Ангел

God also predicted about this prophet-Forerunner: behold, I am sending My Angel before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You (Mal. 3:11; Mark 1:2). This word was spoken by the Heavenly Father to the Deliverer, who was about to come into the world, and he called the Forerunner an Angel both because of his angelic, pure life and because he announced the coming of the Deliverer into the world. For Angel is a Greek word and means “messenger.” I see in Your holy word that Your holy angels, standing before the throne of Your glory and seeing Your most holy face, protect those who know and fear You, and preserve them by Your command from the evil demons (see Ps. 33:8), and are sent to serve for those who are to inherit salvation (Heb. 1:14). If you hear favorable singing either in church or in another place, remember then that the Angels in heaven sing praises to our Creator and God (see Isa. 6:3). Imitate the holy angels yourself and sing praises to your Creator and God on earth, so that in heaven you will one day be worthy to sing Him with them. Join the holy singers and link your song with theirs. And in order for your singing to be favorable to God, follow the heavenly Orders in purity and life and, chanting with your lips, sing with your heart. Music is sweet when the voices are good and agree with each other. A song is so favorable to God when the singer lives holy, has a good disposition, and harmonizes his heart with oral singing, and sings with his lips and heart. The angel's job is to sing to God. For the Angels do nothing else in heaven than constantly sing praises to God. And when we sing praises to God, we imitate the Angels and do their work. When those who are dying are present in the Lord, holy Angels are present and transfer their souls to Abraham’s bosom, as Christ Himself teaches about this (see Luke 16:22). It is wonderful that the visible light, at the command of God, serves us, but what is more wonderful is that the holy angels also serve our salvation. The Angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear Him (Ps. 33:8). Are they not all ministering spirits sent to serve those who are to inherit salvation (Heb. 1:14)? The Old Testament is filled with examples of the service of Angels, but the New Testament also mentions a lot about such service. An angel preaches to the Blessed Virgin about the Son of God coming into the world and begotten by Her flesh (Luke 1:26-38). An angel appears to Joseph, Her betrothed (Matthew 1:20; 2:13, 19). The angel of Zechariah appears and preaches the news of the conception of the Forerunner (Luke 1:11). An angel preaches to the shepherds about the birth of Christ, the Savior of the world (Luke 2:9). Angels sit on the tomb of the risen Christ and preach the resurrection to women (Luke 24:4). During the Ascension of the Lord, angels appear to the apostles and announce to them the second coming of Christ (Acts 1:10). An angel leads Peter out of prison (Acts 12:7). The angel says to Philip: get up and go south along the road leading from Jerusalem (Acts 8:26), and so on. An angel appears to Cornelius the centurion (Acts 10:3, etc.). Church history tells the same story. “A Guardian Angel is given to every faithful one and always sees the face of the Heavenly Father,” says Basil the Great (In the “Tale on Virginity” and on Ps. 68, vol. 1). These holy and blessed spirits serve our salvation, so that we diligently serve their and our Lord and thus be saved. Hence, be amazed, Christian, at the goodness and love of God, that He commanded not only the visible creation to serve our needs, but also the invisible, His holy servants, to protect us and take up arms around us. From this know the honor and high nobility of Christians, that the servants of God Almighty himself are sent to serve them. It would truly be a great thing if the king of the earth, releasing his faithful subject from himself, ordered his servants to escort him to his home, so that no evil would happen to him on the way, but what an incomparably greater event is that the King of Heaven, after Baptism, releasing His faithful servants on the path of this world, gives them His servants, the holy angels, for the sake of their protection, so that under their protection they would come to his heavenly fatherland, although He Himself does not separate from them, according to the Scripture: Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28, 20). It is truly impossible to marvel at the goodness and love of God towards man. A damned man, a sinner, a lawbreaker and an apostate of God - by the grace of the Son of God, by faith in Him, he is vouchsafed such high mercy from God. Oh, our all-merciful God and Creator! Your love meets us everywhere, wherever we turn. A person is truly blind when he does not see it, ungrateful when he does not acknowledge it from the heart, wretched when, having abandoned God, his Lord, his Benefactor and Provider, he serves the evil world and sin. For which he himself will be convicted and condemned both by the word of God and by his conscience, for he sins against the Word of God and his own conscience. God commanded Christian Angels to serve: aren’t they all ministering spirits sent to serve for those who will inherit salvation (Heb. 1:14)? - and the Angels guard them and encamp around them: the Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him (Ps. 33:8). If some monarch, having called a subject to him and given him plenty of food, sent him home and gave him his servants to accompany and guard him, would not his subject regard this as a great royal favor? God, the Heavenly King, having called Christians into His eternal Kingdom, gives them His servants - the Holy Angels - for safekeeping while they wander along the path of this world, and orders them to take up arms around them. Wonderful is this mercy of God towards man! Great Christian dignity lies in the fact that the Angels of God are sent to serve Christians! Scripture declares that there are good and evil angels. This is true. Some tempt, seduce, deceive, and strive against us, and lead us to evil, and try to lead us into eternal destruction, while others take up arms around us and preserve us, and guide us to good, and rejoice at our repentance, and transfer the souls of the saints who have departed from here to the bosom of Abraham. When He [Jesus Christ] endured temptation from the devil and repelled his machinations, the holy Angels looked at this, and the Heavenly Father also looked, but when he defeated the enemy, the Angels came and served Him. This is also done to His faithful servants. During their feat, the holy Angels are present, and take up arms around them (see Ps. 33:8), and they look at their feat, and help them, and the hero Jesus also looks on. But when they successfully complete their feat, they rejoice over them, and by the command of God they accept souls and transfer them to eternal life. So Lazarus, after his accomplished feat in poverty and illness, was carried by the Angels to Abraham’s bosom (see Luke 16:22).