Expert: Tom Smith - 8/15/2004

Question
I hope you will be able to answer these questions. Forgive me if anything I ask sounds ignorant, I am ashamed to admit I don't read the Bible much because I have a hard time comprehending in reading, so this makes reading the Bible especially hard. Then again I am not sure my questions are in the Bible anywhere, but...I will give this question a shot. (Thoughts like this run through my mind alot, I keep wondering about them.)

Of coarse, nothing, or no one, created God, he obviously has been here forever. There was no "beginning" to Him, and there certainly will be no "end." At least I don't believe there will be. This is extremely hard for my feeble human mind to comprehend, after all I'm only human...I'm wondering...What did He do with all that time?! I mean, before He created the Universe and Earth, etc. It just <i>boggles</i> my mind trying to imagine God just...existing...and existing...before anything...

I have several questions.

My first question is, if God was here forever, and since there is no beginning to Him, when did He create the angels? Also, do gaurdian angels protect non-Christians? Are angels watching over us constantly, or does God only send them when we need them? Or do we need them all the time?

Does/did satan have some sort of musical talent and is that why you see so much darkness in music? [Then again, you really could say that about anything...it's amazing, unfortunately, how clever he is.] Also, is it possible for more angels to fall or is that over and done with? Can they sin if they wanted to? Do they have thoughts, etc, just as we do, or is it different?

And, another thing, is it true that--

Oops..My brain just hit a bad sector.

(Just kidding, heh heh,) I twist my mind into pretzels trying to figure this type of stuff out. You don't have to answer all of them if you don't want to, lol, it is quite a lot of questions, I apologize, I guess I was sort of thinking out loud. If you can help me on these, it would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Interesting questions. I think that it is good when people start considering questions related to the Bible. There is much in the Bible that is interesting but so many people think of it as a large boring book. Nothing is further from the truth. The problem tends to be that when most people read it, they read only small excerpts and thus miss the larger picture. I find that when I read the Bible, I am constantly finding interesting new things.

Matters of eternal existence are hard for us to comprehend. We have no frame of reference because we exist in a bounded universe that is limited by space and time. God created this universe and thus is outside of space and time. As Jesus said in John 8:58, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM”, thus showing that he is present throughout our timeframe, and not just here at this point in time. That is more amazing than any science fiction about time travel.

Also, many people think that eternity would be so long without creation – what would you do with all that time? That is the point – there is no time. We cannot comprehend what eternity is like because when we try to imagine it, we always try to add a timeframe reference into it, because that is all we know.

Okay, enough rambling – on to your questions.

QUESTION #1
My first question is, if God was here forever, and since there is no beginning to Him, when did He create the angels?

ANSWER
We cannot say for certain as to why he created angels or specifically when he created them, but perhaps we can at least come up with a few clues from what the Bible says about the purpose for angels. First, though, I'd like to point out that in the Bible there is one special “angel” and that is “The Angel of the Lord” which is an appearance of Jesus in the Old Testament. This is quite clear if you study all the references to this being throughout the Old Testament. Thus my response will refer to the work done by other beings referred to as angels, but I will not be including “The Angel of the Lord”. There are also, in rare cases, where men are called angels. This refers to the meaning of the word “angel” which means “messenger”. Clearly both of these cases differ from what we typically mean by angels which are the unique beings created by God as angels.

1) Angels guard the entrance to the Garden of Eden

Gen 3:24
24 So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
NKJV

2) Angels acted as messengers

Acts 7:52-53
52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, 53 who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it."
NKJV

Throughout scripture, we find angels bring guidance, commands, warnings and prophetic revelation from God to various men.

3) Announce important events

Judg 13:6-7
6 So the woman came and told her husband, saying, "A Man of God came to me, and His countenance was like the countenance of the Angel of God, very awesome; but I did not ask Him where He was from, and He did not tell me His name. 7 And He said to me, 'Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. Now drink no wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.' "
NKJV

It was also the angels who announced the birth of Jesus and John the Baptist. Angels were also present at the tomb when Jesus had risen and at the ascension of Jesus (Acts 1).

4) Ministered to Jesus

Matt 4:10-11
11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.
NKJV

5) Come with Jesus at His second coming

Matt 25:31-32
31 "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.
NKJV

6) Bring God's Judgement

Ps 78:49
49 He cast on them the fierceness of His anger,
Wrath, indignation, and trouble,
By sending angels of destruction among them.
NKJV

7) Warriors

Rev 12:7-9
7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
NKJV

So we see many different roles for angels since creation, but we see little about their role prior to creation. One possibility is that the angels were primarily created in advance of the creation so that they could fulfill these purposes. Remember that we will have angels ministering to us throughout all of eternity to come also.

QUESTION #2
Also, do gaurdian angels protect non-Christians? Are angels watching over us constantly, or does God only send them when we need them? Or do we need them all the time?

ANSWER
There is no such thing as guardian angels in the way that the common media presents them – as angels which are assigned to specific persons for the purpose of protecting them.

Keep in mind God's purpose for mankind. God created men with the desire that He remain in perfect fellowship and a right relationship with men (men means mankind not a specific sex in this context), but men destroyed that relationship through sin. God already had the plan for restoration – He would come in the flesh and die on the cross to take the penalty of sin that man justly deserved.

With this in mind, we find that God is using the angels to fulfill His purposes both for the unsaved and the saved. For the saved, we find that they are strengthened, empowered for ministry, chastised when necessary and guided. All focused on eternity and on the plan of redemption, because God was not willing that any man go to hell, though most will willing choose that course.

For the unsaved, it depends upon their heart. For those who have a heart that loves truth, God uses angels to guide them towards the truth, helps them to hear the gospel that they might be saved. For those who have rejected the truth, the angels may be used to bring judgment. In all cases, we do not find that there is an angel who is on the standby at all times to protect us from physical harm, though there is no doubt that angels do indeed protect us from harm at times. And that same protection may extend to the unsaved, depending upon God's will, so that that person may have a last chance to hear the gospel.

Remember that everything in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation focuses on the Jesus Christ and the gospel. The details are not to distract from this purpose but rather to support this purpose.

QUESTION #3
Does/did satan have some sort of musical talent and is that why you see so much darkness in music? [Then again, you really could say that about anything...it's amazing, unfortunately, how clever he is.]

ANSWER
There is a story that Lucifer was the chief musician amongst the angels. I have not seen anything in scripture to support this position. On the other hand, we do know that music is a powerful tool. Word without music can be more easily analyzed but when music is used, the analytical part of the mind tends to shut down and messages, good or bad can more easily get through to our mind and can inject ideas into our mind that we might not otherwise entertain. Satan knows this and uses this to influence the world. That is why we see so  much dark music and why we see such an effort to take the church away from songs which have a solid doctrinal basis to songs which are, at best, weak and sound more like a love-song between a man and woman; and at worst present false doctrine which would not be allowed into many of the same churches as part of the sermon, but which gets into churches through the music.

QUESTION #4
Also, is it possible for more angels to fall or is that over and done with? Can they sin if they wanted to?

ANSWER
We see in scripture that a third of the angels rebelled against God. I see nothing that has changed to say that angels could not yet sin and rebel, but I would suggest that since the angels can see God as He is, where we do not, they live by sight and knowledge and not by faith and thus the decision to rebel against God would be a major decision. I suspect that the angels who made that choice have already done so and I doubt that any more would change sides, especially since they know the plan of salvation, which ends with the angels following Satan being tossed forever into the lake of fire.

Matt 25:41-42
41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
NKJV

Rev 12:9-10
9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
NKJV

Rev 20:10
10 The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
NKJV

QUESTION #5
Do they have thoughts, etc, just as we do, or is it different?

ANSWER
If they were able to make a decision to rebel, then they must have thoughts.


I hope that this response helps.