Well, it's the end of another week here on Things Unseen.

And with many of us probably preparing for Christmas, we've been thinking about that great feature of Christmas carols and Christmas cards, the presence of angels. And from one point

of view, as I've said, we don't know all that much about them, and yet it's amazing just how

much the Bible does tell us about who they are and what they do. And there's certainly a lot more

about them than we could possibly cover in this week of podcasts. But as we close out this week,

I want to draw attention to one feature of the ministry of angels that we rarely think about.

Angels seem to serve as ministers of praise in the worship of the heavenly sanctuary. We're hopefully

all very clear in our minds that angels are not to be worshipped.

You remember that the worship of angels was an element in what sometimes called the Colossian

heresy that Paul warns about in Colossians chapter 2.

And you'll remember too that in the last chapter of the Bible, John was so overawed by the presence of an angel that he fell down to worship at his feet. And the angel said to him, don't do that. I'm a fellow servant with you. No, angels are not to be worshipped, but they are worshippers.

They worshipped at creation.

Remember God's words to Job in Job chapter 38 when he says that the angels, the heavenly

sons of God, shouted for joy when God laid the foundation of the earth?

And they certainly worshipped at the incarnation too,

didn't they? And in fact, in Psalm 148, the Samist looks up through the heavens to address the

angels and says, praise God all his angels, praise him all his heavenly hosts.

In the early years of my Christian life, every Sunday morning I used to read through Revelation

chapters 4 and 5 to prepare for the worship services of the day.

I don't suppose I fully understood what the passage was saying.

I think I still don't.

But I had a sense that this was true worship and

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