Isaiah 57:14 - Homiletics

The ministry of angels.

Without intruding it on the reader's attention, Isaiah is continually implying the interest which angels take in all God's dealings with his Church, and the assistance which they render. Voices fill the heavenly sphere around him and about him, which can only be angelic utterances, and from time to time he records the sayings. Sometimes he records them openly as angelic; e.g. the seraph's words, when he took the live coal from the altar in the court of heaven, and therewith touched the prophet's lips ( Isaiah 6:7 ). But more often he names no speaker, but simply gives the words or introduces them impersonally with the phrase, "and one said" (see Isaiah 21:11 ; Isaiah 26:2 ; Isaiah 40:6 , etc.). It is sometimes said that the Jews first learnt to believe in the existence of angels from the Babylonians. But Isaiah's writings furnish a proof, if proof were needed, that this was not so. Isaiah shows us angels—

1. AS MINISTRANT TO GOD IS HEAVEN . Above the throne of God in heaven were seen by Isaiah, in vision, a number of seraphim, or winged creatures of the angelic class, attendant upon the great King, and ready at each moment to do his pleasure ( Isaiah 6:2 ). They "stood," to show respect and reverence; they had two of their wings outspread, to show readiness to fly at once whithersoever God should send them; they had two others veiling their faces, to indicate a sense of their unworthiness to look on the face of the Almighty. As they stood, they praised God, saying, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory" ( Isaiah 6:3 ). The scene drawn reminds us of St. John's vision in Patmos ( Revelation 4:1-11 ), and also, to some extent, of the vision of Miciah the son of Imlah, in the First Book of Kings ( 1 Kings 22:19-22 ). The teaching of all these passages is consentient. God has always attendant upon him, in the courts of heaven, angelic beings of varied powers and capacities, who stand before him in adoration, and at the same time are eager to go whithersoever he may send them, and carry into effect his purposes.

II. AS DOING SERVICE TO MEN ON EARTH . Angels are represented by Isaiah as interested in the life of God's faithful ones, as watching God's dealings with them, and occasionally showing their sympathy. Christians are expressly taught that all angels are "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who are heirs of salvation" ( Hebrews 1:14 ). Isaiah seems to have divined their functions in this respect. He "sees indeed through a glass darkly," and not yet "face to face" ( 1 Corinthians 13:12 ); but still he not obscurely intimates from time to time their close relationship to man.. God places them upon the wails of the new Jerusalem to watch ( Isaiah 62:6 ). They stand there, and "take no rest." They are Jehovah's "remembrancers," not reminding him of human sin or human shortcomings, but of his promises to his people, and of their need that he should give them succour (see Mr. Cheyne on Isaiah 62:6 ). It is, perhaps, a cry of the angels that rings out in the "splendid apostrophe," "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old" ( Isaiah 51:9 ). Angels exchange "cries" when the promise of Christ's coming is given ( Isaiah 40:6-8 ). Angels are interested in a path being made by which the faithful ones may reach God's holy city ( Isaiah 57:14 ). Angels call on their fellows to open to the saints the gates of heaven ( Isaiah 26:2 ). The dwellers in the empyrean are joined with the believers on earth in the bonds of charity and love, and form with them one community in the city of the living God ( Isaiah 62:6 ; comp. Hebrews 12:22-24 ).