The Judgment of Fallen Angels

Now I hope you brought your Bibles with you tonight because we're going to look at a lot of strange and wonderful things here in this series on the judgments of God.

We've come to this one about the judgment of the angels. And this will take us as we look through this at some of the mysterious and strange passages of scripture that many have puzzled over for many, many years. And I think we can at least find this interesting whether we find it enlightening or not.

I hope we've gathered one thing from this series on the judgments of God and that is that there's not going to be, as many of us perhaps imagine, just one great big judgment day when everybody appears before God and he just stands at the bar and he's assessed one way or another. He's counted with the goats or the sheep and then it's all over with and it's all one great big judgment day. At least we can be sure of one thing, can't we? That God is going to do his judging in a series of judgments that they all don't occur at the same time by any means.

Some of them are separated by at least a thousand years or more and that the only one thing that's common to the judgments of God is the judge. There's only one judge and always the same judge. And you remember the Lord Jesus himself said, The Father has committed all judgment unto the Son.

And so he's the one who's the judge in every case, the judgments that we've looked at. Now we've already looked at five of the judgments of God and we're coming to the sixth one tonight and then next Sunday night we'll have the last one, the great white throne judgment and what it covers and when it occurs. But now we come to this matter of the judgment of angels.

I was wondering when I was thinking through on this, if you had to tell somebody what the judgment of angels was going to be about and when it would occur and some of the pertinent facts about it, what would you say anyway? Do you know where to begin? There isn't much, you know, that's revealed in the word of God about the judgment of angels and I wonder how many of us in reading our Bibles through have made any notations about this matter of the judgment of angels. Well, you take your Bibles tonight and we're going to go on a escorted tour here of the word of God to see what it has to say about this subject. Now in some of the other judgments there's so much said that our problem is to cut it down so we can fit it into the time we have.

But in this case we have to do a lot of searching. There's a lot of verses that are not related necessarily one to another or connected together that have to be brought in in order to get before us this matter of the judgment of angels. But let's begin our search over in 2 Peter 2, verse 4. Here's a remarkable thing.

You remember, of course, in the New Testament that all the second epistles are prophetic. 2 Timothy, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Peter, 2 John, so on. All of them are prophetic.

They have to do with matters concerning prophecy. And here in 2 Peter you have one of the major prophetic sections of the Bible. And I wish we had time to talk about some of the other strange things that are in this short letter, but among them is this reference here in chapter 2, verse 4, which says, For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven other persons when he brought the flood upon the world of the ungodly, and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example to those who were to be ungodly, and if he rescued righteous lot greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the wicked, for by what that righteous man saw and heard as he lived among them he was vexed in his righteous soul day after day with their lawless deeds.

Now you see how he's been building up to a climax here. If this is so, and this is so, and this is so, and this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Now that's all one big long sentence, though we couldn't stop it anywhere in between, but its main purpose as far as we're concerned tonight is contained in the opening phrases here, for if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the judgment, then you see it's very clear that the angels are going to have a day of judgment, and we can be very sure when we talk about the judgment of the angels that it's going to occur.

Now you have another very similar passage to this, just a few pages on in the little letter of Jude. Next to the last book of the Bible, Jude writes about this same thing. In a very similar passage to what Peter has written, Jude says in verse 5, Now I desire to remind you, though you were once for all fully informed, that he who saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chain in nether gloom until the judgment of the great day. And then he too goes on to speak of Sodom and Gomorrah. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lusts serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Now here are two of the writers of Scripture that remind us of the judgment of angels, the fact that the angels are going to be judged. And when we come to this subject, we can't just assume that we know all about angels. I think we have to go back a little bit now before we come to the particular discussion of the judgment of the angels and talk a little bit about angels.

In the first place, what is an angel anyway? And how did they sin? What was the nature of their sin that encouraged such awful judgment? And when will they be judged? And who's going to judge them? All these questions come to mind when we get into this subject. Now let's see if we can take them one by one and find out a little bit about this strange and mysterious matter of the angels. Did you ever see an angel? I'm not talking about you fellas' wives.

It'd be very nice if you'd just speak up and say yes, but it'd make things easier at home. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about human angels.

I'm talking about real angels. Did you ever see one? The Word of God, you know, speaks about entertaining angels unaware. Did you ever do that? Well, I don't think I've ever seen an angel.

I remember as a boy, I used to pray, Lord, send an angel. I want to see an angel. And I told the Lord that if He'd send an angel, I could believe in Jesus Christ.

And I used to pray and shut my eyes and pray, Lord, send an angel, and I just would believe with all my heart that when I'd open my eyes, there'd be an angel standing before me. And I'd open my eyes, and there'd just be the cow. I was out in the cow pasture at the time praying, no angel.

And I was disappointed. And you know, I discovered that the Lord didn't intend to send me an angel. He gave me something better.

He gave me a naked word, a word of His that I could rest on. Because angels, you know, you just never know whether you're looking at a good one or a bad one. And so it wouldn't be very great assurance if you did see an angel.

And I thank God now He never did show me one. But what are angels anyway? I think a lot of people today have a tendency to classify angels along with the leprechauns and the fairies and Santa Claus and the elves and the goblins and other things, imaginary creatures. And most of the world probably tonight would, if asked point blank of whether they believed in angels, I wonder if a lot of them wouldn't just say, well, no, they really didn't.

But angels are different than fairies and goblins and leprechauns and elves and men and hoonies and all these other strange creatures. Angels really do exist, as the Bible tells us. They're a very strange class and order of being, greater than man.

And as we search the pages of Scripture and read some of the passages, which we won't have time to do tonight, we can see some of the characteristics, at least of angels. You recall one passage, we might turn to this one anyway. In the first chapter of Hebrews, we have a little glimpse at what angels are like, where the writer of Hebrews is speaking of the Lord Jesus and comparing him, or rather contrasting him to the angels.

And he says in verse 7, of the angels, he says, who makes his angels winds and his servants flames of fire. Now that's poetic language. It doesn't mean that the angels actually are the winds, but that they are like that, invisible, inscrutable, uncontrollable.

Angels like flames of fire, pure and holy and spotless, burning in the intensity of their being. And then back in verse 14 of that same chapter, you see another glimpse of the angels. He says, are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation? And there you get another glimpse of angels.

You know, there's something to this idea of guardian angels. Did you ever talk about your guardian angel? They say, you know, that the guardian angel gets off the fender of your car when you get over 85, and he won't ride with you any longer then. But we've often spoken of guardian angels, and there's something to that.

The Word of God indicates that angels do have some business with us in a guardian capacity. You remember the 91st Psalm that says, He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. That was spoken, of course, prophetically of the Lord Jesus.

But I think it refers as well to every believer in Christ. He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. And the Lord himself, remember, said of the little ones that believed on him, he says, their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

So that we can be sure that there is an angel, an angelic being, given the responsibility for watching out for us in some physical and material way. And you know, if our eyes could be open tonight, wouldn't it be interesting to see where the angels were here? I don't think they wait outside till we're all through. They probably come right in.

And we don't usually think of this place as being filled with any more, any other beings than human beings. But if we can believe the Word of God, it's doubtless true that this place tonight is filled with angels as well. And they are sent as ministering spirits, these strange and mysterious beings, helping us along in ways that we're not aware of, guiding us and protecting us and watching over us.

I recall a story that was told me many years ago by a missionary who spent many years out in China. I've never forgotten it. He told about an incident when he was on his way to another town and he had some kind of trouble with a brigand, a robber chieftain who lived out in the hills.

And he passed through this man's territory and some way had incurred the ill will of this robber chieftain. And when he came down into the other town, this man met him out on the street and he said to him, if you ever go back to this other village, he said, I want you to know that as you pass through my territory up in the mountains there, I'm going to kill you. He said, don't ever go back over there because, he said, if you try to, I'll take your life when you go up to the mountain area, to the mountain pass.

And this missionary said he didn't know what to do. He knew the man meant what he said. And yet he had to go back to the other village.

It was the Lord's work he was on. And so he had a time of prayer and he determined that he would go forth anyway, regardless, and trust the Lord to help him. And he started on his way and he had to go by about dusk.

He came up through this mountain pass and he was expecting at any moment for somebody to leap out behind a tree and stop him. And his life would be forfeit. But to his great surprise and to his joy, he passed right on through without a bit of trouble, came back down to the other village.

And a couple of days later, this robber chieftain met him on the streets of the village there. And he said to him, he said, you know, he said, you're a brave man coming back over that mountain pass after I told you I'd take your life. But he said, you know, if it hadn't been for the two men with you, I'd have killed you, sure.

And this man thought to himself, two men with me? Why, there was nobody with me. And when he told that, of course, he and I both realized that this was an incident of the ministry of guardian angels. Now, the word of God is full of angels.

It tells us they appear at times, they minister, they come and make themselves visible on occasion. They do the will and the work of God. And there is much reference all through the Bible on the greatest authorities in it to the existence and the power and the personality of angels.

Now, somebody raises the question, well, what do the angels look like? And, of course, most of us have seen pictures of men dressed in long white robes with great big white wings tucked onto their shoulders. Now, I don't know whether angels look that way or not. Maybe they do.

I've never seen one. I can't be an authority on the subject. I often wondered what it would be like to be an angel and not have a body.

And for many years, I tried to conceive of spirits without bodies. But that's awfully hard to get a hold of, that kind of an idea. Reminds you, you know, of the little girl who was sent to bed by her mother and in the dark room.

And her mother was startled to see the little girl come to the head of the stairs a little later and call down and say, Mommy, I don't want to stay up here. It's dark up here. And her mother said, Well, now, dear, don't you be afraid.

The angels will take care of you there. And you go back in your room and you'll be all right. And she went back in and a little while later she came out again and she said, Well, Mommy, I don't want to stay in here.

It's too dark in here. And her mother said, Well, honey, you know, the angels will take care of you. And she says, I don't want angels.

She said, I want people with skin on their faces. And, you know, we get that feeling sometimes. This is a rather weird thing, this business of having people around without bodies and spirits without bodies.

Well, you know, I wonder if it is necessarily true that angels don't have bodies. The more I read the word of God, the more I have come to the feeling that they do have bodies. But they're not visible bodies.

Perhaps like the body of our Lord after the resurrection, when he had a body of flesh and bones, not of blood, but a body of flesh and bones that he instructed the disciples to feel of, and yet he could instantly vanish before their eyes. Now, the body didn't disappear. He didn't lose his body.

It didn't evaporate into air. It simply became invisible, subject to laws that we have not yet discovered, things that we have not yet learned. And although scientists today are telling us that it's possible for objects to become invisible, even though they're very solid objects there.

You've all had the experience of seeing an electric fan turn on and the blades disappear before your very eyes simply because it obeys the law of motion, and you can't see it anymore, but it's still there. Now, angels have bodies. I think that's probably true.

But they're invisible bodies. They can make visible at times if they want to and for the purposes of God, but they're not ordinarily visible to our human eye. Now, where do the angels come from? Where do they live? These are some of the questions that come to mind when you think about these matter of angels.

And, you know, I don't know. I may have too vivid an imagination, but it seems to me at least that one of the questions which has been constantly bothering men for ages has been this problem of whether there's life on other planets or not. And you get a lot of pro and con about it, and some say the other planets are not inhabitable, and others say they are, and we wonder whether there is life on other places or not.

And yet, you know, when you turn to the Word of God and you realize that there are definitely great hosts of beings called angels, that they're living personalities, and that they have some kind of relationship to material things. They are seen in that capacity in the Word of God, that it's very likely that probably they inhabit one of the other planets. I don't see anything illogical about that idea.

Now, don't misquote me. This isn't scripture. I'm not saying that they do, but it's always appealed to me as a very logical possibility that the angels live on one of the other planets or some of the other solar systems that inhabit, that are in our universe.

It's incredible that out of the great, vast billions and billions and billions of bodies that fill the sky, that this tiny little dark planet is the only one that's inhabited. That seems to me incredible. And I think that we have an answer for it in the Word of God, in the fact that angels exist.

And where do they live? Somewhere, perhaps on some other planet in this universe. Now, one other thing the Bible shows us about angels is that they are a great company. Hebrews, you know, speaks of a great and innumerable company of angels.

The book of the Revelation speaks upon thousands and thousands and myriads, ten thousands upon ten thousands of angels. How many are they? Well, if they're guardian angels, there's at least as many as there are people, or at least Christian people in the world. And how many more? We do not know.

But the Bible over and over speaks of great companies of angels. You remember that fascinating story of Elisha and his servant, who you recall when the armies of Syria came out against the city of Samaria, that the servant of Elisha and Elisha were in the city and the armies of the Syrians surrounded the city. And as the servant of Elisha looked out upon this great host of Syrian armies, he became very frightened and discouraged.

And Elisha said to him, Now don't be discouraged. There are more with us than there are with them. And the servant looked at him with amazement on his face.

And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, open his eyes so that he can see. And it says that the servant's eyes were opened and he beheld the mountain around them ringed with a great host of chariots of fire and angelic beings. And then he understood what Elisha meant.

There are more with us than there are with them. Now, in the face of revelation like this, we can see something of the amazing capabilities of these creatures called angels. We know they're creatures of great power.

There's that story in the Word of God about the armies of Sennacherib when they came up against King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. You remember? Lord Byron has made a poem about it when the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold and so on. And you remember there it tells us how one angel in one night visited the camp of the Assyrians and 185,000 people, men, were slain by one angel in one night.

What tremendous creatures of power these angels are. We know they're divided into orders. There are five star angels.

That's the archangel, Michael. Only one of them. Don't ever refer to the archangels because there isn't two.

There's only one. Michael is his name, the chief of the angels. And then below them are what the New Testament calls thrones and principalities and powers and dominions.

Well, that's like saying generals and colonels and captains and lieutenants and so on, you see? They're divided up like that. And then, of course, there's a great, vast host of just ordinary privates in the army of the angels that do this job. Now, let's come away from these interesting pictures concerning the angels themselves and we could spend a lot more time on this.

They're such fascinating creatures. And ask this next question that we need to. How did the angels sin? Now, you know as well as I, I'm sure, that when Satan, who was primarily the chief of the angels, when he was created, he was the top dog among the angels, top man.

He was the one who had the charge of all the creation of God. And you know that Isaiah 7 and Ezekiel 14 tell us that, no, it's Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, excuse me, tell us that about the fall of Satan, how he took it upon himself to become like God. And the book of Revelation tells us that he drew a third of the angels of heaven after him.

Now, that's a great company. There are millions and millions of angels and a third of them is still a great, great company of angels. They fell with him.

And they, in some sense, came into relationship to earth. Now, we don't always know the full detail of this, but the Bible gives us this general picture. But now, these angels that fell with Satan are not the angels that Peter and Jude speak about.

Because Peter and Jude both speak about angels that are held in chains in darkness. They're not free to move around and to operate today. The angels that fell with Satan, however, are very free to move around.

These are what the Bible calls demons, wicked spirits. And Satan has organized them into a vast and terrible army, highly organized, clever and malicious in the extreme, tempting and tormenting and misleading and misguiding men, controlling the affairs of the world. And most of us are up against that kind of angelic activity.

That's what Paul speaks of when he says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world, darkness, against wicked spirits in high places. Now, those are the angels that fell with Satan. But now what about these angels, these angels that Peter and Jude speak of that are held in pits of nether gloom, he says, in pits of darkness, held in chains until the great day of judgment? What about them? Well, you get a hint on what their sin was in Jude where it says, And the angels that did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, have been kept by him in eternal chains.

Now, here's a hint. You see, they did not keep their own position, but they left their proper dwelling. And then he links with this the immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now, you stay with me, will you, in this because this is a rather intricate thing we're going to be looking at and yet it's a very fascinating subject. He tells us that just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise, likewise who? Like the angels did, you see. Like the angels acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lusts.

Now, this takes us back to a passage that has been a puzzling passage to many, many people for many, many ages. Back to the sixth chapter of Genesis. We have a passage that's been debated over and pro and con one way or another by theologians for many, many centuries.

And I don't suppose anybody is going to establish an answer clear cut on this. But it's a very suggestive passage. Let me read it to you.

Way back now in the beginning of the world, in that twilight period of human history, before men had spread about on the face of the earth. And it says in chapter 6, When men began to multiply on the face of the ground and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair. Now, I know there are those that take the sons of God here as belonging to the, are the descendants of Abel.

And the sons of men or the daughters of men here are the daughters of Cain. And they say this is a mixture of the line of Cain, Seth and Cain. Now, I've never been able to see the logic of that.

Sons of God throughout the Bible is a title for angels. You find it in Job. When the sons of God sang together, the morning stars and the sons of God sang at the creation of the world.

There you see the angels. And it says the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair and they took to wife such of them as they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be 120 years.

The Nephilim or the giants, as the old version says, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days. And also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them, these were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. Now, that's a fascinating paragraph.

We can't do any more than just briefly outline the ideas that are set forth here. And I've made a great long study of this and it's my personal conviction that this is indeed the sin that's mentioned of the angels for which they're bound in the pits of nether gloom. Angels who took the daughters of men as their wives.

Now that's unnatural. That's exactly the same type of thing that has occurred in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Unnatural lust.

And these angels evidently overstepped the bounds that God had set for them. They did not keep their own habitation, their own position, you see, but left it, forsook it, stepped over the bounds that God had ordained and married the daughters of men. And the result were these giants in the earth.

And it says in verse 4, these were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. Now, when you were in school, did you study about such ancient mythological heroes as Hercules and Achilles and Thor and Jupiter and Zeus and some of these other strange men? You know what they were? Those were demigods, half gods and half men. And much of the stories of these ancient mythological characters of course is fiction, pure and simple.

But back of the idea is a germ of truth. And you have a hint that here in this passage is an explanation of these strange mythological creatures that are back in the dreams of our race, back in the dawn of history. Every tribe and nation of earth has reference to these mythological beings who were demigods, half god and half man, who did such strange and remarkable and wonderful things.

And so that back of this, back of these myths that we're familiar with, is a very great possibility of an actual fact that there were these men and women like that. Men, mighty men, you see, the men of renown, men who gained a great deal of renown and fame as their exploits were told around the earth. Now if this is true, we have an explanation for the sin of these angels.

They had transgressed the bounds that God had ordained. And as a result, they were held in prisons of darkness. They're still there tonight.

They'll be there until the day of their judgment strike. Now when is this to come? Well, we must wind this up now tonight. The book of Revelation in chapter 20 indicates for us that the devil is going to be judged right after the millennium, after the thousand years.

Chapter 20, verse 10, And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. And we can judge that with the devil are judged his angels. We can presume that because you remember the Lord Jesus told us in the 25th chapter of Matthew that the fire is prepared for the devil and his angels.

So evidently, the judgment of the angels that fell with Satan occurs at the time of the judgment of the great white throne, just before the great white throne. Now in 1 Corinthians 15, you have another verse that seems to hint concerning the judgment of all these things, and that's in the great resurrection chapter. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 22, says, For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order.

Now here's the order. Christ, the first one, firstfruits. He was resurrected first.

Then at his coming those who belong to Christ. And then cometh the end, resurrection. When he delivers the kingdom to God, the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet, so that by the time our Lord turns over the kingdom to the Father, all judgment has taken place.

Now this helps us to fix the time of the judgment of these fallen angels. And then we have this one last question then. By whom are they judged? Now we've partly answered it when we said that that Christ is always the judge.

And of course he will be. The one who judges this. But there's a surprise waiting for us here.

If you'll turn with me to one last portion of Scripture, you'll notice in 1 Corinthians 6, the sixth chapter now, back just a few chapters, a very amazing statement by the Apostle Paul, verse 3. Do you not know, he says to these Corinthian believers, that we are to judge angels? How much more then matters pertaining to this life? Now this is an amazing thing. Paul tells us that we're going to be associated in this judgment of the angels. That we are going to be with our Lord and acting as his agents in this judgment.

And one of the things that thrills me about this Christian life of ours is that we have a job to do out yonder. God isn't just training us in order that when we get through here, we're going to move up on a cloud somewhere and get a long white robe and sit strumming a harp throughout all eternity. If that's your idea of heaven, you can have it.

I'm not interested. No, God has a job for us. A tremendous job.

It's the job that calls for the greatest insight and understanding that's ever been committed to man. You know what the greatest job on earth is? It's governing. Governing.

Because it calls for understanding and insight. That's why our Lord is the King of Kings. And the highest title he can have is one that has to do with his government.

Now the glory of this Christian life of ours is that he associates us with it. And he has put us here to learn the principles of government now. Now this is the thing that thrills me.

I spent a weekend a while ago up with a lot of fine college young people from all over northern California. Up at Clear Lake. And I was speaking on the Upper Room Discourse and on that passage there in John 14 where the Lord Jesus, just before he leaves them, says to his disciples, In my Father's house are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also.

And I was trying to bring out of that passage some of the things that to me were thrilling in it. First of all, this idea of the mansions. Oh, what a terrible mistranslation that is.

The Lord never said in my Father's house are many mansions at all. What he said was this. In my Father's house are many places to live.

Are many abiding places. And what is the Father's house after all? Is it heaven? Is that the Father's house? Well, now the Bible says that God's in his heaven. But that isn't the Father's house.

As you read the Scriptures, you find that the Bible says that God is in all the universe. He's everywhere. You can't go anywhere from his presence.

If you take wings and go to the uttermost of the heavens, there he is. If you go into the depths of hell, there he is. The Father's house is this vast, great cosmos of ours out there.

And as our Lord stood with his disciples out there in that night looking up into the brightness of the heavens above, he said, in my Father's house there are many places to live. Earth is one of them. We're here on this abiding place here, but there are many others out there, and I'm going out there to prepare a place for you.

And I think he meant it this way. Now, maybe this isn't right, but this is the way I take it. He didn't mean for you all, but for you, Peter, and you, Thomas, and you, and you, and you, and you.

For each one of you, I'm going to prepare a place. Now, maybe this is highly figurative. I don't know.

But to me it's thrilling that God's great dream is the dream of man to possess and govern and subdue this whole universe. What are we sending Sputniks out around the world for? Why are we unengaged in a race to the moon? Why are we dreaming of going to Mars and Venus and other places? It's because on the day when God created man, he said to him, Thou shalt subdue the earth and master it and subdue its forces. And he placed a dream within man's heart that he's never been able to forget.

And every time a man wants to climb a high mountain, it's in obedience to that command of God to subdue and master the forces of the universe. And that's why we're out there in space tonight. Now, God's dream for man is that someday he shall occupy space.

This great, vast universe of ours with its uninhabited planets its millions and billions of whirling suns, its great bodies out there was created for a purpose. God's purpose is to so train his people here that they shall gain in this little life of ours the understanding of the principles that will enable them to judge angels, beings of great and terrible power in the day when we stand in glory with him. Now, I submit to you that's a real challenge for Christian life, isn't it? There's something to do out yonder, you see.

We're to judge angels. And Paul says if we're to judge angels, then let's learn how to live down here a little bit, too, and learn to judge some of the simple matters of life that will be ready for the real job when it comes. It always reminds me of that statement in Jeremiah, you know, when the Lord said to him when he was complaining one day, he said to him, Jeremiah, if running through the little brooks in the springtime and splashing the cold water up in your face makes you catch your breath, what are you going to do in the swelling of Jordan? What are you going to do when the floods come roaring down out of the north? And if we can't judge the simple things of life here, what are we going to do when we judge angels? Now that, to me, is the greatest challenge in the Word of God, that I may so learn insight and understanding of the purposes and ways of God that when the day comes I can participate in this great job that the Lord puts into our hands with Him of judging angels.

Shall we bow together in prayer?