Haunted Cosmos - Concerning Angels

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

In this episode of Haunted Cosmos, Brian and Ben continue Season Two (gm) with a close look at the good guys—the fiery servants of our Lord who minister to his saints. Join us in this detailed look at the angelic hosts of the Most High God.Love Haunted Cosmos? Get access to our exclusive show, The Dusty Tome, early ad-free access to main episodes, monthly AMA's, and livestreams with Ben and Brian by becoming a patron of the show: https://www.patreon.com/c/HauntedCosmosBuy the Haunted Cosmos book: https://www.newchristendompress.com/cosmos PS: It's also available as an audiobook!This episode of Haunted Cosmos is sponsored by our friends at The Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast, great project hosted by Matt Whitman.  Visit them at www.thetmbh.com online.This episode is also sponsored by Private Family Banking Partners. Email them at:  [e-mail] — For a free book go to: www.protectyourmoneynow.net —or if you want to make an appointment to talk to a wealth advisor click on the calendar link here: https://calendly.com/familybankingnow/30min.This episode is also sponsored by Bible Discovery Television. Check them out at their website here.Support the show

This episode of Haunted Cosmos is brought to you by the 10-minute Bible Hour podcast, private family banking, write response ministries, Bible Discovery TV, and our supporters at patreon.com. Some thousands of years ago, on a sunny and arid day, a group of people sat in the bottom of a desert valley, surrounded by fortress hills on either side, mountains, really. They sat and waited. The riveting exhortation of their leader, an old man at this point, still haunted. over them, stirring and yet tinged with grief. Go and be what your God has called you to be. Go and be a glory. Though advanced in years, their leader had grown neither tired nor frail. He had led them through war

and through deserts, cross great lands and greater perils. In bondage, in fear, in trial, and storm, plague, war, triumph, loss, and hope, he had led them. And they loved him for it, for all that he had done. In spite of his stirring words, the mood was somber, even melancholy. And not just because of the weightiness of his charge, but also because of what it meant, of what they knew it meant. They knew what it meant, him standing there before the whole people, recalling the woes and triumphs of more than 40 years together, charging them to keep every law that had been laid before them.

It could only mean one thing. He was leaving. And so it was, after one final blessing for each tribe, Moses left God's people in the plains of Moab and ascended to the top of Pisga, across the valley from the pagan Jericho. The man of God had finished his work. He had run his race and he would go now into his rest, but not before one final earthly gift from the voice that had spoken to him from the burning bush. One final gift from Yahweh. See, years before, in the heat of frustration and anger, Moses had disobeyed his God. He had abused his power in unrighteous anger. He had abused his power in unrighteous

anger. For that the Lord forbade him from entering the promised land. But the Lord is gracious and kind, abounding in steadfast love, and so he gave his servant one final grace. He took him up this mountain so that he might see the promised land. He would never live within its borders on this side of eternity, but glory be to God, he would set his gaze on it from afar. He would hear it named after God's people by God's mouth, and so die in faith, having run in faith. He was 120, years old. And yet his eye was undimmed, his vigor unabated, his departure would leave a gaping wound of mourning in the soul of the people. For 30 days, they did nothing but mourn their desert father. But even as he lay down his mortal coil there on the mountain heights, even as Moses's spirit

was carried in great joy to Abraham's bosom, a battle was brewing on craggy Pisga. The archangel Michael was sent forth from God to gather the now soulless body of Moses. that it might be taken in honor where no one would ever find it, where no one might be tempted to dishonor the great man's body with superstitious pilgrimage or veneration. But another intended to lay claim to the lifeless body. Another came to collect as well, the evil one, the enemy, the devil himself. Jude 9 gives us a brief glimpse into the encounter.

But when the archangel Michael contending with the devil was disputing about the body of Moses, He did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. The devil wanted Moses's body. Michael knew he could not have it. And this was not the first clash between these two powerful beings. They had history. According to Revelation chapter 12, there was a time when war arose in heaven.

The archangel gathered his lesions and fought against the great serpent, Adam's bane, Eve's downfall, and drove him from the bounds of glorious life. casting the dragon and his co-conspirators through the stars and onto the earth. An aloud voice from heaven cried out woes to the earth and sea. For now the dragon would dwell among them in great wrath, for his time is short. What vendetta must the enemy have felt as he faced his great foe? What anger kindled in his darkened heart, what twisted malice. But whatever revenge he hoped to take would never come, for Michael cast the devil away,

not by his own great might or native strength, but rather by sheer rebuke in the powerful name of Yahweh. What must this have looked like? What forces of nature are moved when powerful spiritual beings contend with one another? Perhaps it was a dragon facing off against a mighty figure robed in glorious light like lightning. Perhaps it was storm raging against storm, vying for preeminence for this sainted flesh of God's meekest servant. Did the ground shake? Did fire fall from the sky? Did the trees cower and fear?

Did the Israelites in the valley feel the ground shake beneath their dusty feet? Or was it like a scene from an old spaghetti western? The hero stands between the foe and the victim, ready for blood? This scene, however incomprehensible it is to us, however far from our day-to-day experience, betrays one of the wildest truths about the world we live in, you and I. And here it is. God's world is at once claimed and counterclaimed by glorious forces of light and ancient, undying, malevolent evils all the time.

Every second, every square inch, all of it. This is a thing worthy of our awe and wonder. It is a thing that should fill our mouths in obedience to Psalm 75 with the wondrous deeds of God. In today's episode of Haunted Cosmos, we hope to peel back your spiritual eyelids and help you see God's embassions. battled cosmos with fresh wonder. What does it mean that the world isn't just stuff? Well, one thing it means is that God has set his hosts, his angelic armies around his saints.

He has sent his angelic ministers as flaming fires out to do his will. So you might say that today's episode is a survey of what theologians call angelology, examining the history of Christian study into these matters, and, of course, telling you some good stories along the way. In considering the rich history of angelology in the church, Let's begin with the early Christian fathers, the patristic period. Though beliefs of this time were varied and may even strike your ears as strange, there's some common denominators that have stood the test of time and scholarship,

still informing our view of God's angelic hosts today. The early church affirmed the existence of angels as distinct from humanity. Though they're seen to take seemingly physical form in the scriptures, they're a separate class of being, spiritual and immaterial, where man is formed from dust, a marriage of the physical. physical and the immaterial. They also affirmed some type of angelic hierarchy. They believe the angels were classified into different choirs or orders,

and that these orders served different purposes. They believe the angels were active servants that actively carry out God's providential plan. Some serve in this way before God's throne, some in the heavens, and some on the earth itself. They believe the angels were always worshipping God, even in carrying out duties that seem only indirectly related to his praise. they sought to model their own lives after this constant worship. Many of the early fathers shared their own accounts of angelic encounters,

believing anyone could be blessed with the gift of special angelic help and guidance in times of trouble or need. Underneath all of this, they believed that there were some angels who had fallen from grace, led by the devil, who were always seeking to tempt humans to sin and otherwise thwart God's plan from being achieved on earth. after the early church and patristic era, the medieval period began to take shape, typically defined as the period from about 500 to 1500.

As they considered the question of angelic beings, the great thinkers of that age focused intently on the idea of that angelic hierarchy, seeking to refine its implications and define it more precisely than the patristics did. And so the medieval belief in angelic activity in many ways began in alignment with early views, but went on to expand the doctrine into intricately detailed orders and hierarchies. Their view of this hierarchy relies heavily upon the 6th century work of Pseudonis, the Ariopagite, and other apocryphal writings. They posited that within God's hosts, there exist three major orders or choirs of angels.

Within each of these choirs, three separate types of angels resided. The first order, the highest, were always oriented towards God. This tier included the seraphim, the fiery ones. They were the closest to the divine presence of God and acted as guardians for His holiness. These angels are introduced to us in Isaiah chapter 6 verses 1 through 3, where the prophet writes, In the year that King Isaiah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim.

Each had six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Up next in the first choir are the cherubim, or as Ezekiel calls him, as he recounts his vision by the Chabar Canal, the living creatures.

They guarded the throne of God and have profound knowledge of his will. For example, from Ezekiel chapter 1, as I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were, gleaming metal. And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance.

They had a human likeness, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the soul of a calf's foot, and they sparkled like burnished bronze. Under their wings on all four sides they had human hands, and the four had their faces and their wings thus. Their wings touched one another. Each one of them went straight forward without turning as they went.

As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces, and their wings were spread out above. Each creature had two wings, each of which touched, the wing of another, while two covered their bodies, and each went straight forward. Wherever the spirit would go, they went without turning as they went. Last on the first tier are the Ophanim,

the thrones. They upheld the glory of God and were connected to his divine justice. We read of them in Ezekiel chapter 1 as well, traveling with the cherubim. Now as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction, their appearance was like the gleaming of barrel. And the four had the same likeness, their appearance and construction being as it were a wheel within a wheel. When they went, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went, and their rims were tall and awesome, and the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them. And when the living creatures

rose from the earth, the wheels rose. wherever the spirit wanted to go they went and the wheels rose along with them for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels the next choir consisted of three angelic types who assisted in carrying out god's decrees in the heavenly realm these angelic beings are largely pulled from apocryphal works to introduce them we'll quote directly from pseudo dionysus himself quote angelic virtues are named as the specific ministries through which signs and miracles are made in the world. And because of this, they're called virtues, vertutus. The powers are those angels to which opposing forces are subject, and hence they are named with the term powers, potestities, because evil spirits are restrained by their powers, potestus,

so that they may not do as much harm in the world as they wish. Dominations are those who surpass even virtues and principalities. They are called dominations, Damienates, because they dominate Daminaari, other bands of angels. End quote. This was from pseudo-Dionysus on the celestial hierarchy. Now, to give credit words, too, Dionysus does attempt to demonstrate these things in such passages as Ephesians 121 and Colossians 116, where Paul describes Christ's preeminence over all rule, authority, power, throne, and dominion.

The third choir is the one most closely associated with man. In obedience and worship to God, they assist in carrying out his decrees as it relates to the affairs of man, the visible realm. This choir consists of principalities, the thrones of men. These things oversee the nations of men on the earth. We see a shocking example of this in the book of Daniel chapter 10, a passage we've referred to already in season one of Haunted Cosmos. In this account, the angel that appears to Daniel to give him a message says he was withstood by the prince of Persia for 21 days before Michael the Arch Arcan. angel came to his aid. The Prince of Persia seems to refer to another supernatural creature that stands in opposition to God and his forces of light. Many believe Deuteronomy 32-8 provides

further insight into this office when it states, when the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind. He fixed the borders of the peoples, according to the number of the sons of God. Many think this part of the song of Moses is recounting God, dividing up his angels, some think fallen angels and some not, among the different nations of the earth. The next angelic type is archangel. The only two named in Scripture are Michael and Gabriel, but both are named in Daniel. Michael is also named in Jude and in Revelation, and Gabriel is also named in Luke. These angels act as special and very powerful heralds for God's revelations. Lastly, the type of angel that is called angels. These are

are considered to be the closest to man, acting as messengers, protectors, and guides to him. And again, say what you will about the medieval speculation and how helpful or unhelpful it is, but one thing they can't be accused of is a lack of intricacy or even attempted precision in their thinking. What a vivid picture of the unseen realm they give to us whether accurate or not. At least that's what they're attempting. Though a lot of this medieval angelology is disputed by reformed theologians, a surprising amount of it holds up. For example, the reform tradition cited here from Berkov's systematic theology, affirms seven of the angelic types outlined by the medievals. One of the dropped labels, the virtues, is dropped because it's only mentioned explicitly in apocryphal works.

The other label that's been ditched, which is Archangel, is due to reformed thinkers, calling it a subset group of the angels. No Reformed Theologian believes that archangels don't exist. Rather, they don't believe they constitute a separate class of angelic being. The other difference between the Medevals and the Reformed regarding angelology is that the Reformed tradition is slow to prescribe such highly specific functions to each angelic type, fearing the accusation of being presumptuous with the textual data. In short, the Reformed view is as follows.

The angelic ranks consist of seraphim, cherubim, thrones, powers, dominions, principalities, and lastly, the angels, God's messengers to man. Some of these angels did fall and act as demonic forces in the world. Their head is the devil. Their number is, for all intents and purposes, innumerable. Note, it's not that their number is infinite, but that we cannot number it. This means that we just don't know their number based on textual data. but apparently it's very vast.

They are spiritual and incorporeal beings. They are rational, moral, and immortal beings. They are, of course, created, though the exact time of their creation is disagreed on. Many, however, thanks to passages like Job 38, believe they were among the first things created, part of the heavens and the earth from Genesis 1-1. It's worth noting that modern liberal theology

has all but completely ditched and dismembered the idea of an angelic order. The rank materialism and moralism of Schleiermacher, for example, barely has room for the literal resurrection of Christ, and certainly can't affirm the virgin birth. So naturally, angels are among the first to fall by the wayside for the modern liberal. Read apostate. Bible Scholars. Yes, the word scholars is of course, air-quoted.

But this is not the end of the matter for modernity. In recent years, among secular spiritualists, there's been an uptick and interest for angels and angelic spiritual beings. Many New Agers believe in spiritual beings akin to those of the Eastern religions, such as the Babylonians, or maybe the Hindu, and others. Those moderns interested in sacred geometry and sacred sound believe the angels have a special knowledge of architecture and acoustics, that man can harness by communion with them. Recall our episode featuring Inakian Magic from season one of haunted cosmos. All of this goes to show that one of the great needs of the hour in the midst of these godless and materialist times we inhabit is to reclaim a robust angelology. We need to fight the materialist urge to forget what lies just out of sight, the unseen realm, the host of God, a whole world of wonder, terror, and spiritual battle.

In this episode, we will seek to do just that. to season two. Oh yeah. Of the haunted cosmos, man. We are so stoked to be here. And those of you who don't, you know, you're listening on your podcast, you're doing your normal thing, which is great. You don't realize that some people are currently watching Ben and I.

Yes. They're watching us. Live, but from a while ago. Live, but not at all live at all. Like in a very real sense, it's not live at all. And that's because we've recently added. video to the podcast. We're attempting to bring video to season two. If you're listening to this, and then you go to YouTube and there's no video, it's because we utterly fail. It's because

we're taking a stab at it. Yeah. And if it's really bad, we're going to just pretend it never had. Yeah, we decided that one of our principles here at New Christendip Press is that we like to suck until you don't. You have to start somewhere. Yes. And figure out how to do things poorly until you can figure out to do them well. So, you know, we started with pretty modest one camera setup here. We're hoping to add some more angles so that you can get like just a complete zoom in on Ben's face. Yeah. That's my main goal.

Which is especially good. Like today it would have been great because I'm weirdly breaking out on some of my, on some of my cheek regions. I'm sorry. Dude, it hasn't happened since high school. I'm sorry. Man, it might. It's probably the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, Bacroys we've been drinking.

Dude, it's all the estrogen. It's all the estrogen from La Croy's. That is so true. Anyway. Well, we are so glad that you guys have joined us again here in season two. And, and man, thank you for all of the love. from season one. I mean,

unbelievable. It was totally unexpected. Like, we really did think that this show needed to exist. We thought, there's too much completely crazy unhinged stuff that's like vaguely Christian out there in this space. And then there's this huge interest in the 14 world. Yeah.

But without any kind of Christian. And we're Christians. We know the answer to these things. Right. And so, or at least we have an infallible guide towards the answers, even though we're fallible. But, you know, we did not think that it would be how it's been.

I didn't think anyone would like it. Yeah. When I listened back to our first episode, I was like, no one is going to like this. They're like, well, here we go. And many people don't. And that's okay. So that's great.

I was right about some people. They leave us one star reviews. And we, frankly, leave them. Hey, leave the one star. They actually help us. Believe it or not. So. Yeah, they do.

So thank you guys so much. you've blessed us and we've been super encouraged. If you haven't already, there's a couple ways you can support the show. You can sign up to come a patron on our Patreon channel. We have a link in the description in every episode where you can go find that. And that's really how we add things like video and more angles and we can't do this sort of thing without your support. And there's a lot of great perks. You'd sign up for Patreon.

You get early access to hold episodes, you know, two or three or five at a time. Yeah. Yeah, so if you sign up for one of the two upper tiers, you get early access to episodes, and they're all ad-free. Yep. But every tier gets access to our weekly exclusive show, The Dusty Tome. Which we have fun with. Yes. And then a Discord server and a signal chat group.

Yeah. And we're thinking about maybe adding some things over time, like chat, like transcripts of shows. And there's all sorts of things we'd like to do. But we really appreciate that. We actually think it's worth it. I mean, if you sign up, it's like a $10 tier and up gets you early access. And, I mean, if you go and pay to watch one season of a show on Amazon, it's like $20. Right.

And, you know, so. Which we both do because. Let's be honest. River Monsters is there. Jeremy Wade is out there streaming. And biologist, Jeremy Wade. What a king. What a king.

I wish we could work him in somehow, but it's just nothing spooky. Yeah. Anyway, anyway. Well, thanks, guys. our goal for today's show opening season two is really no small task. And we know that there's going to be a lot of meat left on the bone. There's so much we could discuss here. And we'll continue to do further episodes, Lord willing, down the road,

looking at other classes of maybe different aspects of spiritual beings, maybe focusing a little bit more on like demonology and things like that. But like we said in the cold open, today what we want to do is help our listeners to reclaim a robust angelology in the hope of, again, the whole show our hope is this, but even specifically and particularly here, to re-enchant your day-to-day awareness of the unseen world, and particularly here the unseen hosts of God, and that serve him and also, like, wonder of wonders, serve his saints. Yeah, yeah.

Protect and camp around. I mean, these are glorious things. Part of the reason for this is that we've done so much work in season one talking about the wickedness of the unseen world and its influence over man's affairs. And I think that we have to be really careful with that, that we don't forget that there is a whole victorious, actually, section of the unseen world that is good,

that is glorious and beautiful and for God and for us. And it's amazing when you really stop and consider, consider what that means. It radically changes how you look out at the world. It does. Like the sun rising is a victorious thing. It's a sign of God's, it's a sign of God's benevolent dictatorship over all of creation that the sun would even come up again. That's awesome. And that's a servant. Maybe it's not an angel. Maybe it is, but it's a servant of God. It is a servant of God nonetheless, just like all of creation is. And so it's awesome. So we're going to aim to expand what you heard in the cold open. We're going to look at some different views of angelic beings through history.

And this is kind of a historical theology category. How did the doctrine develop through the history of the church? In different ages, the church had different tasks. It seems like figuring out this aspect, Christology, who is Christ, the triune nature of God, defending that doctrine, the doctrine of salvation later. I mean, there have been many, many tasks that churches had, theologically. And in angelology, we see a lot of continuity.

And then we see some interesting discontinuity that we'd like to examine and put on a microscope a little bit, critique, and also see what we can, what we can derive helpfully from these doctrines. And again, telling some great stories along the way, that's, you know, obviously it's Hanna Cosmos. Yeah, it's got to be top priorities. And some, some biblical stories as well as stories outside of scripture that are fascinating and also just demonstrate the importance of this doctrine. And maybe our listener right now is wondering, okay, why does this all matter? Why should we spend time?

It's a good question. On this at all, right? Because, okay, God, if we're going to take interest in the spiritual world, why not just only care about the all-seeing, all-glorious spiritual being from whom all things come, the eternal light? And of course, every single particle, every single aspect of the scene and the unseen realm, is to glorify.

God. All of it is to be a sunbeam that's followed back to the light of God himself. But that doesn't actually mean that we should not care about anything lower than that. Yeah, that logic wouldn't hold up at all. We wouldn't be able to do science. We wouldn't be able to, if you said like, oh, well, all you can care about is God, then why, we wouldn't, we wouldn't have cars to drive. Why would you open a restaurant? Yeah, we wouldn't actually, right? We might not even have fire, you know? That's a foolish thing. It's the praise and exaltation of the highest thing doesn't negate the necessity of studying and appreciating his work in the lower things. Yes. That's ridiculous. Proverbs 252 again, it's the glory of God to conceal things. The glory of kings is to search

things out. God was wise when he created and ordered the world. So we impoverish ourselves if we flatten the cosmos down and act like there is nothing else interesting to think or talk about. Well, God actually made it. If you want to obey and glorify God, you have to look at the world he made, seen and unseen, and care about it and want to think clearly about it and search out the glories that are there. And we impoverish ourselves if we flatten the cosmos in the spiritual world, too,

just saying, well, basically, let's act like the angelic world isn't real. Let's not care about that. It completely diminishes your potential view of God, too. Like, there's so much potential glory that man can think of. with God. And when we choose to just neglect a whole category of creation for this pietistic thought of having more space in our mind to think of him, then what you're actually doing is you're neglecting something that God made that if you studied it would actually lead you to greater appreciation in the way for the thing that made it. This is like, this is Dante's whole thing in

the Divine Comedy. That at the end of it, everything that he said in three epic poems points to the love that moves the sun and the other stars. He actually says, I just finished it last night. Yeah, that's cool. The Paradiso, so I have to say. I was shocked. And there's like a lot of like Mary, Mary stuff that I think is ridiculous, but it's still a beautiful poem.

But at the end, the last conto of the paradiso is the vision of God. And it's surprisingly short. And his whole point is like, no one can ever describe this. Yeah, what can you say? I saw this thing and all of my faculties failed. Like the beatific vision. Yeah, the whole beatific vision. My faculties failed.

And he had spent three poems building up his faculties so that he could see this. And then still, it was like everything fails. And so Dante's point is that you have to rely on things that humans were made for and in and by in order to describe the beauty of God. Anyway, this other thing I'll say, I'm really feeling it. So I started reading Burkhoff's systematic, his section on eschatology this morning, which is the study of end things, the study of the end of things. And he has this really amazing point.

It goes back to what you said earlier, that the church is made to lean in and be precise about different things throughout history. Yeah. He says that eschatology is one of those things the church has not yet had the bandwidth to fully address. And it's why I think that we are still in the early church. Yeah. Because the really early church was like nature of God, triune nature of God, Christology, dual nature of Christ.

And then it went into the medieval, which was a little bit fuzzy on what really it was for, apart from maybe ecclesiology, showing us what's good and what's not good about a robust ecclesiology. But then you had the reformers that was all about soteriology. It was justification by faith alone. It was what is salvation? And so they tended to rope everything into that. And anything that wasn't directly related, they were just like, yeah. Yeah. We'll worry about it another time. So I think that there's actually opportunity, just like in eschatology.

There's opportunity in angelology and demonology for the current church of today to actually leave our mark and say, no, we've done the work and we think that Christians should believe this. Yeah. It actually heightens your sense of God's glory. And when you're, often these things come in opposition to error. So there's all kinds of materialism in the air today. there's all sorts of sexual deviancy and craziness. There's a lot of tasks the church has now. Like, let's get our anthropology, correct.

Let's get our doctrine of creature creator. Let's get our doctrine of the spiritual world. Correct. So it shouldn't be a surprise. I think as well, people might be fear, especially as we start to unpack some of these things like, wow, it's glorious that God's hosts encamp around us people. We're going to talk about guardian angel,

the idea of guardian angels and evaluate that a little bit and how that might function. Tell some stories as well of how angels have actually, as servants of God, protected the saints and done amazing things. You might think, well, I'm scared to recognize the glory of the angelic world, the servants of God, not the fallen angelic world, but of the servants of God, because it might subtract or diminish from God's glory. but when you understand that, yes, God is the all-glorious one, but the things he created have their own lowercase glory.

Yeah. Right? When we say glory, at least what I mean by glory, my own little definition of glory here is it's the weighty goodness of a thing that is being and doing what it was made by God to be and do. It's the effulgence, the weighty glory of a thing being and doing what it was made by God to be and do. And so mountains are.

are glorious when they are mountainous. When they stand and act as these glorious pictures of strength and the mountain fastness and the stronghold and the heights and the peaks and ascending up, there's all these ways that God created mountains to serve, to even preach. The stones cry out, right? Man is the glory of God. Woman is the glory of man. There's all sorts of lowercase glory in the world.

Angels have their own particular glory. And I believe they differ from one another even. But we're supposed to be heartened by that doctrine, strengthen in our faith by it, and recognize if these created things are glorious, how glorious must be the one who made them. Yeah. Who breathed them out. How much more so is God beyond description in his glory. So, Ben, let's get started.

Let's open up those eyes of faith. Yeah. And I want to hear, let's start with this story. from the prophet Elijah and and and Elisha I'm sorry the prophet Elisha I'm so sorry that was embarrassing for me he's constantly getting this he's always like in the great cloud of witnesses he's like will someone get my name right everyone's always like I don't know if it was Elijah or Elisha and Elisha's like stop it was me all right let's hear let's hear the story of Elisha and the fire yeah so this is an amazing story that comes to us from the book of second kings the prophet

Elisha served as the chief prophet to Israel after his teacher, Elijah's assent up to heaven, which in its own right is just one of the most ridiculous stories in the whole Bible. Yes, so amazing. And as was the case during Elijah's ministry, the nation of Israel during Elisha's life was in turmoil. Paganism was running rampant. The people were utterly unfaithful to God, storing up wrath for themselves that would soon befall them in the exile to Babylonian captivity, actually. And yet, despite this rank apostasy of the times, God reveals his faithfulness to his people.

Not only does he send him a commissioned prophet, a spokesman of God. And Elish is giving them signs and wonders to show them, hey, turn from these powerless idols back to the living God. But he also makes clear to those people that do remain faithful, to those sheep that do remain a part of his fold in this time, that his divinely powerful host is guarding them, even in the midst of the darkness. And so we read this account, like I said in Second Kings chapter 6, and it begins in verse 8. Once when the king of Assyria was warring against Israel, he took counsel with his servant, saying, At such and such a place shall be my camp. But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel.

Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are going down there. And the king of Israel sent to the place about which the man, of God had told him. Thus he used to warn him so that he saved himself there more than once or twice. And the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled because of this thing. And he called his servants and said to them, will you not show me who of us is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants said, none, my lord, O king, but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom. And he said, go and see where he is, that I may send and sees him. It was told him, behold, he's in Dothan. So he sent their horses and chariots

in a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, alas, my master, what shall we do? He said, do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Then Elisha prayed and said, oh Lord, please open his eyes that he may see. So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. And when the Syrians came down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, Please strike this people with blindness.

So he struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha. And Elisha said to them, this is not the way, this is not the city. Follow me in, I'll bring you to the man whom you seek. and he led them to Samaria. As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, O Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see. So the Lord opened their eyes and they saw, and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.

As soon as the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, My father, shall I strike them down? Shall I strike them down? He answered, you shall not strike them down. Would you strike down those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master. So he prepared for them a great feast,

and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the Assyrians did not come again on raids into the land of Israel. Imagine that for a moment. Imagine being struck with fear at the sight of this enemy horde, ready to kill you, and in that moment of crippling fear, when there's nothing in your mind except the inescapable certainty

that you and everyone you love is either going to be cut to pieces and bleed to death at the point of a foreign sword or enslaved by your enemies. Both bad. Both terrible. And in that moment, you look up at your master, it's like a child looking up at his dad.

And he's totally tranquil. The master is just sitting there at peace and you say, what do we do? Do you not... Are you not looking? Can you see... Are you blind? And your master turns to you and says,

don't be afraid. We actually outnumbered. them. And you have to think yourself, okay, maybe he can't count, maybe he is actually blind. But then he prays for you and you open your eyes and what you see is a fiery host. You see

a mountain on fire. You see a mountain on fire, a blaze. And as you look closer at the blaze, you realize that within the fire are actually beings. And they are sent for you. This is a potent reminder for us today. We live in a world not unlike the

world of that servant. We have a apostasy in our nation. It's running ramping. Check. We have a visible enemy with seemingly limitless power and resources. We have that. But don't forget what he had forgotten. Even in those dark moments, God's servants surround his people with insurmountable strength. God is not surprised. His will will be done. All that will happen is what God commands to happen. Even if we're overtaken by the darkness around us and we die for our faith, that's actually our gain, Paul says. That's still because God wanted that. and it will not have surprised him.

If we're to live, his host will see it done. He will see it done. And that's a huge exhortation for all of us. Yeah. Lord, open our eyes. Yeah. Open our eyes. It's like, I love one of the last things you just said,

that even if, even if God wills, famine, nakedness, sore death, this is Romans 8. Where Paul's saying, you know, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Right. Absolutely nothing. God is for us who can be. We're more than conquerors to Christ our Lord. What does he mean? He doesn't mean that therefore there will never be famine, nakedness, or peril, any of these things.

It's like, look at the Hall of Faith. Look at Hebrews 11. It's literally full of all those things. The point is that God is enslaving even those evils to serve his ultimate will, such that when we stand back at the end of all things, when we stand back and we look at the finished thing God was doing through even death and peril and famine and sword and nakedness and destruction, we will say, glory be to God. There was no other way.

There was no other way. There was no other path to greatest glory than that way that went through the valley of the shadow of death. Yeah. You can get into a very legit debate about superlapsarian and infarabcerian stuff. And if you don't know what that is, just Google. Yeah, like this is haunted cosmos, not like seminary.

Yeah. Just look that up. This is a podcast about Sasquatch. I mean, let's be honest. Let's calm down. We just said infaropsarian. and super loss. Whoa.

But you'll see what I mean if you look that up. It's all about like pre-fall versus post-fall stuff. Yeah. Logical ordering of God's decrees. Yeah. One of the things that just completely wrecks me every time I think about it. And it really got me when I came around to reform theology is that God decreed everything that came to pass. And he did it for one reason.

And it is to bring himself the utmost glory. And that also includes the utmost good for his people. It includes all that. But we think about, okay, if we have. the question, what can I do today that would bring God the utmost glory? We're normally thinking things like, I'm going to be kind to my wife and kids. I'm going to go lay my life down on the cross of hard work and provide for them. And I'm going to be gentle and all those great things. What God did, in my opinion, and this is a reform take, is God sat back and said, what's going to

bring myself the most glory in eternity past? He asked this question. And part of the answer was, I know, I'll go suffer and die. I will go suffer and die for those people. For those little things that I am infinitely better than. And that is unbelievable. And when you realize, that means that God is, he puts his money where his mouth is to the utmost. This is why Christ is a good high priest

that can relate to all of our frailties and temptations is because he became one of us and suffered through them and yet was sinless. So in this story of all, Elijah. We have his eyes being open to see these unseen hosts that no one else knew about. And then God did well that they would act and protect his will and his people. And one thing that struck me as I was considering this story's biblical account is a story that I'd heard before from a guy from a missionary, from a modern mission, well, 19th century

missionary named John Patton. I don't know if you're familiar at John. John G. Patton. He was a missionary to the New Hebrides, which is an island in the South Pacific. And he was a very, very dangerous place to go, unreached people group. And he made it his mission to go and establish, you know, basically a missionary center there, aiming to bring not just Christianity, but also the effects of Christianity, education, ending of some really horrible slave practices, slavery practices that existed in this area. And so John Patton goes there. And I've heard this story many times. I've tried to track down

the primary sources and figured out. It's one of those stories that's like you hear it all over the place. It's really hard to nail down because it's a personal anecdote. There's obviously not, you can't put it in a test tube. You can't like play back the 4K footage from the 1850s or 1860s. But he tells this story of a night when this unconverted tribe had determined that they were going to kill them. They were going to break into the compound, kill his wife, kill him, basically say, no, no, no, your God can't, you're not allowed to be here. This is our place. We're going to do our thing. And John Patton and his wife, the story goes essentially, just basically knelt and prayed all night. You're like, well, Lord, we're going to die. Yeah. If, unless you do something, we're basically going to

die. And they continue to pray through the night and they were surprised when morning came and there was no sun came up. Here they were. They looked out their door and there's nobody there. These tribes men had gone for no reason. There's no like fight. They didn't start shooting at them or threatening them or saying like, you know, you, you savages go away. There were, there was none of that. It was like, they just prayed. And about a year later, the story goes, the tribes tribesmen were converted, their chief was converted and they converted to Christianity.

And Patton is, he's talking to the chief and he says, do you remember like a year ago, you were all, it seemed ready to come and kill us? What happened? And the chief supposed, okay, like I know, I know, listen, guys, I know, I know, 18th century,

journalism, whatever. But the story goes that he said, well, we were going to do it, but there were all those men there. There were dozens of, like, armed men, swords. And we didn't know where they came from, but we kind of looked and went, I guess we don't kill the Christians today. And John Patton's like, those were angels. There's no.

It reminds me of this story, though, because Patton didn't even see it. And there's some other versions of a story. but in this account, I look at that and I say, whether, I'm not 100% uncertain this historically happened. I think there's a good chance that it did. But personal anecdote, there's always doubt. If it did, there is nothing in that story that is inconsistent with the biblical data. Right.

That's the part of it that makes me go, when we get really skeptical and we go, oh, that there's no way. There's no way. That's some 1850s guys making stuff up, blah, blah, blah. But there's actually nothing implausible biblically about that story. Right. If God decided that the way he was going to save, the tribesmen of the New Hebrides in the South Pacific, was he was going to allow his servants to almost be killed. And then he was going to send some angels and say, not today.

Yeah. And then he was going to demonstrate his glory that way. God can do that. I mean, look, look what he did with Elisha. Congratulations, Unreached People groups. You will be Christians. You're Christians. Yeah.

It's like, did you see that meme recently that's like, oh, all of you, moderns who are like all of a sudden converting to Nordic pagan? You should follow the great tradition of the Nordic pagans and convert to Christianity. Just give them a minute. You just go full bonifism. Congratulations. The human sacrifice will stop. This stops today.

This stops today. In the name of Jesus. You're welcome. Or in India. No more Satee. No more burning widows on the pyre of their dead husband. No, that's, this ends today. Speaking of burning.

Brian and I are pretty blessed guys. I mean, we get to make this podcast together for all of you. and because of that, we get introduced to a lot of really amazing other podcasts. One of those that we've come to know and love is the 10-minute Bible Hour podcast. That's right, Ben. The 10-minute Bible Hour podcast is hosted by our friend Matt Whitman. In this project, he's got going, it really is awesome. His passion for God's Word has driven him to release an episode every weekday morning. That's insane.

You heard us right, every weekday morning, where he goes through whole books of the Bible in single episode summaries or multiple episode series. And he breaks the Bible down quickly and concisely, keeping the episodes short, I mean, it is called the 10-minute Bible Hour, and very easy to digest. The 10-minute Bible Hour podcast is a great way to make fun, deep-dive Bible study a part of your daily rhythm.

And you can find the 10-minute Bible Hour podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you prefer to get your shows. Or better yet, go to www.v.v.com. That's thetmbh.com, and there's a link in the description for that, by the way, to find all of the 10-minute Bible Hour podcast episodes. While you're there, tell Matt that we said hello. Cheers.

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Yes. Speaking of not burning people. Okay. I promise. No, one of the things that struck me about the Elisha story, I don't have one of those really cool off-the-cuff. I prepared that. I just said, I could be like, Ben.

It was amazing. That was amazing. Patton sounds like a Chad King. But the thing that really strikes me, and it strikes me all the time when I look into angels is that they're described as fiery. They're described as burning. Even the cherubim,

they like come out of the fire as burnished bronze, it says, which is amazing. And we so often just immediately associate fire with bad. Like fire is evil, fires. You know, like hell is the pain. And it is. It's the pains of hell fire. That is a bad thing.

but fire is a holy refining thing. That's right. It refines a thing to make it holy. Yes. So to think of an angel as fiery means that it's a holy thing. It's set apart. And anyway, where I'm going with that is that it says that the mountains were covered in the host of God, and it was like a fiery host.

And the Hebrew word that's often used for fiery is seraph. And it's where we get the word seraphim, because it describes these beings. Fiery beings. Not necessarily these in this story, but as some, of God's hosts as seraphim, fiery ones, the fiery ones. But the crazy thing is that it also is the word for serpent. Interesting. So when you get in, I believe it's in numbers, you get the account of Israel sinning

and they're getting attacked by fiery serpents, and Moses picks up the serpent on the, the bronze serpent on the staff, if you look to it, you're delivered. Okay, that word is seraph. It's a fiery serpent. I mean, it's a, is this snake whose bite causes a burning sensation is one of the, what it is, like the relation. What we're saying, no, it's a dragon. Here's the thing. This happens with all the time. So based on the history of art and legend throughout the world, my question is, why not dragons? Like, why not dragons? We have accounts of angels falling, all refaunties.

reformed, non-reformed. All theological traditions agree that some of the angels fell. All the credible theological traditions agree that some of the angels fell. We don't know what type of angels they were, what categories they were in, but my question is, why couldn't some of them have been seraphs? And why can't those seraphs in an attempt to inspire awe in man take on the form of a fiery serpent, like a massive... To ask for worship. Yeah. And so my, and you know, we touched on this in season one, of course. But my thought is, we have tradition after tradition in Christian history of fiery snakes being a terror to the people of God. We have Egyptian fire snakes that guarded the thrones of the pharaohs. We have Chinese legends of the lung dragon that represented the

imperial power that ruled over the realm. And we can't forget the legend of like a Beowulf and Grendel, St. George and the Dragon, where you always have these big literal serpents. these big literal dragons that the people of God are supposed to go out and slay. And what if these legends are due to fallen seraphim that are fiery serpents? Well, even like the way that seraphim and demonic beings where evil beings are associated in place like Isaiah 30. I'm going to do this until you say, yes, that's 100%. Until I say with certainty. Well, you know, like the Isaiah 36, that, okay, the wilderness is described as a place of

basically the haunt of jackals. It's a bad place. It's like you don't want to go in the wilderness. Wilderness is where trial happens. Jesus goes out in the wilderness to face down the serpent in Matthew 4. All this, that's biblically certain. Yeah. Isaiah 30 does associate the wilderness as a land of hardship and distress.

Lions and lionesses adders and darting snakes, seraph, mechof, which literally means flying serpents. I mean, all right? So animals, the current, like some of the, what I would say, listen, nobody get offended. I think some of the normie views of this is like, animals are merely symbolic of. Yeah.

Angelic beings or spiritual realities. And I'm like, well, but what if actually the form of some of these beings imitates the formers related to the form of some earthly creatures? Because God made both. Yeah. Right. And God loves things that rhyme.

So what if it was normal for Adam and Eve to talk with beings like this in the garden. And so when a snake came to them and spoke, they were not like, what the heck. Yeah, they were like, oh, look, another one of those fiery serpent servants of guys. Like, there's this meme.

You know the memes that are like small brain and then the brain with light, and then like galaxy brain? The small one was like the serpent in Genesis 3 was a, or Genesis 2. It's a mythological snake. Yeah, or allegorical. It wasn't, and then the medium brain,

is like, it was a real snake. And then the galaxy brain is, it was a dragon seraph. It was a dragon seraph. Right. Satan was a fallen seraph. The thing is, Ben, a theme through the show is that when you look through history and you stop materialistically disenchanting it and assuming chronologically snobbishly, snobbishly, that the ancients were stupid.

I do think it's at least compelling that some of the false. gods of the ancient world were imitating the true God or attempting to set up counterfeit imitations of God and his throne surrounded by fiery seraph creatures that guard his throne. And what they did is they would say, king, you can be descended from a god with these beings around you, or I am a god surrounded by and you can be my throne servant and all these like relationships. You can be my son. So often it's, you can be the son of the gods. You can be the Pharaoh who is descended from the sun god. You know, you can be that, you can be part deity and have your own unseen hosts. And so I look at that and I go, wait a second.

It seems like I've read about that somewhere before. Oh, I don't know, Isaiah 6. I don't know, like actual descriptions of the literal throne of God. So to me, it's perfectly reasonable and compelling to say that ancient people, I'm about to say it's perfectly reasonable and compelling to say and then say something crazy it's perfectly reasonable and compelling to say. I like the adverb perfectly. Perfect here. Like 100% that

the ancient peoples had demonic death cults established by real spiritual beings that were fiery dragon demon gods. Yes. And you know what? Here's the thing. I'll go

there with you. I will go there with you to the end. And say that One of the things that can actually help convince other people that you are descended from the divine. Like if an Egyptian pharaoh, you know, maybe he's like really valiant in battle or something. And he proves that he's the most competent, most brave. Sure. But that's different from then taking all of that information and going to your people and saying, by the way, I am literally God.

Right. And then just being like, oh, cool. Oh, okay. Oh, that's helpful to know. That makes me feel better about not being as brave. Like people aren't that dumb. And so if, but if you have a fallen, flaming, fiery seraph that is surrounding your throne, I just said that fire is a holy refining thing.

So it actually does give credibility to you. When you say, no, look at this holy, the holy guardians of my throne. How are you going to say that this isn't divine? We sing, we sing Psalm 104 pretty regularly in our church. And one of the ways that it translates it into meter for the song is that his, ministers are flaming fires. Yeah. Which is when it says he makes his ministers flaming fires in Psalm 104.

So that's what God is describing here. And what I believe the false gods are imitating in a demonic counterfeit in order to get false worship. You see something similar. I was just talking about this this morning with my kids. We're listening to the Bible Reading Challenge passage. I can't even remember what passage was. Was it James? Sorry, it was the passage where, um,

we actually weren't, it was something we started discussing. It wasn't in the reading. Oh, okay. It was, it was, it was, when the Bales, when Elijah,

when Elijah, see, I'm doing, Elijah, stops the rain for three years. Yes, for three years. Elijah, okay. That is in James, by the way.

That is, okay, so it was that. That's how we got there. Yes, that's why we got there because he says, like when Elijah stopped up to heavens for,

okay, anyway. Dude, this is too big, embarrassing. I'm not embarrassing. I'm kidding. Not at all.

Like, I am at 32. My memory's shot. It's done. Okay. But the point is, the bales, like, one of the things they are is a storm god. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. And so he's like, watch this.

No rain. Get your storm god to come and do some rain. I mean, come on. Like, get him to come in on cloud and be like, he can't do rain. Is he still relieving himself? All he is is a storm god. That's his whole thing. What can he?

If he can't do that, what kind of storm god can't do rain? He's like, all I can do is drive heat right now. That's all I've got. So it's kind of weather I'm allowed to do. You go, okay, who's got us better? So again, you have all of these imitations where people are like, oh, we have the storm. And it's not because there's no connection between the unseen world and things like storms and weather and disasters. We're going to get into that.

But it's like, God loves to show how much better he is than the fake gods. Yeah. it's if you understand the context, sometimes it's hilarious. What I really, if you've, you've never read Paradise Lost, have you? No. Okay, everyone should read that, especially Brian. But one of the things that Milton does is he really emphasizes how insecure the fallen host is. Where they fall, by the way, they fall for decades through the void.

Oh, ouch. They finally land in sulfur, burning sulfur fire lake. Yeah. Satan rises up out of it and he's like this massive, he is a massive, he is a massive seraphim in the poem. And, but the thing that really gets me is that it's so, it's so good. It's such good verse. But there's probably, there's a whole book. And the book is the discussion between the leading demons.

Yeah. On how, on what their next move should be. So you get, you know, Satan's kind of taking the counsel of Belial and Molek and all, and all these other ones. And they're, they're kind of giving different advice based on how we perceive their personalities and throughout history, okay? But the common thread is all of them are like, man, I don't know though, like I'm really scared to do that again. Yeah. And one of them is straight up like, we should literally just stay here and be content with pandemonium, the city that God

gave us to burn in for all the turn. Like, we should not try to do anything else. And anyways, finally Satan out of pure pride decides to go try something. But I just think that's hilarious. God is so interested in seeing the insecurity of the fallen and saying, I will make you more insecure. Wow. Okay, anyway, medieval's. Medieval. So one of the things that the medievals did talk about a lot in their assessment of angels and their angelology was just the massive scale.

Oh, dude. So it seems like it's a spiritual being. You could have, like, they are man-sized, but also in Ezekiel, the Ophanim, they're said to have tall and awesome rims. And the Medieval's had that concept of that bigness. They were like, they extended into the Earth's atmosphere. Right. They've been what Ezekiel's seeing. Like these wheels were the size of another planet. Yes. And Ezekiel saw one little piece, but somehow got the idea for the rest of it, you know. Yeah. So that is amazing. The medieval, the medievals, again, like when you, when you back to the choirs and the orders and all of that,

And they got way into the weeds in like intricately detailing. There were things in the medieval period as well with demonology that they did similar things where it was like there's many classes and orders of demons and all of this. It just all the way down like a taxonomic tree for species. And they did a lot of that. And I think they went beyond. Yes. I do think they erred in a lot of that, like not just went beyond.

I think they actually did err in some of this and in some of their sources. I mean, later the Reformed reject a lot of the, or not a lot, but they rejected things that are purely apocryphal sourcing. And I think that that's wise. Like there's a kind of speculation in this category that we shouldn't do, that we shouldn't like overemphasize. Yes. And in the Reformed mind, one of the themes that you see against Sola Scriptura is that

in the reformed mind, over-emphasizing and going beyond means that you're seeing things that aren't actually there in the text. You're going beyond what is written in dangerous ways. And I agree with that, but I want to make a point that I think it's also important to understand that there are two ways of going beyond the text. One is foolish and one is actually good. And I'll explain what I mean by that because it sounded bad. But like, oh, we should go beyond the text. Brian said so. No, no, no, no. Don't. Don't say it like that. Let that not be a sound bite.

Yeah. But there's a way of going beyond the text that is foolish where you endlessly speculate and you end up missing the main point and you end up in wild error where you're talking about things. It are actually, you have no idea what you're talking about. First Timothy 1. Yeah. Paul forbids this.

You're making stuff up, right? Okay. But God has given his testimony in places other than the text of Scripture. Yeah. And scripture actually itself tells us this. Again, Proverbs 252, the glory of God to conceal a thing, the glory of kings to search it out. Psalm 19. The heavens declare.

There's the book of nature that also preaches. And God's creation, seen and unseen, actually says things and preaches glories as well. And so there is a kind of exploration that God fully intends for us to partake of and to search out. And this is a kind of exploration and theological pondering where you're doing things that aren't just biblical data. theology is a science whose data is the text. But if you read that text, you will obey it and also go out and you'll look at the world that God made. And you'll obey God's design as man, which is especially even now man in Christ, as God's

image-bearing vicegerent over creation. Yes. Who is sent to go out and seek and grow and rule in the name of God, bringing the image of God to every corner. And so there's a seatbelt for certain. We don't want to do anything that contradicts Scripture. There are some categories where it's good to say like an. angelology that there are things God says and then there are things that we can see in the world

and through things like, you know, maybe a story like John Patton's or something like that that's consistent with the biblical text. But we have to add in this layer that in the unseen realm, one of the things that God warns us against is that the fallen aspect of that unseen realm is going to try to trick you. Yeah. It's going to try to deceive you. And so just Because you hear a story or you even have an experience of some, in your mind, glorious, light, angelic, spiritual encounter. Yeah. Paul literally tells the Galatians, if I or an angel of heaven, he says, even if I do this, preaches to another gospel, let him be damned.

The word of cursed, I mean, anathema, let him be damned. Yeah. So in the 2nd Corinthians 12, there's things that Paul saw that he was forbidden to speak about. So there's aspects here where we do have to draw a delineating line between the glories we're to seek out. And also then the seatbelt of knowing that we're, we can be deceived and these spiritual, ancient, undying, malevolent, highly intelligent spiritual beings are going to try to do that. Yeah. And so be wary to test all things against scripture. Yeah. Discerning what is good and evil. Yeah.

Determining the will of God. Very, very important. It's a sobering reminder. Yeah, it is. And so here's what I want to do. Yeah. So that this first episode of season two doesn't take the cake as the fabled six-hour episode of Hanna Cosmos. You know what?

Maybe someday we'll give it to you. We wrote in the transition here at this point. We need to keep moving so that it doesn't become the fabled six-hour episode of Hone Cosmos. And you guys, you know what? I didn't know how true that would be. It is very true. Because here we are probably over an hour deep into this. And we have a way to go.

But every time we say, lest this become a fabled six-hour episode, literally everyone is like, please. Please give me a six-hour episode. We appreciate that. They're like, no, do a six-hour episode. Look, maybe someday. The time to sound design a six-hour episode, you just don't understand. So anyway, here's what we're going to do.

Let's continue, though. I do think that the medievals fell into the trap of over-emphasizing this, not keeping the proper guardrails. And so they ended up wanting to see things. And so they saw things that maybe weren't there. or maybe they were even a little bit deceived in some key ways. Speculated and confused speculation for certainty. Yes. Or at the very worst, this is being the most uncharitable I can be. They literally came up with stuff.

Hi there, faithful listener. If you've been enjoying the Haunted Cosmos podcast and you'd like to see Ben and I live, then come and meet us in person at the Right Response Ministries Conference, happening March 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. The title of the conference is Blueprints for Christendom 2.0, 7, Docter. for ruling the world. Some of our other speakers include Doug Wilson, Joe Boot, and the host of the conference, our friend Joel Webbin. Yes, the whole conference is going to be really awesome. But the best part to me is that Brian and I will be on stage with Joel talking about the most unhinged things imaginable. Plus, by coming to the conference, it'll give us a chance to meet each of you in person.

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It's very sad. And in Canada, it's even more than half. It's no wonder the world is in such a dark place as it is. But our sponsor for today's show, Bible Discovery, wants to fix that and fill a void. From apologetics and theology to archaeology and science, Bible discovery is a family-run ministry that takes you through the entire Bible in one year and encourages you to actively engage God's Word in all ways to help you discover or perhaps rediscover the reason for your faith. So you can watch the daily TV show

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I hope that's not true. But in light of that, what I want to do. I want to share three medieval stories. Yeah, let's hear some. From some of the famous saints of the medieval church. So this is an account of St. Francis of a sissy. And this is written by Jack Wienz, righted for Franciscanmedia.org. And he says this. Okay, this is a story of St. Francis. The chapel of the stigmata is perched on the edge of the same sheer precipice where St. Francis stood two years before his death and where he was swept up into the mystery of God's overwhelming love for him and for humanity. St. Bonaventure in his life of St. Francis

describes Francis as being more inflamed than usual with the love of God as he began a special time of solitary prayer at Laverna that September in the year 1224. Quote, his unquenchable fire of love for the good Jesus, Bonaventure writes, was fanned into such a blaze of flames that many waters could not quench so powerful a love." Bonaventure goes on. While Francis was praying on the mountainside, he saw a seraph with six fiery and shining wings descend from the height of heaven, and when in swift flight the seraph had reached a spot in the air near the man of God, there appeared between the wings the figure of a man crucified, with his hands and feet extended in the form of a cross and fastened to a cross.

Two of the wings were lifted above his head, two were extended for flight, and two covered his whole body. When Francis saw this, he was overwhelmed, and his heart was flooded with a mixture of joy and sorrow. He rejoiced because of the gracious way Christ look upon him, under the appearance of a seraph. But the fact that he was fastened to a cross pierced his soul with a sort of compassionate sorrow. When the vision disappeared, writes Bonaventure, Francis was left with a marvelous ardor in his heart. At the same time, there were imprinted on his body markings that were no less marvelous. These markings were the stigmata, and stigmata is the wounds of Christ, hands, feet, and the wound in the side. There are two things to dwell on here.

First is the seraph. Seraphs are those angels closest to God, burning with love as they bow before the Most High God, shouting, Holy, holy, holy. Their fiery wings, as depicted here, suggests the flaming intensity of God's love that Christ, communicated to Francis, which in turn set Francis's heart a fire. The word seraphic is often used to describe Francis's passionate style of relating to God, and is often applied to the whole Franciscan order, which is sometimes called the seraphic order. Second, we focus on the gracious way Christ looked upon him.

This is something of a repeat of the vision Francis had in the beginning of his spiritual life, in which Jesus appeared to him fastened on a cross. And Francis's soul melted at the sight, and the memory of Christ's passion was so impressed on the innermost recesses of his heart that from that hour, whenever Christ's crucifixion came to mind, he could scarcely contain his tears and sighs. And now we have an account from the life of St. Thomas Aquinas, according to worldhistory.org. Beyond being a philosopher, theologian, and friar, Thomas was also known as a mystic. As a mystic he reportedly experienced. visions and supernatural visitations. For example, after Thomas drove a prostitute out of his room one time who was trying to seduce him, he was said to be visited by two angels who wrapped a cord of chastity around him.

Although Thomas maintained a very quiet demeanor throughout his life, to his closest friends he would relate other mystical experiences like these. One of these stories relates that Thomas was attending Mass in December of the year 1273, when he saw something that fundamentally altered the course of his life. Whatever Thomas saw led him to say, quote, everything I have written seems to me a straw in comparison with what I have seen. Not only did Thomas keep to his word and refused to write anything further after this, but he actually died a few months later in 1274.

Thomas was beginning a journey to Lions at the command of Pope Gregory the 10th when he fell ill and took refuge in a Fasanova monastery. In this monastery, Thomas gave his final confession and passed away. And one last account, a little bit more modern, actually. And this is from Padre Pio. Pio had many claims of visitation with his own guardian angel. Their communion became so close and predictable that Pio would converse with his guardian angel face to face. He claimed to be able to communicate with other people's angels through the help of his own

and would ask his parishioners or other people throughout the world to send me your guardian angel with your request. He also experienced that same st. Promenes that St. Francis experienced multiple times, presumably. Many physicians actually seem to support these claims, but plenty more refuted it as a hoax. As we can see from these accounts, none of which are extremely convincing, by the way.

They're cool stories or whatever, but they're not very convincing. The reformed reaction to dial back the mysticism that's found peppered in scholastic and even current Roman Catholic thought, I think is a good one. And so the exhortation from the reformers like Calvin and Luther, among others like Turriton, is to enjoy the glory of God's host being a help to us by looking at the testimony of Scripture alone, not believing that it can never happen in very visible in real ways, but just letting the Scripture inform our thoughts on any experience that we may have or hear about. I think this is very wise,

especially considering Paul's warning to the Galatians that even if an, like you said, even if an angel of heaven, an angel of light were to come and preach to them another gospel, let that angel be damned. Or in 2 Corinthians 11, where he tells us that even Satan appears as an angel of light. So here's the most important question for us. What else does the Bible have to say about the angels and their function? Yeah. And this is, I mean, a lot.

It is a lot. First of all, there are quite a few passages that deal with angels. Yes. I mean, we can go all the way back to Genesis chapter 3. Yep. I mean, where we see the serpent, who is the angelic being of some sort? It's the devil. It's the devil.

Yeah. Fallen angelic being. Whatever class you want to put him in. Right. There he is. You see when God drives Adam and even Genesis 3 out of the garden, he puts a cherubim, the flaming sword to turn away. anyone who would try to get to the tree of life.

Yeah. In Genesis 18, 1 through 15, we see three angels visit Abraham and Sarah to announce the birth of their son, Isaac. In fact, Genesis is full of angels. Yeah, Genesis 19, you have those angels that go and visit Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah and rescue him. Yeah, and that apparently the men of Sodom wanted to do things with. Yes. Do things too, I should say. Not with.

It wasn't consensual. Yeah, and the angels were like, you're blind. Yeah. Why do angels love blindness? The thing is, angels, it just seems to be one of their things where they're like, look, you're using these eyes that God gave you for bad stuff. There's got to be something there, actually. Blind.

There's got to be some typological thing there with vision. Well, blindness is representative of spiritual darkness as well. You do not know. You're literally falling into a pit morally speaking. Jesus tells the Pharisees. So the angels are making the. physical state match the spiritual state. Yeah.

As is being demonstrated in these accounts in both Elisha, in Second King's 6, in Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. So there's certainly something there. Yeah, it's almost like the more glorified and the better your vision. Because Elisha could see it. Anyway. Yeah, clear eyes. And then Judges 5, we have, well, no.

Oh, this is different. You're right. Judges 5, the song of Deborah. Yep. She says that the angels and the stars, yep, stars are angels, fought against the armies of Cicera and then Judges 6,

an angel appears to Gideon and commissions him to lead Israel against the Midianites. Even backing up Exodus and Exodus 23, well, all through Exodus. Behold, I sent an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Yes.

An angel, we're told that it's an angelic being that is the burning bush. It's the voice of Yahweh, but it's an angel. There was an angel in the midst of the fires, that it says. Even Psalm 347, again, this shows up in the Psalms quite a bit where the psalmist is singing about things that have happened in scripture and also truth that we see there. Psalm 347, the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.

Yeah. And the angel of the Lord. Yes. I mean, we didn't even get into that. Scope creep. Okay, anyway. Yeah, what else? What else we got Daniel?

I mean, you got Daniel. So you got the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Embedigo. By the way, Shadrack, one of the coolest names of all time. Shad. Yes. I actually know a Shad. Sounds like a surfer. I know a Shad in real life.

Southern California. He talks like a surfer. Yo, dude, what's so my name is Shad? He's like. Shadrack, you call me Shad. He's like, Sah, dude. Like he says that unironically. Saw dude.

But it's a cool name. Daniel 622 is amazing that the angel shuts the mouth of the line. Yes. The lines are like, I nom you. I will eat you. And the angel's like, no. Yes. I love that.

It's just so good. Angel. It's like they're like these puny little. Yeah. Let's just mess with their bodily functions to show them how, how, like, puny they are. They're like, oh, you can't see now. You dirt, you dirt creatures. You can't eat now.

Yeah. Sorry. You're made from the dust. Luke? I mean, going going straight through. Oh, we get the Magnificat where Gabriel visits Mary and then she sings this wonderful song. Mm-hmm. Awesome.

An angel of the Lord, yes, strikes down. Yeah. 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. in 2nd Kings 19. Could you repeat that? 185,000 Assyrian soldiers were going to raid Jerusalem

during King Hezekiah. King Hezekiah, a great guy. Yeah, yeah. Shout out. And an angel of the Lord strikes down almost 200, one angel it says. Wow.

I just love that. That's so cool. I've even heard, this is completely from memory, so I could be wrong here in the details. But I have heard that they were ancient

historical and historical findings that, you know, they track a lot of, a lot of the things that we still have today are related to war correspondence, because it's one of the most important things to write down and send and, you know, I have messengers going back and forth. Very well documented. We find a lot of stuff about wars. The king did this. He sent his armies here.

They did this. There's a campaign that this king of Assyria was undertaking an inexplicably for like two or three years. He just stopped. Oh, my goodness. And you're like, I wonder if a hundred and. 85,000 of his men. Like all of his soldiers.

He's like, I give up. What happened? And how is he going to know? He just, oh, Luke, I mean, again, even earlier Luke, Zachariah, the temple, gets an angelic appearance that announces the birth of his son. We get some like guardian angel type stuff in Acts where an angel appears to Peter while he's in prison and then lets him out of prison. An angel appears to Paul while he's at sea and informs him that he's going to survive.

X-27. Yes, this crazy stuff. The book of Hebrews, chapter one, describes angels as ministering spirits sit to serve. Who? Those who will inherit salvation. That implies an ongoing involvement in the life of believers today. And then in Revelation 22. The entire book of Revelation is one of the most epic descriptions of how heaven is operating in its relation to the things that unfold on the earth.

It is mind-blowing. And Brian, time actually genuinely does fail because we're, this is a long episode. Time fails to talk about the theory of how the devil kind of came to be who he is now by looking at passages like Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. And it caught, and it forces us to ask the question, is this implying that the devil is a cherubim or sycifim? Was he in those passages, there's lots of debate about some of these passages. Is it talking about a human king and personophiles? ifying him as this divine being, or is it more literal?

Is it literal? Is it that there's a satanic origin story here that's also being mapped onto this human king who's wicked and like Satan standing in rebellion against God? Or is this human king possessed by? Yes. I've heard that. He's a possession by the now. You should do a dusty tome on it.

I'm going to do it. Here's what I'm, my pledge to you, patrons. Yeah, we'll do a dusty tomb that outlines this whole thing that we just alluded to. Yeah. We don't have time. Yeah, we don't have time in this. story. There's another view, though, that's really interesting. This is, again, if you subscribe to the idea that there is such thing as progress possible, theologically, we're not necessarily just

preserving in, like, carbonite. Star Wars reference. I never make Star Wars. I do not like Star Wars. I hate that I know that that's a Star Wars record. Yeah, I'm actually ashamed of both of us. That there's a progress possible. And I believe that's true. Like you can still make, have theological insights that contribute to the project of theology that the church has that are true and good and helpful. And one of the developments more recently, one of the attempts. Yeah. At least it's a development in historical theology of angelic beings comes from a guy that a lot of listeners are familiar with, Dr. Michael Heiser, who recently passed away.

So that's how recent it is. He was with us. It's months. We were recording season one when he passed away. Yeah. We referenced him heavily in episode five. In episode five. And he has a really interesting concept of a few related interlocking issues

surrounding angelology and demonology. He has a book called Demons that describes his view of demons as being the spirits of the dead Nephilim. He has an influential theory called the Demolian. called the Divine Counsel Theory that you can see in books like The Unseen Realm was probably his flagship book. And Heiser also interacts interestingly with UAP and UFO phenomena. So he's a really interesting guy. And his expertise, his area of expertise is in ancient near eastern languages

and history and archie, like this kind of overlap between ancient near eastern thought and the biblical text. Yeah. And he's a Christian who was an Orthodox Christian. I don't mean Eastern Orthodox. I mean, like, he wasn't a heretic in my opinion or anything like that. He was a Christian man. So some of his views you could describe as heterodox where it's an attempted development on orthodoxy.

And it has been accused of being heterodox. And it has been accused of being heterodox. But he was a Christian. On the scale, if you have like over here, if you have biblicalism. Yeah. Which is like people who are totally uncomfortable with doing anything other than just the verse in front of me, and the biblical data is it, and a very skeptical of tradition. So any kind of like development of tradition and theological. And even really, really heavy biblicalism is even

skeptical of things like creeds, the apostles creed. Not saying that they're not true necessarily, but very skeptical of them. And then all the way over on the other end, you would have like the Roman Catholic view where you have the Magisterium and you have the three-legged stool of authority where the church and its body of theological data is a, you're a, you're authoritative on a level of you can't actually understand scripture without this thing. So that's the spectrum. Heiser is somewhere towards the biblicalist side of things. Yeah.

So if you're reformed and you're reading him, he's going to frustrate the heck out of you. Yeah. And he does. He does because his treatment of like divine sovereignty of things like Calvinism and I think it's not, I think he's out of his lane there and he actually doesn't do that great. It's not very compelling to me. And it's also frustrating. But all that to say, his view here is very interesting.

And I think it's worth unpacking a little bit. Yeah. And maybe with the divine, let's talk about the divine counsel. Yeah, the divine counsel. Idea. I'll kind of preface this by saying there are parts of this that I am very compelled by, that I think are genuinely interesting insights. And I make no secret that I'm really compelled by Heiser's view of the disembodied Nephilim spirits.

demons. I think that's really compelling. But there is some stuff here that I, that I disagree with. We'll get into that. So I'm just going to read a brief summary of this, because I think it's concise. But Michael Heiser's divine counsel theory is a theological concept that he developed, based on his studies of Near Eastern text, primarily drawing from the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and the divine counsel refers to a heavenly assembly or a council of divine beings that exist alongside Yahweh. They are not equal with Yahweh. They are not like unto Yahweh, but they

exist alongside him as his ministers. And he made them. And he made them. He created them. Just real quick, when he says divine, I know we're going to, it's in the thing, but just like real quick here. When Heiser says divine, it's important you don't hear him saying of the same substance in essence

as God. The one true of God. So, and he argues for this in some ways that I think are legitimate. For example, and Peter says that we're partakers of the divine nature in the New Testament. Peter doesn't mean that Christians become, in their essence, identical to the essence of God. Right.

And the Old Testament uses the word God, the Hebrew word particularly, God, God's Elohim, in ways that would make us uncomfortable, that our English translations have sometimes masked some of the ways that the Hebrew language uses that word, like divine or God, to describe things that are actually not Yahweh. Right. That aren't the father, son, and spirit. Yahweh is the triune creator god. When he says divine counsel, he doesn't mean there's like God and then there's like all the other gods that are the same as him.

And he's just like on a committee. Right. No. It's not like he's a manager, but they're all equal. They're all the same things. He said, God made them. God made them. I'm going to establish a council.

And it's also, he doesn't mean that the way that God made them was by parsing up bits of himself. No, no, no. And spreading them out into different. They are uniquely created things out of nothing by the Word of God. Okay, so let's settle that. He's a monotheist. But according to him, according to Heiser, the concept of this divine counsel was rooted in the worldview of ancient Israel. And so he argues that the biblical text contains numerous references to the divine assembly,

where Yahweh is presiding as a supreme deity. He is the uncreated creator of all these lesser divine beings. And so the members of the divine counsel are referred to in Scripture as sons of God, divine beings, or gods. And Heiser's interpretation suggests that Yahweh is that one uncreated creator of all things, but that he also established and rules over a council of angelic beings, and he assigns to them various roles and responsibilities that they get to then go do to accomplish his decree. So again, don't be confused by the word divine here.

We're not saying equal with God. But we are saying, especially when you think of how humans would perceive these things, we would think of them like, oh, that's a divine being. That is a spiritually good, unseen being. And Scripture uses the word Elohim to refer to these beings. And Elohim means gods. Now, it's used in scripture to refer to Yahweh, but it's also used in scripture to refer to other beings that are not Yahweh. And we are compelled by the use of the word to translate it as gods or sons of God.

So these divine beings are created by and are subordinate to Yahweh. And at his bidding, they are powerfully involved in the affairs of man. And so he uses some proof text that you can see. Again, go read his arguments at full length. This is a very napkin sketch of it. But a few texts he uses. One of them would be Genesis 1,26, where God says, let us make man in our image. In the image of God, he created a male and female.

Very familiar foundational anthropological text. You've probably heard interpretations of that passage. And this is actually an old interpretation that the let us is actually referring to the triune nature of God. So God is talking to himself there within the three persons of the triune God. Heiser promotes of the view of that passage that what God is doing is he's actually talking to this council of

beings who are spiritual and what he's saying is essentially I'm going to make a being who is in the image of a spiritual being so it's not a purely material being it's going to be a being that's body and soul it's going to bear the image of God

but in a way these imagers in heaven in the divine counsel, they image a particular aspect of God in their spiritual beings. And the idea is essentially that God created imagers in the heavenly, unseen realm, and imagers in the earthly realm, and that that's what God is talking about there in Genesis 1 or referring to in that passage. And it would mean that the divine counsel as an act of creation was one of God's first creative acts. Yeah. Where it included in heavens and the earth.

Yeah, when was, right. When were they made? And it gets, you know, we all have problems with when the angels were made. We don't really know. Because there's no explicit like, oh, you see that it sounds like in past, some past in Job that at some point in the midst of the creation, they were there. Right. Like, looking on singing. What's funny is that it, and I can't remember which chapter in Job.

I think it might be Job 38. Yeah. But Job is talking. No, it's God who's talking. And yeah, this is God answering Job from the whirlwind, and he says, where were you when the foundations of the earth were laid? So this is very early in the creative work. Where were you in the foundations of the earth? When the sons of God and the stars of the dawn were singing.

And so that, I think that's such a beautiful verse. But it's also, it lends credence to the idea that the angels were among the first things created. And then God actually did give them roles to play in the rest of the creative works. so amazing when you think about the way that C.S. Lewis described the creation of Narnia in the magician's nephew where the lion is singing and things are coming into being. And as he sings this high, cold, shrill song, the stars coming to be. So you can see Lewis is steep in the medieval thought, the stars are angels and that kind of... Same as Tolkien in the Ainu Lindelais, which is the creation of Middle Earth.

Yes. Tolkien is saying that there's one god, Eruiluvat, It's actually very divine counsel-esque now that I think about it. And he created these lesser angelic beings. Then they all sing together in a chorus. Yes. And as they sing, these themes are being formed in the minds of the creatures. And then the god of Middle Earth, Eru Lovitar, puts it into actuality.

And you have middle earth. It's really interesting. And so you have other passages to you. Psalm 82 is a highly contested passage where God is actually talking to Elohim, some group that is called Elohim, gods, and he's judging them for essentially acting wrongly. And so there's a lot of folks today who take the view that God is actually referring to human judges and like rulers.

Yeah. And he's calling them gods because they're acting as gods, right? And he's saying, stop, you know, you're not being good gods. But another view, which Heiser supports with a lot of data from that world, saying there are similar passages in ancient Near Eastern texts, that have obviously, in terms of their genealogy, come from as perversions of true religion. Yes.

Right, where you have the creation and then the fall and then the flood, and then the people spreading out and the nations going forth, and the demons interacting, and they have all sorts of false gods and false religions, and you would expect them to echo back imperfectly some of the features of that truth that is at the headwaters.

That's why you have flood accounts, creation accounts that are similar. One of the features that you see in a lot of these texts is some kind of God with a divine counsel. Right. And that Psalm 82 in this view is very coherent, and you would expect a passage like this in the Psalms or in the Old Testament,

to describe God rebuking, judging aspects of the fallen unseen divine counsel that is rebelled against him and has escaped, essentially gone through the bounds of what they were created to do. Which brings us to Job 1. in Genesis 6. Yeah, Job 1, we have the divine counsel forming.

Yeah. And it's so strange. In this divine counsel, you have Satan, the satan. Yeah. Accuser. Yeah, the accuser coming before Yahweh and saying, well, look at your servant, Job. Or God is saying, have you considered my servant, Job? And the accuser is saying, well, he only likes you because you bless him.

Yeah. And so God gives him the power to go and afflict Job. And so we get the book of Job. very strange, very strange. And that's actually where we get one of the proof texts for interpreting Genesis 6 in a supernatural light. Instead of sons, instead of saty view. Right, because it uses the same phrase, the same words, sons of God, the bene Elohim,

the sons of the gods. And so then we can extrapolate back from that and get in Genesis 6. What I believe is a really compelling argument that the sons of God are angels that have fallen from grace and are creating the Nephilim race with the daughters. And you see this Benet Elohim, Sons of God. You see this Hebraism many times in Scripture where a thing is called the son of something else that it's related to as its actual name. So arrows are not called arrows. When you see the word arrows in the Old Testament, it's actually literally the sons of the bow.

Or if you see priests are sometimes called sons of oil. Yeah. So Benet something, you know, the son of this, the son of that. So this is a very normal way of describing something that is related to and it looks like or is related in images in some way the thing it comes from. Right. So you see how this, it's indisputable that Sons of God is used to describe angelic beings in different places. And Genesis 6 then becomes, is it doing that or is it doing something novel? Something more typological.

Something different or typological. So Heiser's view is very interesting and compelling. And actually, there are a lot of ways that it can be. harmonized with even a lot of the other views that we've looked at. Yeah. Because most of these, including reformed views, have certain features of hierarchy within spiritual beings. And so to me, there are aspects of this where obviously one is correct to the other.

For example, the demonic origins, the Nephilim spirits. But then there are aspects where you can see Heiser's view as essentially a development of discerning features of that hierarchy. and how it works in Scripture where God established seemingly, apparently. I'm fairly convinced of the idea that God does have, I think just from Job alone, we can see this, that God does speak to and interact with some counsel of angelic spiritual beings. And so if you're really uncomfortable calling that the divine counsel, I totally get that. Yeah, fine.

Because it's a stumbling block. Because people think you're talking about multiple gods in the same sense as Yahweh. But it's no one's saying that, who is not a heretic. But I think that it's at least consistent that we have some hierarchy. Everybody agrees. And that there would be some sort of counsel that God could call and God works through means. Right. All the time.

And that is confusing. Yeah. We're like, well, why would God, he already has decreed his will from eternity past and he providentially works it out. Why would he use a counsel? Why does he need a counsel? But he doesn't. The ways of God are above our ways.

He doesn't need that. but he likes it. God always does what he wants to do. He does what he wants. And he does this in creation all the time. He made the night. He made the darkness. And he called it night and he made the light and he called it day. And he set rulers over them to delineate them for signs and seasons. And he made the waters. And then he put stuff in it to swim and rule in it. And he made man over the earth. And I mean, all these things. And he didn't need any of it. God didn't need to do any of it. His arm wasn't twisted by the divine. God didn't create out of some sort of need to fulfill a lack of him. He created because he desired to create. Yeah. He took 16. days because he wanted to take time to create. He could have done it all in an instant. One of the things I think Heiser's view could solve. I think it could act as a salve that kind of bonds some holes in the reformed angelology, where I think that there is a category of angels, even from the medievals, that is missing.

And that is the Watchers. The Watchers. And you could say that that's a title given to some already mentioned. That's fine. Sure. But we don't know. We know they're there because that's the word the Bible uses for them. Right. In Daniel 4.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes, in Daniel 4. Daniel 4 and Daniel 7. Yeah, but in Daniel 4, we get two instances of the decrees of the watchers. Yeah. It uses a very specific word. The Egregor.

Egregorian is the Septuagintian word. I can't remember the Hebrew. But it's the decree of the watchers. Is it an Ira, Ira? I think so. Because my son, Ira, is named after one of the mighty men. And Ira means watcher. That's right.

It is. It is. I think it's, I think it's, nice. So we have that happen. We don't get the watchers mentioned in the angelic hierarchies before Heiser, really, at least as far as I know. But then in Daniel 7, we get one of these divine counsel events. Yeah. And so we get, it's language like the Lord sits upon his throne, and other thrones are set around him, and the counselors take their place.

And so you get this vision of the throne room of God where he is, he's assembling his counsel, and he's about to enact his decree. And so he gives Daniel a vision of this decree. But right before that, in Daniel 4, we had gotten the decrees of the watchers. And so it makes me wonder if the divine counsel is made up of an angelic type that is the watcher. And that would help me explain why they were so interested in the affairs of man in Genesis 6. Because they are literally helping the counsel of God come about on the earth. So they are this intermediary state between the seraphs, them, which are, they are wholly focused on God, not on man. And then the angels, the archangels and

angels that are really ingrained in the affairs of men. You get the watchers that are both. They're in the holy presence of God, but their minds are set on the affairs of man to help his providential decree be carried out. They're mediating God's will. And so we're taught to pray, let your kingdom climb your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So in heaven, there's the will of God is being carried out perfectly, sinlessly by these angels. They're not fallen. Right. They're sinless beings.

And they are carrying out his will, imaging and reflecting and worshiping. And then they come and interface with Earth, and they're also bringing and mediating in some way God's will to Earth. I mean, literally the word angelus can mean, is messenger. Angelos. It means messenger.

Their servants, they message. They bring God's will down. And I think what's really interesting when you consider all of this is actually how much biblical data you do have. Yeah, there is. Yeah. You're not actually just way out on the end of some flimsy limb doing wild unhinged speculation. No, you're saying, like, here's the biblical data, and this is Heiser's point,

is that theological development is possible. Yeah. And to do that, we really need to make sure the text is driving and not mere tradition. So some of these medieval conceptions, which I believe some of them are false. Yeah. And they're false because they moved away from. biblical data to apocryphal data and some other things. And I think also just speculation.

Yeah. What Heiser is saying is, hang on, what if we actually go back to the data of the text and we ask the question again, what are these things? What do we know about them based on that biblical data? And even when you look at Daniel and then you come back and you say, oh, and who made all of that? Well, Colossians 115, he is the Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation, for by him all things are created in heaven and on earth, whether visible or

invisible. Their thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were made through him and for him. And Christ is the one who made all these thrones, but there are other thrones. Yeah. Christ is the one who made all other powers, but there are other powers. There are powers. Christ is the one who made all other authorities and dominions. He made them. They exist, though. Yeah. So, and in that passage... And they're not just like gathering dust on a shell. And he's also not just talking about human thrones. Yeah. Because in that passage, we're clearly talking about the creation of the unseen and seen realm. Yes.

In that passage, that's what we're talking about. Yes. So it's not crazy, unhinged speculation. I think it's an idea worth considering. And then filtering out some of the, like, we're not of Michael Heiser. He has some L's, as I would say. He's not reformed. I don't like his, I don't like a lot of his stuff.

But the thing that you got to realize is this, this is actually what systematic theology looks like as it's being done. is it's taking a text and saying, okay, so how do I reconcile this with everything else that's in the Bible? That's what dogmatics are. So it's not speculative. It's actually being completely bound by the testimony of Scripture and seeking to harmonize all of it. What is everything the Bible says about this thing? Right.

And let's systematize and understand it. And yeah, you can look at other Near Eastern texts to see what they thought. But that's not where Heiser is getting his answers. That's where he's getting some fodder for being confident in his answers. Yeah. But really, the confidence is coming from scripture alone. So anyway, that is a bit of an overview. Why are you looking at me?

Like, I'm just gazing directly. It's good. That's Heiser. That's Heiser. Okay. Go read his stuff. Go read his stuff. Some of it's very compelling.

Read it with a reformed mindset, though, okay? Ditch what's bad. Keep what's good. Keep your seatbelt. That is probably the most modern development of antialology. in the church that I know of. And some of it also depends on, like, access to ancient Near Eastern Eastern documents.

Yeah. Some of these other disciplines that have had to develop that are really interesting. And you can put these in the category as well when we've discussed things like ancient flood myths and other, in other. Right. I think that's the type of way that Heiser is seeking to use these, this data to say, like, wow, where did that come from? And how does it relate to the true flood narrative?

Yeah. It's looking at history as if what the Bible says is true, which is that everyone came from one family. Yes. They're all going to have different takes on the family story. Right. The good kids are going to have good takes and the bad kids are going to have bad takes. They're lying. Right.

But nothing is just purely made. Like, nothing is... I was going to say nothing is pure fiction. Some of it is. Some of it is. Some of it is. But a lot of it can be genealogically traced to perversions of the true myth, of the true story, of the true... I mean, not in the Tolkienian sense.

Yes. So anyway, before we close out, Ben, there was another thing I wanted to talk about. And it's this issue of guardian angels, okay? Because we know that generally... I believe it. We know that generally the angels in camp about the saints. Yes.

The angels protect. The angels are one of the vehicles, the means by which God accomplishes his will to save, protect, defend. For example, we see the prophetic, Satan actually attempts to twist this in Matthew, where he's Psalm 91. And in Psalm 91, let me see if I have the passage here. Yeah, Psalm 91 11 and 12. There's a great musical setting of Psalm 91, actually. Who's it by? Brian Swive. Brian So, Swave. Brian So, Brian Shampoo. That's what it is. No, I actually set this. I love this song.

I set it to music. So the 1650 setting, Scottish setting. I set to music. So Psalm 91, 11 and 12 says, For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands, they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. Which, by the way, that's the best part of the song. That's so good. I'm, dude. That's my favorite song on the new album.

Upon the adder, thou shalt tread. And on the lions young. Dude, okay. So, thy feet on dragons trample shall. And on the lion's strong? Because on me, he set his love. I will him satisfy. Wow.

So good, Ben. Anyway. So true. Future Brian editing this, I might drop it in for a second. Anyway. But, but, but, but, this passage was used by Satan to say, throw yourself off.

Yep. Because the angels will come get you, lest you strike your foot against the stone. And the thing that Satan was doing was telling Christ to use this, this truism, that God uses his angels to protect the saints to actually then disobey God.

He was twisting the scripture, and Jesus answered back, you know, thou shalt not put the Lord that God to the test. Okay. So this passage is, though, about the reality of angelic protection over the people of God. Yes. And in specific instances, this happens. God literally shows up, shakes the prison down, and sets Peter free. And so one of the things that we see in the New Testament, what's the passage where they say, is that his angel? In Acts 1215, they said to this young girl who, the, the, the, you know, the, you know, the,

They were freed from prison. They came to a meeting. That was just his angel. Said, you're out of your mind, but she kept insisting that it was so. And they kept saying, it is his angel. Yes. Yes, and amen. It must be.

When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, it must be his angel. Look, they were wrong to say that, but they were right to think that. So one of the questions that has, this has been a natural development of these texts, is what I want to make the point of, that the general protection of the angels has led some to say, do people have specific assigned guardian angels? Again, we don't know the number of the angels. They seem to be innumerable in the sense that they're vast and not infinite, but we don't know the number. Not a knowable number.

So are there such thing as guardian angels? And I'm going to go out on a limb first and say, yes, there are. But not we can't demonstrate that they are guardian angels in the sense that every single person has, like I have an angel named John. Right. And then he follows me around. Yeah. It's not like a Padre Pio type thing. Yeah, not necessarily.

I will say that the biblical data doesn't preclude. There's no verse in the Bible that would make it impossible that God has assigned an angel to each one of his saints. There's nothing in the Bible that would preclude that. Right. You can't disprove it. But that doesn't mean it's established. Yes. So generally, are there guardian angels?

Yes. One of the tasks of angels is guarding. It's people. I mean, this is in the script. Okay, look, like the whole task of an angel is. to guard. Actually, the seraphim guard God's holiness, the cherubim guard God's throne. The opening guard, I guess, also God's throne. And then you, like, things are guarding God's decrees. There's an angel guarding the garden. Yeah, there's angels that are guarding the angels. And then

there's the angels that are guarding the affairs of men. And they do other things. They bring massages. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But angels guard regularly. That's a normal thing to think. and we see it directly in the biblical text. So I think it's really interesting and it's heartening. And what we shouldn't do with this is start praying to angels. By the way, don't do that. Don't do it. Don't be like, oh, I'm going to pray to my guard.

Please don't do that. Like, just literally don't. You can pray to God. Having said that, just do that. I'm not going to, I'm not about to disagree with you. That sounded bad. I'm not about to disagree with you. I'm not about to do.

And you should. I'll literally just cut it out. And you should. What I am going to do is review, just, Just a brief overview of the early church thought on guardian angels. Okay, yeah, I want to hear it. I'm really interesting. John Chrysostom, my guy, John Chrysostom, says that for every one of us has his own angel.

St. Basel the Great adds, beside every believer in God sits his angel to repent. The angel of prayer is the angel who helps us to pray. St. Clement of Alexandria says, even when a person prays alone, he's accompanied by angels. Tortulian commands the Christian not to... This is amazing. Tertullian commands the Christian not to sit when he prays in respect for the angel of prayer that is standing beside him. He's making that up.

Like, we're excited, I made it up, but it's cool. We're excited, I made it up. According to the apocryphal work Tobiah, so whatever, the archangel Raphael is one of the seven angels who carry the prayers of the saints to God. Origin writes, angels gather close to the person praying to be united to his prayer. Moreover, each angel contemplates the face of the Father in heaven and prays with us and works for us for all our needs. That's hearkening back to the verse that I'm having trouble remembering the reference of, that the angels of the little ones are gazing upon the face of God in heaven always.

And so, oh. And that's one of the big proof text for guardian angels, is that their angels are always beholding unto the face of God. Some wording like that. You can all hear me typing because I'm trying to find. It's Matthew 1810. Yes. Oh, yeah, Matthew 1810.

It says, see that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven, their angels. Always see the face of my father. Are beholding the face of the phone. They're angels. Look, I love this, okay. Whose angels? The angels of the little ones.

Listen to Calvin, responding to that. Okay, I want to hear what he says. Jonathan Calvin. Are you going to say Calvin at Rare Calvin L? Rare. Let me read it first. Are you about to say rare John Calvin?

I don't want to give anyone any preconceived notions. Okay, let's hear. just did. Calvin answers three arguments for individual guardian angels. First, that particular angels have been assigned to serve as guardians over kingdoms. Daniel 10, Daniel 12. But that does not imply that each individual has a specific guardian. That's true.

Fine. Second, the reference to children's angels beholding the face of the father in Matthew 1810 does hint that certain, certain angels have been assigned to look over the safety of children. but this is not sufficient ground to assert a guardian angel. I just think that's a little bit less cool of a take from that. It is true. Third, with respect to Peter's angel in Acts 1215, it is possible the servant girl believed that Peter had a particular guardian angel. And he's also the interpretation that an angel was appointed care of him in prison.

I'm just like, but there was an angel actually. All of that is true. And this is a great point. It's important to make a distinction between what you know. Yes. And can demonstrate. Yes. And what you think is probabilistically true.

Yes, all of that is true. It's the difference between a deductive and an inductive argument. All of that is true, but I just want Calvin to say. And so... No, this is a really important point. A deductive argument, given the truth of the premises and the validity of the argument, the conclusion follows necessarily. Right.

Meaning you know a certainty it's true. If you can demonstrate that the premises are true and that it's in a valid form, it's valid and sound is the way you think about that. an inductive argument is a probabilistic argument. Yes. Meaning that if you can demonstrate the validity of the, of the premises, then the answer follows with some degree of certainty or other. Yes.

Meaning you can think like, I'm about 90% sure that the fluttering of the poster on my wall was because the window was open over here and a draft came through. But who knows that there's not a moth behind it? I don't know. I haven't looked. Because that's true. Yeah. It's important.

to make that distinction so that people on Twitter don't accuse people of isogesis when they say, yeah, there might be guardian angels for each person. It's actually a type of argument. It's a probabilistic argument. And I actually think it's not a pretty reasonable. I think it's, you could make that argument and defend it. As long as you don't say, I'm 100% sure of this and everyone who disagrees is stupid, then you're fine. So two

things to close it out before we get in our ending here. Number one, you hear stories like this all the time. I mean, I've probably heard from between my extended family and friends and then also like urban legend type stories. Many stories like a Christian family was involved in a severe car accident. Their car was mangled and, you know, an occupant's injured, but they claimed to see a mysterious figure at the crash site who helped them out of the wreckage and then no one could identify him. And people thought that was an angel. I think we've all heard that story. Or like, I was drowning and I should have drowned.

I was caught in an undertow. Recently, I heard a story, though. This was from one of my Facebook friends. They just posted this. Her husband was at work, and he works in some kind of machining. So, you know, dangerous. You can lose limbs up to you can die. Digits, lends, whatever.

And she, in the middle of the workday, just had a very strong urge to pray for her husband's safety. And I have no reason to doubt this person. And she just said, so I did. I stopped and I prayed. and 35 minutes later I got a picture from my husband and it was like him at the doctor and he was all bleeding

and there was a picture of the machine he was working out it was covering his blood and he was bleeding from a large wound in his hand but he basically said his hand was getting sucked into this machine and then it was like he felt something pull his hand out and it should have been far worse of an injury than it ended up being and it was still an injury but there was some kind of and like they weren't saying, oh, an angel did it.

Right. It could have been some force in the machine that pulled him and he just didn't know what it was or it happens quick. But even that was because God wanted it to be there. But the combination of this woman felt, oh, I need to pray for my husband's safety. And then 35 minutes later that happens. Mixed with the reality. The reality that angels are guarding the saints. That angels do that.

That is a high probability. It almost doesn't matter if we don't need to know. God didn't tell us whether we have an individual one or not. But it is comforting to know that God cares for us. And one of the ways he ensures that his will is done and only his will is done is that angels sometimes minister his will to the saints. Either through his permissive will of allowing some calamity to happen or preventing it. So I do think it's heartening as a Christian to, again, peel the scales off your eyes.

We're not materialists. We believe in angelic beings. Yeah. Who do God's will? You know what else they do? Ben? Oh, keep going. Wait, what were you going to say?

I was going to say they also pour out judgment. Oh, well, okay, so two things from Calvin, and then we'll move into closing story. Yeah. That are really helpful. One of them is actually not helpful. It's just cool. Calvin believes that the elect angels are presiding over the reprobate angels that have fallen. As God sovereignly uses those reprobate angels to execute vengeance on the earth.

In other words, black holes are- Okay, here we go. That are executing judgment on the cosmos. Listen, guys. Thank you, Calvin. Sidebar. I don't know that I agree with that. I made it up.

Thank you, Calvin, for helping me prove my point. We're excited. Prove your point is a strong. It's a strong sentence. Thank you. I'll repeat myself. For helping me prove my point. Not for proving it.

Number one. For helping me. But you would agree. It sounds like he's saying the point is proof. As in it's in the process of being proved. And that Calvin helped him do that. Dude, me and Michael Heiser are both on the cutting edge of developing Angel Lodge. That is, I'm kidding.

Literally not true. Okay, hey. Hey, I want to... I'm kidding. I've been staring at the camera for like five minutes. I'm joking. But then, yeah, go ahead. Just one last conclusion from Calvin.

He says, instead of defending personal guardian angels from these passages, it's more faithful to Scripture to argue that the whole host of heaven doth watch for the safety of the church. That as necessity of time requireth sometimes one angel, sometimes more, to defend us with their aid. And I totally agree with that. That's great. Yeah.

I agree with Calvin. 100% agree. with Calvin there. It doesn't really matter either way. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't change. It doesn't change anything. We're not going to be like trying to find our angel.

It actually doesn't change my thought on the matter whatsoever. If there's individual guardian angels or not. Yeah. My opinion is completely the same. I'm sorry, guys. I'm like, have sneezing. Yeah, what the heck? There's something in, you know, like tickling my nose.

Anyway. But Ben, one of the things that angels also do is they pour out judgment. They do pour out judgment. Can you take us? Can you take us out of this episode? I'd love to. With this modern example of God's judgment and the possible involvement

of his servants in the heavens. Yeah, I will do that. And I'm going to frame this closing story with a verse from Amos chapter 3. This is verse 6. The Bible says, is a trumpet blown in a city and the people are not afraid?

Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? The Friday before Ash Wednesday, which is the day marking the beginning of Lent, is a very special day on the Brazilian calendar. On that Friday at noon, the festivals of Carnival begin all through the country's different states. It's a time of popular debauchery for an entire country of people before the Lent season, a time that has grown in popularity among the secular world, growing increasingly antagonistic to religious ideology,

particularly the true religion of Christ. The basic idea is to partake of carnal lusts to the fullness of the body's delight. Naturally, then, this is not a good place to be. In 2019, some of the biggest celebrations occurred in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, two major cities in Brazil. In the midst of these celebrations, grotesque scenes unfolded. Two actors, one portraying Christ and the other the devil, acted out a scene in which the devil trampled upon Christ and dragged him.

him by the wrist to further torment. This was followed later by a massive float towering over the nearby homes, and the float depicted the devil sticking out his tongue and shooting fire from his mouth to overtake the city. The whole thing was gross and gave off the unmistakable impression that whoever organized these things really wanted people to recognize the glory of the evil one, while diminishing and even directly attacking the supremacy of Christ. Whichever body of people was behind this, they apparently thought Christ was either the invention of weak minds like a superstition,

or that if he was real, he was actually the loser of the whole story. Unfortunately for them, they were wrong. The church in Brazil launched an immediate protest, actually suing the festival and appealing to the state to demand justice be done for this gross display of disrespect for the faith that built the country. The church did plenty more to combat the evil displayed, but this was their biggest move, actually demanding the state punish the evildoers blasphemy. And the battle raged on for three years until, in 2022, the church finally received news that they had lost. Or so the courts thought.

In 2023, as the first carnival, since those events due to complications from COVID, kicked off again, storms began brewing off the Brazilian coast. And just days into the festival that spans so many cities, record rainfall brought raging floods tearing through town squares and city streets, even triggering massive landslides that swept away and buried whole neighborhoods. Cities began canceling Carnival left and right, unable to achieve any safety measures with such short notice. People died, people went missing, homes were lost forever. Infrastructure was wrecked. This was indeed a historic disaster for the country of Brazil, and all of it happened to coincide with Carnival. The first carnival since the wicked displays

of 2019's festival and the state's approval of these things over against the protest of the saints. Our point is not to make light of these events, quite the opposite, actually. What is most terrifying is that this was no accident. It was not a random occurrence. in anarchical cosmos because nothing is an accident. There is no such thing. Remember what the prophet Amos says. The Lord is the one who brings disaster upon a city every time. The Lord's patience was displayed for four years

while his church fought the depravity, and then his poetic justice was achieved in bringing the wickedness of Carnival to an end in 2023. And who is it who enacts God's providential decrees on the earth? It is the Lord who does it, And yet the Lord uses means to accomplish his ends. As with Noah and the flood, who saved Noah? Well, God did.

But what saved Noah? The ark did. Who brought disaster upon Brazil? God did. But who brought disaster upon Brazil? Could it not be his angelic host? Pouring out divine wrath at God's command, protecting his saints,

and ensuring our shared Lord is not mocked? Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters? Who maketh the clouds his chariote? who walketh upon the wings of the wind, who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers of flaming fire. Psalm 104. And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels,

go your ways and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. Revelation 16, verse 1. Want more haunted cosmos? Then make your way over to Patreon, where you can get early access to our content, as well as exclusive content in regular dusty tomes and monthly live streams with Brian and myself.

So go to patreon.com slash haunted cosmos and sign up now.