On August 28, 2024, I posted about the near death experience of then former President Donald Trump when an assassin’s bullet struck his right ear just as he turned his head to likely avoid death at a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13th, 2024. That post is entitled “Did God Protect Trump from that Assassin’s Bullet?” Days later, I updated it September 4th with this post, “Update on Assassination Attempt on Donald Trump July 13 2024.” What I didn’t tell in those posts is that this likely had to do with the angelic conflict.
The Apostle Paul’s Teaching about the End Times
So many evangelical leaders who promoted Donald Trump for president claimed that God protected him from that assassin’s bullet in Butler. But in those posts, I presented a different viewpoint—that he likely was protected by a supernatural force, all right, but that it was not God. In that first post, I explained as follows:
“The apostle Paul … prophesies that at the end of the age, ‘the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed’ (2 Thessalonians 2:3 NRSV). Christians later applied the word ‘Antichrist’ to this individual (cf. 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7). Paul adds, ‘The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception … God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false’ (2 Thes 2:9-11).”
Paul also writes similarly elsewhere, “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6.12).
So, both God and Satan sometimes affect what happens to human beings here on earth, and these forces can be in conflict about it. The way God and Satan accomplish their purposes is often by directing their angels to carry out their commands. This indicates that there always has been an angelic conflict going on in this world. An evidence of this is the existence of God’s guardian angel of Israel whom we read of in the Bible.
The Guardian Angel of Israel
The Bible says that during the time of Moses, God gave the infant nation of Israel a guardian angel to protect it. God told Moses that as the Hebrew people were journeying through the wilderness during their forty-year trek towards the so-called Promised Land, “I am going to send an angel in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Be attentive to him and listen to his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression; for my name is in him. But if you listen attentively to his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes” (Exodus 23.20-22 NRSV).
But how would Moses and his young nation know when this angel was speaking to them? For, this angel would appear to them at various times, looking like a man. How could they tell if this angel was a man or an angel. Sometimes they couldn’t, and the way they did was by what the angel said or did.
For example, when Joshua, Moses’ successor, began to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, the first city they approached was Jericho. At God’s command, the Israelites blew their trumpets and the walls that protected Jericho collapsed to the ground. These Hebrews then took the city (Joshua 6).
But right before that we read in the Bible, “Once when Joshua was by Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you one of us, or one of our adversaries?’ He replied, ‘Neither, but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and he said to him, ‘What do you command your servant my lord?’ The commander of the army of the LORD said to Joshua, ‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy.’ And Joshua did so” (Joshua 5.13-15). So, Joshua knew this was no ordinary man, but that he was from God, just by what he had said.
The Archangel Gabriel
This human-looking angel who appeared to Joshua was both the guardian angel of Israel and the commander of God’s angelic army in heaven (e.g., Revelation 12.7-9). We learn more about him in the very apocalyptic book of Daniel in the Old Testament. It reveals how there is a tense conflict that goes on in this world between two opposing supernatural forces: God and his angels against Satan and his angels.
For instance, the exiled Daniel reveals in his book that the angel Gabriel appeared to him multiple times to deliver some particular message (Daniel 8.16; 9.21). Daniel says this Gabriel had “the appearance of a man” (8.15). On the second occasion, Daniel called him “the man Gabriel” (9.21). Yet, this Gabriel was not really a man; rather, he was an angel who looked like a man.
Gabriel later explained to Daniel, “I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me twenty-one days. So Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia, and have come to help you understand what is to happen to your people at the end of the days” (Daniel 10.13-14). What does all of this mean?
The Archangel Michael Is Israel’s Guardian Angel
Gabriel told Daniel about an angelic prince who had a certain control over the Persian empire at that time. And Gabriel had been in conflict with this opposing angel for twenty-one days. This angelic prince obviously was one of Satan’s leading angels.
Then Gabriel spoke about his associate, the angel Michael. These are the only angels of God mentioned by name in the Bible. Gabriel said Michael is “one of the chief princes” who belongs to God. Michael therefore took Gabriel’s place in opposing that angel of Satan who had control over the Persian empire. He did it so Gabriel could come to Daniel’s aid to give him a most important prophecy, the lengthiest prophecy in the entire Bible, which is in Daniel 11.2—12.13. Gabriel says this prophecy is about “the end of days.”
The apocalyptic expression, “the end time,” derives from Daniel’s “the end of days.” It does not mean “days” will end; rather, the supremacy of Gentile power in the world will come to an end. Then, God will make his chosen people, the Jews, as the chief nation Israel in the world-to-come.
Gabriel then said to Daniel, “I am going to tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth” (Daniel 10.21). It apparently is a book in heaven that foretells what will happen to Jews during the end times. Of course, such a prophetic book indicates that God has a plan for his creation and that he will bring it to pass. In this sense, we can rightly say that “God is sovereign over his creation.” But this should not be understood as God now ruling over this world. The apostle Paul writes of Satan, the devil, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4.4).
It is not until the second coming of Christ when the 24 elders in heaven will shout, “We give you thanks, Lord God Almighty, … for you have taken your great power and begun to reign” (Revelation 11.16). And a great multitude of angels will then sound forth likewise, like the sound of crashing waves and mighty thunder, “Hallelujah! For the Lord God the Almighty reigns” (19.6). Before that, God did not reign over this world. Rather, there was an angelic conflict.
Gabriel then explains to Daniel, “There is no one with me who contends against these princes except Michael, your prince” (10.21). What did Gabriel mean by “your prince”? This Michael is Israel’s guardian angel, the angelic prince who stands guard over the nation of Israel just as a Satanic angel had some control over the Persian empire at that time.
“Seven Archangels” Who “Stand in the Presence of God”
In ancient, Jewish, apocalyptic literature, Gabriel and Michael are named among the so-called “seven archangels” who belong to God. Gabriel later appeared to the virgin Mary to announce her child to be born to her, who was Jesus (Luke 1.26-38). But before that, an angel, who may have been Gabriel, appeared to the priest Zechariah who was to become the father of John the Baptist (v. 11). He announced to Zechariah that his wife Elizabeth—even though they were too old to have children—would bear a son, John the Baptist. We read, “Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How will I know that this is so? For I am old man, and my wife is getting on in years.’ The angle replied, ‘I am Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur” (vv. 18-20).
So, Gabriel, and likely Michael, are among the seven archangels who “stand in the presence of God” (e.g., Jude 9). We read of these seven angels in the book of Revelation. It says of the heavenly Jesus during the end times, “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them” (Revelation 8.1-2). The sounding of their trumpets signal judgments to fall upon earth.
Conclusion
In conclusion, according to the Bible there are seven archangels who stand constantly before the enthroned God in heaven, always ready to do his bidding, and many times it involves humans on earth. Do you think this only happened in biblical times? I don’t think so; instead, it has happened throughout human history.
During the time of Daniel, God sent two of his archangels, Gabriel and Michael, to earth to do his will when it concerned opposing one of Satan’s angels who was exercising control over the Persian empire. And, as the apostle Paul relates about Satan, at certain times it likely is his angels who carry out “the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception.” That may have occurred in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13th last year.
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