Angels. What a fascinating part of God’s kingdom. If we look at them we can do nothing but marvel at God’s perfect creation. How perfect is everything He made indeed!
But what do we know about them, have you ever encountered an angel? And if so, what happened? Did he comfort, guarded, or aided you?
I know I have, to me angels are a truthful reality. I have encountered them myself on various occasions. The first occasion was when I was approximately six years old. I was sitting along the beside of my bed, pondering and worrying about the coming night. You see, my mother had bought a witch doll which had a bag attached to her belly, where we were supposed to drop our filthy underwear in.
At that time, my little sister and I did share the bedroom together, and every single night when my mother switched off our bedroom light, both of us would literally see this doll flying over to our beds. Or shall I say floating over to our bedside. We both saw it always at the same time, it was really no childlike fantasy anymore, for we were both very much afraid of this 'underwear witch doll' (that is what we called her). It really did haunt us for quite a while, and whenever we told our mother about it, she would just laugh it off as childish imagination. We could not understand that our mother was not willing to remove that doll or that she doubted us, her own children! We sometimes even talk about it today, and both of us have mixed feelings about the whole episode for it was really very real and very frightening to us. So naturally, I was very much afraid of going to sleep, let alone the dark for this witch doll came flying towards us the minute the lights were switched off.
Thus one day, while sitting at the bedside worrying and hovering about it, I happened to look outside. Our bedroom overlooked a small forest. And to my surprise I saw an angel, just walking in the forest! He was playing seek and hide behind the woods. He was trying to catch my attention. I remember looking in utter amazement at this marvelous spectacle. And guess what shortly after this sight my mother did remove the doll. After this marvelous sight, I remember loosing my fear of this doll and fear of the dark. I cannot remember exactly what happened after that, but I do remember that my fear was gone. This was my first encounter with an angel. I told my mother about this whole episode not long ago, and she again laughed it off as being a childish imagination. She never believed in God, so naturally she did classify this incident as being a child's tale.
To be honest, I never quite understood why I do believe so strongly in God, while the rest of the family does not. As far as I can remember that I exist, I do believe in God. I even used to hear him call my name in a loud voice, just like Samuel did, very often during my childhood. I often would ask my mother or my father if they had called me. They never did, so I knew it was God. I talked with my religion teacher at school about it, and he told me that the voice I was hearing was indeed the voice from God. He also told me to cherish it for it was something very special that was happening to me. He knew the Bible and the story of Samuel, I did not, I was a just a kid. But it would not be the last special thing that happened to me. God had much more in store for me and I know for a fact that He has much more awaiting for me still.
One of the following angelic encounters I had, was after a deliverance session. I used to be very much involved in the occult, going very often to psychics. This opened the door for strong demonic activity in my life. I was ruled by several demons all related to the occult, and one of these demons was a demon of anger. I remember once quarreling over the phone with my mother, I was so rude to her that she ended up sobbing uncontrollably and me being delighted in her being hurt. At that point I realized that it was not I who was hurting my mother, but it was something inside of me. A strong fight started to happen within me. I, the real Anne was saying sorry to my mother, feeling really guilty for hurting her, while this demon started to manifest and was hurling the most vicious words out of my mouth. I had no control over it anymore. It was frightening. I quite remember the battle I had that day. That was the turning point when I decided to quit anything related to the occult. You see, I not only had this demon within me, but I was being harassed by other demons as well. All this demonic activity started when I started going to these people. So now I decided to get a deliverance and nothing could hold me back!
Needless to say, that these demons inside of me manifested themselves quite strongly during this session. It even scared the pastor off a bit. My pastor thought that this deliverance session would not be a strong one, for he knew me to be such a decent girl who never got involved in something dangerous, (ha ha). Little did he know. He thought the deliverance session to be a quick one and never gave my account of my involvement with the occult much thought. All he told me was to fast that morning and come over. How wrong he was. The demons soon started to manifest, and afterwards he told me, he was quite scared. God allowed him to look into the spiritual realm while delivering me, and he saw an angry demon, with all kinds of chains around him coming out of me. This demon was really angry indeed, he had to leave his home .I remember that there was a particular moment during the deliverance in which the struggle was very difficult. It was with this demon who was manifesting itself. This demon was the demon that had got a legal doorway into my life through my involvement with the occult. But, the session turned out to be quite successful and I got delivered. An overwhelming sense of peace came over me,and I never felt Christ so close in my life as after the deliverance. I was a new person. Even people close to me told me I looked different. And I did.
Back at home, a couple of nights later, while sleeping the Holy Spirit awoke me in the early hours of the morning to inform me I was in immediate danger. And I sensed the danger, it was frightening indeed. I started to pray to Jesus for protection, calling out His name aloud, and God in His mercy opened at that very moment of prayer, my spiritual eyes, and what I saw has comforted me very strongly up until this day. What I saw was an ugly demonic entity, pitch black which emanated evil all around him, who tried to reach my bedroom. At that very moment a huge angel stood at my doorpost and this evil thing could not enter my bedroom. I could not see his face for this angel was huge indeed. All I saw was his legs up to his knees. He was huge indeed!The demon left the house immediately, never to return. When I saw this, as strange as it may sound, I just turned around and went back to sleep, peacefully, fully knowing that I was protected by my loving Jesus.
After this encounter I have had some more encounters, but it suffices to say, that angels are all around us, to protect us to comfort us and to guard us against evil. Read Psalm 91, it tells you about God's angels protecting us. I do believe that at the very command from God they fly towards us to help us in our times of need.There are many examples, especially during WW II from people who have been successfully and marvelously delivered out of danger with the help of angels. Read these accounts, it is good reading.
But I think a word of caution should be said here: never give them any reverence that is due to God, for only God may have our worship! They are spiritual beings like us, created by God, to assist God but never to be worshipped. Therefore we may never worship them in any form! Instead, we should look upon them and learn how they worship and praise the Lord. We can learn so much from them. The are some interesting parallels that can be drawn between them and us. For example, a parallel which I find very interesting is that they once had a choice also. This choice was given to them long before the earth even existed, but just as we do have the choice of free will, they also had the possibility to choose between good and evil. From Scripture we know that one third chose to follow Satan and as a result for that choice,got expelled from heaven. These are referred to as the fallen angels. The remaining two third chose for God and form now part of His mighty army.
From the expulsion of the fallen angels from heaven, we may learn that they possibly have the aptitude to have pride. Pride made Lucifer fall in the first place. He thought himself so good and so beautiful, that he thought he could be God. He wanted to be God, he wanted the worship God gets. I do not know if they still have this propensity, but in that particular time they most certainly had it. Another interesting parallel between the angels and us, is the concept of salvation. Their existence and ours is inextricably linked. Why is this so? Why did God make us so differently yet so close entangled? When Christ will return they will come to their full potential, just as we will also. They will co-inhabit alongside with us the new Jerusalem. They are eagerly expecting to do so, and so should we.
The picture of an angelic host who plays the harp and sings choruses of beautiful songs, is not so far fetched from reality after all. But instead on focusing on this picture, we should focus on the results of this picture. By this I mean, they worship, they praise God and the result is that they are filled with joy. Maybe God gives us this example to teach us how important it is to worship and praise Him. If we live in joy, we would not be so easily defeated, we would not hate so quickly, nor would we be so ready to react to every offense.We would be much more forgiving, no one would be able to take away that joyful feeling. Don’t we all wish that? Is that not one of the aims we ought to have in life? Why do we dislike being sad, angry or hurt so much? Because it goes against our nature. Just as it goes against the nature of the angels.
From Scripture, we also learn that there are fallen angels, the ones who decided to follow Satan. These angels, we know also are full of hatred and full of deceit. They rule on the basis of fear. Fear is lies at the root of hatred. Fear lies at the root of everything evil. For perfect love casts out all fear.So while the angels in heaven rejoice in worship and are joyful, the angels of darkness live in constant hatred and fear of their master Satan. This is the difference between the godly angels and the fallen angels. Love brings joy, and joy brings love, and fear brings hatred, and hatred brings destruction.
Angels not only surround us for our protection from evil spirits, but they are ministering spirits send by God to us to minister to us who are the heirs of salvation. From Scripture, to be precise from Exodus 23:2-23 we learn that angels can be messengers of God's wrath also. Because of their unbelief, the Israelites provoked the angel sent by God to anger, and thousands upon thousands of them died in the wilderness. When they complained to God, God told them they should not have provoked the angel. From this example we see that an angel does not have to forgive when being provoked by us. The Israelites spoke words full of unbelief, angering God by their rebellion against Him. This tells us that we reap the fruit from every word we speak. We can provoke angels by our unbelief, and as we saw with the Israelites this can lead to utterly destruction. But we need to keep this is mind, angels of God do not act on their own behalf. They follow God's orders.
The early Christians, and the believing Jews in the first centuries of Christianity believed angels to be the messengers and takers of our prayers to heaven and back. By no means am I suggesting that Jesus’ work is less important, for His work is the most important of all. He is our High Priest,our Savour, our Rock, but what I am suggesting is this. I am convinced that Jesus, as our High Priest, petitions our ever requests to the Father, who denies Him nothing, and the blessings and answers to our prayers are taken back to us by the angels. They serve as His servants. They take care of the prayers, and blessings. They bestow them on Jesus’ request upon us. Why? Because God delights in doing this, and the angels rejoice! A good example is Daniel and the angel that came to him with the answer to his prayers (Dan.10:13).
Concluding this article, I want to say that even if we do not see any angels with our visible eyes, it does not have to mean that they do not exist. For Scripture teaches that they do exist and they do protect us. Indeed, we are all the time surrounded by them. God has foreseen in our providence and angels help Him just to do that.
If you have had an encounter with angels please write to us, we would love to hear from You!
Demons, fallen angels
The word demon comes from the Greek word 'daemon' which means devil, and we all know that this connotation means nothing but evil. So we can thus assume, that demons are evil beings. Their home will be the lake of fire (Rev. 20). At their head is Satan, the fallen cherub, who is a real person, and not just an imaginary evil or the evil inside of you, as I have heard many churches preach! It is no surprise that the churches who teach these lies are in fact very defeated because they lack the insight into the reality of Satan and his kingdom. I myself heard a preacher in a fully packed church preach that the devil is only the dark thoughts inside of you,the state of your your heart. He went on to tell us that the devil and his minions are not real. I ran out of the church never to return!!
What is very interesting indeed, is that the ancient civilization who lived in ancient times, civilizations that knew nothing of the God of Israel, did in fact hold the existence of demons as a reality.They feared them and their power to do evil greatly. Due to their religion of paganism, the ancient people they had many gods, and these gods sometimes needed appeasing, otherwise the demons would catch up with them, or so they believed. These people knew the existence of these evil beings and the harm they could perform. They had a certain respect of them, not like our Western civilization who laughs about it and just takes demons just as a joke. An interesting fact that is noteworthy mentioning here, is that even though these ancient civilizations named their demons according to their times and customs, their descriptions and their doings have remained unchanged up to this day. With other words, we can conclude that the demons of these pagan religions are as bad today as they were in those days. And that is true friends. Demons have remained just as evil as they have ever been. Many stories, ancient and contemporary, corroborate this.
Interestingly enough, while studying these ancient religions, I found that many of these ancient believes are still alive today in the form of what we call superstitions. A good example is the story that ghosts are the roaming spirits of the dead, who seek a place to live because they cannot enter heaven, because they did not find their way to heaven. This superstition is widely acknowledged in South America, Africa and in some Muslim countries. Many people fear death because of these superstitions, fearing they might not find their way to heaven and end up roaming the world in eternity instead.
Many of these ancient rituals are still performed today in the exact same manner as they were conducted in those days. This sometimes makes me wonder, why we who claim to be living in our so called modern world, do in fact often laugh the spiritual world off as being a delusion, but when it comes down to perform rituals and the belief in ghosts that roam the world, no trace can be found of our so called modern objectivity. For we do keep those ghost stories alive through the centuries claiming these true. Doesn't it strikes you as odd, that whenever you speak to our society about ghosts, for example, they do believe in them, but whenever you speak of Satan and his kingdom they just laugh at you and characterize you as crazy?
I have been characterized as such many times in my life, up to the point where people do not want to get even close to me,because they think I suffer from some sort of strange religiosity. How sad the state of their blindness is! Demons, are very real and they do us harm. You do not have to see them, to know they do in fact exist. Jesus talked about them, He often expelled them! So if Jesus did acknowledge them, why in the world are churches denying them? The Bible explicitly tells us that Jesus took the existence of demons(devils, according to the KJV) very serious! Take a look: "When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick"(Matt 8:16)
Comments and statements in the Bible about the demonic, are nowadays being laughed off by some arrogant pastors who think too highly of themselves, claiming that Christians who believe in demons are delusional! (Sorry friends for my harsh words, but it is true and needed to be said). These pastors claim that because this is the twenty first century we ought to think objectively, thus regarding demons and Satan as superstitions of the ancient world. They teach that we need to interpret the Bible according to our modern times.This means not believing in the existence of ultimate evil in the form of Satan, nor in his evil spirits. They go to great lengths to convince their audience with their so called logic explanations, about the existence of these evil beings, claiming these are nothing else but ancient superstitions and can thus not be taken seriously today. This opens the door open wide for demonic bondage in their church.
Belief me, many churches have been destroyed by these teachings. Satan has taken their invitation very seriously, invading with force these churches, not only steeling the faith in the Word out of them, but also grabbing every precious soul he can get his claws on, taking them with him down the path of doom and destruction, leaving no hope of salvation. It all fits into his evil plan. These pastors have completely ignored the Bible's stern warning about the devil and have delivered their precious flock into the hands of evil:
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour"( 1 Pet. 5:8) The devil and his minions are surely having a good time, afflicting so many people due to their own unbelief. Another easy target nowadays for them is the youth. Why the youth? These are usually in a rebelling phase and therefore easy to influence and devour. When you are young, you are in fact not only discovering your own identity but your place in society as well. It is a difficult time for both parents and youth, and rebellion in the home and in their lives lies dormant. All kinds of things are to be explored, such as alcohol, rock music and the like. Conclusion, it is a phase where things can easily turn out of control if not monitored carefully by parents.
Alcohol for example is steadily becoming a major problem amongst our youth. Too many young people are experimenting with it, to the point where it becomes life threatening. I just recently heard of two horror stories. One in Germany; there seems to be a rage amongst young people between 13 and 16 years of age, to drink strong alcohol to the level of drinking oneself knock-out. One boy already died from it! The other horror story I recently heard is as bad as the first one. Apparently young girls today are impregnating their tampax with alcohol in order to remain drunk all day. What a sad state of affairs. Alcohol as we all know, may be a booster for insecure people, it soothes shyness away, and gives them boldness instead. And as we all know many youngsters suffer from insecurity. Demons love this kind of behavior, for there are many demons to like to be drunk. Yes, they need alcohol to make them feel good. When a doorway has been opened by a youngster to these kinds of demons, the result is often that alcohol will take over the life of the youngster due to the demon requesting alcohol all the time. This is the pattern we are seeing more and more every day.
Satan knows his time is running out and therefore he seeks every opportunity to prey on victims to destroy them. And he is succeeding. Even in the area politics he is succeeding. In Europe for example, the European Union have shunned God completely out from their constitution, claiming that politics and religion have nothing in common! When the European leaders signed this new set of rules and regulations at the beginning of this year, the event took place in Rome. The room where the signatures were going to be placed, had a stature of the apostle Paul. Needless to say, the leaders of the European country insisted this statue to be removed from the room claiming that God had nothing to do with politics. Not one politician protested against this! That is the sorry state of affairs of this world today. We shun God out of almost all areas of our lives, thinking and deluding ourselves that we can do better. There really is no hard for God in our society today. We have completely forgotten that God must rule every area of our lives, politics included, in order for us to stay within His shadow (Ps 91), protection and His blessing. Only God can make live good for us. Sad to say, that His counsel has been forgotten, and our state of affairs in the world becoming more worse than ever.
The devil is succeeding to lead people astray. The rise in occultism is enormous. Churches are running empty and believers are running straight into the arms of Wicca, hunger for power in their lives. Many people do not realize the enormous consequences these involvements have on Christians (of course the consequences for unbelievers are huge also, but we as Christians ought to know better, and will be judged more severely). People who dabble in Wicca and all kinds of occultism do not realize that their behavior gradually changes into abnormal, schizophrenic behavior. This is also demonic. Yes witchcraft has power attached to it, but never the power of Jesus and His blood. This power is the ultimate power and we should grab hold of this power. This power is the only power that God allows, it sets us free from all kinds of bondage.
By all means I am not a person who sees demons behind every bush, but I can see the difference between the demonic or when something is not. I think it should be the duty of all Christians to do so. 1 Pe 5:8 does not give us the warning just for fun. We ought to take heed of the warnings of the Bible, they are given to us for our own protection! We must be on our guard at all times, pray as the Bible says. This of course does not mean that we cannot be deceived, for the Bible tells us in the book of Revelation that in the end times even the very elect will be deceived. Nevertheless we should do everything possible not to let ourselves become easily deceived. If we know the Bible it is not easy for us to become deceived. Read your Bible, get acquainted with the Word of God. God has given us many tools to overcome the devil (Eph. 6) and we should these and arm ourselves against the devil and his evil spirits. Another tool of which I deem very important is that of discernment of the spirits. This tool can be very helpful when confronted with evil spirits. Even though not everybody has this gift developed in the same degree, I think that we all need to learn to discern when something is evil and when something is not. Many times this gift makes us aware of an evil presence, as I am sure many of you have had experience with this. I am blessed that I have a strong discernment and needless to say it has always helped me during spiritual warfare. And believe me, I have had many battles with evil forces over the years. I am so grateful to God that He has blessed me with this gift. Let me give you an example of my personal life regarding this gift. While on a holiday in Andalusia, Spain, an area that worships the Black Madonna (almost all houses have statues incarved into the walls of this madonna), I had an encounter with this spirit. It appeared at 3 AM (many think, and I do agree this to be the demonic hour). I was alarmed by the Holy Spirit through discernment that something evil was in the room. I was sleeping of course, and when I opened my eyes there it stood. Shocked at first, having this thing looking down at me, and sensing the ice cold air in the room, my fear turned into anger. I rebuked the thing in the name of Jesus and off it was. Unfortunately this was not to be my only encounter. A couple of days later, again in the middle of the night, I woke up through the urging of the Holy Spirit who was telling me that I was now in real danger. I never felt so much danger in my life! The Holy Spirit made me aware that the devil himself was roaming the hotel corridor. This alarmed me greatly and immediately I started to rebuke the devil and praying Psalm 91 which I know by heart.You see, it is always good to know your Scriptures. I battled for one long hour, my husband sleeping peacefully while I was really fighting this heavy battle. But Jesus said that the victory is His and it was!
You may ask yourself why I had to have these attacks while you never have them? To be honest I do not know. I attribute these attacks to my walk in faith. But one thing I do know, the demons hate us because we love Jesus(Matt 8:20; Luke 4:41)! The more you get to know your Bible, the closer your walk with Jesus will be, the stronger your enemy is. You see, demons often use the tactics of fear to attack us.When fear comes in, vulnerability sets in. You loose your authority and you do not even think straight at that particular moment. In your fear you run out of the room for example, or do something else, but many people in their fear, forget to use their godly weapons. This is why they make use of fear so very often. You need to know that evil spirits are powerful beings, that often work through deception. They will try to influence your mind with all kinds of dirty thoughts. They will try to induce to sin in every possible way. The Bible says not for nothing that the Battle is for our minds: " In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them"(2 Cor. 4:4).
The god of this world is Satan. How does he usually operate? Through our minds. Our minds induce us to sin, to sinful handlings, to all kinds of evil. That is why we need to renew our minds with the Word of God.
"And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus"(Phil. 4:7)
Only in this way we will be able to withstand the viles of the evil one!!
Are you facing spiritual warfare at the moment, do you need help, please contact us.We will be able to help you.