Angels and Demons
Matthew 4:1-11, 2 Kings 6:14-17

A missionary in Norway had to visit some families in a valley. To reach them it was necessary for him to descend a dangerous mountain trail. At one steep, risky place he stopped to pray, "Lord God, please be gracious to protect me with Your angels." He safely reached the valley without harm.

At the first cottage the missionary met a man and his wife who had been watching his descent of the treacherous trail. "What has become of your companion?" they asked. "What companion?" the missionary responded. "The man who was with you," they exclaimed in surprise. "We were watching you as you came down the mountain, and it really seemed to us that there were two men crossing the mountain together."

Our Gospel passage for today is based on supernatural elements. Some people sneer at the notion that a devil and angels actually exist. They consider these beings a fabrication of ignorant people. The philosophy called naturalism denies the supernatural. The Bible, on the other hand, assumes the miraculous. Matthew 4:1 says, "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, 'If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.' "

Who is this tempter and how could he tempt Jesus in this way? Our Gospel passage affords us the opportunity to examine the place of angels and demons, and what it means to Christians. That is what we want to do today on this first Sunday in Lent.

How much attention should we devote to the devil and his demon followers? Satan is equally pleased by our overestimation of him and our underestimation him. C. S. Lewis makes this point in The Screwtape Letters . He states, "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors" That is a good word for us. We reject the skepticism of the materialists, but we don't want to become obsessed by demons, and the same can be said about the choirs of angels. Angels can become a fad or a mania for people. So, as we study what the Bible says about spiritual beings, let us avoid extremes.

Ephesians 6:12 teaches, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." Moreover, Jesus tells us to fear the demons. They are wicked and they strive to carry our souls to Hell with them. He says in Luke 12:4, "And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!" [I am indebted to a couple books: Peter Kreeft's Angels and Demons and B.J. Oropeza's 99 Answers to Questions about Angels: Demons & Spiritual Warfare . Both are highly recommended. Beware of too many mediocre books on this topic.]

There are three levels of demonic influence on men: (1) temptation, (2) oppression, and (3) possession. Temptation comes to all of us. The demons suggest things to our imagination, bad things. If we consent to their ideas, we sin greviously. Oppression is more serious. Demonic oppression causes great sorrow of spirit or great external tragedies. Possession is rare and happens only to those who are asking for trouble by violating God's essential safety precautions such as his severe prohibition against the occult. The cases of demon possession I witnessed in South America were all connected to Macumba, Umbanda, and other occult practices. The father of one woman was a Santeria witch doctor and this daughter helped her father torment people by jabbing long needles into voodoo dolls. Another woman had an aunt who lived next door and the two spoke to the dead during midnight séances. That is asking for trouble in a big way, freely opening the door of your soul to ­ you know not what. That's the only way any spirit, evil or good, can enter your soul: by your free choice. Once a demon is lodged there, it is often very difficult to pry loose.

Satan tempted Jesus in several ways. The first temptation was to turn stones in to bread. It had to do with the flesh or physical gratification. By turning the stones into bread Jesus could have satisfied his hunger instantly. Jesus rebuffed this proposal for alleviating His ravenousness.

The second temptation took place on the pinnacle of the temple. Satan suggested that Jesus throw Himself down from the top of the temple like a ball for angels to catch. Why perform this risk? For God "shall give His angels charge over you" the devil advised. A Scripture passage made this temptation quite subtle. Satan comforts Jesus with the Psalm that says, "He shall give His angels charge over you." And "In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone" (v. 6). No doubt, the devil declared an undeniable truth by quoting that text. The problem is that He used it out of context.

On the basis of Psalm 91:11-12 and other passages the Church has long taught that each Christian has a guardian angel (Mt. 18:10; Acts 12:15; Heb. 1:14; Ps. 33:8; 34:5-7). If we accept this theory, and I think we should, you and I have a guardian angel that watches over us. God assigns each of us one. They are bodyguards and soulguards. Your guardian angel fights evil spirits that tempt you. Wherever you go, you take your angel. I've been in three serious auto accidents. The vehicles were totaled. If I'm not mistaken, angels protected me on all three occasions. Many Christians are unaware of the way that angels minister to them. Maybe they have never noticed angelic activity but at least they ought to believe that they are there, helping and protecting.

Robinson Crusoe noticed the protection of his guardian angel. As you know he was shipwrecked on an island for several decades. Most of the time he stayed on the west side of the island, but one day he journeyed to the east side. While strolling along the beach he came upon numerous skulls and bones strewn over the sand next to a fire pit. Upon closer scrutiny, he discovered that cannibals had been there. Although they lived on a bigger island far away, they would capture their enemies, tie them up in canoes, voyage over to Robinson Crusoe's island, kill their victims on the shore, cook their human flesh and eat it. The thought of all this filled Robinson Crusoe with fear and horror. How he had avoided these cannibals for twenty years astounded him into a deep melancholy. At last he became thankful to God who had delivered him from the cannibals on so many occasions that he wasn't even aware of. He says, "How wonderfully we are delivered, when we know nothing of it. How when we are in a quandary, doubt or hesitation whether to go this way, or that way, a secret hint shall direct us this way, when we intended to go that way; and it shall afterwards appear that had we gone that way which we should have gone, and even to our imagination ought to have gone, we should have been ruined and lost. I could give many examples of [this type of thing happening to me] while inhabiting this unhappy island I advise all men not to slight such secret intimations of Providence, certainly they are a proof of the secret communication between [men] and [angels]"

Robinson Crusoe in this passage explains how angels normally communicate with us. Angels can suggest or inspire our imagination. Now this is not direct mental telepathy. Angels likely teach each other by direct mental telepathy, but this is not the way they teach us. Rather, they inspire us, they guide us, and suggest things to our imagination.

Moreover, our guardian angels can miraculously protect us from physical harm. Angels have been known to stop speeding cars, divert bullets from their target, still storms, and visit hospital rooms. Should one expect this to happen? No. Angelic rescues are rare, like all supernatural interventions. You might experience it, but you shouldn't expect it. Sometimes, due to His unfathomable purposes, God refrains from having angels physically protect us. He never promised that He would protect us from all physical harm in this present age. Angels don't rescue people who deliberately do foolish things. That is why the temptation of Satan was dead wrong.

Apparently a young man from Utah fell into this trap. When the riots broke out in Los Angeles back in the 60s, he traveled to the most violent spot. He wanted to preach to the rioters, and he was convinced that angels would protect him from all harm. It didn't work. A gang of thugs beat him so viciously that he died shortly thereafter. God is God and He will not be manipulated into protecting reckless behavior.

To set up the third temptation, the Devil carried Jesus up on a high mountain. As the Lord contemplated all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, the Devil says to Jesus, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me" (v. 9). Then Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only shall you serve. Then the Devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him" (vv. 10-11).

Jesus is our model in times of crisis. He relied upon His Father, He repulsed the lies of Satan, and God intervened. The devil left Him; angels came to minister to His exhaustion. They gave Him the spiritual protection and respite He needed. Here we see angels doing their most basic work. Their work is usually spiritual, not physical. Angels oppose demons. Every minute of every day they are helping us fight spiritual battles.

Why is it important to believe in angels? If it were not for the holy angels we would be unprotected from evil spirits. Let us beware of the myriads of angels that populate the atmosphere, probably billions. (Rev. 5:11) Remember the servant of Elisha from our Old Testament lesson? (2 Kings 6:14-17). As the young man trembled at the Syrian troops ready to attack, Elisha pleaded to God to open the eyes of his young helper. God answered Elisha's prayer. God opened his eyes. The young man saw them. There they were - a mountain covered with flaming angels. God did not put a vision into the servant's eyes; He simply opened the man's eyes so he could see what was really there. As we see the forces of darkness settle on America, we must be conscious of God's fiery angel army surrounding them. Such a vision will help us fight with confidence.

The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness was a battle of cosmic proportions. It signaled the inauguration of Christ's Kingdom. Jesus said that when He drove out demons by the Spirit of God, it was a sign that "the kingdom of God has come upon you" (Matthew 12:28-29; Luke 11:20). The coming of the kingdom means that God in Christ has acted powerfully in history to conquer Satan, to break the yoke of Satan's oppression. Everything that Satan held in bondage was freed by Christ's power. Jesus' goal in coming to earth was the restoration of the total fabric of human life, both physical and spiritual. Every square inch fell under the curse of slavery to Satan and every square inch will be liberated. The Temptation of Jesus in the wilderness means that Satan has been defeated in a decisive battle. Spiritual warfare still goes on, but after the Incarnation history is merely a mopping up operation. The Church cleans out the pockets of resistance until every foe is vanquished. The Christian holds an optimistic perspective.

Belief in angels is a great blessing to you and me. When we ask God to send us angel help, He will do it. Those prayers will be answered according to His will. Peter Kreeft puts it well: "I strongly suspect that if we saw all the difference even the tiniest of our prayers to God make, and all the people those little prayers were destined to affect, and all the consequences of those effects down through the centuries, we would be so paralyzed with awe at the power of prayer that we would be unable to get up off our knees for the rest of our lives."

Also realize the presence of angels in our liturgy. During the Eucharist we join with "angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven." The Church has always believed in the presence of angels at the celebration of the Holy Communion. They are beautiful, mighty, and add majesty to our worship. The good news is that Jesus, by means of His Spirit, is still present with us in the Church and in the Eucharist. It is the faithful preaching of God's word and celebration of the Sacrament that unleashes the heavenly army. Angels are spiritual soldiers in the great cosmic jihad , the spiritual war between Good and Evil. That is the warfare we wage during the Eucharist. It is by means of this spiritual warfare that God transforms the world. Families are saved and sanctified. A culture of death becomes a culture of life and light and love.

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