Angels are not mentioned in the Bible until the time of Abraham, the father of the nation Israel. In the Old Testament, they were assigned to Abraham’s offspring. Those who were led by the Holy Spirit (around 2/3 of the angels) were often used as messengers and ministers to the Israelites. In the book of Job, these angels are referred to as "sons of God." (Contrary to what many teach, these angels are not to be confused with the "sons of God" who married the daughters of men in Genesis 6:2. We are told in Romans 8:14 that "…as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." This is true of angels and mankind alike. However, in Matthew 22:29-30, when talking about the resurrection bodies of the saints, Jesus Himself gives us to understand that the angels do not have the need or ability of procreation. That the children produced by the union in Genesis 6 were "giants" can easily be explained by the "mark" put upon Cain in Genesis 4:15.) The other 1/3 of the angels are the fallen angels who were beguiled into rebelling against God by Lucifer/Satan. (This 1/3 were, and still are, used by God to test mankind through temptations and the like—Abraham’s seed included.) Because the angels in the Old Testament were assigned first and foremost to the nation Israel, the expression "another angel" is reserved to note when an angel(s) was assigned to deal with the Gentiles.

The term "another angel" is used ten times in the Scriptures. Its first mentioning is found in Zechariah.

Zechariah 2:3
And, behold, the angel that talked with me went forth, and another angel went out to meet him,

When read in its context, this "another angel" has to do with the judgment of the Gentile powers that took it upon themselves to add to the chastisement that God had decreed upon backslidden Israel, the "apple of His eye"—chosen in his friend Abraham. This passage foreshadows the latter days.

The remaining nine uses of the expression "another angel" are all found in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 7:2, the expression identifies the angel that is sent to seal the 144,000 of Israel so that judgment can fall on a perverse Gentile population that wanted to destroy God’s chosen nation. In Revelation 8:3, the term is used of an angel who had the golden censer filled with the prayers of the saints of the ages. This will be done to remind God of His promise that "Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19). Although about one-third of the Jews will be killed (weeded out) at this time, the two-thirds that are worthy will be preserved for the Kingdom Age. Also, the expression is used 5 times in chapter 14, all with similar application. In Revelation 18:1, the term has to do with the downfall of Babylon the Great, the seat of the world Gentile power. The only other use of the phrase is found in Revelation 10:1; and it refers to Christ who is the only One who has the authority to open the books and seals of judgment of the lost.

As to the Age of Grace and the New Testament Church, the four Gospels and the Book of Acts are full of the activity of angels, both good and bad. The good angels were busy helping Jesus establish His New Testament Church, while the fallen angels were busy opposing Him. In the Book of Acts, we see many instances of the Lord’s angels helping the founders of the new Church overcome the opposition of the devil and his crew of angels. And there is a word for you and I.

Hebrews 13:
1 Let brotherly love continue.
2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

However, we should note that only two angels were named in the Old Testament: i.e., Gabriel, the messenger angel to Israel, and Michael, the warrior angel for Israel; but none are identified in the New Testament. In fact, we have some dire warnings about angels in our age of Grace.

Colossians 2:18: (King James Version)
Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,

(The New American Standard Bible helps with the reading of this verse.
Colossians 2:18:
Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, )

Galatians 1:8
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

It is so sad that those who have filled the denominational pulpits have spent so much time promoting their division of the Body of Christ instead of the Word of God. If they had read these words to the sheep in their fold, then the atmosphere would not have been ripe for Joseph Smith and his erroneous teachings with its following of Moroni and other "newly-named" angels to proselyte their members. How sad that the Mormon Church is even in existence. It is a woe to mankind, and the church in particular, that the Mormon church has been able to establish what is probably the largest anti-Biblical teachings in history: i.e., ministering angels replacing the Holy Spirit and multiple marriages--all of which supercedes the saving knowledge and precepts of Christ Jesus. (It is interesting that the doctrines of the Mormon Church and other such organizations in the past few decades have such a fluid state for their doctrines. That is, whenever the mainline churches would point out a problem with their teachings, instead of fighting over the point, these groups simply incorporate some form of the accepted teachings into their doctrines.)

Throughout the Bible, the angels never drew attention to themselves nor would they accept the worship of man (Rev. 22:8-9). In fact, they have no acceptance of people trying to steal the place that belongs to Christ alone, with all of its accompanying glory (Acts 12:23). The angels of God heralded Christ’s birth to the world and they now minister to those that have been born again into the Kingdom of God. But this all has to do with the Kingdom of God in a mystery: i.e., the Grace Age wherein Christ is the Vine and each believer is a branch grafted into that vine. Of this aspect of the Kingdom of God, Christ said that those who were supposed to have inherited this kingdom had excluded themselves and that God had blinded their eyes to the glorious truths that should have been theirs (John 12:40; II Cor. 3:14). Do the angels no longer protect and guide the Children of Israel as per the promise to Father Abraham? This can be answered by Christ’s words on the cross: "It is finished." With this statement, the Door to the Kingdom of God was put back in its rightful context, which was always belief in God, not belief in a promise to Abraham per se. The Israelites by-passed God and started clinging to the promise He made to Abraham. How sad that when that Promise, which is Christ, walked in their midst, their hearts were so far from God that they could not recognize Him. Like the Mormon church, these Jews had no problem accepting an angel, but they had no place in their hearts for the Son of God!

(Now, as to a little child having a ministering angel until adulthood, this is another study. The Scriptures do say that God will be a father to the fatherless [Ps. 68:5]. This gives the strong connotation that the parents have the greatest responsibility because the family was the first institution established by God.)

But back to your question—in brief, the promises of God are the prophecy of the Bible. And because Israel is the central figure of Biblical Prophecy, the angels were assigned to Israel to help bring these promises to pass. As to the Age of Grace in which we now live, for the most part, all this was hidden from the Old Testament saints with wording such as:

Isaiah 49:6
And he said, It is a light thing that thou [i.e., Christ, the Messiah] shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

Hi, My name is David________

Thanks for taking time to WRAP with us.

As to LaHaye’s book, "Revelation Unveiled," it and other books like it such as Hal Lindsey’s "The Late, Great Planet Earth" and "Satan Is Alive and Well on Planet Earth" are probably one of the reasons for my "call." The understanding upon which these books stand comes from the footnotes of the Scofield Study Bible which was released to the public in January, 1909, and revised by Scofield and his team of consultants in 1917. This was years before Israel again became nation; and although Scofield's Bible was again revised in 1967, the editors seemed to have forgotten one of Scofield’s key footnotes that expounds upon I Corinthians 2:12-13. That Scripture reads:

I Co. 2:12-13
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

The following is from Scofield’s footnote…The unseen things of God are undiscoverable by the natural man…These unseen things God has revealed to chosen men…Let me say up front that I am not slamming Scofield’s Study Bible. In fact, it and the Thompson Chain Reference Bible are my two favorite study Bibles. I find Scofield’s notes on most things to be right on target. However, the notes on prophecy seem to have been "added on" as though the editors felt compelled to have say something to say about the subject. If my thoughts about the notes in the Scofield Bible are correct, then the foundation on which men like LaHaye and Lindsey must be incorrect.

Let me say before I go on into my comments that as far as the church is concerned, most prophetic understandings being taught today probably have little significance upon the church. I say this because God the Father knows when He will send His Son after His Church; and I doubt very much that he is impressed by the "expertise" of man, at least not to the point that He’ll change His schedule to agree with our ideas. Also, if we can judge from the churches’ failure to understand and share the good news that "Jesus saves" with the world; then we can pretty well deduce that very little study of prophecy is really taking place in the church world.

The Lord has impressed upon me, however, that the prophetic Word does need to be expounded at this time, if not for the church, then for those who will be left when the Church goes up to be with the Lord. This is simply because those who will be left behind will need to know what is in store for them and what they must do if they are to have any hope for their eternal souls.

The information on our web site is the product of more than 30 years of Bible study, 10 years of serious Bible research, and several years of writing and rewriting. Consequently, it is impossible to explain how my understanding differs from that on which LaHaye’s wrote his book in this short WRAP. My recommendation is, go to our on-line book THE CLOCK OF THE AGES and begin reading. If by the time you are well into the second chapter, you are not being blessed for your effort, then quit wasting your time. If, however, you sense that the Lord is in our efforts, then let Him bless you—and don’t forget to share our site with others.

Remember, DOweknow is the name of our cyberspace ministry; and it is more than a name. It asks the question: do we know? We understand that each of us can only understand in part; and if anyone reading this WRAP feels that they have understanding that we’ve overlooked, please feel free to share it with us and with our visitors.

Thanks again for WRAPPING with us.

Yours in Christ,

Here in cyberspace, I truly have seen a lot, and it is a powerful media, but the shining truth of the Lord Jesus, will not be quenched. Our spirits are in one accord and soon the scriptures will be fulfilled, and we will see him come for his bride. Oh, I look for His return. We are one Church, of one mind, and one accord, as those in the upper room. Let us pray for our brothers, that division, not tear them away from what God has planned for them.

I ask God to truly bless you and your ministry.

I have been sensing what you have put in words: i.e., that the Lord is unifying His saints. Not via church creeds or dogmas or doctrines, but in a heartfelt cry: "Come quickly, Lord Jesus." Pray with me that the True Church (i.e., the Body of born-again believers) will not only pray earnestly that Jesus will come soon—for the babies’ sakes, if for no other reason—but that they beg for the souls of their family members and neighbors as well.

Also, I sense a real need that we pray one for another. In the times that we are living, it could be easy to let our hearts be hardened by the over abundance of confusion coming from those who claim to speak for the Lord and by the bold parading of sin all around us that vexes our souls daily. Our times bring to mind the words of the Apostle Peter.

II Peter 2:
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

I thank God that He didn’t have Peter stop on this down note, but to go on with a positive declaration and promised: i.e.,

9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

By the way, I am curious how you found my web site. I say this because we are encountering a problem with some of the search engines. For over two years, our site could be found on or near the first page of nearly all of the major search engines when using trigger words that have to do with Bible prophecy. However, some of the engines have gone to a new system of placing sites on the web called the Open Directory System. Their logo is: "people do it better." So now, instead of the engines putting a site up because of its relevance, volunteer "experts" in the various categories are given a free hand to put the sites as they will. Can you imagine what someone who is devoted to one of the various denominations can do with this much liberty and power? (I thought about becoming an open director myself, but I doubted my ability to remain objective with the power that office wields.)

I’m telling you all of this because I desire your prayers in the matter. To reach the unsaved who rarely, if ever, use the Christian search engines, it seems that we need the secular search engines. The following is an E-mail that I have sent to the engines that have removed us from their first pages.

Hello,

My name is Don Love. Part of my family’s ministry is a web site entitled "doweknow.com". We have spent much money and time developing this site so that it meets the web’s criteria for the search engines and for content. Until the recent institution of the open directories, because our site deals almost exclusively with the concept of revelations and prophecy, it could be found on the first page of most all of the major search engines—yours included—under the key words that have to do with prophecy and revelations. For the key word "revelations," for example, we were and still are on the first page of search engines such as Netscape, Web Crawler, GoTo.com, Sprinks, AltaVista, Euroseek, Excite, Anzwers, etc. It now appears that some of the "open directors" representing some of the other engines have penalized our site by putting us "God knows where" on the engines that they represent. I cannot help but wonder if this was done because the director(s) do not agree with some things that we say. I also find it disturbing that sites with content similar to ours, but with opposing views, have now found their way to the top of the heap while ours has virtually disappeared. To me, this does not agree with the spirit and the intent of the Web. We have said nothing mean or malicious on our site, and we have done all within our power to agree with the guidelines you’ve set down for your engines. I will appreciate anything that you can do to rectify this situation.

I’m convinced that you are working toward having the best search engine possible with your open directory system. But let me suggest that putting an "expert" over a controversial area such as "religion" is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

Sincerely,

Don Love

From the tone of the responses that I have received, either the open director, or someone who doesn’t want to recognize the problem, is in charge of handling any complaints. To date, I don’t know how to get above them for a fair, impartial hearing.

AGAIN, PRAY WITH ME ABOUT THIS MATTER.

God is Good; and He is able.

Yours in Christ,