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THE SWORD OF OUR MOUTH
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, April 9, 2025 – Jesus never engages in hand-to-hand combat anywhere in scripture. We don’t see him pull a knife, brandish a sword, hurl stones, or even gently push anyone. Sure, he turned over a few tables in the temple to get the message across to the moneychangers (and whipped a few of them who weren’t paying close enough attention), but the only thing he really hurt was their pride. When push came to shove, it was always other people doing the pushing and shoving. It was never Jesus. He didn’t promote physical violence, and he stood by the motto that those who live by the sword, die by the sword.
Which is why his advice to his followers to arm themselves can be confusing to the casual Christian. Surely if Jesus told us to get weapons, he meant for us to use them? And surely he intended that we should defend ourselves with those weapons, or why else should we get them?
Jesus is nothing if not consistent with his message. When he said that those who live by the sword die by the sword, he wasn’t contradicting his advice for us to arm ourselves. He was explaining why and to what purpose we needed to arm ourselves: for deterrence, and only if we become outcasts from society and so have to live without the protection of law enforcement. Unarmed people are sitting ducks among the lawless, whereas people armed with even one weapon are less attractive targets (which explains why Jesus told his disciples that the one sword they had was enough). When someone openly displays a weapon, it gives the impression that he or she intends to use it. That’s the impression Jesus wants us to convey with our weapon. But at the same time, he doesn’t want us to use the weapon to physically hurt anyone.
How do we know this? Because again, Jesus was consistent with his message. He never contradicted himself. He taught us to keep the Commandments, which includes the Commandment not to kill. Any vengeance we want to exact, we’re to leave in God’s hands: “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.”
So, we’re to get weapons for deterrence purposes if and when we’re banished from mainstream society and forced to live among the lawless, but we don’t have permission to use those weapons to hurt others. The only slaying we have God’s permission to do is with the sword of our mouth. That’s how Jesus fights his battles, and that’s how we’re to fight ours.
COME UP HIGHER
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 29, 2025 – You don’t have to do any of it – none of it. God hasn’t ordered you to serve him. He hasn’t forced you or coerced you, any more than he forced or coerced Jesus do give himself as a sacrifice for many. God made Jesus an offer, he invited Jesus, he gave Jesus the opportunity to come up higher, just like he gives us the same opportunity. No guns are pressed against temples, no arms twisted behind backs. It’s an invitation that no-one but God can extend – the chance to come up higher for all eternity.
Jesus was insistent, particularly during his final days among us in mortal form – Jesus was insistent that we understand that the trial he agreed to endure was his choice and his choice only. God had not forced him into it. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus was begging his Father to find another way to get done what needed to be done, God would have let him off the hook if he’d said he wanted off, only the terms could not be changed because prophecy had to be fulfilled. The sacrifice had to proceed as laid out in scripture or God would have to extend the offer to someone else. Yet even so, God mitigated the suffering that Jesus agreed to go through, allowing him to die so soon in the proceedings, it caught the guards by surprise. God softened each blow against Jesus as much as he could (even arranging for someone to carry the cross the final distance) while still keeping up his end of the bargain.
And it was a bargain, what happened that day, a bet made by the devil that Jesus wouldn’t make it all the way through. It was the devil who set the terms that God agreed to. It wasn’t God’s will that Jesus suffer; God permitted it, all the while betting that Jesus would indeed make it all the way through, which he did, and in so doing came up as high as he or anyone possibly could.
We, too, are in the process of coming up higher. With each test and each round of suffering that we don’t solicit but agree to endure, we inch up higher on the heavenly rewards scale. We come up higher. Sometimes it’s by a little bit and sometimes it’s by leaps and bounds. But just as we can come up higher, we can also slide down lower. God does everything in his power to prevent that from happening (the alarms ring loud and clear; trust me, you cannot not hear those alarms when you’re in danger of sliding), but it’s still up to us whether we want to go up or down, to say “yay” or “nay” to God. Heavenly rewards are not a guarantee until our time here is done. It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, and until it’s over, the upward trajectory can just as easily go downward.
Being born-again doesn’t prevent that slide. We still have free will. We can still say “no” to God. We can still go our own way or even the devil’s way. We’re fine now reading this, comfortable in our seats and with a full belly, but some day when the pain gets too extreme, some of us may choose to do or say whatever it takes to make the pain stop, including denying and betraying the Very Ones we now claim we’d die for. It’s happened before to others and will happen again, maybe to us. We need to pray and pray hard that it doesn’t.
This is a depressing article for me to write, knowing that some of you reading this have already made the deal that cannot be undone and that you’re only here to find a chink in my armour that you can use against me. It’s depressing knowing that some of you who haven’t sold your souls still resolutely refuse to accept any of God’s offers and that you’re only reading this because it amuses you and you look forward to mocking me afterwards. It was depressing for Jesus to dine with the hypocrites and to argue with them and endure their insults, but he did it because it was part of his duties, depressing or not. To get through these and similarly distasteful chores, Jesus always kept his eyes on the prize of his heavenly reward, knowing that with each sling he deflected and every arrow he endured, he moved up higher and therefore closer to God.
You have no idea how close Jesus was to God on that cross. No mortal being has ever been closer to God than Jesus was during his time of suffering. That’s how he got through it – putting himself entirely into God’s hands and letting God guide him, step by step, breath by breath.
You cannot endure what you have coming unless you do the same.
GOD’S WILL AND GOD’S PERMISSION
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 24, 2025 – There’s a difference between what God wills and what God permits.
This is important, so listen up here.
Jesus always did that which pleases the Father. We know that Jesus always did that which pleases the Father because he told us he did: “I always do that which pleases the Father.” When he said he always did that which pleases the Father, Jesus meant he always did God’s will. Again, this is important, so listen up here. It’s important because God’s will is not the same as what God permits, and we need to know the difference.
GOD’S WILL
God’s will is that everyone should do what pleases him. God states multiple times in scripture that if we only do that which pleases him, life will be good for us, because then he can give us all the blessings he wants to give us during our time here. Doing God’s will and doing what pleases the Father is the same thing.
And what is God’s will as it plays out in our everyday lives? Keep the Commandments. Choose the good. Follow Jesus’ example in everything you do, say, and think. Keep your eyes on the prize of your eternal reward, not the earthly ones. Suffer what you need to suffer, whether as an earned reward or a test. Suffer patiently and in silence. Give what God commands you to give, speak what God commands you to speak, be silent when God commands you to be silent. Do whatever God advises you to do one-on-one. Help those he explicitly directs you to help. And remember that not everything God tells you needs to be told to others. Most of what God told Jesus he kept to himself.
GOD’S PERMISSION
God’s permission is not God’s will: God’s permission is our free will intersecting with God’s justice. Doing what God permits is not the same as doing God’s will. Jesus didn’t say he always did that which the Father permits; he said he always did that which pleases the Father; he always did God’s will.
Satan does what God permits. Once upon a time (actually, once upon an eternity), Satan did God’s will, but that all ended with the rebellion in Heaven. Now Satan can only do what God permits: that’s his one and only job description. Satan and all those who follow him can only do what God permits. They cannot do more than what God permits, and you can bet the bank they won’t do less. They hate us and want only for us to suffer during our time here and then lose the reward of Heaven. No matter what they tell their human recruits when they’re enticing them into their ranks, Satan and his horde want only for us to suffer to the most extreme degree, ending with our eternal damnation. God wants the best for us and Satan wants the worst, which is why God strictly limits what Satan is permitted to do, as we see in Job.
God permits suffering as a reward for bad choices, but he also permits suffering as a test. He doesn’t will that we suffer; he permits us to suffer, but always with the proviso that our suffering, if we handle it righteously, will be to our benefit.
When God permits you to suffer, don’t try to avoid it. Don’t revel in it, either (it’s not God’s will that you revel in suffering; reveling in suffering is not a godly response: nor is boasting about it). Endure your suffering. Get through it. Come out the other side. Be silent in the face of God’s tests and negative rewards. If you have them coming, you have no right to complain; if you’re undergoing a test, you have no reason to complain, because “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called.”
God created evil and permits it to thrive only when and where it’s been earned. He doesn’t will evil; he permits it. He uses the forces of evil as a reward for bad choices and as temptations and tests, all of whose end goal is to bring us up higher. Even babies can be on the receiving end of evil, bearing in mind that souls come into the world already sin-stained. The only one who arrived here sin-free was Jesus.
TL;DR
God’s will is that we do what pleases him, like Jesus did, so that everything will be good for us. Jesus is our best and greatest example of how to do God’s will. But because not everyone chooses to do his will, God permits an earned and precise measure of evil to exist in the form of temptations, tests, and suffering, with the aim of bringing us up higher. God wills that we not only to come to knowledge of him – the ultimate good – but form a close and loving bond with him, like he has with Jesus. This can only happen if we do God’s will.
GUARANTEED BUZZKILL?
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 22, 2025 – The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is not convincing the world he doesn’t exist but convincing the world that sin doesn’t exist. In convincing the world that sin doesn’t exist, the devil created a disconnect between cause and effect, action and reaction, sin and suffering, crime and punishment. In so doing, he birthed the Age of Victimhood, whose motto is Thou Shalt Do Whatever You Want and whose symbol is an accusatory finger pointing at everyone and everything except back at itself.
When you take away the fundamental truth that the pain you feel is the pain you’ve earned, you’re left only with lies, and you can’t make sense of your pain if you’re basing your explanation for it on lies. You also can’t find a solution for it if you’re blind to its cause. There is no pain and no suffering that can’t be explained by the pain you feel is the pain you’ve earned, including pain that comes from tests and temptations, because tests and temptations are themselves a form of paying forward for the promised reward of a future pain-free existence, if you deal with the tests and temptations righteously, like Job did.
The most unpopular truth that will instantaneously lose you the most friends, listeners, readers, upvotes, etc., is the pain you feel is the pain you’ve earned. It’s such a guaranteed buzzkill for anyone who’s not ready to receive it, Jesus didn’t teach it directly but instead used phrases like “the measure you mete is the measure you get in return”. Even in softened form, this truth irks and in some cases outrages people who aren’t ready receive it.
As I mentioned, the devil has been very successful in making us believe we’re all innocent victims. If we’re innocent, then there’s no sin. If there’s no sin, there’s no cause for guilt; if there’s no guilt, there’s no repentance; if there’s no repentance, there’s no turning back to God. And this ultimately is what the devil is aiming for – keeping souls alienated from God for as long as possible, until they reach the point of no more return.
I know that if you’re genuinely born-again, you eagerly embrace the truth that the pain you feel is the pain you’ve earned. You don’t shun it; you don’t question it; and it doesn’t anger you. Instead (and perhaps strangely) it comforts you because it serves as a guide, like rumble strips along the side of the highway that jolt you into straightening your course back onto the road. You accept the unpleasant jolt as earned and so you willingly – even automatically – submit to it not because you’re masochistic but because you understand that God’s rod and staff are meant to comfort you through correction. They’re meant to comfort you.
They’re there to comfort you.
God corrects us by allowing us to suffer the consequences of our actions, and he does this because he loves us and wants us to come home. We can’t go home if we let sin separate us from God. And so he lets us know that the pain we feel is the pain we’ve earned, and he asks us to accept the pain, and submit to it, and get it over with, and learn whatever lesson we need to learn so that we don’t have to go through it ever again.
And he does all this for one purpose and one purpose only: to prepare our souls for Heaven.
“PRAY NOT FOR THIS PEOPLE”
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 10, 2025 – As born-again believers, we’ve been instructed by Jesus to love our enemies, which means we’re to pray for them and bless them even in the most egregious of situations, like when they’re killing us.
But what if God tells us specifically not to pray for them? What if he tells us to leave our prayers and let him deal with the situation in the way it needs to be dealt with?
I think of Peter rushing to tell Jesus that he’ll defend him to the death, and Jesus accusing him of being Satan.
I think of Jesus’ mother and sisters coming to “rescue” him in Capernaum, and Jesus refusing even to acknowledge them as kin.
I think of Saul ordering his troops to save (for later sacrifices) the conquered king and choicest animals from a city they’d just razed, and God condemning Saul for all eternity because of it.
God doesn’t want us praying for people he doesn’t want prayed for. He doesn’t want us protecting people he doesn’t want protected. He doesn’t want us rescuing people he doesn’t want rescued. What God does want (and what Saul found out too late) is our unhesitating and full obedience to him in all circumstances and at all times. So, if the spiritual status quo is the directive to pray for our enemies, we pray for them, but if God specifically says not to pray for them, you pray at the peril of your immortal soul.
God doesn’t want misplaced “love”, because misplaced love is no love at all. Love is only love if it comes from God. If God directs you not to pray for someone or for an entire people, you don’t pray for them, not one peep. You stand at command and voice your obedience, like the angels in Revelation stood in willing obedience while God delivered his terrible justice. You don’t badger God to change his ways and his laws, like the demonically inspired woke perpetually badger politicians. You don’t tell God he’s got it all wrong and this is the right way forward, the compassionate way forward, the “christian” way forward. No. You do whatever God advises you at any given time. You never question God, even if he advises you against loving and praying and blessing and sacrificing.
Because this ain’t about you and what you think is right, any more than it’s about the woke and what they wrongly insist is right. This is about God and what God knows is right. And if God says to you (like he said to Jeremiah): “Pray not for this people”, then you’d better not pray for them.
Remember what happened to Saul.
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Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and adultery.
(1 Samuel 15:22-23)
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Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.
(Jeremiah 7:16)
NO-ONE BUT GOD
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 10, 2025 – If you start with the concept that nearly everything they do, they do to kill you, then it all makes sense. They want you dead, though not necessarily physically dead: they want you spiritually dead, which means they want you worshiping the god of this world, like they do.
First and foremost, they want you spiritually dead, and once they accomplish that, what happens to you physically is of little concern to them. When I say of little concern, what I mean is that they want to keep you at least sufficiently functional that you’ll be able to spiritually kill others. That’s your job once you’ve been spiritually killed yourself, to spiritually kill others.
If you start with the understanding that they want you spiritually dead, then everything they do makes sense. There are no “good guys” and “bad guys” among those who are not born-again, there are just dead guys who are out to make everyone else dead.
You can only protect yourself if you truly understand this. And by protecting yourself, I don’t mean that you’re the one doing the protecting; I mean that you’re looking to God to protect you, and to God only, because God is the only one who can protect you.
Jesus well knew this before he started his ministry, which is why he left his family and friends behind and struck out on his own. He understood that even his family and friends were trying to spiritually kill him, though likely they didn’t know what they were doing. And there’s the rub – the devil uses people to get to you because he can’t get to you directly; you’re too protected. So he uses others, and he uses them in ways that appear to be good, even godly. In most cases, the people being used are unaware they’re being used. But you need to be aware they’re being used because that’s the only way you can put yourself under the full protection of God.
The worst thing that can happen to you as a born-again believer is to die spiritually. You must never let that happen to you, not under any circumstance. The devil is betting that he can spiritually kill you, while God is betting that he can’t. The same conversation the devil had with God about Job he’s having about each one of us, with God firmly taking our side, as he did for Job, and setting clear testing boundaries that the devil cannot overstep.
Yet for all his support, God’s not stopping the devil from tempting us; after all, that’s why he keeps the devil around. Tempting us is the devil’s sole purpose, and he’s very good at it, diabolically good, which is why we need God’s guidance and protection night and day. In fact, the devil’s so good at what he does, you don’t even know he’s doing it, he makes everything seem so easy and natural and right.
Our temptations, when they come, rarely look like temptations. They’re so meticulously planned and timed, they don’t appear to come from the devil. If anything, they seem on occasion to be blessings and signs from God, which is why we need to walk our every step with God. We won’t make it through our temptations unless we walk our every step with God. We should do nothing without first consulting God and then unhesitatingly doing whatever he says, like Jesus did. This is how we remain fully protected even while God is permitting us to be tempted by the devil.
If you’re a born-again believer, the world really is out to get you. Still, you don’t need to be afraid of the world or of the devil’s diabolical temptations, not while you’re under the guidance and protection of God. As Jesus reminded us, the most they can do is kill the body. Jesus lived that mindset during his ministry years, which is why he was bold and fearless in every situation, right up to and including the moment of his physical death.
So yes, even though nearly everyone on Earth may in fact be trying to kill us, we should fear nothing and no-one but God.
WHEN ONE MAN’S MESSIAH IS ANOTHER MAN’S ANTI-CHRIST
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, December 17, 2024 – They want us to believe that God is with them and that everything they do has his seal of approval, that their slaughtering comes from God and is his will. But if it did come from God, it would be like the whole Egyptian army drowned in the Red Sea or the destruction of Sodom. It would come in an instant, like spiritual rebirth. It would not drag on for years and take casualties on both sides.
When the devil does things, they’re grossly, almost comically, imperfect. He will say it’s God doing it, but you’ll know it’s the devil by its imperfection, by its awkwardness, by its drawn-out-ed-ness. When God does it, it’s done in an instant, whereas when the devil does it, it lingers. It waxes. It wanes. It never seems fully done even when he tells you it is. Even when he insists it is done and that he has achieved the unachievable. Surely God must be with this people to have achieved such an achievement!
But God does not leave you with lingering doubts, if you’re a believer. When God does something, you know it’s God who’s done it, if you’re a believer. You also know when the devil is doing something pretending to be God. This is the privilege of a believer, to know the difference. This is also the responsibility of a believer, to know the difference.
What we see unfolding before us is prophecy indeed, but not the prophecy they perceive. It’s a shame when one man’s messiah is another man’s anti-Christ, but so it goes in the realm of the Cains. If God has his hand in anything that is unfolding awkwardly and drawn-out-ed-ly before us, it is only to make an end of those who insist on calling themselves by his name but are not his. There are many now who insist on calling themselves by his name but are not his. From all sides, they call themselves by his name, but there is only one name that is above all names, and that name they either mock or spit on or reduce to a sidekick.
We stand and watch prophecy unfold. It’s a shame when one man’s messiah is another man’s anti-Christ, but so it goes. You can’t stop prophecy. They will rob, cheat, and steal and claim they have God’s authority to do so. They will slaughter and claim the same, but we know where their authority really comes from. We know who guides them.
We know what’s in their books.
When the real Messiah comes, he will come in an instant and be covered in glory, not in the blood of billions.
DADONAI
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 30, 2024 – Jesus isn’t called “Jesus” in Heaven. He also isn’t called “Yeshua” or “Isho” any of the other variations of “Jesus” in different languages that people around the world use to call on him. Scripture says that Jesus has a whole different name in Heaven that cannot be known to us while we’re still on Earth. We’re supernaturally unable to know Jesus’ heavenly name while we’re still here, though I’m guessing Jesus will share his heavenly name with us if and when we make it home.
We also have different names in Heaven. Those names are the ones that are written in the Book of Life, not the names that we go by now on Earth. The names we go by now will be forgotten by us when we get to Heaven. No-one is called “Mary” in Heaven (just like no-one marries in Heaven). No-one is called “John” or “Judas”. All the heavenly names are unique and one-of-a-kind, and no-one on Earth is ever called by any of those names. Heavenly names are for use in Heaven and Heaven only.
When heavenly beings come to Earth, like the angels, we call them names that they don’t have in Heaven. The names that angels call themselves here are not their heavenly names. Like with us, their heavenly names are used in Heaven only. On Earth, they may be known as “Gabriel” or “Michael”, but not in Heaven. In Heaven, they’re called something else altogether.
The language spoken in Heaven is also entirely different from any language on Earth. That’s why our names will be different in Heaven – they’ll be in a different language. Everyone in Heaven speaks the one heavenly language, including the animals. When I say “speak”, I mean communicate. You don’t necessarily have to speak in Heaven to communicate. The main form of communication in Heaven is thought transfer, which is similar to what we call “telepathy” on Earth. You can speak openly in Heaven, but most of the communication is by thought transfer, though even “thought transfer” is a clumsy way of describing heavenly communication. It’s more an instantaneous “knowing” than a process of transfer from one being to another.
God, of course, is not known as “God” in Heaven. That name is not used with him there. None of the names we’ve been told to call God are used in Heaven. We’ll forget all of them if and when we make it home, and we’ll call God by a different name. He’ll still be our heavenly Father, though. The relationship we have with him now – Father and child – lasts forever.
And our relationship with Jesus will be as a friend. That’s why Jesus told us, just before he went home, to call us his friend. All the beings in Heaven are friends, other than for God, who is everyone’s Father. So, in Heaven, we’re all friends and all children of God.
Being a friend is a much higher and more intimate calling than being a brother or sister. You might not be friends with your brother or your sister, but they’re still your brother or sister. You don’t have to be friends with your brother or your sister – you can even be their sworn enemies – but you have to be friends with your friends. Other than for the Father/child relationship we’ll have with God, everyone is friends in Heaven, and there are no unfriendly friends like on Earth. There are no phony friends or back-stabbing friends in Heaven. Just genuinely friendly friends, forever.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get home. Earth holds very little pleasure for me in comparison to what I know is waiting for me in Heaven, if I make it there. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not knocking Earth; it has its good points (the godly God-made ones), but Earth is as nothing compared to Heaven. You’ll see what I mean, if and when you make it Home.
GOD’S HOLY ANGELS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 27, 2024 – Earlier this fall, God had me attend church services again, and to my credit I at least didn’t storm out like the last time God sent me. This time, he mostly had me sit at the back and talk to him (pray) and read the Bible. Sometimes he moved me closer towards the front and told me to listen to the minister for a while. In one of my listening sessions, a minister mused about whether he’d ever seen an angel.
This got me thinking about my own encounters with God’s holy angels and about what Jesus says about angels – namely, that we’ll be like them if and when we make it to Heaven. And then I started thinking about all the times in the Bible where angels appear, and the circumstances of their appearances, and whether they appear as humans or in glory. This got me digging deeper into each of the angelic appearances in scripture, and before I knew it, God had me writing this article.
We know from scripture that we’re not to call on angels or to worship them. We’re also not to pray to them or obsess over them or be unduly curious about them. But we should be knowledgeable about them, since, as Jesus promised, we’re going to be like them if we make it to Heaven. This and this only (what Jesus said) is what drives me to want to know about angels. Note that I’m talking here about God’s holy angels; the fallen ones are not our concern.
Below is a list of the main characteristics of God’s holy angels. All this information comes either from scripture, from my own or others’ personal experience with angels, and from God and Jesus teaching me about them.
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SUBMISSIVE TO GOD: God’s holy angels are 100% submissive to God. Their complete submission to God means that God’s Spirit can work powerfully through them. God directs them, is the source of their supernatural strength, and enables them to perform miracles. During our time on Earth, we likewise learn to let God direct us, be the source of our strength, and enable us to perform miracles. In fact, you could say that since our rebirth, everything we’ve done revolves around learning how to be more and more submissive to God. This is how we’re preparing to be “like the angels”.
ANGELIC BODIES: God’s holy angels can appear to us in their glorified (heavenly) form or in human (earthly) form. The specific form they take depends on their mission and the message God wants to convey. Interestingly, holy angels never appear as females, whether in glory or in human form, despite their popularization in modern culture primarily as females. When in human form, holy angels always appear as males. When in heavenly form, they are neither male nor female but appear to have more the characteristics of a male due to their imposing size, lack of breasts, and obvious strength. God’s holy angels in their glorified forms are breathtakingly beautiful, whereas in human form, they can be quite ordinary looking. By ordinary, I don’t mean unattractive, I just mean they don’t have attention-getting looks. That’s because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. That’s not why they’re here. They’re also relatively low-key in manner when they’re in human form, at least the angels I’ve encountered are. In their glorified form, the angels are anything but low-key.
BFFs: If you’re born-again, God’s holy angels are your friends. This doesn’t mean you can call on them or hang out with them on a whim; it just means they’re not your adversaries. When God or Jesus sends them to you, they come to help you by doing precisely what they’ve been instructed to do. Only if you make it to Heaven will the angels be your friends in the fullest sense of the word, and forever. It’s comforting to think that we already have angel friends waiting for us in Heaven.
NOT ON CALL: Despite being our friends, God’s holy angels will never come to us if we call on them. They are not at our beck and call. They do not take orders from us. They only do what God or Jesus expressly sends them to do. Fallen entities, on the other hand, are eager to take orders from us, but they do so with the intention of eventually turning the circumstances against us. At no time and in no way will demons do anything for our ultimate benefit. Their mission is to tempt and spiritually destroy us, not help us. Do not ever call on angels. Do not pray to them, do not worship them, do not adulate them. If you call on angels, you’ll get demons. NEVER CALL ON ANGELS. I cannot stress that enough.
ENTERTAINING ANGELS: When God’s holy angels appear to us in human form, we won’t know at the time that we’re interacting with (or as the Bible puts it, “entertaining”) angels. This knowledge will be supernaturally withheld from us. Only afterwards will God (sometimes) let us know that we had an angel encounter. We can see this in Abraham’s interactions with the “men” who were on their way to Sodom, just before its destruction.
I’ve had interactions with angels a few times (that I know of) since my rebirth. You can ask God to let you know if someone you’ve encountered was an angel, and he’ll tell you, if he thinks you need to know. Interestingly, I’ve been mistaken for an angel on a few occasions, just by sitting silently at the back of a room or a church and praying. The people who mistook me for an angel were very disappointed to find out afterwards that I was only human.
INTERVENERS: God sends his holy angels to assist people on Earth, including sending them to intervene in situations or try to prevent people from falling for a temptation. I’ve had this happen a few times, where a “man” seemingly randomly showed up and interjected himself into a conversation or confrontation I was having, and then quickly disappeared. Again, at the time, I had no idea that the intervening stranger was an angel; it was only afterwards that God revealed it to me. I remember one instance in particular, where the angel was pleading with me to soften my harsh treatment of someone, and I can still see the deep sadness in his eyes when I refused to back down. I remember wondering at the time why a stranger would be so invested in the argument I was having (it didn’t appear to have anything to do with him) and I wished afterwards that I’d listened to him. But I didn’t listen to him, and I paid the price spiritually.
HIGHLY INTELLIGENT: Angels get all their power from God through his Holy Spirit, so they have an enormous breadth of knowledge and depth of wisdom that humans cannot rival. Even AI is hard-pressed to keep up with God’s holy angels and in fact can’t, as whatever God knows, his angels can be informed of, and God knows everything, past, present, and future. Still, there are some limits to the knowledge granted by God to his holy angels. For instance, the angels don’t know exactly when the tribulation will start or the world will end. Only God knows that.
NOW YOU SEE ‘EM, NOW YOU DON’T: God’s holy angels have an uncanny habit of showing up suddenly and just as suddenly disappearing. They do this whether they’re in their glorified or human form. They don’t send you their calling card and let you know they’re on their way; they’re just there and then not. It’s a good habit for us to emulate, being exactly where we need to be when we’re needed, and not being in the way when we’re not. This is a habit we can only form by being fully submissive to God and doing exactly as he says when he says to do it.
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These are some of the main characteristics of God’s holy angels. There are many more, of course, some of which I know but most of which I assume I don’t. As I mentioned above, I only know what scripture informs me, what God and Jesus tell me, what I learned from encounters with angels myself, and what I’ve learned from other people’s encounters. Have you learned anything about holy angels that God’s given you the go-ahead to share with us? If so, let us know in the comments below!
THE PREACHER
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 27, 2024 – The greatest preacher I ever knew never stood before any congregation. She didn’t have a YouTube channel or a TV show, and she never solicited donations. She had no degree nominals after her name, not having attended Bible college or even high school. I think she only went as far as Grade 7.
I never saw her with a Bible in hand, yet I know she had a Bible – a big heavy expensive leather-bound one with glossy pictures. She kept it on a table next to her bed. But more important than having a Bible, this preacher knew and loved God as her Father and Jesus as her Lord and Savior. She was unshakeable in her faith, though she never said as much. She never said: “I believe.” She never said: “I’ve accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.” She never said: “My faith is strong enough to move mountains.” She didn’t have to say those things because she preached them by her deeds and showed firsthand what loving your neighbours and your enemies looks like in real life. She didn’t preach the Gospel in words; she didn’t have to. She preached the Gospel by living it.
Of those of us who were blessed to know the preacher, we all knew she was a believer. She never hid her faith in God from anyone. But not all of us (at the time) shared her beliefs, and some of us mocked her for them. Truth be told, some of us tormented her for them, but she never returned fire with fire. She never told us we would burn in hellfire for all eternity, though certainly that was in the cards for us and would have been justly earned. She never tried to scare us into believing or warn us into believing or bribe us into believing or harass us into believing. The preacher simply lived her beliefs so that she and the Gospel were one and the same, like Jesus and the Gospel were one and the same and like all true believers eventually are one and the same with the Gospel, if they stay the course. I rejected the Gospel at the time, and so I rejected the preacher.
And yet, when I was born again, this preacher is the first person I told, because I knew that she was the only person who would not only genuinely care what had happened to me but would also understand what had happened. She’d only known me up to that point as an atheist but had never tried to force-feed me God’s Word. And then she knew me as a believer, and we became friends.
The greatest preacher I ever knew was my grandmother, my mother’s mother. I learned from her what sharing the Gospel with unbelievers means, and it almost never involves words. Here’s what it involves: Patience. Giving without expecting anything in return. Loving without expecting to be loved in return. Being kind to the unkind and gracious to the rude. Being ever-thoughtful and ever-cheerful. Keeping silent in the face of attacks, even biting your tongue if necessary. Speaking only kindly of the unkind and holding nothing against anyone. Being patient, and again being patient. And never ever giving up hope, no matter how bleak the prognosis.
If you look closely at these characteristics, you’ll see how they align perfectly with the Gospel message. The greatest preacher I ever knew preached the Word without saying a word about the Word.
This is how we need to preach.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 