Romans 2:4 Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
Psa 78:49 He let loose on them his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels.
2Ki 19:35 And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.
Act 12:23 Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.
Mat 13:49-50 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Rev 20:12-15 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
2Pe 3:9-10 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
Gen 16:7 The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.
The primary purpose of angels is to minister to believers. But angels also have a role in the lives of unbelievers. Let me share three ways angels minister to non-Christians.
First of all, angels are ministers of God’s goodness to unbelievers. We are not told that Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid who gave birth to Abraham’s son Ishmael, was a believer. Yet when she was thrown out of Abraham’s household and abandoned in the wilderness, God sent an angel to minister to Hagar (Genesis 16:7–12).
Maybe you’re not yet a Christian, and you question whether you need Jesus Christ in your life. You say, “Things are going pretty well for me. Why do I need God?” Or maybe you’re a Christian, and you wonder why the unbelievers around you seem to be doing so well. The apostle Paul wrote, “Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4). Sometimes God sends good things into people’s lives to remind them of their need for Him. Angels are ministers of God’s goodness to unbelievers.
Second, angels are ministers of judgment to unbelievers. Psalm 78:49 says it was angels who unleashed the ten plagues in Egypt. In 2 Kings 19:35, God used an angel to slaughter 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. In Acts 12:23, an angel struck Herod after he refused to give glory to God. God uses angels to deliver His judgment.
Third, angels are ministers of eternal death to unbelievers. In Matthew 13:49–50, Jesus said, “The angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” According to 2 Peter 3:9, God desires that everyone come to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. But those who reject God’s forgiveness are making a default decision to follow Satan, and they will be thrown along with Satan into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15).
Here is the horrific truth Jesus revealed: The angels are the ones who will dispatch every unbeliever to an eternity in the lake of fire. The last face every unbeliever sees before he is cast into hell will be the face of an angel. But everyone who accepts God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ will spend eternity alongside His holy angels, in the presence of God forever. (Jeffress)
