Angels are larger-than-life spirits woven into Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

Milton described them as flaming seraphs and medieval theologians believed angels spun the planets and moved the stars.

Although New Agers try to make angels into cream puffs—nearly cosmic pets—their business is often serious stuff. Their business is saving us from Satan.

They love us too much to see us stray into Hell.

From the first they have come to warn and, when necessary, to carry forth correction or punishment. It’s another of their functions.

To deny this—especially to ignore their connection to warnings and prophecy—is to deny one of their main biblical roles.

When Herod committed idolatry, giving glory to man instead of God, “The angel of the Lord smote him” (Acts 12:22).

So too did God warn the Egyptians that He would send plagues if the Pharaoh did not let His people go. When God was not obeyed, Egypt suffered lice, locusts, disease, hail, and darkness. God used nature to right the many wrongs. The storms devastated Egypt’s trees and farmland.

In the Book of Numbers an angel is again seen with a sword (22:23) and in the Book of Judges there is an angel associated once more with fire (6:21). We also see that warnings are conditional. God often plans to chastise us but relents when He sees signs of improvement. Or He lessens what He planned. We see in 2 Samuel 24:16 how He sent a plague that killed 70,000 from Dan to Beersheba but called off punishment when the angel was ready to destroy Jerusalem. [scroll for more:]

To think that angels are innocuous winged creatures who are meant to set atop a Christmas tree—to see them only as dimply, chubby, and babylike cherubim—is a misreading of Scripture, for their purpose, as much as anything, is to set us straight. This is not an act of heavenly venom. This is not an act of callousness. This is an act of mercy. It is far better to save sinners through earthly chastisement than to present them with the greatest chastisement—Hell.

God is using angels, as always He has used angels, to direct, inspire, and apprise us.

The earthly developments are but a shadow of what’s going on in the heavenlies.

There is a war being fought, a spiritual war, and often the locutions of visionaries and pastors—the prophetic inspiration from worship services and Pentecostal revivals—signify events more in a spiritual than a physical realm.

There were even signs in outer space. You may recall that at Medjugorje, peasants once saw the word for peace—MIR—scrawled supernaturally in the sky.

Five years after that, the Soviets launched a new space station to replace the Salyut. The date was February 13, 1986, and the name of the new Soviet station was “MIR.”

The sense of supernatural presence—that something was going on—even extended to tabloid writers who often manufacture articles.

According to one such report, which was given greater currency when Parade magazine facetiously reprinted it on January 6, 1986, six Soviet cosmonauts witnessed what looked like a band of glowing angels in outer space while aboard the orbiting “Salyut 7” space station.<[scroll for more:]

Although there was no reason to believe that report (which first appeared in an especially outrageous supermarket tabloid), there were other reports, far less sensational but equally interesting, in credible periodicals, of strange goings-on up there.

The observations in space seemed to possess a nearly mystical dimension.

“There’s a gal I know who’s a very spiritual woman and has apparitions of an angel who suddenly appears next to her in an empty church when she’s praying,” said one highly respected priest.

“He’s garbed something like a monk, in a robe, and he tells her a lot of things about me, what I’m going to be doing. She gets information about me and is told to pray for me and all priests. I asked her, ‘Will I ever see this person?’ She said, ‘Eventually, some time, you will.’ I asked, ‘What does he look like?’ She said, ‘He’s very calm, somewhat swarthy complexion, very, very handsome. And very tall and husky, an appealing person who looks very human.’

“She said the angel has spent hours with her, talking to her and telling her to pray for priests. That’s the main thing he does. She said, ‘You know, he told me you’re going to be in a certain church next Wednesday and there’s going to be five priests on the altar with you, concelebrating the Mass.’ I said, ‘Well, he’s wrong. It’s not going to be Wednesday. It’s going to be Tuesday.’ She said, ‘No, no. He said it’s Wednesday.’ I said, ‘Well, I know my schedule, and it’s going to be Tuesday.’ I didn’t know about this concelebration. She said five priests would be there and he—the angel—would also be there.

“Well, after the phone call, after she said this, I went and checked my schedule. I was certain she was wrong. But she was right: It was a Wednesday, not a Tuesday. So I went to the church that night for the charismatic Mass. We had four priests concelebrating, not five. And I thought, well, this is where the revelation is wrong. After we began the Mass a fifth priest came on just a few minutes late. The chances of that happening were just astronomical. She had said her angel would be there and I was looking for someone of the angel’s description. And way in the back of the church, in the last pew, there was someone who fit that description perfectly. I sort of glanced back there and when I looked up again he was completely gone—disappeared.”

[adapted from The Trumpet of Gabriel]