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Writer's pictureJoe Durso

ANGELS UNAWARES

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”  (Hebrews 13:2)

OUR AGE

We are such a “scientifically” driven, evolution reasoning, age of reason without God culture in America today, that faith in the supernatural hardly resides in the true church, at least that has been my experience.  I understand that some disbelief is a result of backlash against false teachers from the charismatic movement that are nothing more than wolves in sheep’s clothing.  I am not speaking about true Christians that have certain bents towards miracle gifts but believe the same gospel.  Furthermore, it is possible that some people have simply never witnessed a miracle, and if they did would not know how to process it.

In reality, miracles do happen because God is a miracle working God.  He may not do miracles every day, and He is not required to ever do a miracle, but as a Christian who has been called to live by faith, (Romans 1:17; Habakkuk 2:4) I certainly should be willing to believe in one when I see it.

OUR STORY

The year was 1978 and we were on our way to see my parents in Brooklyn, New York on route from Buffalo.  I finished packing the car at 10 PM after working all day, I was dog tired and went straight to bed after telling my wife I would like to leave early.  At 2 AM my wife woke me up saying she couldn’t sleep so we should just leave.

 Unfortunately, the fog was so thick that I couldn’t see much more than a few feet in front of the car for much of the first portion of the trip.  At about 4 AM I dozed off to sleep, I woke abruptly after hearing my wife scream, which she will tell you was a result of someone putting a hand on her shoulder while all 3 children were sound asleep in the back seat.

We headed down a steep incline of about 25 feet into a gully that divided highway 17.  The ground was layered with a couple of inches of snow and speeding along at 60 miles an hour I had all to do to keep the car from flipping over.  Eventually, we came to a stop and just sat there for what seemed like hours; I could hear my heart beating very fast.

After a few attempts at trying to drive the car out of the ravine and almost tipping it over I decided to try and back it up the hill.  A brilliant man at a young age, I attempted the non dangerous feet of pushing my car up the hill.  I got out and told my wife to drive but all the wheels did was spin.  I climbed to the top of the hill and waited for someone to pass by.  At 4 in the morning there was no traffic on highway 17, however, after a few minutes a car pulled up and a man got out that was not much bigger than myself, and that is not very big.

After telling him what happened we proceeded to try and help push the car up the hill together.  Amazingly the car went straight up the hill and when it touched the pavement of the highway it sped across to the other side.  Fortunately, my wife was able to stop it before anything worse happened.  When I got to her at the car she said to me, “I’m sorry I put the hand brake on and forgot to take it off before we went up the hill.”

After I thanked the stranger he was on his way; we drove down the highway for about 2 hours without saying a word.  Finally, we stopped to get something for breakfast.  We just sat at the table for a long while, each one of us was still in shock from what was a very traumatic experience.

Finally, we began to share what we were feeling about the whole incident.  My wife told me about the hand on her shoulder.  Then I got to thinking about the hand brake; our car was about 2 years old and when the hand brake was on there was no moving it on dry and level ground.  Then it occurred to me that there was no way that two men my size could have pushed that car, on snow, up that steep hill.  It was then that we realized we must have been visited by an angel.

OUR FAITH

It is all too easy for a reliance upon miracles to undermine our faith in God; for this reason miracles are not a steady diet for believers.  According to Hebrews 11:2 (KJV), “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  We are clearly told by God that faith is the substance or the substantiation of things hoped for and hope is faith in the future or what is yet to happen.  What is yet to happen has not happened yet and therefore is unseen.  The author goes on to make this very point perfectly clear by stating it exactly in the next phrase, the evidence of things not seen.

What is the substance and the evidence of which the authors speaks?  It is what God has said.  Noah prepared an ark, Abraham went to land unknown to him, Moses left the people of his upbringing and joined himself to his genetic heritage, and many more cases are stated in Hebrews 11 of men who believed God for things they could not see.  However, they did see those things with the eyes of faith, a faith that could see that what God has said will surely come to pass.  The basis of their faith was the person and character of God.  God does not lie, He means what He says and says what He means.

The verse from the top of the post, which is taken from the inspired word of God, means exactly what it says, “”Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” There are angels whether or not we believe in them, and from time to time they walk among us.  How do I know?  Because God told us so.

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