Through out the Scriptures we see that the Lord has used angels often for either communications, good deeds or swift retributions. They are indeed active in the great redemption plan of God. This week we’ll look at some of their actions in the past and make a greater point as to how some of God’s S.D.A leaders are mincing, chopping and trying to make of no effect a plain “Thus sayeth the Lord” Word.
SOP counsels us ––
“False teachers may appear to be very zealous for the work of God, and may expend means to bring their theories before the world and the church; but as they mingle error with truth, their message is one of deception, and will lead souls into false paths. They are to be met and opposed, not because they are bad men, but because they are teachers of falsehood and are endeavoring to put upon falsehood the stamp of truth.” (Testimonies to Ministers, p.55)
Angels, as mentioned have produced some memorable acts in Scripture, for instance who can forget the great story of the angel, Gabriel in swiftly coming to answer Daniel’s prayer —
“Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding….And, behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands. And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.
Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days.” (Daniel 9:21-22, 10:12-14)
But there are other acts which have shown the great and powerful swift justice of God upon man. He has used angels for these solemn occurrences —
“And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.”(2 Kings, 19:35)
One would think that the above is clear , to the point and not at all misunderstood, right? Not so fast. Recently we were involved in a Facebook public chat with brother H, (alias). The subject came about because another brother made a post asking for any help in receiving a report on the church history of abominations. In other words, he wanted to know what past historical acts of church leadership was known as truly wrong in God’s eyes by Scriptural standards.
We responded that we had a phone conference study directly dealing with that subject and we posted the link. Anyway later in the chat , the subject came up about how God uses angels for swift executors of judgments in times past. Well brother H expressed his strong opinion on the subject, basically telling this author that I was all wrong and misunderstood how God uses angels. 2 Kings 19:35 was posted asking how he could deny such obvious acts of angels upon God’s command. To this he said —
“it is highly conflated Hebraic prose representing the principle of Divine Recession. That was a pestilence that came upon them, which was allowed by God through the withdrawal of angel protection. I have also a paper on this event. Remember:
“Angels are sent from the heavenly courts, NOT TO DESTROY, but to watch over imperiled souls, to save the lost, to bring the straying ones back to the fold. ‘ I came not to condemn, but to save.’ Christ declared (RH May 10, 1906, par.15) See also GC 36.1.
Huh?? This seemed much gobble gook and I knew we’d have to look into this further to decipher his meaning, which the Spirit told me was very misconstrued. Now, it would be one thing if there were not many other brethren following this conversation, such as a one on one email chat or study. I would not have had such desire to help him see his error due to the fact that he is the author of three books on the “Three Angels’ messages.” In other words his is full of himself and has no need of any contrary points of view, but because there may be others who can benefit from this conversation, I took upon it a more serious attitude.
“The truths most plainly revealed in the Bible have been involved in doubt and darkness by learned men, who, with a pretense of great wisdom, teach that the Scriptures have a mystical, a secret, spiritual meaning not apparent in the language employed. These men are false teachers. It was to (p.599) such a class that Jesus declared: “Ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God.” Mark 12:24.
The language of the Bible should be explained according to its obvious meaning, unless a symbol or figure is employed. Christ has given the promise: “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.” John 7:17. If men would but take the Bible as it reads, if there were no false teachers to mislead and confuse their minds, a work would be accomplished that would make angels glad and that would bring into the fold of Christ thousands upon thousands who are now wandering in error.”(GC, p.598-599)
It was clear that this gobble gook was a disguise of the plain simple “thus sayeth the Lord”. Yet even though I knew this, others were watching and should be shown the false path of interpretation this brother was trying to lead them, in a comprehensive way because we are dealing with a self proclaimed scholar.
Our proof case would be 2 Kings 19:35. Before we go into it, we want to explain that the reason this exposure of false teaching is important is because he really is attempting to deny the Lord’s power and His rightful execution of judgments. After all these are for our admonition , our benefit in knowing we serve a loving yet honest and holy God. His will and judgments are RIGHT even when some call them “uncalled for, extreme, just for the Old Testament, etc.” Or in the case of brother H –substitution of meaning and not employed by the plain word of God.
Brother H sent us a report showing that God NEVER has angels do any destroying, rather it is the evil angels who do the killing or hurting, upon God’s withdrawal of protective angels. He used several SOP quotes and sounds all nice and cozy but is it true, does God allow Satan and his angels to do His justice and retributions? Sounds quite far fetched even at first glance!
“Remember that the destroyer is Satan. NEVER in Scriptures is the destroyer anything but Satan or wicked forces. In Revelation 9:11 the “angel of the bottomless pit” is called the Destroyer in two languages.”
Here we see that brother H wrongly attributes the Destroyer of Rev. 9:11 to Satan, as even most protestants do.
We did a post on this subject for those who wish to know the truth about Rev. 9:11 —
https://godsloveandlaw.com/2016/11/19/who-is-abaddon-and-apollyon-satan-or-christ/
Ok let’s examine our test case.
“And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.”(2 Kings, 19:35)
As we have many times reminded our readers, the Bible site called E-Sword is very helpful in knowing the Hebrew and Greek translations of all the words. Each word in the Old Testament is given an H then a number, for instance the verse breaks down as follows —
“And it came to pass (H1961) that (H1931) night,(H3915) that the angel (H4397) of the LORD (H3068) went out, (H3318) and smote (H5221) in the camp (H4264) of the Assyrians (H804) an hundred (H3967) fourscore (H8084) and five (H2568) thousand: (H505) and when they arose early (H7925) in the morning, (H1242) behold, (H2009) they were all (H3605) dead (H4191) corpses.”
So we want to zero in on “angel”, what does H4397 mean in Scripture? A literal angel, or a figurative one? A heavenly messenger of God? Just what is that meaning?
Now we can go to another great site that helps us see all the meanings of the Hebrew/Greek words of the Bible, it’s called blueletterbible.org. When we search that word there we find the following —
H4397 — mal-awk’; from an unused root meaning to dispatch as a deputy; a messenger; specifically, of God, i.e. an angel (also a prophet, priest or teacher):—ambassador, angel, king, messenger.
Then we can next see the places in Scripture it is used and how it is used —
The KJV translates Strong’s H4397 in the following manner:angel (111x), messenger (98x), ambassadors (4x),
variant (1x).
Link for all the info on H4397 —
https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?t=kjv&strongs=h4397
So adding it all up we see that H4397 does indeed mean literal angel (111 times). We see that it could be a messenger (98 times) (ie. King, prophet, etc.) but in this case no one human could go through an army in one night and kill 185,000 men! Logical deduction proves it an angel of God.
Next we want to see “smote” H5221. Could that be a pestilence as brother H says?
H5221 — naw-kaw’; a primitive root; to strike (lightly or severely, literally or figuratively):—beat, cast forth, clap, give (wounds), × go forward, × indeed, kill, make (slaughter), murderer, punish, slaughter, slay(-er, -ing), smite(-r, -ing), strike, be stricken, (give) stripes, × surely, wound.
The KJV translates Strong’s H5221 in the following manner:smite (348x), slay (92x), kill (20x), beat (9x),
slaughter (5x), stricken (3x), given (3x), wounded (3x),
strike (2x), stripes (2x), miscellaneous (13x).
In looking at the vast amount of times H5221 is used either to smite or slay, it is clear that because the army men were struck by the angel H4397, they were killed directly by that angel.
To wind it up H4191 confirms being dead.
The KJV translates Strong’s H4191 in the following manner:die (424x), dead (130x), slay (100x), death (83x),
surely (50x),
kill (31x), dead man (3x), dead body (2x), in no wise (2x), miscellaneous (10x).
We have solid proof that the words of 2 Kings 19:35 can mean only what they literally say. This is God’s intent that we trust and believe the clear “thus sayeth the Lord” , not thus sayeth man who uses vain imaginations to thwart God’s word.
So to use brother H’s reasoning we must cross out H4397 (angel) insert one of “variant” meaning, which is only used 4 times in Scripture versus 111 times for literal angels. Then we must cross out H5221 (smite-kill used 440 times) for the use of “pestilence” which isn’t even listed as a meaning of that word. Lastly to confirm the Lord’s plain Scripture and His angel’s faithful obedience the word “dead” is confirmed (H4191).
Further, context is always a must , we need to know the meaning of verses correctly and in their proper perspective. The Lord was not about to give up His beloved city to the Assyrians , for we read in the prior verse in 2 Kings 19:34 —
“For I will defend this city, to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.”
By way of disclosure this brother knows about the Lord’s Rod and flatly rejects it. Is there any more evidence needed to see that the Spirit of Truth is NOT leading? Sadly this kind of falsifying God’s word is rampant through out our people, it’s time to wake up and know His word properly and clearly –as it reads. Time is short and we must be on guard for all of Satan’s trickery. God DOES use angels both for uplifting man and for swift retribution. May His will be done and His kingdom come. And when it is time for that kingdom, there shall indeed be very active work done by His angels, both uplifting and swift retribution.
“These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.” (1 Cor. 10:11)
Godsloveandlaw's Blog 
February 10, 2019 at 8:15 am |
Truly there is nothing to fear except as we forget the past and how God has led us.This was a very arousing message!