TEXT: Psalm 103 (esp. vv. 19-22)

SUBJECT: The Sovereignty of God #3: Angels

Today, with the Lord’s help, we’ll continue the study we started two weeks ago. It’s called The Sovereignty of God. When we say that "God is sovereign", we mean that He rules everything at all times. The Bible teaches this in a way that no one is likely to misunderstand it—unless he wants to.

How to square the sovereignty of God with the free actions of men and the existence of sin and evil in the world is not easy to do. But whether we can do it or not, we’re bound to believe what God says about Himself! And He says that He is sovereign!

Many Christians don’t believe this, of course, but ironically almost all of them pay tribute to it every Sunday morning. The Church has always recited the Creed which begins with these words,

Last time, we looked at the sovereignty of God over nature. I tried to show you that acts of God really are acts of God. Both those we enjoy, like the earth producing a good crop, and those we don’t enjoy so well, like earthquakes, floods, and scorching hot weather.

Now, we move on to another part of creation that God rules—the angels good and bad.

What are angels? The Bible says they’re spirits. This is not very helpful, of course, because God is a Spirit—and humans have spirits too. Angels are different from God in that they are created spirits. And they’re different from men because they have no material bodies.

What do angels look like? If they’re spirits, they don’t look like anything, because spirits are invisible. But, at times, they have appeared to men in a visible form, and that form somehow represents their nature.

If you look at greeting cards, you’d think angels were cute little babies with bare butts and feathery wings. Maybe some are, but the ones who were seen in the Bible were quite different. When men saw angels, they never said, "Aw, how cute!" No, most of the time they were awe-struck and terrified! Daniel passed out at the sight of an angel; John felt like worshiping one. Manoah thought seeing an angel would kill him. Even kings and soldiers trembled before the power and majesty of angels.

Angels are awesome creatures with a power, speed, and knowledge no man ever had. They’re something like comic book characters—except they’re real! In the Old Testament, we find them devastating Egypt and breaking the Persian Empire. In the New Testament they do even greater things—like holding back the four winds and unlocking the bottomless pit.

Jude calls them dignitaries—far above human rulers. Paul says they’re principalities and powers. He even calls one of them, the god of this world.

If you’ve studied anthropology, you know that men have always worshiped angels or spirits or daemons. We laugh at their superstition, but I wonder if the primitives don’t know more than we do? Not that angels ought to be worshiped, of course, but if we knew how awesome they really were, we’d feel like bowing down to them as well. The pagans are fools, but they’re not stupid. Whatever scientists say, angels are real, big, and scarier than any nightmare you ever had!

As great as angels are, they present no challenge to God’s authority. For Him, angels are as easy to control as a worm. Nebuchadnezzar knew something about power, and he said of the Lord,

Nebuchadnezzar was the greatest king in the world. His Empire stretched from Mesopotamia to Egypt. He ruled without a parliament, without a court, and without the input of local authorities. If he said, "live", you lived; if he said, "die", you died. Nobody challenged him.

Nobody but God…who broke his pride and made him admit that, Someone else is King. Nebuchadnezzar knew the Lord controlled the strongest men—and not only men, but "The armies of heaven" as well. In other words, angels.

Gabriel is an archangel, but also God’s errand boy. Michael is an angel of war, but God is commander-in-chief. The Seraphim are something like a choir singing the praises of their king. The Cherubim are like God’s stable,

How great the Lord must be! If angels worship Him and adore Him and serve Him and blush in His Presence! To impress a man doesn’t take much. But to stagger an angel?

If you know you’re Bible, you know I’m leaving something out. There are two kinds of angels—good and bad or Elect and Fallen. The good angels, of course, serve God from the heart.

But what about the other ones? Do they serve Him from the heart? No, they don’t. They hate God.

But their hatred does not annul His sovereignty. Demons don’t serve Him from the heart, but make no mistake about it, they serve Him. I thought of five examples:

In Job 1,2, we have Satan asking God’s permission to torture His servant Job. Until God signs off on the plan, the devil can’t lay a finger on the man. Satan may be a god in the world, but in heaven he’s like everyone else, a beggar.

In I Samuel 16, we have God taking His Spirit away from King Saul and the poor man being harassed by an evil spirit. Where did the spirit come from? From God—

In I Kings 22, we have King Ahab’s war room. The generals have urged him to attack Syria and win the victory. Ahab’s disposed to do it, but just to be on the safe side, he calls for the prophets, who amen his every wish. But then another prophet is called in, his name’s Michaiah. And, unlike the court prophets he intends to tell the truth. He tells Ahab that God is going to destroy him in the battle. But, if that’s true, why do the other prophets say differently? He could have said "Because they’re false prophets" or "Paid prophets". But he doesn’t say that. He explains it very clearly to the king,

The Lying Spirit who misled Ahab was a demon. Yet he was under the Lord’s control to visit justice on a wicked king.

A fourth example can be found in the Gospels, where the Word of Christ cast out devils left and right. They hated Him, but confessed His power and holiness. And did what He told them to do.

The last example is from Revelation 20, where Satan is let out of hell for a while. But notice, he doesn’t escape from hell, but is released by God for as long as the Lord wants him loose in the world.

God not only rules the good angels, but the bad ones as well. Not that He’s to be blamed for their wickedness, of course, but they don’t do anything without His permission. Why? Because He is Lord of all.

Why does God use angels? It’s not because He needs them, as though He couldn’t do without them. Everything angels do, He could do on His own. But He chooses not to.

Why not? Because a King deserves a magnificent court. If a man sat on a faded throne in a run-down palace with nobody to serve him but a hunch-backed valet and an old, toothless cook, you wouldn’t think he was much of a king. Maybe he was, at one time, but not any more. Great kings are waited upon by the best servants.

And that’s why God made angels—to wait on Him and to show everyone that He’s

What would you think of a king who had Leonard d’Vinci as architect, Michaelangelo as court sculptor, Rembrandt to paint the family portraits, Shakespeare to write the royal plays, Dante to read poetry in court, and Spurgeon to preach in chapel? You’d say he is a magnificent king! To have the best men to serve him adds to the lustre of his reign.

You’re right. So just imagine the LORD surrounded—not by human geniuses—by superhuman angels! And you get some inkling of how great and glorious He must be.

What do angels do? They must do the most amazing things in the service of God. Maybe they keep the moon in orbit or gas up the sun every morning! Who knows what they do?

We know this much: Angels serve God by helping us. Hebrews 1:14 says they

How do they serve us? The Bible says they comfort us and protect us and, when we die, they carry our souls to glory. They did these things for people in the Bible. They comforted Mary; they protected Elisha, the carried Lazarus to heaven. They helped our Lord when He was tired, tempted, hungry, and afraid. And what they did for our Lord and the leading saints, they also do for us. Thomas Watson said,

Why do they do these things? Because God tells them to! The servants take care of the children because their Master keeps an eye on them and makes sure they do what they’re told.

If God is sovereign over the good angels, then we can expect their help when we need it most. Has an angel ever helped you? Most people would say no. But why would you say that? Because you never saw it! But isn’t that stupid? As though if you can’t see it, it’s not there? Whatever we see—or don’t see, the Word remains true,

Wouldn’t it be great to have angels turning back deadly viruses or drunk drivers or stray bullets? We do. Every day they help us. Because God sends them our way—and they obey.

If God is sovereign over the bad angels, then we can be sure that every temptation has a way out of it. Demons are too clever for us; if they had their way, they’d catch us every time and destroy us in the end. But, remember, they don’t have their way. God lets them tempt us, but He cuts a hole in every one of their nets—just big enough for us to crawl through in faith and obedience to His Word. The devil is mighty! But because God controls him, we can be sure if we

Including the angels.