Angels: God's Messengers--Our Attendants (4)

When we look upon all the passages of our life, we see how ready we are to fall into danger. In our infancy, in our tender years, we are committed to their custody. In our dangers, 'the angels of the Lord pitch their tents about those that fear the Lord' (Psa. 34:7). In our conversion they rejoice. 'There is joy in heaven at the conversion of a sinner' (Luke 15:10). At the hour of death, as we see in Lazarus, they are are ready to convey our souls to the place of happiness. Lazarus' soul 'was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom' (Luke 16:22). 'Christ will come with a multitude of heavenly angels' (Matt. 24:30, 31) at the day of judgement, 'when he will come to be glorified in his saints' (2 Thess. 1:10). Then saints and angels together,  will glorify God forever in heaven. We have association with them from our infancy until we be in glory. Indeed, they are as nurses: 'They will carry you, that you dash not your foot against a stone' (Psa. 91:12). They keep us from many inconveniences.
But you ask, 'God's children fall into inconveniences; how then are they attended by angels?' I answer: God's angels preserve those who are his from many inconveniences that they know not of. And certainly, we have demons about us continually, and there is a conflict between good angels and demons about us continually. If they keep us not from evil, they will keep us while in it, and deliver us out of evil at length. If we suffer in the custody of angels any inconvenience, it is that we may be tried by it, that we may be exercised and bettered by it. There is nothing that falls upon God's children in the world, but they gain by it, whatever it is.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Fountain Opened, Works, vol. 5, pp. 496-501
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