If You Want to See the Angels
Have you ever seen an angel? Dr. S. W. Mitchell thought he had. Dr. Mitchell was a well-known neurologist in Philadelphia. After one very tiring day, he retired early, but he was awakened by a persistent knocking at the door. It was a little girl, poorly dressed and deeply upset. She told him that her mother was very sick and needed his help. Even though it was a bitterly cold, snowy night, and he was bone tired, Mitchell dressed and followed the girl. He found the mother desperately ill with pneumonia. After treating her, Dr. Mitchell complimented the sick woman on her daughter’s persistence and courage. The woman gave him a strange look and said, “My daughter died a month ago. Her shoes and coat are in the closet there.” Dr. Mitchell went to the closet and opened the door. There hung the very coat worn by the little girl who had been at his front door. The coat was warm and dry and could not possibly have been out in the snowy night.
Have you every seen an angel? John G. Paton believes he has. While he was a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands, hostile natives surrounded his mission headquarters one night, intent on burning the Patons out and killing them. Paton and his wife prayed all that night. At dawn, they were amazed to see the attackers just turn and leave.
A year later the chief of that very tribe was converted to Christianity. Paton then asked him what had kept him and his men from burning down the house and killing them that night. The chief asked Paton a return question: “Who were all those men you had with you there?” Paton told him there had been no one except his wife and himself, but the chief insisted they had seen hundreds of men standing guard—big men in shining garments with drawn swords.
Angels on Assignment
This happened in 1956 during the Mau Mau uprisings in East Africa. The story is told by veteran missionary Morris Plotts.
A band of roving Mau Maus came to the village of Lauri, surrounded it, and killed every inhabitant, including women and children—three hundred people in all. Not more than three miles away was the Rift Valley Academy, a private boarding school where children were being educated while their missionary parents worked elsewhere. Immediately upon leaving the carnage at Lauri, the Mau Maus came with spears, clubs, torches, and bows and arrows to the school, bent on destruction.
You can imagine the fear of those children at the school. Word had already reached them about the destruction of Lauri. There was no place to flee. The only resource was prayer.
Out in the night, lighted torches were seen coming toward the school. Soon there was a complete ring of these terrorists about the school, cutting off all avenues to escape. Shouting and curses could be heard coming from the Mau Maus. Then they began to advance on the school, tightening the circle, shouting louder, coming closer. Suddenly, when they were close enough to throw a spear, they stopped. They began to retreat, and soon they were running into the jungle. A call had gone out to the authorities, and an army had been sent in the direction of the school to rescue the inhabitants. But by the time the army arrived, the would-be assassins had disappeared. The army spread out in search of them and captured the entire band of raiding Mau Maus.
Later, before the judge at their trial, the Mau Mau leader was called to the witness stand. The judge asked him, “On this night, did you kill inhabitants of Lauri?”
The leader replied, “Yes.”
“Was it your intent to do the same at the Rift Valley Academy?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you not complete the mission? Why didn’t you attack the school?” asked the judge.
The leader, who had never read the Bible and never heard the gospel, replied, “We were on our way to attack and destroy all the people at the school. But as we came closer, all of a sudden between us and the school there were many huge men, dressed in white with flaming swords. We became afraid and we ran to hide.”
God’s Special Messenger
In the spring of 1982, I was the speaker at a morning prayer group which meets in a town near Springfield, Illinois. Before I spoke, a neighboring pastor shared about his recent trip to Mexico. He, along with several others, had gone there on a preaching mission. While they were returning, their van developed mechanical problems. After jacking up the van, the pastor crawled underneath to check out the problem. The jack collapsed, and he suddenly felt the crushing weight of the van on his chest. His companions quickly grabbed the bumper to lift the van. They weren’t able to budge it. He cried out, “Jesus! Jesus!” Within a few seconds, a youthful-looking Mexican came running toward them. He was thin and small in stature. He was smiling. As he reached the van, he grabbed the van and lifted it. The others joined in, and the van lifted like a feather.
As he was freed, the pastor felt his chest expand and the broken bones mend. The visitor then lowered the van, waved to them, and ran in the direction from which he had come, until he disappeared on the horizon. No one knew who the mysterious visitor was or where he had come from.
“The Lord encamps around those who fear Him and rescues them,” Psalm 34:78. –Kenneth Nordvall
The Train Stops Just in Time
The British express train raced through the night, its powerful headlamp spearing the black darkness ahead. The train was carrying Queen Victoria.
Suddenly the engineer saw a startling sight. Revealed in the beam of the engine’s headlights was a weird figure in a black cloak, standing in the middle of the tracks and waving its arms. The engineer grabbed for the brakes and brought the train to a grinding halt.
He and his fellow trainsmen climbed out to see what had stopped them. They could find no trace of the strange figure. On a hunch, the engineer walked a few yards farther up the tracks. Suddenly he stopped and stared into the fog in horror. A bridge had been washed out and had fallen into a swollen stream. If he had not heeded the ghostly figure, the train would have plunged into the stream.
While the bridge and tracks were being repaired, the crew made a more intensive search for the strange flagman. But not until they got to London did they solve the mystery.
At the base of the engine’s headlamp was a huge moth. The engineer looked at it for a moment, then on impulse wet its wings and pasted it to the glass of the lamp. Climbing back into his cab, he switched on the lamp and saw the “phantom flagman” in the beam. He knew what had happened: the moth had flown into the beam, seconds before the train reached the washed-out bridge. In the fog, it appeared to be a phantom figure waving its arms.
When Queen Victoria was told of the strange happening, she said, “I’m sure it was no accident. It was God’s way of protecting us.”
Back to Life
A seventy-year-old woman in China was the only one who had knowledge of most of the daily operations of her family as well as the operations of a house church. She alone knew where the Bibles were, who the messengers were, who could or could not be trusted. Suddenly, she died of a heart attack.
Her family felt lost. She had not been able to pass on the information that was so vital to all. They began to pray, “Lord, restore our mother back to life.” After being dead for two days, she came back to life. She scolded her family for calling her back. They reasoned with her. They said they would pray that in two days, she could return to the Lord. It would, they said, take that much time to set the matters straight.
After two days, the family and friends began to sing hymns and pray that the Lord would take her back. The mother’s final words were: “They’re coming. Two angels are coming.” The incident caused the entire village to repent. –Carl Lawrence
Witness to Angels
Six Soviet cosmonauts said they witnessed the most awe-inspiring spectacle ever encountered in space–a band of glowing angels with wings as big as jumbo jets. Cosmonauts Vladimir Solovev, Oleg Atkov, and Leonid Kizim said they first saw the celestial beings during their 155th day aboard the orbiting Salyat 7 space station. “What we saw,” they said, “were seven giant figures in the shape of humans, but with wings and mistlike halos, as in the classic depiction of angels. Their faces were round with cherubic smiles.” Twelve days later the figures returned and were seen by three other Soviet scientists, including woman cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya. “They were smiling,” she said, “as though they shared a glorious secret.”
The Sound of Angels
We so often hear the expression “the voice of an angel” that I got to wondering what an angel would sound like. So I did some research and discovered that an angel’s voice sounds remarkably like a person saying, “Hurry up!”
Prior to my research, I thought that the voice of an angel would be beautiful. But the words “Get up and hurry!” are rarely beautiful, especially at seven in the morning. Yet the Bible records many instances of angels saying these words. An angel comes to Peter in jail and says, “Rise quickly.” An angel says to Gideon, “Arise and go in this thy might.” An angel says to Elijah, “Arise and eat.” An angel appears to Joseph in a dream, when Herod is slaughtering the infants, and says, “Go quickly.” An angel appears to Philip and says, “Arise and go.”
Really, the angels are monotonous talkers! They always say the same thing–“Arise, hurry!” But so is a fire bell monotonous. If we are to be saved, it will be by monotony, the reiterated command, “Get up and get going!” Listen carefully and you can hear the voice of angels about the contemporary din of the world, a voice that ought to get us out of lounge chairs and comfortable beds. “Arise, go quickly.”
The Inhabitants of Heaven
Of all the supernatural beings mentioned in the Scriptures, it is the angels who are constantly depicted as being identified with heaven. When the angel of God called to Hagar in the wilderness, we read that this call was heard “out of heaven” (Genesis 21:17). When the angel appeared at the time of the vision which Jacob heard at Bethel, he saw a ladder reaching to heaven on which the angels of God were ascending and descending. Often the angels are called the “heavenly ones” (Psalm 29:1) or the “heavenly host” (Luke 2:13). It was an angel “from heaven” that rolled away the stone at the tomb where our Lord was buried (Matthew 28:2). Our Lord Himself often spoke of “the angels of heaven” (Mark 12:25; 13:32; Matthew 22:30). Then we have such a phrase as “the angels of heaven” (Matthew 24:36), and in a most interesting passage our Lord said, “Angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10). –Wilbur Smith