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Can angels be seen? My answer is yes; they can be seen. Have I seen any? I don’t know if I have ever seen an angel or not, but I do believe that God still sends His angels to intervene in our world.
Why would God change?
The writer of Hebrews says, “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Heb. 1:14 NIV
God created His angels for a purpose, and we see them throughout the Bible. We see them in many different roles, but always as the messengers and servants of God. The only exception is Satan and the angels that he led into rebellion.
Remember Hagar, Sarah’s servant? When Hagar became pregnant, there was a conflict between her and Sarah; she mistreated her. So, Hagar fled into the desert.
God sent an angel to her with a promise of blessing. The angel told her what to name her child and that his descendants would be too numerous to count.
Thirteen years later, when Abraham was ninety-nine, he asked God to let Ishmael be his heir but was told that he was to have another son, Isaac. Isaac would carry the blessing of the covenant, and through his lineage, the Savior would be born.
Abraham was promised that Ishmael would also be the father of twelve rulers, and they would build nations and have kings. This is the connection that we see in the Muslim world. A people tied to God by centuries of tradition like the Jewish religion. All call Abraham their father but with very different ways of worshiping.
In Scripture we find an angel appearing to Mary and telling her that she would have a child that would be the Savior. We know how the angels announced His birth to the shepherds and later how an angel warned them to flee.
Later angels ministered to Jesus in the wilderness after His 40-day fast. All of these events led to the cross where Jesus was to die for the sins of the world.
John 3:16 tells us the outcome of these angelic events and Jesus dying for our sins. It says, 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Salvation for all who believe in Him as God’s Son.
(God’s salvation is accepted by neither the Jewish nor the Muslim world. The promise to Abraham was to all people, and yet the Jewish people rejected Him totally. The Muslim people accept Jesus as a great prophet, but not the son of God. Both are lost without Jesus Christ as their savior.)
There are many other references to angels in both the Old and New Testaments. We don’t know how involved angels are in the world today. Since Satan is at work every day we can assume that God’s messengers are also present daily. God sent angels as needed and where needed in Bible times and I am sure He does the same today.
Do people see angels today?
Now that is an interesting question, and some would say that they have seen angels. People do see things that are without explanation and sometimes believe and say that it was an angel. As a child, I saw something that I could never explain. Was it an angel? That is beyond me, but I wonder.
My three sisters and I shared a bedroom. I had a cot by the kitchen and closet doors. One night I woke up to see a thin man in a grey double-breasted suit. He came in from the kitchen and smiled at me, then opened the closet door and went in. I waited for him to come out and then opened the door expecting to see him, but he was not there.
I would say that it was a dream, but I had never seen a suit like he wore or the kind of hat on his head. Was it just a dream or something else? I don’t know, but I do know that God still works miracles and if He wants to send a special message to someone, He can.
My brother was in a car accident and believed that an angel came and ministered to him before help arrived. I do not know, but I believe that we try to put God in a box. God created the world and all we see around us. He is the one who decides when and where He will use angels, not us.
In Hebrews 13:1-2 it says, “Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.”
This scripture states that there are angels among us today. They are doing the jobs God assigns them as they did in the past.
Hebrews 1:14 says, “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”
I must often remind myself that God does not change!
Coming back to the question, “Can angels be seen?” The answer is yes and no. If God sends an angel to you, we have examples. In the past, they were seen physically and in dreams. The point is that God lets you see what He knows you need to see. It is not what we want to see, but what God wants us to see.
It is our nature to want to put everything in a certain box or file. We just like things to fit where we want them to fit. You can not put God in a box! That is certain. He is God and He does what He decides is best.
You can trust God in all things! He will meet your real needs and even at times your wants. God is unchanging and faithful in all things.
Let me tell you a silly thing I did. When I decided to write about angels, I wanted a picture to open the story with, so I spent about an hour searching for something to use. There were a lot of pictures, but not one that carried the message I wanted. You see angels do not pose for pictures.
The one I used is some person’s idea of an angel and just like people’s ideas about Satan, they are nothing more than ideas. If an angel does appear it will take whatever form needed to fulfill its mission.
Praise God, He does not need me to illustrate His message. He will send angels as He wishes and we may meet them and not know.
Remember what Paul says to the Hebrews, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.”
You should show God’s love to strangers. Yes, I believe that there are angels at work all around us. We will only know them if God sees a need for us to.