Sunday School | Doctrine: Angels and Demons

You guys, welcome. We're glad you're here. We are in a comprehensive survey of Christian doctrine that we've been doing for over a year. Last week, to Todd's regret at least, we finished our ecclesiology. He was hoping we'd do more church polity. He's like the only person in the room who's like, give me more of that.

But today, we begin what's gonna be really, really fun, you guys. We're gonna be doing a series for the next—I don't know how long it'll take us, maybe five or six weeks—on Angelology, which will include Demonology. And I'm telling you, welcome to the rabbit hole because it's going to get weird. Not so much this week. This week's going to be more foundational. I want to establish a little bit of vocabulary as we do this, but angelology is not something that we preach a lot about or teach a lot about. For most Christians, whatever knowledge we have or think we have about angels is somewhat two-dimensional, somewhat cartoonish. But in fact, the Scriptures say way more than we have tended to notice, or tended to think about, or talk about.

I think probably because we are all products of the Enlightenment—we are all modern people—we're not all that curious, we're not all that understanding of the real biblical view. So we're gonna try to study a little bit here. We're gonna start, like I said, with relatively basic material this week, but I think there'll still be some surprises. Stick around over the next number of weeks. Although I will tell you now, next week I'm gonna be gone, and Will McLaughlin is gonna be in town, so he'll be teaching this class next week. But he won't be talking about angels. But then the week after that, we'll resume our study.

Vocabulary and the Nature of Angels

So when I say angels, one of the things that I want to accomplish this week is to broaden our vocabulary. Let's start like this. Can you think of it—just kind of run your brain through the Bible—and tell me: What is the earliest time you can remember in the Bible the mention of an angel?

[Someone responds: Garden of Eden, like defending it.]

Okay. So that's not bad. That's not the term angel, but it is the term cherub, and that's gonna actually be important. There's a cherub guarding the Garden of Eden. That's gonna be in Genesis three. Does that feel like the start to you guys?

[Someone responds: One.]

Oh, okay. I see you three and raise you one. What do you got here, Brad?

[Brad responds: The creation of the spiritual beings. Where does it say that in Genesis one?]

It says it in the heavenly lights. Isn't it a word that also means spiritual beings?

Okay, so this is fascinating. A normal modern person would read Genesis one and not see anything about the angelic realm. You're seeing the sun and the moon and the stars, which are flaming balls of gas and things like that. But you are absolutely right that in Genesis one, the creation here of these lights in the skies, you should read that in light of our conversation about angels. So yes, that's excellent.

There's one place though where that argument is gonna become a little bit more into focus between Genesis three and Genesis one. Anybody guess where that is?

[Someone responds: Genesis two.]

Genesis two, okay. So Brad, kind of in defense of what you're saying, take a look at Genesis two one, you guys. This might be the first time that it becomes explicit.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. — Genesis 2:1

Now you might have a sense, you might be aware that when you see the language of host, that is general—not always, but usually—that is talking about the angelic realm. Part of what I want to accomplish is help you realize that angels are not always called angels. In fact, the word angel means something. But when you see this language, I want you to hear this:

"Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne and all the hosts of heaven standing beside Him on His right hand and on His left." — 1 Kings 22:19

Very often when you hear this language of host, it's talking about some order of supernatural beings. We'll have much more to say about that in a minute. Look at 2 Kings 17:

"And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves metal images of two calves, and they made an Asherah and they worshipped all the host of heaven and served Baal." — 2 Kings 17

And that's something interesting. So the host of heaven is simultaneously this cast of characters of non-human, intelligent beings that serve God. But by the time you get to 2 Kings, the language of host of heaven includes the bad guys too.

Now, we're calling this out of the gate angels and demons, and I'm gonna try to parse that out to be a little bit. We're using that in generic language, but I'm gonna refine it as we go. But the host of heaven includes these supernatural beings who worship and obey the Lord, and it includes these supernatural beings who do not. Okay? So all that to say, when we see the language in Genesis two of the host, it is pointing back to Genesis one, the stars, these lights in the sky that the Bible is gonna continually treat. It's gonna use host language both in reference to intelligent beings that are good and bad, and also to the stars in the sky. Which is gonna be strange for us, but we'll see all this as we go.

Or you could say this, Nehemiah, you can go to Nehemiah nine six for more language of the host.

You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts. The earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve all of them, and the host of heaven worships you. — Nehemiah 9:6

You hold on to that, okay? Before we're all done, you're going to believe that I'm a polytheist. I am not. Okay? But it's going to get confusing.

What you want to understand is that when God made the world, He really made two worlds. He made two spheres of locations, and He populated them both. He made this world, the one that we're most interested in and most concerned with, and you populate it. But He also made heaven, and He populated it with the host of heaven. Now, a lot of stuff's going to go down, but when you see in your Bible language of host, I want you to think these are living, intelligent beings, spiritual creatures. And I'm gonna show you lots of different ways that they're named, different things that they're called.

Cherubim and the Garden of Eden

So that's Genesis two coming out of Genesis one. Gil, you took us to Genesis three. What's going on in Genesis three? There's an angel being. A thing. Yep. Good. Put in front of the Garden Of Eden to guard against any human to come back. That's right. Okay. So in Genesis three, we're gonna have new language. Take a look at this.

After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden Of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. — Genesis 3:24

Now, I don't want to overstate how much I understand this, but my best guess is that we could say that there are multiple species of living creatures, right? So what we call angels is—well, we'll get to angels in a second. Do you know what the word angel means? Messengers. You got it? It's not entirely clear if the word angel is referenced to a job description or a type of creature, okay. So it could be one or the other, and maybe somebody knows them, I just don't know. But this here, this idea of the cherubim, this is some particular kind of creature. And it gets described, not named, but described in Ezekiel one. Okay? So in Genesis three, we just found out, hey, there are cherubim guarding the Garden Of Eden. We don't really know what they look like, what they do, we just know the dude's got a sword. Okay? But by Ezekiel one, we get a vision of what they look like.

The Vision of the Living Creatures

I looked and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north, an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal. And in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance, their form was that of a man. But each of them had four faces and four wings and their legs were straight and their feet were like those of a calf and they gleamed like burnished bronze. And under their wings on their four sides had the hands of a man. All four of them had faces and wings and their wings touched each other and each one went straight ahead, they did not turn as they moved and their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man and on the right side he had the face of a lion, on the left, the face of an ox and also each had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out upward. Each had two wings, one touching the wing of another creature on either side and two wings covering its body. Each one went straight ahead and wherever the spirit would go, they would go without turning as they went. The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures. It was bright and lightning flashed out of it, and the creature sped back and forth like flashes of lightning. — Ezekiel 1:4-14

Now, at no point is the label "cherub" applied in Ezekiel 1. But later in Ezekiel 10, he points back to this and names them. So in Ezekiel 10, he says:

I looked and I saw the likeness of a throne of sapphire above the expanse that was over the head of the cherubim. And the Lord said to the man clothed in linen, go among the wheels beneath the cherubim. Wheels were part of that whole story in Exodus 1 that I didn't read. Fill your hand with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city. — Ezekiel 10

So I might be wrong about calling this a race, or a species, or some subset, but I think that's the most rational reading—that among these creatures, there is this particular type called cherubim. There's other names too, and we'll get to those in a second.

Questions about the Serpent and Other Beings

Harry asked about the serpent. The serpent was the great deceiver and obviously had to be created by God. It goes all the way back to the very beginning of Genesis when He creates heaven and earth.

The question is, what do you do with the serpent in the garden? We're gonna get to that. We'll lay the foundation for that this week. I'm gonna try to stay as much as we can on the good guys, and then we're gonna go super deep into the bad guys and it's gonna get absolutely mad. We will get there. But I'm gonna show you something now that I think is gonna catch your ears on the serpent, but not quite yet.

Catherine asked about the angel that took the burning coals off the altar and put it on the unclean wood in Isaiah 6. We're coming to that. That's Isaiah 6, and that's not a cherub. That's not of the cherubim. But we'll see what that is in a second.

Scott asked about the cherub on top of the Ark of the Covenant. Yes. When you see the creatures that decorate the Ark of the Covenant, they're called cherubim. But they don't have the forehead thing going on. So that's gonna be part of the complexity we're gonna have to unwrap.

Physical or Spiritual Beings?

My question is, do these cherubim or angels—are they physical beings or spiritual beings? It seems that at different points, angels are described as spiritual beings. And without question, there are times where they take on physical form. When the angels come to Sodom, they just look like human beings. They're just walking around like dudes. Whether they are like that at all times or not is honestly more than I know.

When we think of the spiritual realm, we tend to think that spiritual means non-physical. And I'm not sure that's necessarily the most accurate. I'm not sure the essence of spiritual is non-physical, but maybe it is. I don't know. You'll have more questions as we go.

Language and Terms for Supernatural Creatures

We have language of "host"—the host of heaven. We've got language about cherubim. We also have this, and this is gonna be maybe the strangest thing. One of the most pervasive terms given to these supernatural creatures is "sons of God." Over and over, the Old Testament is going to talk about the sons of God, which you might feel like—wait a minute, I thought that was us. But you guys, over and over again, maybe the strangest passage, and we're not going to chase it today, is Genesis 6.

The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive and they took as many wives as they chose. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old. — Genesis 6:2, 4

Or you go to Job. The setup for the book of Job is that there are these supernatural creatures—these angels—coming before the Lord, including Satan, which again, we'll chase eventually. But they're described as the sons of God.

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. — Job 1:6

Job 2:1 again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. This is one of the most tantalizing glimpses we get into a concept that is almost exclusively ignored in Christendom, and it's described most vividly in Psalm 82.

The Divine Council

God has taken His place in the divine counsel. In the midst of the gods, He holds judgment. — Psalm 82:1

This is one of those things—if you're reading through your Bible and you get to this, we all have a tendency when we find things that we don't understand, we just skip them. Don't skip it.

The Hebrew word behind "gods" with a little g is Elohim. So think about this: God has taken his place in the divine council—think boardroom. Think like the chairman of the board and all of his cabinet. Or you might think of the president and his regional managers. God has taken his place in the divine council. In the midst of the Elohim, he holds judgment.

How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and fatherless. Maintain the rights of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. — Psalm 82:2-4

God is having a meeting with his counsel, and he's rebuking them. He is correcting them. He's saying, you're doing a bad job.

I said, you are God's, Elohim, sons of the Most High, all of you. Nevertheless, like men—I.e., like human beings, which you are not. Right? You can't be like a human being unless you're not a human being. I said you are God's sons of the Most High, all of you. Nevertheless, like men, you shall die and fall like any prince. Arise, O God, judge of the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations. — Psalm 82:6-8

The sons of God is the primary language used for these creatures.

We're probably going to need to come back to Psalm 82 multiple times, but all I want you to get right now is this: there is one and exactly one and not any more than that Creator of all things. There's one God who created the heavens and the earth. There are lots of gods per the Bible. There are lots of subordinate supernatural creatures—you think of them as angels, or at least that's one term you use to describe it. The Bible describes a pantheon of lesser gods they are all subordinate to, they are all subject to the one Yahweh who exists. And some of them have done a good job, and some of them have not. Some of them will worship before his throne forever. Some of them will die. That is what's happening there in Psalm 82.

The Sons of God as Judges

God is the one who's doing the judging—the chairman of the board has his board before him, and he is rebuking them, he is condemning them, he is warning them of the judgment that they will fall under.

The sons of God are judging us, yes, for the time being. But this is where I want to start to refine my language. I don't know if they would call themselves angels, for angels are messengers. So we tend to use the term angel as the only thing we've ever heard of. So all these things are angels. And maybe that's fair, but I would say the sons of God are judging us. But at the final judgment, at the end of all things, we will judge them, which we'll get to eventually.

What is the basis of their judgment? If they're created beings that serve the Lord, what is the basis of their judging us? That's their job. That's their work to do. So in this universe, we have creation and we have fall. We have what ought to be and we have what is. The same thing is true in the heavenly realm. God created these creatures—I think we can call them persons, I think that's fair—with a job description. They have work that they are to do.

And then, as we will get to eventually, not today, there are two or three or more breakdowns of that—two or three distinct acts or moments of rebellion. Were these ones who were granted authority, given a role, forsake their role, fail at their job, abandon their proper place? We're going to see how that's all going to break down. And the biblical narrative explains they were given a good job, but they blew it, which is kind of exactly like what happened to us.

So is it then true that the people in Psalm 82 that he is bringing correction to are the ones on the wrong side of the equation? Yes. At least among the room here, in the boardroom, that we get a glimpse into. There's a couple of places, tantalizing glimpses, where the scripture will show us that boardroom happening, right? Just a couple. Certainly some, if not all, here are being condemned, are being rebuked, judged, and condemned. Yeah. That's happening here.

Okay. So this is gonna take forever. Brad, so if angels is not the proper term, is Elohim the Hebrew word that talks about all the spiritual beings?

Yeah. So probably in a way that would make us more uncomfortable. When I invite this class to—like, we're doing angels and demons—that was to make it palatable. It would probably be a little more accurate to say we're studying Elohim. Elohim as a broad category of supernatural creatures of which Yahweh is the Elohim of Elohim, and then you got this cast of characters: the angels and the seraphim—we haven't gotten to them yet—and the cherubim, the sons of God, the host of heaven. They're all Elohim. Okay? I'm not a polytheist. Okay. Let's keep going.

Angels as Messengers

So we got the whole Genesis six thing. Now we do get language of angels, language of messengers, right? So you can go to Genesis 19:

Two angels came to Sodom in the evening. Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom, and when Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth.

Later on, 19:15:

As the morning dawn dawned, the angels urged Lot, "Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city."

It might be the case—I'm not certain it's the case, but it might be the case—that angel is honestly kind of the lowest rank of the Elohim. They're the messengers, they're the delivery boys. They're the ones that are showing up to deliver stuff. Although some of the messengers are pretty exalted messengers; we'll see that.

Look at Psalm 103:

Praise the Lord, you His angels, you mighty ones who do His bidding. They are errand boys. They go do the things He wants them to do. And look at this: who obey His Word. Verse 21: Praise the Lord all His heavenly hosts, you His servants who do His will.

That tends to be the language that the New Testament picks up, right? When we—and it makes sense that when the angels, when the hosts, when the sons of God, when the Elohim interact with human beings, it's because there's something He wanted us to know. So the fact that we experience the messengers is maybe exactly what we should expect, right?

So in Matthew one:

After Joseph had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid, take Mary home as your wife."

There's just a sense of the angels are the messengers. They're the ones that are gonna deliver the goods.

The Language of the Holy Ones

So we've got language of Elohim, sons of God. We've the cherubim, we've the seraphim. We've also going to have language of the holy ones. This, I think, distinguishes the good ones from the bad ones.

Psalm 89 is going to say this:

Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones.

This time you might hear Psalm 89 a little differently than you have in the past, right? If you hear Psalm 89—"the assembly of the holy ones"—in light of Psalm 82, the divine counsel, that is probably the case we're talking about the same thing. Okay? Rhys?

Yeah. I have a quick question. Aren't there a couple places where the Bible uses the term "angel of the Lord" to refer specifically to God?

Yes. Okay. Rhys—okay. We're there too. Okay.

So Rhys is exactly right. So when we talk about angels, we're talking about this subordinate layer of Elohim—the sons of God, maybe members of the divine council, perhaps the cherubim, the seraphim. But there are a number of times, and we'll probably give it a whole week to this, where we're not talking about the angels, we're talking about the angel of the Lord. And almost certainly, when you see "the angel of the Lord," I think the first one's Genesis 16, but I might refine that next week—I think the first time we see that is Genesis 16—and that is almost certainly a pre-incarnational representation of God.

It may be the second person of the Trinity temporarily disguising himself in human flesh, unlike when he actually becomes a human in the incarnation, and coming and dealing with things. And the reason we think that is the language tends to bounce back and forth from, "the angel of the Lord says blah blah blah," and then it starts saying, "and the Lord said blah blah blah." You're like, hang on a second. You're not just representing Him, you are Him. But we'll do that whole thing. That's a kind of a special case where it's not the subordinate order, it's the actual Elohim of Elohim has come. So great catch, Reese. We'll develop that more in a little bit.

Question about 1 Samuel 28 and the Medium

Chris, I just had a quick question with First Samuel twenty eight with the medium. Is that kind of related to this? Because she uses the term Elohim as she's talking to Saul about what's approaching that she's scared of.

Yeah. And it's the prophet Samuel. So that's a human. So is that a good way to kind of bridge that it's not necessarily a God, and that you're therefore not a polytheist?

Yes. Okay. So Chris is asking the question. There's a scene where Saul, not Paul Saul, but the first king of Israel, Saul, goes to meet with the witch of Endor. He's all freaked out and worried he's going to lose his kingdom. And he basically goes to a medium and has like a seance to try to see what's coming. You know this whole story, this weirdness of the story? And the medium, much to her surprise, summons Samuel from the dead. She's got chains under the table. She's playing games. She's doing her standard kind of fraud, she's a scam artist, but darn it all, if somebody dead doesn't actually show up in her little crystal ball. And in that whole scene, we're going to have more to develop, probably give that some time when we get into and chase down what are the lessons we can learn from this now, looking over the edge into the supernatural realm, how does that work? But I'm not gonna chase it all right now. We'll do that.

The Holy Ones

Holy ones. You got Psalm 89, they're the holy ones. Later in Psalm 89:

Greatly to be feared in the counsel of the holy ones and awesome above all who are around Him.

So Psalm 82 and Psalm 89 both give us great glimpses into that thing. Or in Job 5:

Call now, is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?

All right. Common language. So I'm just trying to give you the terms as you're reading through your Bible. You see holy ones, you see hosts, you see sons of God, you see sometimes Elohim, you're gonna understand we're talking about this realm of creatures. Let's be very clear, they are creatures, meaning they are created. There's only one who is uncreated. He is over all. There are many gods—created gods—one uncreated God. All right? I'm not a heretic.

Question about Job 5 and Challenging Gods

Gil, can that language in Job 5 then be them saying, well, what God are you going to turn to? Like, are they basically kind of challenging him in a way of like...

Yes. So this is okay. So Gil's question is, like, when Job 5 talks about which God are you gonna turn to, here's how you've probably always imagined this. Okay? Here's your options. You can worship the real God who actually exists, or you can worship these fake gods who don't exist, that are just made up figments of your imagination. What I'm specifically trying to do is challenge that framing. That's what's gonna be a little bit uncomfortable. The way that the Bible speaks about these other, these fallen, these broken Elohim, is not that you're making them up, but that they exist and they are unworthy of your worship. You should worship the God of gods, not the lesser gods. You should worship the one who is real and holy and right, not these who have rebelled and claimed unlawful authority.

I know that's weird. I'm not going to settle it right now, and I'm not going to respond to this next thing. I've just got to let me run this thing. But that is, if you're going home today and you're like, "Wait, what are you saying?" That's what I'm saying. There's more going on than you ever really guessed. And the Biblical view of this—this is not some weird cult y thing—the Biblical view is that there are other real living creatures behind the vain worship of many people.

Question about Angels' Job Description

Bob, I'll give you this one, and then I gotta finish this. Besides being messengers for a job description, Hebrews 1 gives us, in the last verse, that they are ministering spirits for those who are going to receive salvation. Yes. So there's a lot more we will get into regarding the job description of these characters. Not only that, dude, Galatians is gonna go after the case that they are the ones who delivered the law. We could read Galatians, like, "What are you talking about?" and then just kind of skip by it.

We're not gonna skip by it. We're gonna go take a look at what did they actually do. We'll get there, but not yet. I gotta finish introducing the cast.

Chris? Quick comment. I've just googled Elohim, and it's referenced 2,500 times in the Old Testament.

Yeah. Well, and many times it is Yahweh. Very, very often, Elohim and Yahweh, we're talking about the God of Israel. But not all 2,500 of those, right? I mean, this is a lot. Okay. So keep going.

So, okay. Now when we get to Daniel, you're gonna get more glimpses into this.

I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one who spoke, for how long is the vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate, the giving over, all this kind of stuff happens. — Daniel 8

Daniel contributes something very significant to our understanding of this. For the first time, we find out the names of two of them. What are the two names that you know of these creatures?

Michael and Gabriel, okay? These are high ranking. These are like big deals, and they're actual people. So Daniel's going to introduce us to them. And it's not just that we have different characters, just different sorts of creatures, different things, but we found out there's personalities to them.

Then Daniel is going to start to use language not just of angels, but of princes. Do you know this? Do you recall in Daniel the Prince of Persia? The impression that we get is that these, the second order of Elohim have layers of jurisdiction, have regions of authority, regions of focus, and as Daniel kind of unpacks it:

The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia. — Daniel 10:13

And then down to verse 20:

Do you know why I've come to you? But now I'll return to fight against the prince of Persia. And when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come. But I tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth, there is none who contends by my side against these, except Michael your prince. — Daniel 10:20-21

What they're explaining is that there's all this stuff going on here, jurisdictions, authorities, human courts, human political enterprises, and there is a structure above it all of these, we'll call them angels, princes, sons of God, Elohim, that have regional authority, and there is disputes, and there's fighting, and there's battling here as these ones are exercising authority over that realm and exercising authority over this realm. This is unquestioningly the biblical view of the world. And I'm not making any of this up.

The Named Angels and Heavenly Authority

Now, so as I've mentioned, I got a couple more things I'll hit before the clock dings. Michael and Gabriel show up in Daniel eight, nine. You can go back and read. If you read Daniel eight, nine, 10, that'd be a good place to get an overdose of all this kind of stuff.

At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. — Daniel 12

Think about that. Michael has charge of your people. He's saying he is the governor of your region, is what it's saying, right?

We get that same sort of language in the New Testament when it says:

Far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given. — Ephesians 1

It's talking about the heavenly realm.

His intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. — Ephesians 3

This is what Daniel is talking about.

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. — Ephesians 6

For by Him all things are created. Things in heaven that we tend to ignore, and things on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things are created by Him and for Him. — Colossians 1

Having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. — Colossians 2

This is describing to us that there is an entire order of beings who have been given a job. We'll get to the rebellion, but there's an awful lot of rebellion here. There's real authority being exercised in righteous ways and in unrighteous ways, and it affects the world that you inhabit and see. There is an unseen world, there is a seen world, and we are given insight into the unseen world.

Maybe only one more category and it's simply that sometimes they're described not even as persons, but as horses and chariots, which I think presumes there's some kind of a personal being in that chariot.

Do you know that scene where Elisha's like in a battle and he's not sweating it at all, but other people are sweating it? You know what I'm talking about? Second Kings six, they're all freaked out and Elisha's like, dude, it's cool, man.

Don't be afraid, the prophet answered. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. — 2 Kings 6

And the guy looks around and is like, I think you're bad at math. And in second Kings six seventeen, Elisha prayed:

Oh Lord, open his eyes so he may see. And the Lord opened the servant's eyes and he looked and he saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. — 2 Kings 6:17

Because what we're hoping to accomplish here this week, next week, well, in two weeks and then several weeks later, is exactly what Elisha prayed. Oh Lord, open our eyes that we might see. There is more going on than meets the eye. There is a realm, a populated realm of living, intelligent creatures doing the will of God, rebelling against the will of God, affecting the world in this realm and we would do well to, as best as we can, set aside our modernistic understanding of reality.

We are all, everyone in this room, you are children of the enlightenment, and you can't be otherwise. But you are also Christians and you have been given a book that explains things that the enlightenment rejects, can't understand, will not accept. And you will have the opportunity here as we walk through this to decide, is ultimate reality best described and understood in light of what the empiricists can reproduce with a test tube, or what the one God who made all things faithfully describes for us in his book.

I'm going to invite you to go through the uncomfortable process of peeling yourself away from some of the modernistic framing that permeates every moment of your existence and to observe with fresh eyes this divine record of how the world actually works. Okay? That's what we're going to try to do over the next number of weeks. I think it's gonna be a ton of fun.

So read on, just look for all these terms that I've just used and we'll begin to kind of un flesh it more and watch how it all unfolds. Good enough? Yep. Alright.