How Old Are Angels?

 Ancient Angels.

Who are the ancient angels? All angels are ancient angels. Adding the term ancient implies they are very, very old. Just how old are the angels? I have no way of knowing, but they predate humans. Angels were created before the first human, therefore all the angels, every single angel is older than humanity.

Angels have witnessed humanity from its conception. The angel that watched over Adam could be watching over you right now. Angels have no need to watch over anyone who has died. All the thoughts, all the actions of that human being have ended. That human will no longer make any choices for or against God. That human needs absolutely no ministering to, not a single bit. That human's life is over. What makes that human being who they are is preserved by God while that human's thoughts have ceased. 

Do you believe in the Bible. There is a very good chance if you are reading this that you do. The Bible says this--

Ecc_9:5  For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. 

(THE dead know not anything---  this does not sound like when we die we have any knowledge at all in any way. This doesn't say that the dead know everything they just can't communicate with the living. It clearly says, the dead know not anything. It seems simple enough, doesn't it? If my mother is dead I can't believe she is alive somewhere in some form with all her knowledge- the bible tells me my dead mother knows not anything. I have to believe God's word.)

Psa 6:5  For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks? 

(THE dead can't remember God, why? Because they have no ability to remember, to think at all. The dead in their graves cannot thank God- why? Because they have no knowledge, their thoughts ceased upon their irreversible death. No more thanking God once you are dead.)

Psa 30:9  What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?

(THE dead cannot praise God! We turn to dust after our bodies decay, we return to dust and that dust isn't praising anyone! When David questioned shall dust praise thee to God, he was speaking that if he were dead he would no longer be able to praise God. IF David returned to life in some spirit form immediately after death, then David would be able to praise God, right? RIGHT? If David with all his knowledge, all his thoughts just went right on living in spirit form he'd still be able to praise God, but here he is declaring that if he is dead he won't be able to praise God. The dead know not anything!)

Psa 88:10  Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah. 

Psa 88:11  Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? 

Psa 88:12  Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? 

(THE dead know not anything!)

Psa 115:17  The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence. 

(THE dead are silent! Not only to us- their loved ones, but to GOD! They are silent even before GOD- this means they are NOT with Him!)

Isa 38:18  For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. 

Isa 38:19  The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth. 

(THE dead CANNOT hope for God's truth! Why? Because only the living can learn God's truth! Only the living can CELEBRATE GOD! The dead CANNOT celebrate God! What does this tell you? It tells you they are NOT IN HEAVEN WITH GOD!)

Ecc 9:10  Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. 

(YOU will not be doing anything at all whatsoever after you die, nothing!)

Job 14:7  For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. 

Job 14:8  Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; 

Job 14:9  Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. 

Job 14:10  But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the spirit, and where is he? 

Job 14:11  As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: 

Job 14:12  So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep

(PLANTS may have a chance to live again if they are seemingly dead, but NOT HUMANS. When we die we lie down never to get up again UNTIL the HEAVENS ARE NO MORE, and when that happens and ONLY when that happens will the dead be raised from their sleep of death!)

Ancient angels have watched over God's children since the first human being existed. Adam, Eve, Seth's angels are still living today and ministering to other human beings. Angels- God's angels are eternal. 

Satan was created before humans- as a former Angel of God, Satan has lived since before mankind, along with all his angels- those that chose to follow him and not God. These beings are so incredibly old, their knowledge, their ways are perfected in their evilness. We have to acknowledge their existence so we can comprehend our enemy, those who would keep us from belonging to God by any means necessary- are very real!

God, please, please Heavenly Father, protect us from evil, keep us from all evil! Help us, save us! All through Jesus Christ our LORD, our SAVIOR, now and forever!

Amen!

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PART TWO -- SOME HINTS ON THE ORIGIN AND DESTINY OF SATAN AS GLEANED FROM THE SCRIPTURES

THE DEVIL A REAL BEING

It is said of a notorious robber that when he intended to commit some great depredation, he would hire men to report that he was dead. This threw the people off their guard, by allaying their fears. Thinking there was no danger, they would leave their property exposed. Then the robber would come upon them unawares, and would plunder their goods without resistance. In this manner has Satan most successfully deceived the world and decoyed the people into his 

snares. He has prevailed upon them to deny that there is any such being; and this wile has so far proved successful that comparatively few have any belief in the existence of a real, living, personal devil, while millions insist that there cannot possibly be any such personage. And many of these are found even among professed believers in the Bible. When they do not believe in the existence of this wily and malicious enemy, they cease to watch and guard against his deceptions and his power, and thus they easily become his prey. Said that pious woman, Charlotte Elizabeth:- "Of all the errors into which the world has fallen, none is more fatally mischievous than the habit of overlooking the personality, the energy, the power,

the watchfulness, and the deep cunning of the devil."

By a conventional system, no doubt of his own suggesting, he is never to be named but in the act of worshiping God, or that of spiritual instruction. Any other robber or murderer who was known to be on the watch to attack our houses, would be the subject of free discourse; his habits, his haunts, his usual plans, his successful and his baffled assaults in former cases, would be talked over, and thus a salutary fear would be kept alive influencing us to bolt, and bar, and watch, and ward, with unflinching vigor, to avert a surprise. 

But Satan seems to be a privileged person; we learn in the nursery to fancy him a hideous caricature of human nature, with horns, hoofs, and a tail, inspiring disgust and childish fear, that wears off as we advance into youth, leaving an impression rather ludicrous than alarming of the ugly phantom that, nevertheless, continues identified with him of whom we read in the Bible. 

"We do not realize his existence, his presence, his devices; and so we often do his work from sheer ignorance or inexcusable thoughtlessness about it. . . . It seems to be regarded a manifest impropriety to name him except with the most studied circumlocution, as though we were afraid of treating him irreverently; and he who is seldom named will not often be thought of. Assuredly, it is a great help to him in his countless devices, to be so kept out of sight. We are prone to speak, to think, to act, as though we had only our own evil natures to contend with, including, perhaps, a sort of general admission that something is at work to aid the cause of rebellion." 

All this we most firmly believe. It has been the studied plan of Satan to create a disbelief in his existence, and, where he could not do this, to so distort our ideas of him as to make them utterly false, and thus keep his real character out of sight. It is a prominent feature of Spiritualism to deny the existence of a devil. And Universalists as well as Spiritualists say that it is inconsistent with the power and goodness of God that there should be a devil. Thousands, from a lack of proper information on this point, are thus taken in this, his own great deception. If it can be proved by revelation and reason that it is not inconsistent with the power and goodness of God that such a being should exist, and that there actually is a living, personal devil, these erroneous systems will be robbed of their strongest weapon, and one of the greatest deceptions of the age will be exposed. 

The various terms, Satan, Apollyon, Diabolus, or devil, are frequently found in the Scriptures, and are so used in the inspired word that the teachers of error are often put to the greatest strait to give an explanation of them. Chadwick, in his "Dictionary of the New Testament," says:- "Some have denied the personality of the devil, and they speak of him as a mere negative evil, or as an evil disposition only. If real personal properties and actions can determine personality of being, the devil must be a real person of vast physical power, and of awful malignity of temper." The whole record of the temptation of the Saviour leads us inevitably to conclude that Satan was there, as literally and personally as was the Son of God. He who overcame Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden undertook to overcome the second Adam by similar temptations. In Eden he offered them the prospect of greater good, of higher enjoyment, of more exalted position, than their loving Creator had conferred upon them. They rashly took that which appeared to be "good for food," as a means of obtaining other benefits, though they had no manner of need of it. In the case of the second Adam, Satan tempted his appetite when he was greatly in need, and offered him also position, power, and glory. From the record of creation and of the temptation 'of Christ, from the fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, really became incarnate and dwelt upon the earth, died and rose from the dead, and ascended on high; in a word, from the entire Bible as a book of truth and of awful realities, and not of mere fancies, then we are shut up to the conclusion that the devil is a real being, possessed of power, cunning, malice, hatred to God and to everything that is good. We are warned against his power and his deceptions, exhorted to resist him, with the assurance that he will flee from us if we resist him steadfast in the faith.

Angels: Their Nature and Ministry-  (Excerpt - for continuing study) Revised by J.H. Waggoner.  1891 by Pacific Press Publishing Co.)