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Chapter 9

Entertaining An Angel Unawares!

Little Angel was beginning to find that there was an intensely moving side to the relationships he was having on earth. The people were so vulnerable, and often so absurdly conditioned to being made unaware of their spiritual meaning, destiny, situation and strengths, that they resembled those who being aristocrats in the old days, would happily (at first) gamble immense sums to satisfy honour, show their courage or for whatever odd other eccentric, peculiar or pecuniary reason, and then lose as if they were wholly ignorant of what it all meant! These on earth, found the little one, were quite willing to shut their minds to their proper mission, ignore their due authority even to the point of closing their eyes to Christ, making up new gods and proposing all kinds of substitutes, like those who instead of taking an antibiotic, chew a highly coloured, spotty toadstool instead.  

It was like living next to a glorious dawn or sunset which lasted one hour each morning and each night, always different, and being compelled to ignore it.

What this blindness brought to them, they seemed to engage in a series of reactions, to meet.

Thus ...

	they might hate God, or threaten disbelief in Him, as if to make Him 'behave',           like some of the Calvin and Hobbes type 'Calvins' of today, or
	they might weep in disconsolate discomfort, in vain seeking help since they would even then not look to the Lord, but to their real or imagined sufferings, despite Isaiah 45:22.
	They could translate the realities into 'idealised notions about nations' or 'idolised conceptions of priests' or 'a matrix of Madonnas' or a 'pope for the people' or whatever else seized or afflicted their numbed souls, despite Matthew 23:8-10; or if this did not appeal,
	they would make gurus out of the gutter, or stars out of sportspersons who could beat so many other sportspeople, irrespective of their morals, lives or mentality; or
	they could elect to sing croonings or choruses or virtual hymns at soccer matches, and engage in a kind of religious zeal unnamed; or else
	they might proceed to do so many other things, as if their very lives depended on it (and sometimes as in collapsing sports stadia, reminiscent of the days of Samson, they did!).

All this and far more they could do, without losing their pathos, like lost little children, who had somehow unaccountably grown up, and did not realise it.

So far from feeling contempt, Little A felt a great concern for men caught by these contemptible icons and idols, to the extent they were used as replacement material for the God who made matter and man for that matter, not that is, for the affairs of matter (Repent or Perish Ch. 7), but using matter as a stage, He created man but to complete the picture. He made him to fulfil His purpose and to give to this one of His many and diverse creations, scope for fellowship with Himself; and of course, Little Angel thought discursively, He made angels.

Gazing with angelic scorn on the icons and the idols, yet Little A found a grand kind of concern for the people caught, like fish on hooks;  and without being by nature in the least paternal, yet small as he was, he felt a large awe at the pathos of it all, and desired as a good missionary to find the very most he could do to help.

Fish wriggling on hooks never appealed; but mankind hooked and writhing, and even worshipping hooks, before becoming caught, and indeed paying for them, this was poignancy itself. True they had killed the Lord when He took human form, but then He was very forgiving, and did not hold it against them (Isaiah 53:10-12, Luke 23:34), having a vast pardon as in Isaiah 55,  if only they would receive what He achieved when they slew Him, the incarceration and cancellation of sin in His own sacrificial self!

It was then that Little Angel realised that there was another important Bible verse to cover his mission. The first of course was that angels minister to the heirs of salvation, and if that had not been written, he would not so much as have thought of coming at all. He recalled those enticing verses in Hebrews 1:13-14:

"But to which of the angels said He at any time,
Sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool?
Are they not all ministering spirits,
sent forth to minister for those who shall be
heirs of salvation?"

To be sure, in that first chapter of Hebrews, angels come off not second best compared to Jesus the Christ, but infinitely lower, for consistently they are shown to be great, but He far greater, they if angelic yet mere creatures, while as to Him,  He the Creator, God Himself, addressed as such, equipped with the throne of rule, the very brightness of the divine glory set upon earth, breaching its bounds and bonds, and arising to secure the salvation of the lost.

That lower status was not only fine for Little Angel, but the very quintessence of joy; for when it came to the grand themes of the Christian faith, he always felt very much a learner. Moreover, though it was his business to be clear and even systematic in doctrinal knowledge, yet it was always of God Himself that he thought, since he knew Him, and these doctrines were rather like pictures of a waterfall when you are looking at one; nevertheless, because of the glory of the falls, he was glad of the pictures, for they constantly and consistently kept him in proper perspective, and he was always glad to that Almighty had been very lowly, for this enabled him to relate. In fact, becoming an angel on earth on mission, he felt was peculiarly suitable for himself, since he was just so little an angel, that talking to or with men ... seemed a grand occupation with such a theme.

Talking to, or with them! He HAD, to be sure, spoken to the professor when in some interesting but inscrutable way he had wandered from earth in his spirit to the Celestial Region; but since coming on mission TO the earth, had he really EVER spoken directly, you know, he thought, the way their DNA speaks directly to the bodily elements being prepared, to turn them into the world's greatest material design, the human body. He had never actually done spoken directly, not even  like that. Would it not be better if he could ?

But did the Bible allow it ? He certainly did not want to presume, for he shrank from this, as a calf shrinks from a stream, before seeing the mother cow approach it, sniff and wallow through.

Suddenly, he prayed. Of course, he considered, how ridiculous to be able to pray, to have God for  your Father and not to do so! As he prayed, a second verse came alive in his angelic mind, and it was this.

"Some have entertained angels unawares..." It was in Hebrews 13:1-3.

"Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them;
and those who suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body."

 

His mind flicked, as one turns pages, to the time when Abraham was addressed by the trinity, shown to his mortal mind (mortal ? yes, but  in the end, to be made immortal as in I Corinthians 15), as three men. Where was that ? In Genesis - his mind turned through the pages which he had easily committed to the angelic memory, which being angelic, and in a good angel, a godly one called and commissioned by God, had few flaws and many floors. Genesis ? which chapter ? ah yes, Genesis 18, and it was there that the Lord reminded Abraham with the words, 'Is anything too hard for the Lord!' that with God, nothing shall be called impossible. His desires are His own, but grant once His decision, and nothing can stop it. Little Angel laughed softly, for to him it seemed exquisitely humorous.

God faced by a problem!  Why in the first place, He made everything not-God, and knew all in advance, knowing the end from the beginning like some authors for their books. However,  the universe is one of His books, and so no problem COULD arise, for as with an infinitely wise chess player, He knew all that even COULD arise, and had it covered before it did; and in fact, had there been a deficient universe for His divine and holy purposes, He would not have made it.

Little A smiled at the sheer wonder of such majesty. Well, he considered, if NOTHING is too hard for the Lord, it is NOT too hard for me to become a useful missionary; and if actually talking to people is to be the way, yet ... He remembered Colossians 2:8,18-19, where there is voluntary subjection to angels, and realised the dangers of speaking to mortals. He pondered and prayed. After quite some time, when his motives, his mission and his means were reviewed, and then the power of God was considered, he realised what he could do, and committed the thought happily to God in hope.

Why Little A thought, I could be a 'stranger' whom people could 'entertain unawares', and if it is all right for me to appear as a stranger to be 'entertained', a guest, then I can speak; for what guest is dumb! I would be incognito.

He was thrilled at this discovery and set about considering, conceiving, imagining, imaging and translating angelic thoughts into human terms, until he was ready; and then he prayed in so much passion, that the Professor who happened to be near, felt that there was a large electric charge in the vicinity, or something of the type, and ran for his ammeter and his geiger counter, just in case it might prove interesting, for he was always a man of quick wit, ready mind and open to data. In fact, it was not least this quality which made him quite intolerable to the helplessly hidebound university.

However when the Professor reached the site, Little A had left; but he had also made up his mind, some time in the future, to be a guest with the Professor.

Meanwhile, his thoughts throbbed untidily in his mind, and needed review. He would like to visit many places on the earth and talk to people, and see how he could help. After all, it is an angel preaching the everlasting gospel mentioned in Revelation 14, he thought, and I can at least see if I can intimate something to lead them to it.

Thus he swept, or rather flew, in a way celestially orbit-free, being deep in the interstices of realities behind space, but still he flew, for even these had conduits and passages, till he reached China. There he was able to track down from his various researches (he was quite adept at research, one reason why the divine wisdom chose him as an angelic emissary or missionary, or mission-supplement if you prefer), certain factories, and in these he found that there were commercial premises which housed reviled contra-social specimens, as the Chinese government apparently thought them, these being 'healed' by labour, as it also conceived, and in the process, demeaned in countless ways at which the Chinese culture has excelled, when in bad hands. The idea was 're-education' which being interpreted, means mental laceration, ideological subversion dynamics and intensive hostility seeking accommodation in processive capitulation.

Thus you do not need so much drama, as in some of the other totalitarian governments, like those of Hitler and Stalin had, for if in authority in this regimen, you can use each day to get your way, with attrition, exhaustion, controlled food intake if indeed adequate at all, by ostracisms and by harsh words, enticing offers and continuity of pressure and oppression, as if a band of mosquitoes insisted on making some elderly gentleman batter his head against the wall by attacking him in droves from say, 9 p.m. till 3 p.m., without cessation, except when they doubled the attacks, every second month.

That many escape the hidden lures and assaults is a marvel of human courage; that doubtless many don't and are obliterated as free-thinking beings or physical beings or healthy beings is the other side of it, though both sides are spectacularly drab, and it is with such a political establishment that the US conceives the propriety of best-nation treatment in trade.

 As widely reported, Harry Wu has experienced  years of such niceties and is thus well qualified to have addressed the US government in session on the topic, and his pinpointing of such places of hideous commercial misuse, making of torture economic gain, has been something approaching the work of Solzhenitsyn in his Gulag Archipelago.

When law is forgotten, except what man makes, and when man is forgotten, except as man-in-mass or more correctly in oligarchy hidden from the people by decrees of dereliction, then of course there is a necessary consequence of the inhuman. Inhuman conception leads to inhuman prescription; and the wheels grind harshly.

The amusing feature is that those who decree it so, are individuals, and act as such, since there is no composite-crowd-becoming-superman being in existence; and as such, willing pawns of process, the form and fashion of their decrees is to obliterate the role of individuals, as if they were not in existence, but only the odium of the contrived and controlled State. Yet in so acting, they do it as themselves individuals. Thus do they make of themselves little gods first debasing themselves, and then debasing those without power. Yet their debasement does not serve, but merely mutilates the construction called man.

Some like the mercenary consequences allowed to some. 'Capitalism' justly so called (which often is a misnomer for free enterprise, where all the agents of production are relatively free, and not just 'capital') has burrowed into the fallen premises of this controlled China, once a great nation; and these in many cases have become absurdly rich, while foreign nations pour in capital, as if intent on ensuring that China under Communism becomes a super-power, and then can threaten the world with its humanly obliterative and contemptible substitutes for just government.

Those who grow rich, as one can see watching some, can become inured to all things but profit, making money, gaining respectable profiles and the possibility of a family empire; those who become poor can receive the measure of care which power brokers desire them to have. Often in rustic areas, that appears to be almost none, and so they suffer while the 'economy' if so brutal a thing can be called by such a name, expands at a gross rate, calling for vast resources from the free world. It is so reminiscent of the British industrial revolution, when tenderheartedness to little children in coal mines and so forth, was scarcely at a premium as far as practical action was concerned. It is to the glory of Christ that people like the Earl of Shaftesbury acted to correct these wrongs, as in the case of slavery, did William Wilberforce, both not unexpectedly, notable Christian men.

That they could sacrifice was not contrary to their Christian religion, and indeed a part of it; and it paid large dividends for the oppressed. In China, however, the church is itself not put on a national pedestal, but subverted as far as possible by Three Self and other defilements of State oversight, as if the devil could have fellowship with Christ, or materialism with spirituality; and indeed, the State seems most aware of this, persecuting horribly even the Falun Gong movement, because of its spiritual aspirations and conceptions.

Little Angel had become aware of some of these terrestrial features that pit our globe, and thus was most interested to speak to some of the inmates of such institutions of commerce, as prove so elegantly thrifty for production purposes, since where man does not matter, less matter is consumed, which is material for short term profit, while the sort of species who work, incarceration persons continue to be made available for 'the dark Satanic mills' of our time.

One night he thus visited in a cell. The inmates were astonished, and asked where he had come from, since the entry into such a realm of doom and invasion of the mind, of such endeavours to tame the spirit and turn men into neutralised commercial commodities was not without drama.

I have come from above, he said; and then instantly regretted it, in case it seemed to mean 'from the Party', and so added, smiling, 'that is, from my celestial home'.

Really ? they said. Can you get us out of here ? Alas, no, for that is not part of my mission, but I shall see that you are mentioned on the Web, said Little Angel; and you see, he did!

Then he asked them about their lives, and their hopes, and their ways, and showed them the love of God in Christ who went through an harassment most dramatic, desolatory and degraded, as He bore the sins of many; and some of them were interested, and one became a Christian through faith, and from that day, his face was lit with a light which the darkness of the most devilish recesses could never extinguish; and indeed, on a later day, one of the guards was won to the kingdom of heaven through him, and arranged for his escape, though the guard himself was shot, and died; but that was soon done with, and he went to the Lord, who had already received him at his conversion.

Little Angel did however give them some celestial manna, and explained the death of Christ as a ransom and as a gift of life, as a transaction eternal sealed on those who received Him; and so with this, he found he was able to supply actual food, while well supplied himself. However, it was found by some to be rather tasteless, and except the prisoners had usually got worse as time passed in any case, they might not have been interested; however, as they ate, it grew on them, and they quickly developed a taste for it, and then it was found that it was a type of spiritual butter, which if you were saved, would sustain you mightily, but if you were not, brought on pain and difficulty.

However Little A, when he saw this, pointed out the power of this, the word of God, to sustain them, if they received him, and instantly was able to remove the pains and pangs from those who did not become Christians, except in those who longed for it, yet did not dare; and these all thought much about all of these things. Several more became Christians years later, on their release, which Little Angel had something to do with - as he had made some of the guards so ashamed that some became Christians, and allowed at a most subtly chosen time, the disappearance of a few, and were never caught. Their release, thus, was not official but it was more than formal, for ... they were now free in mind, spirit and body.

In the interim, the Little Angel tried from time to time to transmit documents to them, such as News 37, but he was not sure whether these would actually be translated; and all he could ascertain later, was that there had been a feeling of uplift, a heightening of intelligence and a rousing of hope; but to what extent actual words were received, of this he was unsure. It increased over time, his determination to pay personal visits, under the heading of receiving angels unawares. Fascinating was his task and company; but it was their future to be gained, and their past to be covered, which he sought, and in a word, that each one should know the God of Creation and the Lord of redemption, and knowing Him, become veritable children of God.