—It is not the custom in this day to think as much about this unseen holy existence as men did in days that are gone. It is impossible for us to read the Holy Scriptures without constantly observing that those who lived in the days of the writers of these sacred books very fully believed in the existence near about them of endless holy beings belonging to God’s unseen kingdom, holy souls serving God either in worship or in ministration to the sons of men. In the Book of Genesis we read of Jacob and the angels. Passing on to a later stage, we read of the ministration by angels in the times of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha, and, not to multiply instances, we can readily recall the words of the Hebrew Psalmist when he speaks of the angel of God tarrying round about those of the sons of men who fear God. Passing to the New Testament, we can think of the appearance of angels to minister to One no less great than the Son of Man at the end of His temptation, to minister to Him in the Garden of Gethsemane when His mind was overwrought with the greatness of the thoughts which pressed upon Him then; and we read of angels, too, appearing on the Resurrection day with their message of explanation of the things which the faithful disciples saw. But in our own day we do not perhaps realise quite so fully that there is ever about us, above us, this great realm of unseen things under the government of God, pure and holy souls, servants of the same God Whom we serve, and it may be that perhaps in thinking too seldom of them we miss an uplifting thought that we might otherwise have to help us in our religious life. May we not endeavour to see whether we cannot put some more thought about the great realm unseen into our minds? We are engaged in our acts of worship. There is that important service, the Lord’s own service, Holy Communion. It begins, as you know, with the words, ‘Our Father, Which art in heaven,’ in the great realm unseen, not distant from us in the ages of the future, but the realm unseen near about us, the realm of holy thought, the realm in which the souls of just men made perfect are dwelling, the realm in which angels and archangels dwell. ‘Our Father, in that heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come here on earth, as Thy kingdom is recognised there in heaven.’ And we pass on in that service to a point where we lift up our hearts to the Lord, and we say in our worship: ‘It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, everlasting God. Therefore’ we go on to say, ‘with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious name; evermore praising Thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts.’

II.—Joy amongst the angels.—Not only may we in our times of worship have our thoughts uplifted and imaginations warmed, our conception extended, by thinking of all the inhabitants of this great unseen world over which our God rules, but we can go out from our worship into the world of our daily duties in which we meet as men and women. We know well, as Christian men and women held down by their human infirmities, by the sins which they are continually committing, we can go out with the thought that not only may we in church worship, be linked with the holy angels of God, but we can go out with the thought that these angels are with us during the life we live day by day, taking cognisance of all the efforts we make to win other souls to God, and we go out with the assurance that there is joy in the presence of these angels of God when through the effort of ourselves or through the effort of any other believer in the Lord one sinner only repenteth. There are doubtless in this congregation many men and women who are trying somehow or other to bring influence for good to bear upon the souls about them, who have not yet felt the influence from heaven of God’s grace. To all those who are striving thus I would say dwell upon this thought, and we will in our times of worship let our hearts go out, away from our fellow-worshippers about us, into the presence of the great God, unseen, surrounded by untold hosts of heavenly beings, by the souls of those who have lived here and been perfected by the grace of Jesus Christ; feel ourselves in their presence before our God; and then, having worshipped with them at the throne of their God and ours, let us go with that inspiration into our daily life in the world, strengthened by the thought of the hosts with us compared with the few that can be against us, encouraged by the thought that not only our God, but they, too, are looking on and approving, and when, through God’s mercy, we are able to bring one soul into the fold of Jesus Christ we shall be bringing joy and opportunity of great thanksgiving among the angels of God in heaven. Let us be encouraged at this time by the thought of the greatness of the realm to which we belong. God, in calling us into His service and making us His sons, has not made us members of a small concern, not united us into a tiny family, but has given us a great birth-right, made us members of an immense kingdom. We profess in our creed our belief in Him as ‘Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible,’ and as members of that great kingdom, as members of that immense family over which God rules and shows His love, let us go forward inspirited and ennobled, determined that, so far as our influence reaches, other souls shall get to know the greatness of this inheritance which has become ours. So may we be strengthened to be more happy and joyful in our own lives, more useful to those who are about us in the world, and thereby bring more honour, praise, and glory to our God.

Illustration

(1) ‘Who these angelic visitants were we cannot tell, but Jacob accepted their message as clear and definite for himself. They met him at Mahanaim. This may have been in a vision, as at Bethel, or the messengers may have appeared to him as they appeared to Abraham while he stood under the oak at Mamre.’

(2) ‘Something like that will happen to every man who goes on his own way,—not on the path marked out for Napoleon or Washington, but for him, plain John Smith. Not on the way chosen by himself against the will of God, but chosen by God’s will for him,—the straight, narrow, individual path to the goal of his own personal life. Yes, on that path God’s good angels will meet him! There he will encounter the angels of his household,—his wife and little children. There he will find his true friends. There he will meet his joys and his sorrows, his failures and his triumphs, his losses and his gains. There he will catch more than passing glimpses of the Divine presence that hovers about him always. Nothing is so sweet, nothing so satisfying, as to be in the “way” your feet were made to travel. Do not leave it for an instant.’