FALLEN ANGELS A LESSON TO FALLEN MEN – Charles Spurgeon
FALLEN ANGELS: A LESSON TO FALLEN MEN
Introduction: The Example of the Angels
“God spared not the angels who sinned, but cast them down to Hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment.” 2 Peter 2:4. THESE are ancient things.” Most men hunger after the latest news, but let us, on this occasion, go back upon the earliest records and think of the hoary past, before man was made. It does us good to look back upon the past of God’s dealings with His creatures—herein lies the value of history. We should not confine our attention to God’s dealings with men, but we should observe how He acts towards another order of beings—how He dealt with angels before man had become the second sinner. If angels transgress, what is His conduct towards them? This study will enlarge our minds and show us great principles in their wider sweep. We shall inevitably make mistakes in our judgment as to God’s conduct towards men if we do not remember sufficiently how He has dealt with beings who are, in certain respects, much superior to the human race. By seeing how God treated the rebellious angels, light may be cast upon His dealings with us and thereby misapprehensions may be removed. We shall go to our subject at once, asking aid from the Spirit of all Grace. We will first view the mysterious fact of the fall of the angels and their casting away for our warning. Then, secondly, we shall regard the fact of the hopeless doom of the angels who sinned as it stands in contrast to the amazing mercy of the Lord towards men. Thus our second head will lead us to view the text for our admiration—I hope for the increase of our grateful love and reverent wonder.
I. FOR OUR WARNING
“God spared not the angels who sinned, but cast them down to Hell.” Behold, here, a wonder of wickedness—angels sin! A wonder of justice—God spared them not! A wonder of punishment—He cast them down to Hell! A wonder of future vengeance, for they are reserved for judgment! Here are deep and terrible themes. Black as tempest are the facts and flashes of terrible lightning flame forth from them. Let us receive a warning, first, against the deceivableness of sin, for whoever we may be, we may never reckon that on account of our position or condition, we shall be free from the assaults of sin, or even certain of not being overcome by it.
Notice that these who sinned were angels in Heaven, so that there is no necessary security in the most holy position. We know that they were in heavenly places, for it was from that high abode that they were cast down to Hell by the terrible right hand of the Eternal King. These angels that kept not their first estate, but sinned against God, dwelt with their brethren in the courts of the Most High. They seemed to be, as it were, walled round with fire to keep out all evil from them. Their communications were only with perfect spirits like themselves, and yet, as they were undergoing a probation, they were made capable of choosing evil if they willed to do so, or of cleaving to good if their hearts were steadfast with their God. There were none about them to tempt them to evil. They were, on the contrary, surrounded with every good and holy influence—they saw God and lived in His courts. They conversed with seraphim and cherubim. Their daily engagements were all of a holy order—worship and service were their duty and delight. Their company was select; there were no lapsed classes among them to render the moral atmosphere impure. They were not only in a Paradise, but in the central abode of God Himself! Yet evil entered into the breasts of angels—even envy, ambition, pride, rebellion—and they fell, fell never to rise again.
“High in the bright and happy throng,
Satan, a tall archangel sat.
Among the morning stars he sung,
Till sin destroyed his heavenly state.
‘Twas sin that hurled him from his throne.
Groveling in fire the rebel lies.”
Beloved Hearer, this should teach us not to presume upon anything connected with our position here below. You may be the child of godly parents who watch over you with sedulous care and yet you may grow up to be a man of Belial. You may never enter a haunt of iniquity. Your journeys may be only to and from the house of God and yet you may be a bond slave of iniquity. The house in which you live may be none other than the house of God and the very gate of Heaven through your father’s prayers and yet you may, yourself, live to blaspheme. Your reading may be bound up with the Bible. Your companions may be of the choicest. Your talk may concern holy things. You may be as if you were in the garden of the Lord, shut in to everything that is good and every evil shut out from you—and yet you may have no part nor lot with the people of God.
As there were a Ham and an ungodly Canaan even in Noah’s Ark, so may it turn out that you may be such in the very midst of all that should make you gracious and sanctified! It is unhappy, indeed, to read the annals of human life and to meet with men that have gone from their mother’s side, have gone from where their father knelt in prayer—have gone out from brothers and sisters whose piety was not only unquestionable, but even remarkable—and they have gone to be leaders in every form of wickedness! Many of the enemies of the Cross of Christ have been so trained in godliness that we find it hard to believe that they could, indeed, be so vile! An Apostle must declare it with tears before he is believed! The sons of God they seemed to be, but they turned out to be sons of perdition after all! Let no man, therefore, arise and shake himself, as though no sins could ever bind him because he feels himself to be a very Samson through his connections and surroundings.
Yes, Sir, it may be that you shall fall—fall foully, fall desperately—unless the Grace of God is in you! You may fall so as never to come to God and Christ—or find eternal life. It was so with these angels. The best natural thing that creation can work is not sufficient to preserve the fickle creature from sin! Regeneration must come in—the work of the Holy Spirit—a yet higher work than the material creating power of God. Or else you may put the creature where you please—and that creature may be perfect and yet sin will reach and destroy him! You and I are far from perfect. We are not unfallen angels! We are not angels at all and we have evil hearts within us. Therefore let us not imagine, for a moment, that the most select position can screen us from the worst of sin.
The next thought is that the greatest possible ability, apparently consecrated, is still nothing to rely upon as a reason why we should not yet fall so low as to prostitute it all to the service of the worst of evils. Angels are beings of remarkable power. We know that they have amazing intelligence and beauty. We read of one whose face was like that of an angel of God. When a thing is spoken of as being exceedingly good, it is often connected with angels—“men did eat angels’ food.” It is supposed that everything with regard to them is of superior order and of refined quality. I suppose that a spirit that is not cumbered with flesh and blood, as we are, must be delivered from much that hampers and beclouds. Oftentimes a clear judgment is dimmed by a headache, or an attack of indigestion. Anything that affects the body drags down the mind, but these angelic beings are delivered from such weakness and they are clothed with a glory of strength, beauty, and power.
Hear, then, and observe! However great Lucifer was, he degenerated into Satan—the Son of the Morning became Apollyon the Destroyer. However excellent the fallen angels may once have been, they have now become potent only for mischief—their wisdom has curdled into cunning and their strength has soured into a vicious force—so that no man may say within himself, “I am a clear thinker, therefore I shall never become a blaspheming infidel.” Or, “I am gifted in prayer, therefore I shall never become a blasphemer.”
You know not what you may become. There is a great difference between gift in prayer and Grace in prayer—gift will breed pride and pride will ensure destruction! It is only Grace that can preserve unto eternal Glory. There is also a great difference between office and person and, therefore, a man may not say, “I am a minister—I shall be kept faithful in the Church of God.” Ah me! But we have seen leaders turn aside and we need not marvel, for if angels fall, what man may think that he can stand? To trust our office as a security is to rest upon a broken reed! The Grace of God can keep the least and weakest of us, but, apart from that heavenly power, how dare any man hope to be preserved to the end! Self-confidence is the beginning of declension. He that reckons that he is past temptation is already entangled in its net. We must never presume. Angels fell—why should not men?
An angel occupies a high position near the Throne of God—“Are they not all ministering spirits?” We have evidence in Scripture that they are called on grand occasions to discharge high commissions for the King of kings. And yet, these courtiers, these household messengers of the palace of Heaven, these domestics of Glory—even these went astray, fell, and turned to devils! Let no man dream that because he occupies an office in the Church his salvation is, therefore, secure—an Apostle fell! The arrows of the Prince of Darkness can reach the highest seats of the synagogue. The high places of the field of service are not free from danger. No, they are the more perilous as they are the more notable! The powers of darkness make their direst onset upon the foremost soldiers of the Cross, hoping to overthrow the standard-bearers and create confusion throughout the camp.
Neither, dear Friends—to continue my warning—must any of us suppose that we shall be kept by the mere fact that we are engaged in the most sublime possible office. Apart from the perpetual miracle of God’s Grace, nothing can keep us from declension, apostasy, and spiritual death. “Oh, but I spend my time,” one may say—“I spend my time wholly in the service of God! I go from door to door seeking the lost souls of men, as a city missionary.” Or, “I conduct a large class in the school and I have brought many to the Savior.” All this is good, but if you trust in it for your standing before God, it will certainly fail you!
If any one of us were to say, “But I am a minister, called to offer prayer and to preach the precious Word of God—my engagements are so sanctified; they bring me into such hallowed fellowship with holy things that it is not possible that I should fall”—this would be the height of folly! We need not go beyond the pale of professed ministers of Christ to find specimens of every infamy of which man is capable! After having preached to others, there is grave cause for trembling lest we be castaways, ourselves. No, there is nothing in the most sacred office in the Church to preserve us or our characters. Office, if we trust in it, may even become, as in the case of Judas, a Tarpeian rock from which we may be cast down to our destruction—for the angelic office in Heaven did not keep the angels from being hurled over the battlements of Glory when once they dared to sin. Let not the angels of the Churches hope to be kept from falling unless He that bears the seven stars in His right hand shall keep them even to the end!
II. FOR OUR ADMIRATION
I want you to admire, dear Friends, the fact that though angels fell, the saints of God are made to stand. The angels sinned fatally, but the saints of God “cannot sin, for they are born of God.” You know the sense in which the Apostle means that—not that we do not all sin, but that we do not so sin as to depart from the living God, give up our allegiance to Him—and cease to be His loving children. No. “He keeps himself,” says the Scripture, “and that wicked one touches him not.” But what a wonder it is! I tell you, when the tales of God’s people shall be written and the records of the saints shall be read by the Light of Glory, we shall be miracles of Grace to ourselves and to one another!
To think that men should stand where angels fall! We are, by Sovereign Grace, called to be as near to God as the angels ever were—and in some respects we are nearer! We are the bodyguard of Christ, His chosen ones with whom He communes. We are the table companions of our Lord—we eat of His bread and drink of His cup—and are made partakers with Him. We are lifted up to be one with Him and are made to be “members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.” Yet God’s eternal unbounded power keeps us in the day of temptation and leads us so that if we go through the rivers we are not drowned, and when we pass through the fires we are not burned.
Conclusion
Now, you that do not believe in the Doctrine of Election, but kick at it and bite your lips at the mention of it, listen to this! God gave fallen angels no Savior, no Gospel, no space for repentance—yet He gives these to men—why is this? What reason was there? Can you conceive one? Why did God pass the fallen angels by and yet look in love upon the sons of men? “Oh,” says one, “perhaps fallen angels were the greater offenders of the two.” I do not think so—certainly many men go far to rival devils in rebellion. “Perhaps men were tempted and angels were not.” Stop! Let us be clear on this point. Very likely Satan, the first angel that fell, was not tempted, but just as likely all the others were.
This I do know, that some men are greater sinners than devils. “No,” you ask, “how is that?” I answer that the devil never yet rejected Free Grace and dying love! The devil never yet struggled against the Holy Spirit in his own conscience! The devil never yet refused the mercy of God! These supreme pinnacles of wickedness are only reached by you who are hearers of the Gospel and yet cast its precious message behind your backs! It is amazing that God should deal in mercy with men who act so wickedly, while yet He never spoke of mercy to the fallen angels, nor set before them terms of peace! They were given over, then and there, to be bound in chains of darkness until the judgment of the Last Great Day!
God bless you, for Jesus‘ sake. Amen.