Matthew 18:10

CHAPTER 34

GUARDIAN ANGELS

Matthew 18:10. “See that you do not look with contempt on one of these little ones; for I say unto you, Their angels, in the heavens, do always behold the face of My Father who is in the heavens.” Here our Lord warns us against our prevailing predilection to undervalue infancy, both natural and spiritual. All the children born in the membership of an organized Church are so neglected spiritually, and encompassed with temptation, that they, at least clandestinely and inadvertently, become sinners before we are aware, thus incurring an awful responsibility; meanwhile, spiritual infants are left in a cold, worldly Church, speedily to freeze to death. A babe may be born in an icehouse, but it will soon imbibe cold enough to put it in its coffin. Our Savior here seeks to augment our appreciation of infants, both natural and spiritual, by reminding us of the honor conferred on their guardian angels in heaven, being permitted to occupy a place so prominent and near the throne as always to behold the face of the Father.

This affirmation clearly recognizes the existence and utility of the guardian angels.

Here we have heaven in the plural number, including innumerable celestial worlds. There is no doubt but the angels are infinitely more numerous than the entire human race; while we are assured that they take a great interest in humanity, having been present, and doubtless cooperative, in creation; deeply sympathetic in the fall, so as to make heaven resound with weeping; infinitely joyous in the redemptive scheme, keeping the firmament bright with the splendor of their wings, as they fly from heaven to earth, et vice versa, on missions of love and mercy; constantly cooperative with Moses and the prophets, the saints and martyrs, of all bygone ages; sweeping down from heaven, and singing their triumphant anthems over the shepherds tented on the fields of Bethlehem, unutterably delighted to proclaim to the world the Incarnate Savior. Doubtless we all have our guardian angels, who comfort us amid earth's woes, and shield us from a thousand perils. As you look back, I trow, you can see hairbreadth escapes from death, and perhaps spiritual calamities worse than death. I assure you, I can witness to instances not a few where I could pertinently say with David, “There is but one step between me and death.” During a storm on the Mediterranean Sea, last December, perhaps injudiciously endeavoring to walk the deck, I was thrown among the machinery, striking my eyebrow on an iron, bringing gushing blood; an eighth of an inch farther would evidently have broken the skull. Do you realize your own guardian angels about you? I do. Methinks the ancient philosopher, walking in the light of nature and the Holy Ghost, having never seen the Bible, which is a constant heavenly sunburst on you and me, certainly did realize the presence of the guardian angels when he said, “I am least lonesome when alone, and busiest when unemployed.”