Tonight I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to the prophet Ezekiel, Ezekiel chapter 1. Continue to consider the summary of what we believe and confess in the Belgic Confession. Coming to Article 12 concerning the creation of all things, we're looking especially at the creation of the invisible things. And so we'll be reading from Ezekiel chapter 1. And then we'll read also from Article 12 of the Belgic Confession. Ezekiel 1 is on page 877. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and then Ezekiel, Daniel, and so forth. Ezekiel 1, page 877. So let's read together the word of the Lord our God. In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Kibar Canal, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth day of the month, it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin, the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Kibar Canal, and the hand of the Lord was upon him there. As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were, a gleaming metal. And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures, and this was their appearance. They had a human likeness, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot. And they sparkled like burnished bronze. Under their wings on the four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus. Their wings touched one another. Each one of them went straight forward without turning as they went. As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces, and their wings were spread out above. Each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies, and each went straight forward. Wherever this spirit would go, they went without turning as they went. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches moving to and fro among the living creatures. And the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures darted to and fro, like the appearance of a flash of lightning. Now, as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction, their appearance was like the gleaming of a barrel, and the four had the same likeness, their appearance and construction being, as it were, a wheel within a wheel. When they went, they went in any of the four directions without turning as they went. And their rims were tall and awesome. And the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them. And when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went. And the wheels rose along with them. For the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When those went, these went. And when those stood, these stood. And when those rose from the earth, the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an expanse, shining like awe-inspiring crystals spread out above their heads. And under the expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward another, and each creature had two wings covering its body. And when they went, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the sound of the Almighty, a sound of tumult, like the sound of an army. When they stood still, they let down their wings. And there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads. When they stood still, they let down their wings. And above the expanse over their heads, there was the likeness of a throne in appearance like sapphire. And seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. And upward from what had the appearance of his waist, I saw, as it were, gleaming metal like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him. Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around him. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking. And this ends our reading from God's Word. And again, we're reading this in connection with Article 12 of the Belgian Confession. It's page 164 in your Forms and Prayers book. But here we have our confession of the creation of all things. And here we declare that we believe that the Father created heaven and earth and all other creatures from nothing, when it seemed good to Him, by His Word, that is to say, by His Son. He has given all creatures their being, form, and appearance, and their various functions for serving their Creator. Even now He also sustains and governs them all according to His eternal providence and by His infinite power, that they may serve man in order that man may serve God. He has also created the angels good, that they might be His messengers and serve His elect. Some of them have fallen from the excellence in which God created them into eternal perdition, and the others have persisted and remained in their original state by the grace of God. The devils and evil spirits are so corrupt that they are enemies of God and of everything good. They lie in wait for the church and every member of it, like thieves with all their power, to destroy and spoil everything by their deceptions. So then, by their own wickedness, they are condemned to everlasting damnation, daily awaiting their torments. For that reason, we detest the error of the Sadducees who deny that there are spirits and angels, and also the error of the Manichaeans who say that the devils originated by themselves, being evil by nature without having been corrupted. And thus ends our reading from the Confession here tonight. The congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, ours, is very much a materialistic age and day and world, much more materialistic than the day and the world in which the Belgic Confession was first written. And what I mean by materialistic is that more people than ever today deny the supernatural. More and more people argue that this life is all there is. There's no greater meaning. There's no life after death. We are simply a collection of atoms that are here today and will cease to exist tomorrow. Although there are variations and some pushback against that sort of mentality today, still there are many others who simply view humans as the product of just material stuff. Even our consciousness, even our mental faculties and so forth, they would argue, can simply be explained by physical processes. It can all be located within our DNA. We are simply physical beings with no greater reality behind it. For them, the visible world is all that exists. But as those who believe in the Bible, we confess that there is much more to creation than just what we see with our eyes, what we find under a microscope, or what we can see at the end of a telescope. We argue that there is a whole other realm, this whole other kind of existence that cannot be seen with the naked eye. One of the ways people often try to picture this kind of idea is in terms of a play. You can, of course, sit in the audience and you can watch a play taking place upon the stage. And you see there everything that's in front of the curtain. You can see all the actors doing their thing and going about their different... parts. But you could also perhaps maybe take a seat up in the catwalk or perhaps someone might give you a backstage pass and you quickly discover as you maybe get a different perspective and walk behind the curtain that there is much more going on than you ever realized. There is much more going on behind the scenes than what you can simply see as you gaze upon the stage. And so we find within our Bibles that very thing. We find prophets like Ezekiel who have, as it were, the curtain of heaven briefly pulled back that they might see something of what's going on behind this world, behind this existence we currently enjoy, to glimpse something of the other side of reality. And what we have here in Article 11 is our confession that there is indeed this other side of reality. There is the invisible realm. And that God, who created all that we see, has also created all that we do not see. God has created not just the visible realm, but the invisible realm. Now, in our morning services, we've been looking somewhat at God's creation of the world, specifically as men and women. And so in our time tonight, we're focusing especially on God's creating the invisible realm out of nothing, specifically in terms of the angels. In our time together then, we want to answer three questions. First of all, what are angels? But secondly, what do angels do? And then third, what about evil angels? We want to try to answer those three questions. What are angels? What do angels do? And what about evil angels? Now, the most basic question we want to try to answer tonight is, what are angels? And we do so by looking at Ezekiel 1. Now, this is, of course, a very strange chapter. In reading it, you probably were quite confused and struck by the picturesque language and had a hard time making heads or tails of it. I remember myself one time discovering this chapter as a child and setting out to try to draw what this chapter describes, and I eventually threw in the towel because I could not make heads or tails of what was going on here. And it is this way because it's another part of Scripture that is what you call apocalyptic. It's like the book of Revelation or the book of Zechariah. You find language that's very picturesque. It is men who have seen the spiritual realm and who are struggling to convey in human language what they've seen. And all they can do is just struggle with describing words, throwing a bunch of stuff out there to try to reflect, just in some fashion, the absolute wonder of what they experienced that far surpassed anything they'd ever seen before in their life. But here we meet these four living creatures who are cherubim, as chapter 10 will also make clear. And they are what you might call a certain type or kind of angel. Within the Bible we meet a number of different kinds of angels. For instance, you have what you might call the normal or the regular angels. And then you have archangels like Gabriel. And then you have as well angels who are called, referred to as the seraphim, and here the cherubim. So there are different kinds of angels, different sorts of angels. There are the regular angels, archangels, cherubim, and seraphim, different kinds of these heavenly creatures. But what are they? Well, they are in some ways like us. In some ways, angels are like us. Our confession reminds us of these very things. The confession reminds us that God created them out of nothing, just like He made us out of nothing. Angels were also created by the Son of God, just as we were. God created everything through His Son, not just the visible world but the invisible. Angels were made by Jesus, made out of nothing. Very clearly, angels do not have everlasting life, or at least they don't stretch back into eternity. They never existed at one point in time, and God brought them into existence. Furthermore, confession reminds us that angels were originally created good. Just like Adam and Eve, angels were made good. That God brought all the angelic beings into existence, and they were all good. But it also appears that God made them, as well, able to sin or able not to sin. Like Adam and Eve, originally angels were able to do right or to do wrong. And it eventually came about that one day they did rebel against God, at least a part of them sinned against God, and so were plunged into corruption. So angels, in that way, are similar to us. And one other way that they're similar to us is that they're very obviously limited. Now, of course, Angels are, in some respects, greater than us. They have greater power. They perhaps have greater knowledge. They, of course, have greater strength. But yet they are very limited. Angels are not all-powerful. They're not all-knowing. They're not everywhere present. They are not God. They're not on the same level as God. Angels still are created beings that are limited, limited as to how strong and powerful and so forth they are. But there are other ways in which angels are unlike us. Clearly, they are spiritual beings, spiritual creatures with immense glory and power. The Bible will commonly refer to angels as spirits, which tells us that angels aren't made of stuff like we are. When God made Adam, he made Adam from the dust of the ground. God did not fashion angels out of stuff. They're not made of material. but they are spiritual, non-physical beings. And angels, we also learn, are unlike us in the fact that they don't propagate. There are no baby angels. There are no families, there's no moms, there's no dads. In fact, angels, it appears, have no, you might say, organic unity. As mankind, we are all part of one large, you might say, family. We all descend from Adam and Eve. We're all connected to each other. But angels are not connected to each other. They don't have a parent, they don't have a brother or a sister. It seems that when God created angels, he brought them all into existence individually, created all at once. God made all the angels at one time, and that's all the angels that have ever been made at that one single moment. And so when it comes as well to the fall of angels, they all fell individually. They had no covenant representative like Adam. They didn't have this leader, you might say. In some respects, you might say Satan's their leader, but it's not as if they're united to him or have fellowship with him or that he is related to them, but they all fell individually. But one of the most striking ways in which angels differ from us is, of course, in terms of their glory. And that's what we really see here in Ezekiel 1. The cherubim are pictured, and we're told they have four faces. One face like a man, one face like a lion, one face like an ox, and one face like an eagle. It seems one face facing each of the four directions. And this kind of imagery stresses how they are glorious creatures. They possess the highest attributes that we find in the world around us. You can think of man. Man is, of course, the greatest of all earthly creatures that God made. But the lion is the greatest wild animal, the king of the jungle, we say, the king of the beasts. An ox is the greatest of all domestic animals, the strongest, the largest, the most powerful. And the eagle, of course, is the greatest bird, the most majestic, strong, and beautiful. And so the cherubim are characterized as possessing the greatest attributes that we find in the world around us. They possess them all in themselves. And we're told that by each of them is a wheel. with another wheel that's inside of it, kind of like a gyroscope maybe. But you put the picture together and you see these angels, as it were, are like pulling a chariot. These wheels are like the chariot wheels. And on top of that chariot or in the chariot is the throne of God. And so you have these four cherubim that are, as it were, pulling the throne of God all around them, and their movement is like the flashing of fire, and Ezekiel sees this and it's like the flashing of lightning. And what's unmistakable in all of that is the wondrous glory of these creatures. These angels that have been fashioned by God and how they possess a glory, they possess, you might say, a holiness, they possess this awesomeness that we do not see anywhere in our existence. But angels possess this glory in a far greater way than anything we could begin to fathom. They truly reflect in a greater degree the absolute majesty of the Lord our God. These angels, what are they? They are these beings that wondrously reflect, declare, and show forth the unbounded glory of God. They shine with a radiance we can't even begin to fathom. They are far beyond us in glory. And so it's like we read in the Psalms that man was made lower than the angels, made lower than the angels. The angels have a glory that far surpasses what we possess. And yet, we should also realize as we look at the being of angels and what they are, that humans still are greater than them and will be greater than them. And I came across this excellent quote by one Reformed theologian who says, angels may be mightier spirits, but humans are the richest of the two. In intellect and power, angels far surpass humans. But in virtue of the marvelously rich relationships in which humans stand to God, the world, and humanity, humans are psychologically deeper and mentally richer Consequently also, the richest and most glorious attributes of God are knowable and enjoyable only by humans. The depths of God's compassion only disclose themselves to humans. The full image of God, therefore, is only unfolded in creaturely fashion in humans, better still in humanity. In other words, angels reflect a glory of God we can't fathom. And yet we, more than angels, are made in the image of God. God is seen in us more wonderfully, more fulsomely than what you find among the angels. And what we know and what we possess in relationship to God is far greater than what the angels themselves possess. And so it is the truth that we're reminded of here as well, that for as glorious as the angels may be, we have something far richer, far more wonderful in relationship with God as those made in His image. And so even as we see these creatures, see these beings on the pages of Scripture, we are to be amazed, amazed that God's creating them, but also amazed at who God made us to be, and how God is elevating us, how God is raising us up, even in the Lord Jesus Christ, to give us a glory that, yes, will surpass that of the angels themselves. So one day our very nature will be much more glorious than what we see in the angels, and we will be, as it were, the true crown of all God's creation. Marvelous, marvelous things here as we consider the angels and who they are. But secondly, we look as well, what do they do? What do these different kinds of angels do? When we look here at Ezekiel 1, as I said, you see these cherubim that are pulling the throne of God around. And in fact, these angels serve as something of God's bodyguard. What's interesting is that when Ezekiel sees this vision, he finds this thunderous storm coming out of the north. And it's interesting because Israel's enemies were the ones who usually came in from the north. And it's a terrifying picture in that way because Ezekiel is seeing God, this terrible vision of God and his angels coming out of the north towards his people. striking fear into his heart at the reality that, in a certain regard, God is coming against them as their enemy. Now, it might sound strange to refer to God as an enemy, but that's the reality of human sin. We live in rebellion against God. We are God's enemies by nature. He's opposed to us, He rejects us, and He will destroy us. Israel had to learn that lesson the hard way through the exile, and when Ezekiel receives this vision, Judah still has to learn that lesson. We're told that it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin, which is about the year 593. And that's seven years before Jerusalem is destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. And you see, what Ezekiel has in his vision then is a vision of God coming out of the north, coming in judgment against His people. And the cherubim, as it were, are those bringing God forward in judgment, bringing this wrath and anger down upon His people. In fact, in verse 24, Ezekiel tells us that the sound of the wings of the cherubim was like the sound of an army, an army sweeping down upon them from the north. In fact, the threatening nature of the cherubim's presence points us back to Genesis 3. Remember how Adam and Eve sinned and they were thrown out of the Garden of Eden and what did God do? He put cherubim in the Garden of Eden and a flaming sword. and they were there to keep Adam and Eve from coming back into God's presence. They were the ones barring the way into God's presence. They were like the bodyguards, they were like the men at the door, at the gates, seeing that no sinners and no sin comes before the Lord our God. And as you see this vision of the cherubim, there's this destructive sort of emphasis, this terrifying wind, this raging tempest. even echoing the language of creation in Genesis 1, and there's this sort of implication. God is bringing uncreation. God is going to destroy and tear apart. It's like God is going to tear apart the fabric of creation in His wrath coming against them. It's really a terrifying, terrifying picture. So the cherubim serve as something of God's bodyguards, you might say, barring people from coming before God, barring sinners from coming before the Lord our God. What about the seraphim? We also find them in the Bible. What do they do? Well, we read about them in Isaiah 6, and there, you might say, they seem to be more of God's heavenly heralds and God's attendants. They stand above God and they cry out, holy, holy, holy. is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And Isaiah cries out, woe is me. And a seraphim comes and touches his lips with a coal and says, your guilt has been taken away. In other words, we see the seraphim and they are the choir, the heavenly choir. They are the ones who sing unceasing praises to God, crying out continually, holy, holy, holy. And they carry out His Word within the throne room. They are the ones who carry out His will. exercising it. And, of course, there are the other angels who are messengers. They're the ones who convey messages from God. They're the ones who come into this world and make their presence known to us. They come at certain times and places bringing new revelation from God, bringing this word about what's happening, what's going on, and what it all means. And, of course, as Hebrews tells us, they have been sent to serve those who will inherit salvation. But when you put it all together, what do angels do? What we see when we look at the angels is that they are like God's heavenly court. You know, you would have, in the ancient world, kings, and of course, they would have their courtroom, and within the courtroom, they would have their attendants, they would have those, you know, the heralds, and they would have the messengers going in and going out. And you see, when God fashioned the invisible realm, God fashioned for himself the heavenly courts. God made these angelic beings whose primary responsibility is to carry out His will, accomplish the doing of His Word, and praising Him, and glorifying Him, and guarding His presence, guarding His throne room. He has these heavenly attendants that serve Him night and day, praise Him night and day, carry out His will night and day. You see, God surrounds Himself with glory. And God surrounds Himself with these creatures who will obey Him and do obey Him and who carry out His will and reflect something of His own glory. And as we read about this and as we see this, what we're intended to understand is the absolute glory of our God. To see the wonder of what our God has made and how all his creatures, great and small, reflect his own power, his own majesty, his own holiness. We're to look at this and we are to be amazed at the kind of God we have. Look at who He's attended by. Look at the creatures who serve Him. Look at how awesome and majestic these creatures are and understand in looking at that how much greater our God is. We often say as we look at the world that you can tell how great a man is by looking at his friends. A man's friends show something of who the man is. And it's that same idea when we come to the angels. Those who serve God, those who attend God, show us, again, something of the absolute majesty of the Lord our God. They show us the wonder and the glory of all that he is, that we might be humbled before him and confessing that he alone is God, that he is awesome and most wondrously to be praised and served and obeyed by us, his people. And you know, it's not just this glory and this threatening judgment either. But notice how Ezekiel as well points out that when he looks, you might say, to the throne, and he looks at who the cherubim are, as it were, ushering around the world. He sees below what's the appearance of a waste, he sees brightness. And he tells us that the appearance of that brightness was like a bow in the clouds on the day of rain. And do you know what Ezekiel's telling us he also saw? He didn't just see this burning glory of angels coming forth in judgment, he sees a rainbow. And children, what does a rainbow mean? It means that God will not only destroy, but it means that God is present in grace and mercy as well. It tells us that even in judgment, God's love and grace can still be found. It reveals to us that the one the angels magnify and serve and praise night and day is not just a God of wrath, not just a God who will destroy the wicked and unbelieving, but a God who has mercy and compassion upon sinners. You know, that's the one whom the angels proclaim as well. and what we need to lay hold of. You can appreciate what our confession says there again about how angels have been given to serve man that man might serve God. What do these angels also proclaim? They proclaim God's care toward us. They proclaim his love for us. They proclaim how much he is out to help us, protect us, and bless us. These angelic beings are not ones that simply cut away all that are wicked and unbelieving. These are also the angels that usher in God's children to his presence where they may live before his face forever. And that's the beauty of what angels do. They reveal the absolute glory of our God, the wonder of His holiness and justice and righteousness, but at the same time proclaim His mercy, grace, and love toward us as we come to Him, as we seek His face, clinging to His promises, clinging to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Angels then to bless, to preserve, and to show forth the love of God. But that leaves us with one final question where the confession actually spends the most amount of time. What about evil angels? What about wicked angels? We confess that they are fallen angels. In other words, God did not make demons. God did not, when he fashioned the universe and made all things, God did not make the devil as the devil. God did not make demons as demons. No, God made angels, all angels, and God made all angels good. And what happened after God made them is that they fell. They, like man, fell. They rebelled and they became corrupt. God didn't make them wicked, but they became wicked of their own fault. We don't know exactly how it happened, much less when. We're faced with the reality that it did happen. And when these angels fell, they became corrupt. And we often speak of them as demons now. Demons are fallen angels. Their sin and evil has so affected their very nature that as the Confession puts it, they are enemies of God and everything good. They lie in wait for the church and every member of it like thieves with all their power to destroy and spoil everything by their deceptions. It's hard to grasp just the reality of it, but they are filled with absolute hatred toward God. and they are utterly opposed to all the works of God. Their whole existence, you might say, is defined by their opposition and rejection of God. In a certain respect, the wicked angels, the demons, are as devoted to your destruction as good angels are devoted to your salvation. The wicked angels are working just as hard to undermine your faith as good angels are working to support your faith. Whereas the good angels were sent by God to bring a word of truth for them to believe in and to know, evil angels are instead devoted to spoiling everything by their lies and their deceptions. They are the, you might say, the antithesis of good angels. Everything that good angels are for, the demons are against. They are like the complete opposite of what God made them to be. And the reason why we confess this is because this is part of the reality of the world in which we live, and to make us sober. You know, it says, Paul writes in Ephesians 6, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. You know, sometimes as Christians we can easily forget this point. We too easily think that our battle is simply against flesh and blood. The real problem is just this person or that person. The real problem is just this elected official or that policy or this lack of money or that lack of food. That's what the problem is. It's simply these physical things that we see with our eyes. But God, by His Word, would say, no, no, no, no, there is so much more going on than what you simply see with your eyes. There is so much more going on in this world than you realize. That there are the wicked forces of evil in the heavenly places at work to deceive, to destroy, to undermine, to lead you and I on to rebellion and all kinds of wickedness. Of course, they're limited by God, they're still under his control and power, but they are a real and true threat to Christians and the church. And the principal danger they bring against the church is that one that Paul highlights when he speaks in Ephesians 6, the subtleness and the craftiness of their attacks. They are ruthless, they're utterly dishonorable in the tactics that they use. You know, you can read about the schemes of the devil. because it all has to do with his wretched and sly techniques. You read Genesis 3, and Satan peddles that are in half-truths, and he plants doubts, and he subtly undermines here, and it's only once Eve begins to really consider Satan's word that he gets blatant and directly contradicts what God had said. But until that point, he's very, very deceptive. He's very careful. He's very sly. He's not dumb. And the devil and the demons are not dumb. They are very sly. They are very, very nefarious. And Paul says, we struggle against them. And the word is wrestle. We wrestle against them. The point is that, brothers and sisters, we don't only, again, deal with our own sinful flesh, but we are surrounded by the evil forces that are at work all around us. They're at work in our homes. They're at work in our schools. They can be at work in the church. Even Satan can disguise himself like an angel of light. An opportunity to steal here, an opportunity to mistreat others there, an opportunity to surrender our convictions, to help get the job done, to ignore God's Word over here, and to deny the admonition of the elders over there. These are all temptations that come not simply because of our own flesh, but because of these wicked forces of evil that attack us on every side. But even as we understand this, we need to remember is what the confession says. By their own wickedness, they are condemned to everlasting damnation, daily awaiting their torments. This is our hope right here. Yes, we confess that they exist. Yes, we confess that they are powerfully at work in the world around us, but they are condemned and they are daily waiting their torments. What happens when Christ confronts the demons and drives them away? They ask him, are you here to torment us before our time? They know they're doomed. They know that they're destined for destruction. They know that there's no hope. They know that they have lost. They know there's no victory, and they admit it from their own lips. You can think of Jude 6, and we read about these fallen angels kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. These hostile forces are doomed to destruction. They may seem powerful. They may terrify us. They may frighten us. But as Calvin says, they go about dragging their chains everywhere they go. Colossians 2.15, God disarmed the rulers and authorities, put them to shame by triumphing over them in Christ. And so you see, when we confess God's creation of the visible and invisible things, we acknowledge the existence of angels. We acknowledge the existence of a supernatural world and realm. And there is within that realm forces of good that seek to serve us and to minister to us and bless us and direct us onward to the glory of God, direct us onward to the grace and mercy of God. But as well, forces that are out to undermine us and destroy us. But at the end of the day, it all brings us back to Christ, because Christ rules all these authorities and powers. They rule at Christ's call and at Christ's command. They can only do what Christ decides. And Christ is there upon the throne, ensuring that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God. In this article, our minds and our hearts are lifted up in order to marvel at the power, the glory, and the grandeur of what God has made. A grandeur that far surpasses what we can see with our own physical eyes. And that he's created all of this in Jesus. And that now he rules all this in Jesus. So that we may be assured that all things physical and all things invisible are in the control and the hand of Christ our Savior. So we confess this, we acknowledge it, but we do it in faith, seeing Christ in His glory and His power who is leading us on through life in safety and in security unto everlasting peace in the grace and mercy of God. And so to see here again the glory of God and the wonder of what the Lord is doing for you, through you, and in you, even in the world that is invisible. So may God give you His peace and grace as you see His great power and the authority of Christ over all things. Let's pray together. O Heavenly Father, What wonderful truths you reveal in your word. Truths that our minds and hearts really get confused by at times. Wonders that are far too deep for us. Truths that are beyond our imagination. These angels, Father, that daily minister to you. These angels that continually sing your praise and carry out your will. Lord, we are amazed by them. Indeed, many of your servants have been tempted to fall down and worship them because they are so glorious. But Father, we thank You that You are lifting us up in Christ, and that we will enjoy in Him an existence far surpassing anything we find in the Bible with regard to angels. That we will rule and reign with Christ. We will behold You face to face, and even now those very same angels serve us, minister to us. At the same time, Father, we thank You that You have all the demonic forces of evil in Your control as well, that they have been made submissive to Christ. And so no matter how they terrify us or how they may influence this world, it means we're still safe and secure in Your hand. Thank You, Father, for the confidence that You give us in Your Word, the confidence of Your everlasting power and glory. And so send us forth into this new week convinced of Your glory and convinced of how You are for us through the Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son. It's in His name we pray. Amen.