LIFE LESSONS
GABRIEL
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 1:18-21, LUKE 1:26-33, LUKE 2:8-14, LUKE 1:19
DECEMBER 8, 2002
In the Bible, there are only two angels mentioned by name, and those two are Gabriel and Michael. All of the major religions of the world affirm the reality and the existence of angelic beings. This is true of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, all the major religions of the world. According to a recent Gallup poll, 69% of the men and women of the United States of America believe in the reality and the existence of angels. 70% of the American people believe in angels. Of course, 30% or 31% of the American people do not. They believe that angels are mythological, and they view people who believe in angels as uneducated, ignorant, or foolish. This morning, for some of you, my words will seem uneducated, ignorant, or foolish because I believe in angels and I believe in the words that I am speaking to you today. These words are based on Holy Scripture, and they reflect the experience of thousands of Christians throughout history.
The Bible tells us that angels are real. They are spiritual beings of a higher order than mankind. They exist in the spiritual realm, which some would call the supernatural realm. They serve God. They serve God in the heavenlies, in the cosmos, in the universe throughout the creation. They are God’s servants. There is a great mystery concerning the nature of angels. We know that there is angelic order. The Bible makes it clear that there is an angelic hierarchy. The Bible tells us there are different types of angels. There are Cherubim and Seraphim. Most theologians believe that these are those angels closest in nature to God who surround His throne with worship as described in Revelation, chapters 4 and 5. But there are other orders of angels. The Bible tells us there are thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, and authorities in the heavenlies, and there are myriads and myriads of angels. And above them, there are the Archangels, which of course leads us to Gabriel.
In the Bible Gabriel is not called an archangel. In the Bible, only Michael is called an archangel. But Gabriel identifies himself in the Christmas story as “he who stands in the presence of God.” Clearly this is a being of great power and authority. In the intertestamental period, and particularly in the Book of Enoch, Gabriel, in chapter 9:20 and 40, is described, along with Michael, as one of the seven archangels. In the Bible, in the Book of Revelation, the 8th chapter, we are told that there are seven angels that stand in the presence of God. Perhaps Gabriel is one of these; perhaps Gabriel is an archangel.
This morning, we seek life lessons from angels. We seek life lessons from Gabriel. We will do this by examining our subject in light of the three functions of angels in the Bible. First of all, angels are messengers. The word “angelos,” the Greek word for angel, the word from which we get the English word angel, means, “messenger.” The Hebrew word “malakim,” the Hebrew word for angel, also means, “messenger.” When we come to the Christmas story, we see angels delivering messages. In Matthew, chapter 1, the Angel of the Lord comes to Joseph with a message. “Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son and you will call His name Jesus. He will save His people from their sins.” A message.
We come to Luke, chapter 2, and we see the Angel of the Lord again delivering a message to Judean shepherds, saying, “I bring you good news. I bring you a message. I bring you good news of great joy, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.”
We come to Gabriel, but the word archangel, “archeangelos,” literally means “chief messenger” or “ruling messenger” or “head messenger.” When we come to the book of Daniel, we see Gabriel appearing twice, both times bearing messages. We come to the Christmas Story. In Luke, chapter 1, we see Gabriel appearing to Zechariah and Elizabeth and announcing to them that they would give birth to a son, announcing the birth of John the Baptist who would be the forerunner of the Christ. Gabriel says, “I am Gabriel, he who stands in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring to you this good news.” A message; a message bearer. Of course, later, as recorded in Luke 1, Gabriel appears to Mary herself with the message of Christmas, the announcement of Christ’s birth, the Savior. Angels are messengers.
Two weeks ago, Barb and I went with a friend to the Bronco game. The Broncos were playing Indianapolis that night. That was our first time going to Invesco Field, the first time we’d seen it. We thought Invesco Field was very impressive. In fact, the thought occurred to me that the Invesco Field was more impressive than the Broncos were. It was a cold night and yet the Bronco cheerleaders were still there performing. They’re called the Pony Express, and why? They are called the Pony Express I’m sure in part because the symbol of the Bronco is a horse, but primarily they are called the Pony Express because the Pony Express is part of the history of the American West.
The Pony Express was a messaging system which existed and functioned in 1860 and in 1861. Messages were taken—mail, small packages—from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, 1,966 miles—a distance of almost 2,000 miles. There were 190 Pony Express Stations, each station approximately ten miles from the other. There were four hundred fast horses used by the Pony Express and 80 riders, most of them were teenagers. They were paid $100 to $150 a month, and they moved the messages two hundred miles a day. It took ten days for those messages to go 2,000 miles. The nation marveled.
But the Pony Express only lasted for two years because it soon became outdated. One hundred and forty-one years ago, the Pony Express ceased to function. Because of the Transcontinental Railroad and because of the Transcontinental Telegraph, the Pony Express became obsolete.
A lot of people think, “Well, that’s what’s happened to angels.” They used to deliver messages, but they do not deliver messages anymore. They have gone the way of the Pony Express. They appear to be obsolete. But we should understand that the visible, audible appearance of angels always has been rare. In the Bible, there are sections where there are two hundred years between angelic visitations. We should also understand that angels are in the spiritual realm, and they do not need to be visible or even audible to deliver messages. They can commune with your spirit. They can commune with my spirit. They can commune with your thought and with my thought. The Bible says, “Many have entertained angels unawares.” So they are message-bearers, and they function still.
Now, by way of life application, we should remember as the people of Christ that we, too, have been called to be messengers. The same message the angels bore that Christmas Day, the same message the angels bore that Christmas season, we are called to bear. The message of the Good News, the message of the birth of Christ, the message of the Savior, the message of the “euangelion,” the message of the gospel, has been entrusted not only to angels but to us, the church.
The truth is, the word “angelos,” the Greek word for angel, is used both in the verb form and in the noun form in the Bible when applied to Christians. You see, we are called to be angels. We are called to be messengers. I think the greatest sin of the church in the 20th century and now in the 2lst century is our failure to be angels, our failure to be messengers, our failure to take the gospel to our neighborhoods, to our place of employment, to our sphere of influence, to our communities, to our nation, and to the world. Jesus said, “You shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” We are called to be messengers. The big question isn’t whether angels exist but whether you are one. That is the big question. So, we have been called to be messengers and to bear the good news of the Gospel.
Secondly, angels are healers. Biblically, there’s little evidence that angels are involved in physical healing. Perhaps that is not their area. Angels are involved, however, in another area of healing. They are involved in the healing of the soul. They are involved in the healing of encouragement, the impartation of strength, the healing of damaged emotions.
In the Roman Catholic Church, the Feast Day of Gabriel is the day before the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. The title of Gabriel is “The Messenger of Divine Comfort.” That is what he’s called. Certainly, Gabriel gave comfort to Zechariah and Elizabeth, to Mary and to Joseph. Certainly, angels in the Bible minister in the healing of emotions. We are told in 1 Kings, chapter 19, that after Elijah confronted the 450 prophets of Baal in the showdown on Mt. Carmel, he was exhausted afterwards and he fled the wrath of Jezebel. An angel came and ministered to him, giving him strength and encouragement, ministering to his emotions and his soul. We are told in Matthew, chapter 4, that our Lord Jesus Christ, when He was tempted and He fasted for 40 days and nights in the wilderness, in the aftermath was exhausted and angels came. We’re told in Matthew 4, “angels came and ministered to the Son of God.” They ministered in a healing way, healing that gives strength and encouragement.
Of course, as Christians, we are not only called to be messengers but we, too, are called to be healers. We, too, are called to be encouragers. The Bible says, “Encourage one another and build one another up.” This is the call of Christ upon us, and every day as we rise, we should think of people that we can minister to, that we can encourage, that we can lift up.
Guidepost Magazine’s publishing company has published two books on angels, both of them called “Angels, Miracles, and Answered Prayer.” There is a story in one of those books that I read recently. It is a story about a woman whose husband was dying in a hospital room, and she was devastated. The tears were flowing because she loved her husband so much. They were soul mates. They were life partners. She didn’t know how she could possibly live without her husband. She was a Christian. He was a Christian, but she could not bear to live on earth without him, and she was distraught. As she was crying by her husband’s bed, a male nurse came into her room in hospital garb, and he had kind eyes. When he looked at her, she felt as though he was looking into her soul.
He said to her, “How are you?” She could not even respond. She just wept. This male nurse touched her, placed his hand on her shoulder. He said, “You are greatly beloved of God and your husband is greatly beloved of God. God has prepared a place for you both in His love.” He began to describe the beauty of heaven. His description was rapturous. She just began to be filled with joy and anticipation. This male nurse said, “Your husband is going there soon. He is going there in days. You will be going in years.” He said, “Remember when your husband said to you, ‘I wish I could spend twenty more years with you in this life’? No one understands that years in this world pale when compared to the beauty of eternity in heaven.”
When this male nurse left the room, she felt so lifted, so encouraged, so hopeful, so strong. Her faith had been so bolstered. She wanted to talk to him again and she went to the administrative office and asked for this male nurse. This was a couple of decades ago. She asked for the male nurse, and she was informed, “We have no male nurses. There are no male nurses at the hospital.” This woman believed and understood that this had indeed been an angel.
In the course of my thirty years in the ministry, I have read many stories like that. I have heard many stories like that. I have heard people share similar stories with me in my office in the aftermath of a loved one’s death or in a variety of circumstances in life. But, of course, angels do not have to be visible or even audible in order to minister in healing and encouragement because they function in the spiritual realm and they are able to touch our spirit. They are able to touch our soul. They are encouragers.
Well, finally, angels are guardians. The name Gabriel is said to mean, “man of God.” Of course, it comes from “geber El,” and El is the name of God. Geber is the Hebrew word for “man,” but it is not the normal word for man. The normal word for man is the Hebrew word “ish,” and geber really means “mighty man, strong man.” It comes from “gabor,” which simply means “power, might.” God is called Gabor El, and Christ is called El Gibbor, God the Mighty. We should think of Gabriel as “mighty of God.”
Angels do have power, and that power is used to guard the people of God. That power is used in spiritual warfare, not fully understood by us. That power is used in spiritual warfare in the protection of the saints. In Psalms 91, the Bible says, “He gives His angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways.” In the book of Daniel, angels are called “watchers.” The Hebrew word is a word which refers to military guards. There is a sense in which we should think of angels in that way.
I love the story of Charles Duncan Cameron. He was a British Consul to Africa in the 19th century. He was, more specifically, in the year 1867, the British Consul to Ethiopia, which was then called Abyssinia. He was taken captive by the King, the “Negas,” of Abyssinia, who is named was Kassa Hailegiorgis. This Abyssinian king had taken the title Theodore II. Theodore means “gift of God.” He took that title in his arrogance, and he incarcerated Charles Duncan Cameron in his dungeon in his palace at Magdala in the mountains of Abyssinia. He had no reason to apprehend him and incarcerate him. He just wanted to flex his muscles and show that he was not afraid of the British Empire, and he was not afraid of Queen Victoria.
Queen Victoria, when she heard of this, immediately demanded Cameron’s release. Theodore II refused. And so, Queen Victoria, in October of 1867, sent 16,000 British soldiers by sea. She sent the British fleet. It was an incredible moment in history. They came to the coast of Ethiopia and the 16,000 British soldiers traveled seven hundred miles overland, across the parched desert, in the midst of the hot sun until they came to the mountains of the fortress of Magdala. They arrived on April 22, 1868. When Theodore II, King of Abyssinia, looked out and saw 16,000 British soldiers approaching, he committed suicide. The soldiers met no resistance as they stormed Magdala. They took Charles Duncan Cameron from the dungeon, and they ministered to him. They ministered to him, they lifted him up, and they bore him on their shoulders, and they carried him 700 miles across the desert to the sea. Then they took him by ship back to England. It cost the British government $25 million, but the British government wanted to show the world that they had the will and the power to protect their citizens and their people and their ambassadors.
If you are a Christian, you have a dual citizenship. You are a citizen of an earthly nation, blessed to be a citizen of the United States of America perhaps. You are also a citizen of a higher nation, a higher government. You are a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and God has power to protect your soul. He has power to protect you. You might be thinking, “Well, He’s not doing a very good job.” You might be thinking, “Where are His angels? Where are these guardians?” Perhaps your pension plan has gone south with the stock market. Where are the angels? Where are the guardians? Perhaps you lost your job. Perhaps you are having a hard time finding a new job and providing for your family and you’re saying, “Where are His guardians?” Maybe your children are in rebellion, and you are just afraid that they are not going to turn out. Where’s God? Where are His angels? Where are His guardians? Maybe you have had children die, as I know some of you have. Where was God? Maybe your wife has left you. Maybe your husband has left you. Where’s God? Where are the angels? Where is your protection?
Maybe you have been told recently, maybe this year, that you have cancer. Maybe you have been told cancer is growing in your body. Where are God’s angels? God wants us to understand He’s with us always. God wants us to understand that even in the valley of the shadow of death, He does not leave us. God wants us to understand He loves us desperately. He loves YOU desperately, and God wants to give you hope to know and faith to know that He CAN heal, even physically, and He cares about this physical world, and He can intervene.
But He also wants us to understand that His primary concern is your soul. His primary concern is my soul. He does not want us to experience soul damage. Most of all, He does not want us to experience soul death. He cares about the eternal salvation of our souls. The angelic host is employed in this great purpose, the guardianship of our souls. Jesus Christ Himself, Son of God, is called the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls. Jesus said, “What should a man give in exchange for his soul? What does it profit a person if they gain the whole world and forfeit their soul?” It is all about the soul and the eternal life that God wants us to have.
As we close, I want to tell you a story. It is a story about a shipwreck. It took place on November 22, 1873, at 2:00 AM, in the middle of the night, in a transatlantic crossing. It is a story about the largest ship in the world at the time, the most luxurious luxury cruise liner in the world. It was a French ship called the Ville du Havre. It was on that night in the middle of the night, 2:00 AM, November 22, 1873, that the Ville du Havre was literally cut in two in the dark by an approaching ship called the Loch Earn. The Loch Earn just crashed into the midship of the Ville du Havre and cut it in two, and this great luxury liner, the greatest in the world, went down in twelve minutes.
Only fifty-seven people on that ship survived. One of them was a woman named Anna Spafford. Anna Spafford had boarded that ship in New York with her four daughters. Somehow, in the midst of that tragic night, in the midst of those twelve minutes, she had managed to bring her four daughters up onto the deck as the ship had been cut in two and the ship was heaving. The waves were coming over the deck. There was chaos. People were trying to get in the lifeboats. Anna Spafford tried to get her four daughters into the lifeboats but she could not because in the chaos everyone was thinking just of himself or herself. There were actually men who were pushing women away and children away so that they could get in the lifeboats. She was having a hard time just keeping track of her four kids and trying to hold on to them. She could not get them into the lifeboats. In just minutes it was too late. The ship capsized and the waves broke over in powerful force. She and her girls were swept into the sea, and she never saw them again. The power of the waves just stripped her youngest daughter from her arms. She never saw her children again.
Anna Spafford survived. She was picked up by the Loch Earn. She was hanging on to driftwood. She had actually become unconscious, but somehow she was floating. She was alive, but she did not want to live. She did not want to live because she had lost her four girls. The Loch Earn took her to Cardiff on the coast of Wales. She radioed her husband, who was a Chicago attorney. She radioed a two-word message: “Saved alone.”
Her husband was Horatio Spafford, this Chicago attorney. He had gone on the train with Anna, his wife, and with his four daughters to New York. He had seen them set sail, not realizing he would never see his four daughters again. He had felt something in his spirit, something that was not right. He could not put words to it. Though he had reserved wonderful rooms in the middle of the ship at the last minute since there was still extra space, he moved his wife and daughters to a room in the front of the ship. It is only because of that that his wife even survived. He got back to Chicago. He had promised that, after a few weeks, he would go to Europe and meet his family. He went back to Chicago, and he felt even more deeply that something was wrong because he found a note in his daughter Maggie’s playhouse up in an elm tree. She had written a note. “Goodbye, Daddy. I’ll see you in heaven.” His daughter had a premonition.
When his wife sent the wire, “Saved alone,” he realized he had lost his kids. He was a man of deep faith. Horatio Spafford and Anna Spafford loved Jesus Christ and now their kids were gone. What a test of his faith. He said to a friend, “It’s a privilege to be able to trust God when it costs something.” He took the train to New York, boarded a ship to go to his wife that he might comfort her. They would try to rebuild their lives. He sent a letter to his sister. In that letter, he wrote these words. This was after the ship had passed the spot in the Atlantic where his four little girls went three miles to the bottom of the sea. He said, “On Thursday last, we passed over the spot where she went down in mid-ocean. The water is three miles deep, but I do not think of our dear ones there. They are safe, folded, the dear lambs, and there before very long shall we be too. In the meantime, thanks to God we have an opportunity to serve and praise Him for His love and mercy to us and ours. I will praise Him while I have my being. May we each one arise, leave all, and follow Him.” What incredible faith.
But here’s something more incredible. When Horatio Spafford passed that spot in the ocean where his daughters died and where the Ville du Havre went down, it was there that Horatio Spafford, this Chicago attorney, wrote one of the greatest hymns of the Christian faith, a hymn that is cherished today. And it’s called, “It Is Well With My Soul.” You see, Horatio Spafford understood that it’s all about the soul. He believed that his daughter’s souls were guarded, and that they now were in heaven with Christ. He believed that his soul was guarded, and his wife’s soul guarded. He believed that his soul was guarded in such a way that it was well with his soul and his faith remained. And so, he wrote this great hymn.
As we close today, I’ve asked Marcia to sing this hymn for us that you might hear the words. I want to say the words for you, the words of the first, second and fourth stanzas. “When peace like a river attended my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot Thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed His own blood for my soul. It is well with my soul. It is well; it is well with my soul. Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight and the clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trumpet shall sound, and the Lord will descend. Even so, it is well with my soul.” Let’s just say a word of prayer together.