This was originally written and preached by me 29 years ago. I left it unchanged except for 2021 Word finding misspellings that apparently 1996 Word Perfect could not.
Touched By An Angel Or Just Plain Touched?
There is a popular TV show called “Touched By An Angel.” It’s like that old Michael Landon series “Highway to Heaven.” An angel goes around doing good. Well, are we almost 21st century Christians really touched by angels or are we just plain touched – you know off our rocker, not playing with a full deck, mentally unstable – for believing in angels? No, we’re not touched for believing that we’re touched by angels, but we are touched if we don’t realize this isn’t always good.
Before explaining why it isn’t always good to be touched by an angel, let’s look at why it’s good to believe in angels. Psalm 148 tells us God created invisible beings called angels, but it doesn’t tell us on what day they were created. St. Augustine believed they were created when God said, “Let there be light.” Job 38 tells us that the angels were present when God laid the foundations of the earth and that they shouted for joy over it.
Scripture also tells us that angels are SPIRITUAL beings. That is beings with individual personalities but no bodies. However, they can assume bodily form, always as males never as females in Scripture, to do physical things on earth. Some angels have wings when they appear, most do not.
Although Scripture never gives us the exact number of angels, it does tell us there are a lot of them. Daniel and John see in heaven “thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand” angels. The Greek word used conveys the idea of a countless number. On the night Christ is born, Luke 2 tells us there was a “multitude,” a “great company” of them present.
Finally Scripture tells us that angels are very powerful. How powerful? Angels really have all the powers that Superman, Batman, X-Men, and Power Rangers are said to have. Scripture tells us one angel killed 185,000 Assyrians in one night; another shut the mouths of the lions that would have devoured Daniel. Now don’t think of these angels using “Bewitched-like” tactics, wiggling their noses or casting a spell to get the job done. No, picture one angel physically killing with sword and spear 185,000 soldiers. Picture one angel holding a pit full of lions at bay like a lion tamer would.
Angels are real. They are all around us all the time in great numbers having great powers. You’re not touched for believing this. But you are touched if you don’t also believe that not all of these angels are good. Some are bad. The bad angels Scripture calls demons, devils, evil spirits, unclean spirits, or spirits of infirmity.
This is a great mystery. Where could evil angels have come from in a universe that God Himself declared was very good? People have puzzled over this for centuries, but we only have the Scriptures to shed light on this mystery. 2 Peter 2 tells us that the evil angels sinned against God. Revelation 12 says there was a war in heaven; the devil and the angels that followed him fought against Michael and all of his angels. I Timothy 3 says what caused the war was the devil becoming puffed up with pride. The outcome of the battle is recorded: “But the devil was not strong enough, and the rebellious angels lost their place in heaven.”
As a result of losing, the devil and his angels were cast out of heaven. There were a great many of these rebellious angels and they didn’t lose any of their great power when they fell. So you know what that means? “Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows his time is short!”
First Peter says the devil and his angels are down on earth prowling around seeking to devour anyone they can. Revelation 12 says that the devil and his evil spirits are enraged at the church and are busy right now making war against her children, against those who hold to the testimony of Jesus.
Yes, folks we aren’t touched for believing that all around us there are invisible creatures called angels. But we are touched, we are religiously unstable, if we don’t realize that some of these unseen creatures are not angelic but demonic, and both angelic and demonic angels are active in touching people. Not everyone touched by an angel is touched by a good one, some are touched by evil ones, unclean ones, demonic ones.
The good angels are at work touching you in positive ways. They guard you; they keep you; they even strengthen you. Daniel and Christ Himself in Gethsemane were strengthened by the touch of an angel. Think about this; if just a touch from a human being can be so comforting, so encouraging, so strengthening, how much more the touch of a heavenly being?
But Scripture shows the heavenly angels doing more than just touching. When St. Peter is in prison for his faith surrounded by guards, chained to the wall, God sends an angel to physically knock off his chains and open doors. When Elisha finds himself surrounded by the Arameans, God sends forth an army of angels in chariots of fire to protect him. Scripture tells us that St. Michael in particular, a chief angel, an archangel is specifically delegated to fight on behalf of God’s people.
The good angels are at work touching people, so are the bad angels. We find them in the Scriptures terrorizing people, tempting people, causing people physical diseases, and driving people to hurt themselves or others. The evil angels particularly touch people so that they oppose Christ and His church. For example, Judas wasn’t alone in betraying Jesus; he had help. Scripture says, “And Satan entered into him.” Peter wasn’t alone when he opposed the idea of Christ being crucified. Jesus said, “Get behind me Satan.”
The evil angels hatred of Christ extends to His Church. Christ says that where the God’s Word is being sown, Satan and his devils are not only at work snatching that Word out of hearts so they don’t believe, they’re also sowing false Christians among the true. Where the Lord plants His Church the devil and his angels are on hand planting a backbiting, bitter, unloving chapel of hell.
But don’t get the idea that the demonic angels are only at work on a local level. Ephesians 6, and the Books of Daniel and Revelation paint a far more extensive picture. Evil angels are at work in every single anti-Christ, immoral, murderous idea or activity. It’s not just the wickedness or the hardheartedness of men which is behind abortion for babies, marriages for homosexuals, and freedom for criminals; Our struggle is not really against human beings in these matters; but according to Ephesians, it’s against “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
No we’re not touched for believing in angels, but we are most certainly touched if we believe that every spiritual being that touches humans is a good angel. We are touched if we believe that everyone who walks around with an angel pin on their collar or everyone who believes in angels is really being touched by heavenly beings.
In this matter of distinguishing good angels from bad ones, it is absolutely essential that we don’t go by appearances, feelings, or even by apparent results. St. Paul warns us in II Corinthians 11, “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” Be warned the most demonic, wicked, hellish creature in the universe can appear to human reason or feelings to be a heavenly angel.
Only the Scriptures can enable us to distinguish the good from the bad angels, and they point us to the Gospel. St. Paul says in Galatians that any angel which preaches a different Gospel is really a cursed, damned, hellish one. Good angels are all about serving the true Gospel. They do absolutely nothing to take away, modify, or improve the simple truth that Christ Jesus fulfilled the 10 Commandments and died on the cross to pay for our breaking them. Good angels glory in the simple fact that humans are saved through believing that for Christ’s sake they are forgiven.
The good angels are completely focused on God and His Gospel. What did Matthew 18 tells us? The guardian angels of our little ones do always behold the face of the Father. Good angels are always looking to God and His will. The will of God is that fallen man would be saved through faith in Christ. Good angels are totally consumed with Christ.
First Peter says that the angels stooped over and peered out of heaven as God worked out His plan of sending His only Son into the world. We know it was an angel who announced the conception of Christ; it was angels who announced the birth of Christ; it was angels who announced the Resurrection of Christ; it was angels who announced the Ascension of Christ, and it is angels who will trumpet His Second Coming.
Good angels are totally focused on Christ: singing His praises, glorifying His name. In heaven, you always find them gathered around Christ, serving Him. You don’t find them down here on earth wandering around seeking something to do. No, it’s Satan who in Job reports to God that he has been going back and forth through the earth.
And in I Peter we find exactly what this old evil foe is doing prowling around the earth: He is “looking for someone to devour.” What about the good angels? Scripture shows them going back and forth between heaven and earth. They go when God sends them, and they come right back after they have done what He sent them to do.
It’s really not accurate to say that the path of the good angels is between heaven and earth; it’s really between heaven and believers. Hebrews tells us quite clearly that the good angels are “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation.” Unbelievers have no promise whatsoever of the service of angels. They are left with the trials, the torments, the temptations, of the evil spirits.
Psalm 91 says as much. It says those who dwell in the shelter of the most high are the ones who have the good angels from God to guard them in all their ways. It is believers whom the Lord commands His angels to care for. It is believers whom the good angels lift up so they don’t even stub their toes against a stone.
But wait a minute; lots of believers have much worse things happen to them than the stubbing of their toes. Does that mean they are without the ministry of the good angels when that happens? This is a problem, isn’t it? TV shows and movies always portray their angels apart from Christ, yet almost always their angels succeed in saving people from physical harm. What gives?
Jesus often compared Himself to a stone and He said on several occasions, “Blessed is the one who doesn’t stumble over me.” Good angels serve those who are heirs of salvation, and they do so by preserving them in salvation, by making sure they don’t stumble on the stone Christ and fall away.
Good angels are totally focused on Christ and serving those who believe in Christ. Their mission is not to insure that you get to heaven without any bumps or bruises on your body; no their mission is to see that you get to heaven. Your body, the angels know and you should too, is destined to wither and decay back to the dust God made it from whether, or not it has bumps and bruises. God will raise it on the Last Day no matter how many bumps and bruises it has; the mission of the good angels is to insure you are in heaven to enjoy your resurrected body.
You are being touched by angels left and right. When you go to bed, you can pray as Luther taught us to, that God’s holy angel be with you so that the wicked foe may have no power over you. And as you go through your day, you can know the good angels are defending you from all the things the evil angels do to pull you away from your Jesus. They stop cars from colliding, illnesses from coming, criminals from striking, and despair from crushing.
But what about the cars that collide, the illnesses that come, the criminals that strike, and the despair that does crush? Look at Jacob; he was assured that the angels of God ascended and descended right on him, yet he was persecuted for 20 years by his father-in-law, had sons who thought nothing of murder, had a darling wife die in childbirth, and he had 22 years of grief over a lost son who wasn’t lost.
Or we can look at St. Paul, a chosen instrument of God. He was assured by God that he had His grace and therefore His angels, yet he suffered beatings, shipwrecks, sleeplessness, hunger, cold, and crushing concern for the church. On top of all this, he had his thorn in the flesh which Paul literally called “an angel of Satan to torment me.”
The saints of old were touched by both good and bad angels, but the good ones succeeded in saving them for all eternity. They will do likewise for all of us forgiven sinners, and we’re not touched because we believe this. Amen
Now the peace of God which passes all human understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen
Reverend Paul R. Harris
Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church
Harvey, Louisiana
September 29, 1996
