Sunday 24 December 2017

Angels and prayer

A woman was driving on the freeway when cars in front stopped too quickly for her to respond.

"It all seemed like it was happening in slow motion," she told Jennifer Eivaz, author of The Intercessors Handbook: How to Pray with Boldness, Authority & Supernatural Power. 

"I watched myself drive into the car in front of me, pass through the vehicle and even the person inside, and then to a clear space on the road without damage or harm."

Several cars were hit in the traffic tie-up.

"The driver of the car she passed through jumped out of his vehicle in surprise and fright, asking, 'What was that?'" Eivaz writes. "He knew some type of miracle had happened.  This is the work of angels."

In his book Angels, famed evangelist Billy Graham tells the story of pioneer missionary John G. Paton who was surrounded by hostile tribesmen in the New Hebrides intent on burning out and killing him and his family one night.  After praying all night, the Patons discovered the tribesmen had vanished.

A year later, the tribal chief became a believer.  Paton asked him why the tribesmen left them alone that frightening night a year before.

The chief asked him who all the men were who surrounded the Paton hut that evening.  Paton said there was no one there.  But the chief insisted that there hundreds of big men wearing shining garments with drawn swords around the hut and the tribesmen were afraid to attack.

Evangelicals tend to overlook the activity of angels, partly because many others have worshiped angels or otherwise distorted the truth about these servants of God.  God makes clear that only God can be worshiped.

Yet there are quite a number of stories about angels in the Bible.  Angels are actively carrying out the commands of God, serving the Lord and serving us as human beings.

God often sends angels in response to our prayers.

In Daniel 10, the prophet Daniel says he was praying in deep distress about his people when an angel appeared before him, terrifying him.  The angel told him he had come in response to Daniel's prayers but had been held up for 21 days in battle by a powerful demon.  Finally, the archangel Michael had come to his aid so that he could deliver God's answer to Daniel.

So, God calls on his angels to respond to his people's prayers with supernatural help as needed. 

Wesley L. Duewel writes in Touch the World through Prayer that angels protect us from danger (2 Kings 6:17); they deliver God's children (Acts 12:1-11); they bring messages to God's people (Luke 2:9-13); and they renew physical strength (Luke 22:43).

"Undoubtedly the angelic assistance of God's people is usually invisible," Duewel says.  "But it is real just the same."

Eivaz says that just as Elisha asked God to reveal the angel armies protecting him and his servant in 2 Kings 6, we too can ask the Lord for angelic help.  But "asking the Father for angels needs to be done in alignment with the Word of God and the will of God".

Knowing that angels are there to help us in our need is a great encouragement.

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