Angels & Demons

The Illuminati, like a serpent from the forgotten depths of history, had risen and wrapped themselves around an ancient foe. No demands. No negotiation. Just retribution. Demonically simple. Squeezing. A revenge 400 years in the making. It seemed that after centuries of persecution, science had bitten back" (Brown, Angels & Demons, 164).

"Langdon’s head was pounding louder now . . . tiny voices played tug of war."
“Faith does not protect you. Medicine and airbags . . . those are things that protect you. God does not protect you. Intelligence protects you. Enlightenment. Put your faith in something with tangible results. How long has it been since someone walked on water? Modern miracles belong to science . . . computers, vaccines, space stations . . . even the divine miracle of creation. Matter from nothing . . . in a lab. Who needs God? No! Science is God” (174).

• These quotes represents the crux of the novel, Angels & Demons.
• A battle between science and religion;
o between the seen and the unseen;
o between faith and terrorism

Dan Brown has written a brilliant novel.
• Ultimate evil of science which can, according to the book, reproduce the moment of creation with antimatter.
• Terrorists controlling the clock; claiming to be a secret society out for revenge against the church’s abuse of scientists and free thinkers
• Staid tradition of the selection of a pope, the papal conclave
• Documents shrouded in mystery by the limited access granted them
• Set against the backdrop of the art and architecture of Rome and Vatican City.

Although this is more dramatic and graphic than we are likely to experience, doesn’t Langdon’s internal struggle resonate with us?
• When we hear of a disaster, is there a part of us that wonders where God is in the universe today?
• When science hands us cures for diseases, does it increase our faith in science?
• When technology puts a device in our hands the size of a credit card, and it will store and reproduce an entire library of music with equal or greater sound quality than the original, do we tend to deify technology?

Perhaps. Yet with all this, we have the option to use these devices for enhancing life or enslaving us. Consider today’s scriptures.
Angels
Mt 18:10 (NRSV) Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.


MBD [Metaphysical Bible Dictionary published by Unity School of Christianity], 52, Angel; messengers of God.

Meta. . . . These angels of our childlike spiritual thoughts, “these little ones,” are the thoughts that understand spiritual principles. The office of the angels is to guard and guide and direct the natural forces of mind and body, which have in them the future of the whole man [person].

In the literal, Jesus was talking about children, but this was a parable about the kingdom. In
• 1st verse of this chapter, Jesus said
“ . . . unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

These childlike spiritual thoughts are the ones that cause us to question the limits of science, and perhaps take science for granted and knows there is more. When we would ask “can we?” these spiritual thoughts ask “should we?” They invite us to make conscious decisions. They remind us that there is something greater than ourselves, greater than science, greater than religion.
• Job 32:8 There is a spirit in man, that breath of the Almighty that brings understanding.
• That’s the very argument that Langdon is having in his own mind in Angels & Demons.

Demons
Mk 1:32-34 32That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34 And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

MBD, 170,

Demons, or evil spirits, are conditions of mind, or states of consciousness, that have been developed because the creative power of man has been used in unwise or an ignorant way.
• If in thought or in word you are using your creative power in an ignorant way, you are bringing forth an ego or a personality of like character.
• The mind builds states of consciousness that become established in brain and body.
• Both good and evil are found in the unregenerated man, but in the new birth evil and all its works must be cast out.
• The work of every overcoming is to cast out of himself the demons of sin [missing the mark] and evil [state of consciousness that looks to worldly pride and power as worthy of one’s effort], through the power and dominion of his indwelling Christ . . .
• “would not permit the demons to speak” means that Jesus did not admit for a moment that demons have any power . . . He concentrated the dissolving power of Spirit upon them and their hold was broken.

Unlike the frantic hunt through crypts, catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the Illuminati lair,
• Our angels are often common-place. Perhaps it’s the man who shows up who will mow the grass just after the lawn mower breaks.
• Maybe it’s the one who held the high watch for us when we couldn’t hold it for ourselves.
• Maybe it’s the inner voice that nudges you to turn right when you were on a direct course to your destination. Maybe you heard later there was a horrific accident in which you would have been involved if you hadn’t taken that right turn.

And what about our demons?
• They are not likely to be carved in stone as some of the ones in the book were.
• They are not likely to be assasins
• They ARE likely to be our own self-talk. That niggling voice in the mind that says
o You’re nuts if you think you can pull that one off
o What makes you think God even exists, much less within you?
o You can’t possibly do that!
o You’re not smart enough
o You’re not good enough
o You don’t have enough money
o You’re NOT or you DON’T

We all have angels; we all have demons! It’s what we do about them that matters.

By John Wren-Lewis, Sydney, Australia
December, 1994 (edited from www.guideposts.com)
• "Never take candy from a stranger." My mother's admonition flashed through my mind when a man on the bus to Phuket, Thailand, dug two toffees from his pocket and offered them, smiling.
PLEASE FOLLOW LINK FOR COMPLETE STORY
• But now, after more than a decade traveling and working all over the world, I'd long since discounted her warning.

o John awoke in a hospital bed, an IV drip and an oxygen cylinder beside me.
o "Thank goodness I trusted my taste buds, or we'd probably both be dead," Ann said later as a nurse served supper.
o "The police think the young man was part of a gang who drugs tourists on buses and trains to rob them.

• At an age when most people retire, I have been given a whole new life, John said. “For me the great discovery has been that Jesus was speaking the simple truth when he said the Kingdom of God is right here, in and amongst us, all the time. Angels are any forces that God uses to wake us to the kingdom's presence. For me, closeness to death was just that—mediated by a would-be thief on a bus in Thailand.”

John was thrust into a journey of personal transformation. As a former mathematical physicist, he had little patience for anything beyond measurable human experience. Thrust upon this road by a would-be poisoner, he came to see this one as an instrument of his awakening.
John came to know that measurable human experience was not all there was to him.
• He came to know that he was more than the sum of his organs and tissues? Would a mass of organs and tissues be able to ask, “Am I my body?”
• We are not our bodies, we are not our jobs, we are not our children or our parents.
• We are something more than that. We are powerful, creative beings, sometimes barely conscious of ourselves, and often unconscious of our power.
• If there are angels in our midst, we drew them there. What we focus on, we draw to ourselves.
• What we believe, we create. If there are demons in the world, it is because humankind has used its incredible creative power to bring them into being. If they are in our own minds and hearts, we created them and placed them there.
• We believe there is only one Presence and one Power. That Presence has give to us enormous creative capacity, and we have the freedom to use it for growth and giving life, or for destruction.
• When we continually think, “I am well, I have plenty, I am at peace with all humankind,” then health, success, and happiness come to us.
• When we are loving and kind; if we treat men and women honestly, justly, charitably, and make our demonstration of good a practical, living reality, we will soon find ourselves in the Kingdom.
• In consciousness, humankind has strayed from the principle of good. We have adopted the idea of competition, of aggression, of I’ll get mine before you get it. We have created the demons of competition and perpetuated and expanded the reality of those demons to the point where we endanger the very existence of our planet.
• We must find our way back to that principle of good.
In Angels & Demons, there is a struggle between men of faith and men of science. Sometimes science gets it wrong, as with the complete adherence to the notion of survival of the fittest. Yes the strong survive, but there are those models of collaboration and cooperation.
• Nevertheless, science does many things well, and many scientists are also people of faith. Some would have us believe that science is evil. Some would have us believe that science is god. Science, however, is a way of looking at the world, and without it we would likely be dealing with plagues and epidemics removing a much greater portion of the population. We might still not know that hand-washing is essential. We might still think disease is caused by evil spirits.
• Even if science sometimes gets it wrong, without science, we would get many more things wrong than we do.
One man of science may surprise you.
In July 2009, Francis Collins was nominated by President Barack Obama as the new Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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Three years ago, I had the opportunity to gaze upon one of the most powerful and beautiful mysteries of nature: the human genome.
For nearly a decade I had led a team of researchers racing to decipher the biochemical instruction manual for making human beings. All living creatures, from humans to the lowliest amoeba, are literally brought into existence by the genes that make up their DNA. It is a brilliant, ingenious system.
But, as a believer, I am convinced it is also a sign of God's meticulous delight in creation. The genes, sequences of DNA that spew out instructions for making the building blocks of bodies, can be combined in myriad ways to produce everything from a rose to a chimpanzee to a short person with blond hair to a tall person with black hair...to you.
Many people question whether science, especially genetic science, is opposed to faith. I consider that a false premise.
When I got the call in 1993 asking me to lead the Human Genome Project, I saw an opportunity not to challenge God, but to glorify him.

http://www.guideposts.com/story/francis-collins-nih-human-genome

When we have demons in our lives, we know how to transform them – we change our minds. When we have angels in our lives – we give thanks!

God loves you, and so do I!
Rev Martha