We Worshiped in the Company of Angels

Many Christians dismiss the idea that we can see or experience angels today. Some believe all we need is the bible. Some think those who claim to see angels are ‘religious fools’, like this person who published a review on Amazon for ‘The Veil: An Invitation to the Unseen Realm’ by Blake Healey. Writing about the idea that we can see angels, the reviewer said:

“Have the religious become so clueless as to follow such nonsense. Just another religious man duping the fools who want to believe we can actually do such things . . . He is basically claiming something that never happened to anyone, including Jesus . . . or His apostles or any of the great saints through history”.

Well, in spite of his opinion, I felt the presence of angels and saw them in my mind (a vision) during a recent worship service at my church in North Carolina. This post is my story about that night. But first, some scripture about Cornelius and Peter in which Cornelius saw an angel in a vision and Peter had a vision that connected to what the angel was telling Cornelius. I won’t write about the entire encounter. You can read the passage yourself. It is most of Acts 10.

“At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment . . . One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, “Cornelius!” Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked. The angel answered . . . “Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter” . . . When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier . . . and sent them to Joppa” (Acts 10: 1 – 8 NIV).

The next day, while the servants were on their way to Joppa, Peter was on the roof praying when he fell into a trance and had his own vision. In his vision Peter saw heaven open and a large sheet let down by its four corners. On the sheet were all types of animals unclean for Jews to eat. Peter heard a voice that told him to kill and eat. In his vision Peter protested, “Surely not, Lord!” But the voice spoke to him a second time saying, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

After the voice had spoken to him three times, Peter ‘woke up’ and began to wonder about what he had just experienced.

“While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them for I have sent them.” Peter went down” . . . and asked them why they were looking for him. The men told him, “We have come from Cornelius the centurion . . . A holy angel told him to have you come to his house.”

You know the rest of the story – the Gentile Cornelius and his household became Christians when the Holy Spirit came on all who were listening to Peter’s message. From this interaction the church began to spread throughout the ‘unclean’ Gentile world to the ‘ends of the earth’. God sent the angel and the visions to further His purpose and to make His character clear to Peter, Cornelius and his household, and to us today. No one is outside of His grace. His Kingdom knows no bounds!

I included this scripture, describing one of many experiences that men have had in the Bible with angels and visions, to demonstrate that an encounter you or I might have with angels is not out of the realm of possibility for God’s Kingdom people – men, women, and even children. If we dig a bit more deeply into your experiences and mine, we might find that many of us have been in the presence of angels, although I suspect that not all of us would recognize an angel because no one has told us what to look for.

There are many facets to the Cornelius/Peter encounter with angels and visions, but one that strikes me is that God did not give the message to just one person – He gave the message to two people so that its validity could be confirmed. God works through community. Many people want to see angels. Some will claim these sightings for their own purposes. It is possible to manipulate and abuse this gift – claiming to see angels where none exist to build up one’s own sense of importance – even to claim a message for the body was given by an angel, but was actually from satan.

Satan counterfeits God’s gifts to His children. But just because satan can counterfeit angelic encounters, that does not mean we should reject the possibility that God wants to communicate with us through this well-documented way. Still, we need to “test the spirits”. John writes, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4: 1 NIV). ‘Testing the spirit’ is a form of basic discernment. Any Kingdom man or woman should be able to discern the difference between something of God and something of the devil. Another important way to test the ‘spirit’ or angelic encounter is to have it confirmed by another person (or more than one). A further way is to know that no angelic ‘word’ will contradict the written word of God.

Paul writes, “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophesies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians 5: 19 – 21 NIV). Visions, like Peter had of an open heaven, and the encounter Cornelius had with an angel, fall into the category of ‘prophecy’ for me. We should test them, but we should not treat them with contempt.

With all of that background, here is my experience with angels at the recent worship service I mentioned above:

Our worship team led a special 2-hour night of worship at our church on Saturday, February 3, 2018 in our Fellowship Hall. It was not a large crowd – probably 35 people gathered to worship. Almost immediately the Lord showed up. His presence and power were evident to all who were there.

The worship was joyful and enthusiastic. Some people were dancing, the songs were wonderful, and the worship team was unified in their humility and desire to lead worship. Plus they are all great musicians. There was no spirit of performance. It was a night of sweet, beautiful worship. We felt the weight of His glory.

During the first song I began to get an image in my mind of ‘people’ standing, shoulder to shoulder, against the four walls of the fellowship hall. The fellowship hall in our church is basically a big rectangle and these ‘people’, who I assumed were angels, were standing along each wall, although when I looked I saw nothing there. I thought, “This is my mind tricking me.” But the image remained and got more intense.

About halfway through the worship time the presence and power of God got really ‘thick’. If you have experienced this in a time of worship you know what I mean. Words, at least my words, cannot really capture the feeling of His presence. And then one of the worship team sang a beautiful song about being surrounded by the Holy Spirit. In that moment I saw in my vision all of the angels in unison take about 4 or 5 steps forward into the room. They encircled the worshipers (and I think the band also, but I only saw the people worshiping). The angels stood there for a few minutes and then they moved again.

This time the angels broke up into groups of three or four. Each angelic group then surrounded one worshiper, so that everyone had their own small group of angels. The angels began to minister to ‘their’ person. I didn’t exactly see what they were doing, but some had bowls in their hands. I sensed they were speaking words of affirmation and encouragement, communicating the Father’s love for that person, softening hardened hearts, and ministering healing. It was a beautiful sight.

After about 20 minutes the angels moved again. This time they all gathered in a semi-circle at the front of the hall and began speaking blessings over all who were gathered. That was the last thing I saw. The vision ended.

I was still asking myself – “is this really happening?”. Although I was strongly impacted by what I “saw”, I decided to keep this vision of angels to myself.

The worship team began a new song, “You’re My Healer”. When the song ended, the worship leader called me, my wife, and two other couples forward to pray for anyone who wanted prayer. At the end of that ministry time, I was walking to my chair when the worship leader stepped away from the microphone and called me back. He said to me, “I know you have something to share. Go to the microphone and tell us what you have to share.” He didn’t really ask. It was more like a command. Uh oh. How did he know?

So, I did. I shared the vision of the angels. I told them everything I have written here, especially the angels ministering to each of them. Then I sat down. I could tell people were impacted by what I shared. Some told me later they had felt the presence of the Father’s love in a special way that night. One man felt literally hugged and wrapped in the Father’s love.

The worship team played one or two more songs. The pastor, who was also greatly moved by the power of God, blessed us and asked God “to seal our hearts so that we might carry His presence and power with us.”

We were all gathering our coats and asking ourselves, “What just happened here?”, when one of our more prophetic guys called out, “Wait, I have something I want to share.” He walked up to the microphone and told us what he had seen – he also had seen angels ministering to each person, except he saw more detail than I saw. But it was a very similar vision. I know him – he is careful with what and how he shares. I believed he was being truthful.

Wow! I took his testimony to be confirmation that what I had experienced was more than my imagination.

After he finished I turned to my oldest grandson, who is 11. Jokingly I asked him, “Did you see the angels?” Very seriously he said, “Grandpa, I saw what you saw.” Whoa! “Really”, I asked him. “Yes, Grandpa. I saw the angels.” Later I learned that he saw them as lights. I saw them as people.

The next day someone asked me, “what did the angels look like?” They looked like ordinary people dressed in casual clothes. I didn’t notice details. They were not brightly lit nor did they have wings. What I did sense was their joy and enthusiasm for the worship. They were excited to be there. I also sensed they had a great love, compassion, and kindness for all of us. They ministered to each person with love, tenderness and great care, seeming to know what each person needed. They carried healing with them and their blessings were powerful. I got a strong sense that they were sent to us that night.

This encounter with angels got me thinking about other worship services I have attended. Do angels regularly show up when God’s people worship? Do many of us sense their presence, but ignore the spiritual cues, thinking they are our imagination? When the power and presence of God falls on a worship service, does that mean angels are present? And if they are there, why shouldn’t I just ignore them? What good does it do me or anyone else to ‘see’ them?

Seeing the angels in my worship service took the worship to an entirely new level – even though I was reluctant to share what I “saw”. I was more aware of my connection to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It deepened my connection to the Father’s love and gave me a new awareness of His Kingdom. It made me realize that when we worship, heaven can open up and touch each of us deeply in our hearts. There is much more to worship than casually or routinely showing up on Sunday morning out of a sense of obligation or habit. When we really worship, led by a worship team completely sold out to God, heaven can settle over us and in us. Angels, carrying the presence of God, can minister, heal, encourage, and grow us more into Christ’s likeness.

The presence of angels shows us that the barrier between heaven – the unseen realm – and our world has been removed – the veil really has been torn. Heaven can penetrate our space and bring down the blessings of God directly into our hearts. God does not need angels to do that, but the presence of angels is one more way God teaches His followers how to recognize and live into His Kingdom, and demonstrates His character, which is love.

Worship like this is unlike anything else I have experienced on earth. Standing in front of a great natural spectacle like the Grand Canyon, a beautiful work of art or cathedral, or listening to glorious music (especially music) comes close, but only this type of worship gives me a profound sense of awe and wonder.

That’s my story. Some of you, if you have read this far, will probably think I have gone over to ‘the dark side’. I know that there are many committed Christians who do not believe that the supernatural manifests in our lives – who think that all we need is God’s written word. But my reading of God’s word convinces me that God communicates with His Kingdom men and women in many ways. He has used angels in the past and I believe He is still using them today. I like what Paul wrote, “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.”

Blessings,

John

PS. As far as I can tell, God’s Kingdom people all have the ability to see more deeply into the supernatural realm. I am no one special in this regard. God wants to show Himself to us, to deepen our relationship with Him, and to comfort and heal His people. Pay attention to what you see and hear. Keep the ‘eyes of your heart’ open. Who knows what you will ‘see’? Learn what His voice sounds like. He might be speaking to you all the time, and you just don’t recognize it.