Last night, our Life Group started a short study on Angels and Demons. We started with Angels and next week will continue with demons.
At first, it was clear that many in our group has some preconceived ideas on angels. It is hard growing up with so many angels stories and concepts to really understand what is truth and what isn’t. I think we covered things in good detail and I am sure most people left with a much better understanding of what is real truth on the matter.
I think what stuck in my mind most, is that Angels are without any option or hope of redemption (2nd Peter 2:4). If an angel sins they are forever cast out of heaven and without hope of redemption. Scripture tells us, in 1 Corinthians 6:3, that we will one day judge the angels and in other places in scripture we discover that angels will one day be lower than us.
In several places we are cautioned to look to God and not angels as even satan presents himself as an angel of light. To allow an angel to present “revelation or knowledge” to you is extremely dangerous. We looked at the example of Joseph Smith, the father or Mormonism. Smith claims that he wrote the Book of Mormon from the revelation of an angel visiting him. Mohammed claimed to write the Koran from revelations he received from god, while living in a cave away from Mecca.
It is clear in all of this study, that humans must be extremely careful to not fall into angel worship. To worship an angel is not Godly and in many ways sets ourselves up for deception and failure, as is the case in Smith and Mohammed.
To grasp this a bit further, we must remember that satan is in fact a fallen angel. To focus more on an angel and not on God is essentially placing angels over God. In reality if an angel is on the throne of our lives instead of God, we are subject to the deception of Lucifer (satan). If we are accustomed to worshipping angels we have not only fallen in our relationship with God, we have potentially opened the door for satan and his demons to present themselves to us cloaked in light. We must not look for angels and we must not look to see angels for we again open another door for satan to come and deceive.
For it is clear in scripture that the fallen angels are forever lost. Satan and his demons attempt to cloak themselves in light and we must be ever watchful to not fall into that trap.
We must stop the constant doubting and questioning of God’s truth. We must look to God for the answers our heart seeks, but we must trust in the truths He gives.
The Emergent church trend is to question everything. They question if Jesus was really God’s Son. They question if the virgin birth is true, or some man made myth. They believe that questioning these truths does not lead to confusion or loss of truth. They claim that loosing any part of that doesn’t change God or who He is. The problem is that if one thing God has told us is not true, then we cannot trust anything He told us. We loose it all.
I am completely convinced that spiritual warfare is ever raging in this time. There are battles for our souls and minds each moment of every day. There are angels about fighting on our behalf and there are demons about looking to destroy everything about us, the church and our faith.
For the Emergent church to not plant their feet on the solid rock of God’s truth and His reality is setting themselves up for immense failure. It is allowing the things of God to be presented in confusion and it is damaging to the Kingdom.
I have no real proof of it, but I believe most likely, the emergent trend has started out of one or possibly several peoples desire to seek angels. There are recent trends that led thousands if not millions to angel worship or to exalt the place of angels in their lives. I cannot help but believe deception has taken hold in many because of that.
It is serious when one walks out of the order of God. It is destructive when one proclaims truth that is not tested and proved in God. It is time for God’s people to refocus on Him and to regather the sheep to the fold.
Filed under: Life, Personal Growth, The Church | Tagged: Angels, Angels and Demons, Demons
One thing I’ve noticed with Evangelical critiques of Mormonism is that they always try to give the impression that the only thing Joseph Smith saw was an angel.
They always kind of skip over the part where he saw God the Father and Jesus Christ first.
I believe you ultimately missed the entire point of this post.
With God declaring that the Book of Revelation was the end of God giving “new Revelation” or new knowledge that humans had yet to be given, one must wonder about the writing of the book of mormon as an actually God given writing.
We are cautioned in Galatians chapter one, that there would be new people preaching and teaching a different gospel or truth.
“6I am astonished that you are(L) so quickly deserting(M) him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to(N) a different gospel— 7(O) not that there is another one, but(P) there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or(Q) an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you,(R) let him be accursed. 9As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received,(S) let him be accursed.”
My point is with the end of new knowledge being declared by God Himself, the book of mormon is totally in question. By looking to an angel for knowledge to write a book and not first checking it against the Word of God and the things that God has said, it is dangerous. There are COUNTLESS things that are completely against what God has said in the book of mormon and for that reason, it is without any doubt, not of God. While I personally believe Joseph Smith, believes whole heartedly that he saw an angel and God as you say, I believe he was deceived and led astray by the enemy. It is clear again in scripture that people would be deceived by satan pretending to be an angel of light. God himself many would come to the end of their lives expecting to live with Him in heaven and He would tell them depart from me as I never knew You.
Besides, Moroni wasn’t an angel in the sense that you are using the word here.
Moroni was someone who had lived on the earth and died, and was now returning to give information to Joseph Smith. In other words – he was/is one of us. So your whole thing about us judging the angels would also apply to Moroni as well.
You also forget that the entire Christian thing was kicked-off by an angel appearing to the virgin Mary. If you’d been living with her family in that time period, would you have told her not to trust the message because, after all, “it’s just an angel”?
First if you truly believe that the whole Christian thing was kicked off with Mary, you are ignorant in what the Bible actually says. I would suggest that you go and read it from front cover the the back cover…. then you might know the truth.
For you see, Christ was prophesied about hundreds of years before the angel ever appeared to Mary. Christ’s death, burial and resurrection was typified in the killing of the animal to cover Adam and Eve in the Garden way back in Genesis.
The entire sacrificial ordinances of the people of the old testament were again symbolic of the ultimate sacrifice to come in Christ. The entire Bible points to the second Adam which is Christ and what Christ accomplished on the cross for all of mankind.
As for your comment about Moroni, no where in the Bible does it state that man will die and come to heaven as an angel. That is false doctrine and teaching entirely.
The Bible is clear that angels are created by God, and that they have no soul, and are not redeemable if they fail and sin. Angels are ultimately to be judged by man as is clearly stated in the Bible. At no point is man to become an angel, for again the Bible is clear that man will be over the angels in heaven.
Moroni is clearly not a man that lived, died and then became an angle to return to earth and teach Joseph Smith a brand new doctrine.
First off, you realize that the Book of Revelation was written before a lot of the other books in the New Testament – including one of the four gospels – right?
Secondly, you realize that the same words that are in Revelation are found in Deuteronomy, right?
Does this mean that the writers of the four Gospels (and Isaiah for that matter) are “accursed” for their additions – since Deuteronomy, by your interpretation, apparently says that’s the end?
As for your talk of “different Gospel” (or “different Jesus” if you want to go there), it tends to bounce right off Mormons. We simply respond – “yeah, different Gospel – like the one the Protestants are preaching.”
Of course, the Bible tends to reference itself throughout. It is a sort of checks and balances system that is rarely seen in any other text on the planet.
You seriously need to read the Bible and understand it. You obviously haven’t and I am praying that you will read it and that God Himself will teach you of His ways and His plan for you. I believe whole heartedly that if one seeks after God, with their whole heart and soul, they will find Him.
I pray that you find truth.
Have a good day. I am done with this conversation, but I will pray for you Seth.
My use of the Mary example was simply to point out that angels can be alright on occasion – Paul’s warnings notwithstanding.
As for your claims that Mormon beliefs in human beings becoming angels are contra-biblical…
I would simply respond that while such beliefs are not established by the Bible, they are not contra-biblical either. Essentially, the Bible doesn’t rule them out.
Now, maybe if you take the following equation:
Bible + (your assumptions) = men don’t become angels
Well, yeah… I can see that.
But if you take this equation:
Bible = men don’t become angels
Well… now you’re just making stuff up. The Bible just doesn’t say much on the topic, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
By the way, I’ve never much cared for threaded comments. Hope you don’t mind.
I have read the entire Bible, as it so happens. By age 19, I’d read the New Testament from cover to cover about a dozen times. I’d also read the Old Testament cover to cover once (including all those darn pedigrees in Numbers). I had also read selections like Genesis and Exodus, along with Psalms, Isaiah, Proverbs, Job, 1 and 2 Kings and Chronicles more times than that.
My study these days tends to be more topical in nature.
But yeah, I’ve read the Bible. And I’ve heard and investigated the arguments you are raising here, and I don’t think they wash.
FWIW Seth, I found the exchange very interesting. I happen to share Bryan’s viewpoint, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a Mormon defense to Christian apologetics. You said:
“Bible = men don’t become angels
Well… now you’re just making stuff up. The Bible just doesn’t say much on the topic, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
That strikes me as a relativist position. The Bible doesn’t say anything about little green men from Mars either. One may legitimately debate about their possible existence, and even spend billions of dollars on scientific research concerning that possibility, but I certainly would not want to stake my eternal future on it. I’ll restrict myself to ONLY what the Bible contains in that regard.
The family that lives across the street from me and one house over are a Mormon family. Lovely people with an admirable family life. Sadly, they are as deceived as are the very nice Muslim Pakistani family that lives around the corner from me – who also have an admirable family life.
Blessings on you.
Chris, if you’re interested, there’s a Mormon organization devoted to apologetics that operates on a strictly volunteer basis and is not bankrolled or paid for by the LDS Church (which tends to remain aloof from apologetic skirmishes). It’s called the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR). You can visit their website here:
http://www.fairlds.org/
You might want to check out their Wiki page (see the left hand sidebar). Lots of responses to common Protestant attacks on Mormonism. Of course, Evangelical apologists and others think they’ve got some good responses to these Mormon apologists, and vis versa.
You can believe what you want about the LDS Church and Mormons generally. But fairness requires that a person at least educate themselves on the opposing camp’s arguments before offering one’s own arguments.
Seth, thank you for your response.
You said:
“You can believe what you want about the LDS Church and Mormons generally. But fairness requires that a person at least educate themselves on the opposing camp’s arguments before offering one’s own arguments.”
I’m not offering any arguments. What I am saying is that I believe that the Bible is, 100% from cover to cover, God breathed Scripture; and thus, I believe what it says about further prophesy. That is not an argument. It is simply what I believe. I don’t need to look outside of Scripture to understand my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His saving grace. Now, I do read “parallel” works — Oswald Chambers’ “My Utmost for His Highest,” for instance — but those works do not make claims about Christianity that are not supported exclusively by the Bible. You will not find anything in that book that references anything except the Bible.
Please understand that I don’t believe anything one way or the other about Mormons as people in general except for ONE thing — and that is that I believe that they are being deceived when they stray outside the confines of Biblical scripture. But, that doesn’t mean that I believe that Mormons are “bad” people, or stupid, or anything else… …just scripturally deceived — and so I grieve for them on that account.
As to fairness, this is not a fight. But if it were, I would definitely not be interested in fairness. Without meaning any disrespect to you personally, I am not actually interested in learning all about Mormon apologetics. I don’t need to know Mormon exegesis to understand that it falls outside the confines of Biblical scripture. While there is some value in keeping an open mind about things, if you open it too far, your brains will fall out.
I have an Evangelical friend who takes that position.
She a busy mom and has a limited amount of time she can devote to reading. Bible gets first dibs, of course. After that, she might pick up some recreational reading, some Evangelical sermons she likes. And whenever we suggest something by a Mormon author, she says that she just doesn’t have time for it.
Which I totally respect, by the way.
You don’t have to learn about Mormonism if it’s not where you want to devote your resources.
But… if you start blogging about Mormonism and making statements about how Mormons are wrong… well… that changes the equation, doesn’t it?