This week on Things Unseen, since we're in the Advent season, we've been thinking about angels.

And when we think of these amazing creatures, it's kind of ludicrous that they've been portrayed

almost as though they were children's toys.

Makes you wonder if that's been a tactic of Satan to ridicule the angels and thus to ridicule God.

So we've been trying to reflect on who these heavenly creatures are and what they do.

Of course, we know that in general terms they are servants of God in establishing his purposes.

Psalm 103, verse 20, puts it this way.

They are mighty beings who accomplish God's will.

Yes, mighty beings.

Think of their power. They destroyed Sodom. Think of the angel of death's visitation in the Exodus.

Or in a different way, think of the angel who opened prison doors to rescue Peter from prison, or those who rolled away the stone before the tomb of Jesus.

But what I think is especially interesting is the way these heavenly beings seem to appear at especially

strategic points in biblical history.

Here are some of them.

At creation according to Job chapter 38, at the time of the fall in Genesis chapter 3, in establishing the covenant

line and family in the life of Abraham in Genesis 19 and in the case of Isaac as well.

Or in the Exodus, in the angel of the Lord appearing to Moses, and then leading the people in the pillar of cloud

and fire.

And then the angels appear in connection with the giving of the law, according to Galatians 3,

verse 19.

And then they are there in the entrance into the promised land in Exodus 23.

And again, in the days of the Judges, the lives of

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