What The Bible Actually Says About Angels

Angels show up everywhere in the Bible, yet most of us learn “angel theology” from TV reruns and sentimental stories. We start with Hebrews 1:14 and let Scripture set the terms: angels are ministering spirits sent by God to serve those who will inherit salvation, not cute symbols or mystical side characters we get to redesign.

From there, we walk through several famous accounts often described as angelic help, including stories popularized by Billy Graham. They’re compelling, they’re moving, and they raise the right kind of question: if God sometimes sends unseen aid, how do we stay grateful without building doctrine on anecdotes? That leads us to a needed boundary line from Deuteronomy 29:29, reminding us that God reveals enough for faith and obedience, not enough to satisfy every curiosity.

Then we go straight into the biblical data on angels across both Testaments: angels minister to Jesus after the temptation, Jesus compares resurrected life to angels who do not marry, and angels appear as God’s active servants in major redemptive moments. We also map key Bible terms for angels, including messenger, sons of God, morning stars, heavenly host, ministering spirits, and even ranks like “chief princes” in Daniel. Finally, we tackle the question everyone asks, “How many angels are there?”, and land where Revelation and Hebrews land: an innumerable company, with the sobering truth that a third fell in rebellion.

If you want a clear, Bible-based foundation for understanding angels, listen through and share it with a friend, then subscribe and leave a review so more people can find the series.

Transcript

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Here is a verse that's found in Hebrews chapter one and verse fourteen that I'd like to invite you to look at for just a moment as we begin tonight a study on God's invisible army. And when we talk about God's invisible army, we're talking about angels. I don't know if you have spent any time looking at what the Bible teaches about angels, but I know that today we seem to develop theology from the television. How many of you out here remember the show Touched by an Angel? All of us do, right? Let me tell you something about that. It's probably the most unbiblical shows that teach about angels. Because, first of all, you'll find out tonight that there are no female angels. There

Hebrews Opens The Angel Study

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are none. But notice there in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 14, you find a verse like this among many. It says, Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? That verse right there is referring to angels. Billy Graham, in his book, Angels, God's Secret Agents, he tells of several accounts where people received help from angels. He writes, Dr. S. W. Mitchell, a celebrated Philadelphia neurologist, had gone to bed after an exceptionally tiring day. Suddenly he was awakened by someone knocking on his door. Opening it, he found a little girl poorly dressed and deeply upset. She told him her mother was very sick and asked him if he would please come to her. It was a bitterly cold, snowy night, but though he was both tired, Dr. Mitchell dressed and followed the girl. And as readers digest reports to the story, he found the mother desperately ill with pneumonia. After raging for medical care, he complimented

Modern Angel Myths Challenged

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the sick woman on the intelligence and persistence of her little daughter. The woman looked at him strangely and then said, My daughter died a month ago. She added, Her shoes and coat are in the closet there. Dr. Mitchell, amazed and perplexed, went to the closet, opened the door, and there hung the dirty coat worn by the little girl who had brought him to tend to her mother. It was warm and dry and could not possibly have been out in the wintery night. Could the doctor have been called in the hour of desperate need by an angel who appeared as this woman's young daughter? Was this the work of God's angels on behalf of the sick woman? The Reverend John G. Patton, a missionary in the New Hebrewing Islands, he tells a thrilling story involving the protective care of angels. Hostile natives surrounded his mission headquarters one night, intent on burning the patents out and killing them. John Patton and his wife prayed all during their terrafilled night that God would deliver them. When daylight came, they were amazed to see the attackers unaccountably leave. They thanked God for delivering them. A year later, the chief of the tribe was converted to Jesus Christ. And Mr. Patton remembered what had happened, and he asked the chief, what kept him and his men from burning down the house and killing them. And the chief replied in surprise, Who were all those men you had there with you? The missionary answered, There were no men, just my wife and I. The chief argued that they had seen many

Striking Rescue Stories From History

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men standing guard, hundreds of big men in shining garments with drawn swords in their hands. They seemed to circle the mission station so that the natives were afraid to attack. Only then did Mr. Patton realize that God had sent his angels to protect them. The chief agreed that there was no other explanation. Could it be that God had sent a legion of angels to protect his servants whose lives were being endangered? During World War II, Captain Eddie Rickenbacher was shot down over the Pacific Ocean. For weeks nothing was heard of him. The newspapers reported his disappearance, and across the country, thousands of people prayed. Mayor Ligardia, he asked the whole city of New York to pray for him. And then he returned. The Sunday papers headlined the news, and in an article, Captain Rickenbacher himself told what had happened. At this point, I would hesitate to tell, he wrote, except that there were six witnesses who saw it with me. A gull came out of nowhere and lighted on my head. I reached up my hand very gently. I killed him, and then we divided him among all. We ate every bit, even the little bones. Nothing ever tasted so good. Years later, I asked him to tell me the story personally because it was through this experience that he came to know Christ, and he said, I have no explanation except that God sent one of his angels to rescue us. Now, could it be that God dispatched his angels to Captain Rickenbacker, to Reverend Patton, and to Dr. Mitchell? John MacArthur writes in his book, The Glory of Heaven, he says, a recent issue of Moody featured an excellent cover article critiquing the angel craze. The article included a quotation from theology professor Ed Glascott, who stated, the Bible never really explains angels, it just makes casual references to their activities. I agree. Gleaning our information solely from the biblical data, we come up with far more unanswered questions about angels than detailed knowledge. We know that angels minister to humans and even intervene from time to time in human affairs, but as to how this happens, we know very little. And we are discouraged from looking into all spiritual matters beyond what is revealed

What Scripture Reveals And Hides

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for us in Scripture. Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong unto the Lord. But those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. Nevertheless, there is a considerable body of information in Scripture about these wonderful creatures, the angels. And since we will spend eternity with them in heaven, it's helpful to learn all we can from Scripture about the angels and their role. Now, when you do look at the Scripture, you find that the existence of angels is uniformly presented in Scripture. Thirty-four books of the Bible make references to angels. Seventeen in the Old Testament and seventeen in the New Testament. Now, when you look in Matthew chapter 4, and you see there at the temptation of Christ, you see that Jesus was helped by angels following his temptation. If you look there in Matthew chapter 4, the devil had tempted him, and now by verse 11 it says the devil had left him. Jesus had rebuked Satan, told him, basically, away with you, verse 10, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. And then the narrative tells us here, Matthew writes in verse 11, that the devil left him, and behold, angels came and diacaneo. What's that sound like? That's the word from which we get deacon. They served him. Now we don't know exactly what took place. It's possible that they brought him food because according to verse 1, he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, and afterward it said he was hungry. So we see that Jesus was helped by angels. If you go to Matthew chapter 22, you find in Matthew 22

Angels Across The Bible’s Storyline

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and verse 29, that Jesus referred to the resurrected state as comparable to angels. Matthew 22, 29. There was a question that was asked in this passage. It says there in verse 23, the same day, the Sadducees who say that there is no resurrection, and as one person has well put, that's why they were so sad, you see. It says that they came to him and asked, saying, Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there was with us seven brothers, and the first died after, and he had been married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother, likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh, and last of all the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her. And again, you go back and understand the fact they didn't even believe in a resurrection, so this was a test. This was a trick to trick him in his words. And what did Jesus say? Verse 29. Jesus answered and said to them, You are mistaken. And the word that he's using there means that you err. You are erring in this whole issue. Not knowing and literally not understanding the scriptures, nor the power of God. And you know what, folks? People err in scripture when they don't understand it. That is why we cannot apply things that we don't understand. That's where legalism comes in. And here he is saying of these Sadducees, they err because they do not understand the Scriptures. And you know what? They didn't believe the God of the Scriptures. He was standing right there in front of them. They didn't believe that he was the Messiah, that he was God in flesh. So how could they understand his word? He says in verse 30, for in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. Angels do not marry, they do not procreate. We're going to talk a little later about Genesis 6 and what's taking place there. But as you begin to see already in the existence of angels, we see Jesus was helped by the angels following his temptation. We see that he refers to the resurrected state as comparable to angels. Now, notice over in chapter 25 of Matthew and verse 31, Jesus taught that the angels would gather together the nations at the time of his return. And this passage here is referring to the earthly millennial reign of Christ as is described in Revelation 20, verses 4 through 6. Notice what it says in Matthew 25, 31. It says, When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from goats. And there you see the angelic activity here, as he is, as they are assisting Jesus in gathering the nations together. John MacArthur writes, Throughout the Old Testament, angels are presented as personal beings who are messengers and ministers of God. If all those references to angels were removed, we would be left with inexplicable events and gaping holes in the narrative. There would be far many problems without solutions. If angels didn't exist, we would have to accuse God of error, since the Old Testament is full of references to his sending angels to do his bidding. Angels are an extricable part of the New Testament as well. Who announced the birth of Christ? Who told the shepherds where to go? Who came to Jesus at his temptation and ministered to him after he fasted forty days? Who went to Christ's tomb and announced his resurrection? Who is coming to gather the elect from the four corners of the world? Who freed Peter and John from jail? Angels. If all those supernatural beings didn't exist, accounts of their marvelous interventions would be reduced to lies. Spiritual warfare would be nonexistent. Christ's temptation would be meaningless, and the book of Revelation would be reduced to chapter headings, since angels appear on virtually every page. Now what are angels then? We see the Bible does mention angels, and the many times that it mentions them, what are angels? There are a number of different words that are used in Scripture to define what these angelic beings are. And the first word that I want to give you is just a simple English word, angel, but it's not that word in the Hebrew or the Greek. In fact, in Hebrew, it's the word Moloch, and the word in the Greek is angelos. But both words mean the same thing. You can write right next to the word messenger. In fact, when we started there in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 14, if you want to just go back there for just a minute, and you read the verse back this way, are they not all ministering spirits sent forth

What Angels Do For Christ

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to minister to those who will inherit salvation? And if you go up to verse 13, he says, But to which of the angels? And you go all through chapter 1, the angels are mentioned over and over and over, and that's the Greek word angelos. That word alone occurs 179 times in the New Testament. As our English word angel. Six times as messenger and referring to men. The Hebrew word, it may refer to a human messenger according to 1 Kings 19.2, or a divine messenger according to Genesis 28, 12. But the basic meaning of the word is literally one who is sent. And the word itself is found a hundred and three times in the Old Testament. So we see here 282 references to angels just by these two words. So the first word we see is angels. The second word we would see is sons of God. That in the Hebrew is Bine Elohim, and you bear with the word Elohim, which is a word that's used for God, and it's literally sons of God. And here it's referring to their unfallen state, that they are God's sons by his creation. And I want to just show you just a couple passages that would refer to that. You can go all the way back to Genesis chapter 6, and you find there in Genesis 6, now it came to pass when men begin to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves of all whom they had chosen. And here it is a reference to angels, but by what is taking place here, and we're going to get into this much later, that you have fallen angels cohabitating with women. Jude makes a reference to this. Peter makes a reference to this. But go with me over to Job, and you find there in Job chapter 1, and also in chapter 2, a reference using this term, Bene Elohim. Job chapter 1 and verse 6. It says, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. Here was a day when a particular group of angels came before the Lord, and Satan also came as well. And here this reference is referring to sons of God, referring to angels. Go over to chapter 2 and verse 1. It says, Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. And again, here is a reference to angels being referred to as sons of God. Let me give you a third reference. It's also found in Job, but it's found in chapter 38. Job 38 and verse 7. In fact, there's a question that the Lord is asking here, and this is where Job is getting nailed from pillar to post. In fact, you can begin in verse 1 when it says, Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Who is this who darkens counsel by the words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man. I'll question you and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know, or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. And the next term that we're seeing here is morning stars. And you see here, in fact, two phrases used. You see morning stars and sons of God. And again, this is just another term that's used to describe these angelical beings. Referred to not only as angels, but sons of God, morning stars. In fact, if you go over to Psalms, just the next book over, in chapter 103, you find this term used of them, that they are referred to as the heavenly host. Psalm 103 and verse 20. It says, Bless the Lord you his angels, who excel in strength, who do his word, eating the voice of his word. Bless the Lord all you his hosts, you ministers of his who do his pleasure, bless the Lord all his works, and all dominion, in all places of his dominion, bless the Lord, all my soul. And here again, these are just different terms that are describing before us these angelic beings. Psalm 148.2 says, Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his hosts. It says, even over in Luke 2.13, when the angels came and sang that rejoicing over the birth of Christ, it called them the heavenly host. There are at least two other terms that I want to share with you about them. And we again we've already seen one of them in Hebrews 1.14. They are called ministering spirits. Psalm 104, verse 4 says, Who makes his spirits or his angel spirits, his ministers a flame of fire. So you can use the term minister when describing them. Now it's not used in the sense that we use minister, but that is one of the terms that is used in speaking about these angelic beings. And then, of course, the last term I want to give you is the term chief princes. And that's found in Daniel chapter 10. Here it was talking about that Michael, who was hindered in delivering an answer, it says here, but the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days, and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia. Now, angels are God's ministers. They are a product of his creation. They shine as the stars of heaven and they gather his host. They are ministers, literally sent forth to minister to those who will inherit salvation, and they also operate in some form of rank. So you have to ask another question then. How many angels are there? People do ask questions like this, by the way. They ask the same question: where did God come from? But let me give you the answer to this one. Look at Luke 2.13.

Names And Ranks For Angels

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Luke 2.13. How many angels are there? And again, this is a reference, referring back to these angels that were rejoicing at the birth of Christ. And it says there, and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, sin on earth, peace, good will toward man. Well, your first answer is a multitude. You say, Well, that doesn't help. What is a multitude? Alright, well, go to Matthew chapter 26, and let's give you a second term. See if we can make this any clearer. Someone told me one time, this is clear as mud. Well, it's not clear. Matthew 26, 53. Let's see if this gets any clearer. And if you remember in this situation, they had came to the garden to take Jesus away. Peter pulls out his sword, and it says in verse 51 that he struck the servant of the high priest, cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, Put your sword in its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my father, and he will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? So your second answer is twelve legions of angels. Alright, let's define what a legion is, because we can get an answer to that. A Roman legion had consisted of 6,000 soldiers backed by another 6,000 men, equaling from 72,000. To 144,000 soldiers. Jesus said he could call 12 legions of angels. Now listen to this. One angel was enough, according to 2 Kings 19, 35, to kill 185,000 Assyrians. One angel. And here Jesus is saying, Do you think that I cannot now pray to my father, and he will provide with me more than twelve legions of angels? Well, that still doesn't help us, does it? Go to Matthew 18. Matthew chapter 18 and verse 10. Here he is talking about the childlikeness of the believer, and that God is extremely upset if any of his children are led astray. You can read that in verse 6. Whoever causes one of these little ones

How Many Angels Exist

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who believe in me to sin, and here these little ones is not referring to infants, it's referring to believers. Says it would be better for him if the millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. And then if you look down at verse at verse 10, it says, Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. So you can put down more than believers, and again, I know that doesn't help us. So let's go to two more, and let's see if the muddy water can get any clearer. Go to Revelation chapter 5. Revelation chapter 5 at verse 11. And you can never accuse me for not giving you plenty of verses. It says in Revelation 5, 11, then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them. All right, here we go. You ready? Ten thousands times ten thousand and thousands of thousands. How would you write that down? A lot of angels. Alright, one more. Hebrews 12. I guarantee this is the one you're looking for. You ready? Hebrews 12. Verse 22. Listen to this. I love this verse. That you have come to Mount Zion in the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels. In other words, you cannot number them. So you're not going to get that kind of an answer. How many angels are there? Innumerable. A lot. More than your mathematical mind can imagine. There are a lot of angels. Now let me tell you something here. Revelation chapter 12 tells us a third of the angels fell. A third of the angels went with the rebellion with Satan. Now that was a lot of angels that defected. A third of an innumerable company of angels. A third of the thousands upon thousands of angels. When we end this study, we're going to find out about those who had fallen. So we see the existence of angels, we see the definition of angels, we see the number of angels. Let's look at the nature of angels. Now, when you study the nature of something, you want to find out about its constitution. You want to find out about its creation. You want to find out about its personality, its material or immaterial makeup. And we can say, first of all, about the angels that they were created.

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The Bible teaches us a lot about angels, as we're going to be learning in this series. As we close out our time together today, I want to read a quote by Billy Graham, who said, I am convinced that these heavenly beings exist and that they provide unseen aid on our behalf. Amen. I believe that too, because that's exactly what the Bible

Fallen Angels And Closing Invitation

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teaches. Well, you've been listening today to these incredible creatures that the Bible talks about called angels in our series called God's Invisible Army. This is the first part of a multi-part series, and it's made available on one full-length audio CD. If you'd like to purchase a copy of this message today, call us at 904-651-3351. If you prefer downloading the three, visit our website at 853548.