In yesterday's daily meditation, we talked about an invisible world that intersects with this world. Elisha had to pray for his servant to have his eyes opened to the reality of heavenly angelic beings sent to help them. If you are a Christian, we are servants of the Living God and have angelic hosts that protect us:
Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? (Hebrews 1:14).
How much do we use or value heavenly help when we are in need? Angels are sent by God to serve us even before we come to faith in Christ and, of course, afterward, too. The Scripture is in the future tense. Angels are sent to help and protect those who will inherit salvation. That means that God is working ahead of time on behalf of those who choose to follow Him. Even when we were babies, Scripture indicates that we have an unseen protector, an angel that watches over us:
See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven (Matthew 18:10).
We do not reach out to the angels in prayer for their help. No, our prayer is directed to the Father in whom we place our trust. Angelic beings take their direction and orders from the Father. It is faith in God that connects us to this unseen realm, just as it is faith in God that opened the servant's eyes in the passage we looked at yesterday. I believe that every one of us who are Christians has an angel watching over us (Acts 12:15), sent to serve the heirs of salvation (Hebrews 1:14).
Many Christians are like Elisha's servant, unaware of God's power and supernatural resources. The majority of Christians in the West have no room for the supernatural. For the most part, we are oblivious to angelic beings and demonic spirits in the unseen realm. How many times do we miss seeing God's power displayed, and Satan's kingdom displaced because we do not seek God for divine resources and intervention? Although God is sovereign and all-powerful, He chooses to act in partnership with His people through prayer and faith in God.
Brian, an old friend of mine from Harwich in Essex, England, before he came to Christ, used to be involved in spiritual things of an occult nature. He was ignorant of the dangers that he invited into his home. His family began to hear voices and see spirits in their home after playing a few times with an Ouija board (something that is dark and extremely dangerous to one’s soul). His children became accustomed to seeing disembodied spirits who deceived them into thinking they were spirit guides. The family knew the spirits by name and were duped into believing that "white magic" was harmless. The situation changed when one night, all hell broke loose, and demons started to manifest to them. They were terrified and realized that they were involved with something very dark and not at all harmless. The things they saw and heard in their home horrified all of them.
These manifestations went on all day until Brian looked up the address of the local evangelical church pastor, Harry Hughes, and started walking to his house for help. On the way, he heard audible voices telling him, "If you go to his house, we will kill you all." Concerned for the safety of his family, Brian ignored the threatening voices and went and saw Harry Hughes. Harry came and cleansed his house, praying and taking authority over every evil spirit in the house and removing every occult token there. He then led the family in prayers of repentance and renouncing every evil hold that dark evil spirits had on his family. They finished their time of worship by dedicating their home to the worship of God and His Word. When Brian and his family committed their lives to Christ and repented, renounced and abandoned all involvement in the occult, their lives were wholly renewed. No demonic activity occurred in their house from that moment. The unseen world is very real, and we are deceived if we think only in terms of the physical world. Keith Thomas
This meditation is a shortened version of the more in-depth study: The Unseen Realm
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