Are you a good or bad angel?

My wife related a recent incident to me involving her and our youngest grandson. She reviewed and approved of this article.

Several of the grandchildren were outside in two separate areas of our yard, and some were oblivious to the situation. One of the older ones was playing with a toy she wouldn’t let the youngest grandson play with.

So, when he came inside complaining, my wife came up with the wise idea of telling him to get a cheese stick and ask his cousin if she wanted to go inside and get one. After thinking for a moment, his countenance took on a glow of devious joy. Sure enough, shortly after he went outside, she came in asking for a cheese stick, and he had the toy all to himself.

While I usually consider my wife to be a real angel, because the Bible talks about two kinds of angels, this made me wonder which kind she is.

Some angels follow God and fight with and for us against Satan’s angels, who are as devious as he is, even taking on a human form to mislead us (Revelation 12:7-9; 2 Corinthians 11:14-15). All God’s children have an angel looking out for us and potentially every person ever born because there’s a bunch of angels on God’s side (Hebrews 1:14; Matthew 18:1-10; Psalm 68:17; 2 Kings 6:8-17).

None of us is perfect, but if we don’t deny that truth and try to live in fellowship with God, Jesus’ blood continues to cover our sins (Mark 10:18; 1 John 1:5-10). However, we can recognize evil angels by their actions that will sooner or later turn out to be contrary to God (Matthew 7:16-20; 1 Timothy 5:24-25; Numbers 32:23).

God allows their evil to continue until the end of the world (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43). But because they’re spirits, our war is in the spiritual realm (Ephesians 6:11-18). So we must be spiritually prepared and constantly on guard against their evil influences so we’re not misled, which is why God provides us with the necessary armor (Matthew 7:15, 21-27; 1 Timothy 4:1-5, 15-16). Personal and corporate (with the church) Bible study is how we learn to recognize Satan’s schemes and discern good from evil (2 Timothy 2:15; 3:12-17; 4:3-4; Romans 16:19; 2 Corinthians 2:11).

Now, I’m not saying my wife’s tactics with our grandchildren were evil, but that’s how some might perceive it, especially children. Rather, she merely followed Jesus’ teaching to be shrewd with innocence (Luke 16:1-9; Matthew 10:16). That said, we know using such tactics with children will require additional teaching so they’ll also learn to only use the shrewdness innocently (Ephesians 6:4; Proverbs 22:6). We certainly don’t want to be guilty of leading them down the wrong path (Matthew 18:6; 16:27; 2 Corinthians 11:15; 5:10).

So, as Dorothy was asked when her house landed on the wicked witch in Oz, “Are you a good witch (angel) or a bad witch (angel)?”, we’ll all be known by our actions.

Leonard Lauriault is a member of the Church of Christ in Logan who writes about faith for the Quay County Sun. Contact him at [email protected].