December 17 2025

Angels Guard and Guide

The Bible

1. Ex. 23:20

¶ Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

2. Ps. 104:1, 4, 5

Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. ...

Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire: Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.

3. Mal. 3:1

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

4. Acts 12:1–3 (to 1st .), 4 (to ;), 5–9 (to 1st ;)

Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. ...

And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; ...

Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed him; ...

5. Heb. 1:14

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

6. Heb. 12:22–29

But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.

7. Rev. 1:1

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

8. Rev. 12:7–9

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

9. Rev. 14:6, 7

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

10. Rev. 18:1 I

... I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

11. Rev. 21:2 I, 3 (to 1st ,), 6 It, 10, 16 (to :), 22–25; 22:1, 2, 6, 8, 14, 17

... I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, ...

... It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. ...

And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, ...

And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: ...

And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. ...

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. ...

And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done. ...

And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things. ...

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. ...

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

12. Ps. 91:9–11

Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

1. SH 581:4

ANGELS. God’s thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality.

2. SH 298:25–17

Angels are not etherealized human beings, evolving animal qualities in their wings; but they are celestial visitants, flying on spiritual, not material, pinions. Angels are pure thoughts from God, winged with Truth and Love, no matter what their individualism may be. Human conjecture confers upon angels its own forms of thought, marked with superstitious outlines, making them human creatures with suggestive feathers; but this is only fancy. It has behind it no more reality than has the sculptor’s thought when he carves his “Statue of Liberty,” which embodies his conception of an unseen quality or condition, but which has no physical antecedent reality save in the artist’s own observation and “chambers of imagery.”

My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried its fondest earthly hopes. With white fingers they point upward to a new and glorified trust, to higher ideals of life and its joys. Angels are God’s representatives. These upward-soaring beings never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to the divine Principle of all good, whither every real individuality, image, or likeness of God, gathers. By giving earnest heed to these spiritual guides they tarry with us, and we entertain “angels unawares.”

3. SH 78:17–19

If Spirit pervades all space, it needs no material method for the transmission of messages.

4. SH 332:9–17 Christ

Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness. The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual, — yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death. As Paul says: “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

5. SH 482:19

Jesus was the highest human concept of the perfect man. He was inseparable from Christ, the Messiah, — the divine idea of God outside the flesh. This enabled Jesus to demonstrate his control over matter. Angels announced to the Wisemen of old this dual appearing, and angels whisper it, through faith, to the hungering heart in every age.

6. SH 512:8

Spirit is symbolized by strength, presence, and power, and also by holy thoughts, winged with Love. These angels of His presence, which have the holiest charge, abound in the spiritual atmosphere of Mind, and consequently reproduce their own characteristics. Their individual forms we know not, but we do know that their natures are allied to God’s nature; and spiritual blessings, thus typified, are the externalized, yet subjective, states of faith and spiritual understanding.

7. SH 224:22

A higher and more practical Christianity, demonstrating justice and meeting the needs of mortals in sickness and in health, stands at the door of this age, knocking for admission. Will you open or close the door upon this angel visitant, who cometh in the quiet of meekness, as he came of old to the patriarch at noonday?

8. SH 91:1

The Revelator tells us of “a new heaven and a new earth.” Have you ever pictured this heaven and earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme wisdom?

9. SH 561:16

John saw the human and divine coincidence, shown in the man Jesus, as divinity embracing humanity in Life and its demonstration, — reducing to human perception and understanding the Life which is God. In divine revelation, material and corporeal selfhood disappear, and the spiritual idea is understood.

10. SH 566:25–13

Revelation xii. 7, 8. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

The Old Testament assigns to the angels, God’s divine messages, different offices. Michael’s characteristic is spiritual strength. He leads the hosts of heaven against the power of sin, Satan, and fights the holy wars. Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love. These angels deliver us from the depths. Truth and Love come nearer in the hour of woe, when strong faith or spiritual strength wrestles and prevails through the understanding of God. The Gabriel of His presence has no contests. To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death. Against Love, the dragon warreth not long, for he is killed by the divine Principle. Truth and Love prevail against the dragon because the dragon cannot war with them. Thus endeth the conflict between the flesh and Spirit.

11. SH 567:14–27

Revelation xii. 9. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

That false claim — that ancient belief, that old serpent whose name is devil (evil), claiming that there is intelligence in matter either to benefit or to injure men — is pure delusion, the red dragon; and it is cast out by Christ, Truth, the spiritual idea, and so proved to be powerless. The words “cast unto the earth” show the dragon to be nothingness, dust to dust; and therefore, in his pretence of being a talker, he must be a lie from the beginning. His angels, or messages, are cast out with their author.

12. SH 592:18

NEW JERUSALEM. Divine Science; the spiritual facts and harmony of the universe; the kingdom of heaven, or reign of harmony.

13. SH 574:3–27

The Revelator also takes in another view, adapted to console the weary pilgrim, journeying “uphill all the way.”

He writes, in Revelation xxi. 9: —

And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.

This ministry of Truth, this message from divine Love, carried John away in spirit. It exalted him till he became conscious of the spiritual facts of being and the “New Jerusalem, coming down from God, out of heaven,” — the spiritual outpouring of bliss and glory, which he describes as the city which “lieth foursquare.” The beauty of this text is, that the sum total of human misery, represented by the seven angelic vials full of seven plagues, has full compensation in the law of Love. Note this, — that the very message, or swift-winged thought, which poured forth hatred and torment, brought also the experience which at last lifted the seer to behold the great city, the four equal sides of which were heaven-bestowed and heaven-bestowing.

Think of this, dear reader, for it will lift the sackcloth from your eyes, and you will behold the soft-winged dove descending upon you.

14. SH 575:7–13 (to 1st .), 17, 24

This sacred city, described in the Apocalypse (xxi. 16) as one that “lieth foursquare” and cometh “down from God, out of heaven,” represents the light and glory of divine Science. The builder and maker of this New Jerusalem is God, as we read in the book of Hebrews; and it is “a city which hath foundations.” ... The four sides of our city are the Word, Christ, Christianity, and divine Science; “and the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.” This city is wholly spiritual, as its four sides indicate.

... It is indeed a city of the Spirit, fair, royal, and square. Northward, its gates open to the North Star, the Word, the polar magnet of Revelation; eastward, to the star seen by the Wisemen of the Orient, who followed it to the manger of Jesus; southward, to the genial tropics, with the Southern Cross in the skies, — the Cross of Calvary, which binds human society into solemn union; westward, to the grand realization of the Golden Shore of Love and the Peaceful Sea of Harmony.

15. SH 548:9

How little light or heat reach our earth when clouds cover the sun’s face! So Christian Science can be seen only as the clouds of corporeal sense roll away. Earth has little light or joy for mortals before Life is spiritually learned. Every agony of mortal error helps error to destroy error, and so aids the apprehension of immortal Truth. This is the new birth going on hourly, by which men may entertain angels, the true ideas of God, the spiritual sense of being.

Hymns

1. Hymn. 9

All glory be to God most high, / And on the earth be peace, / The angels sang, in days of yore, / The song that ne’er shall cease, / Till all the world knows peace. /

God’s angels ever come and go, / All winged with light and love; / They bring us blessings from on high, / They lift our thoughts above, / They whisper God is Love. /

O longing hearts that wait on God / Through all the world so wide; / He knows the angels that you need, / And sends them to your side, / To comfort, guard and guide. /

O wake and hear the angel-song / That bids all discord cease, / From pain and sorrow, doubt and fear, / It brings us sweet release; / And so our hearts find peace.

Words: VIOLET HAY

Music: Arranged from David G. Corner by H. Walford Davies

2. Hymn. 11

Angels at the Saviour’s birth / Woke with music all the earth, / Shepherds in the eastern sky / Saw a pale star passing by, / Guiding them at break of day / Where the babe in meekness lay, / Born the gracious news to tell, / God with us, Immanuel. /

Star of being, still thy light / Shines before us in the night, / By those radiant beams we find / Christ, the Truth, for all mankind, / Still the tidings angels bring / With their joyful caroling, / Telling that the dawn has come, / God and man fore’er at one.

Words: MARION SUSAN CAMPBELL

Music: Jakob Hintze Harmonized by J. S. Bach

3. Hymn. 181

Loving Father, we Thy children / Look to Thee in fear’s dark night / While the angels of Thy presence / Guide us upward to the light. /

Then we feel the power that lifts us / To Thy holy secret place, / Where our gloom is lost in glory / As we see Thee face to face. /

We would learn, O gracious Father, / To reflect Thy healing love. / May we all awake to praise Thee / For Thy good gifts from above. /

Make us strong to bear the message / To Thy children far and near: / Fear shall have no more dominion. / God is All, and heaven is here.

Words: ROSEMARY B. HACKETT

Music: Arr. from L. van Beethoven

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