FBCD_FaithEssentials_June_FlipBook

Todd Gaddis

lighted on my head—I reached up my hand very gently—I killed him, and then we divided him equally among us. We ate every bit, even the little bones. Nothing ever tasted so good." This gull saved the lives of Rickenbacker and his companions. Years later I asked him to tell me the story personally, because it was through the experience that he came to know Christ. He said, "I have no explanation except that God sent one of His angels to rescue us." 5 We observe as well that ministering angels in the Bible protect. After God banned Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, He stationed angels at the tree of life to stand guard (Genesis 3:24). On initial consideration, this may seem like punishment, as if God was barring the way back into paradise. But, it was actually protection. “If Adam and Eve, in their fallen condition, had eaten of that tree, they would have lived forever in their sins. They would have become like the fallen angels, incapable of death and forever locked into the guilt and penalty of their sin.” 6 John Paton was a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands. One night hostile natives surrounded the mission station, intent on burning out the Patons and killing them. Paton and his wife prayed during the terror-filled night that God would deliver them. When daylight came they were amazed to see their attackers leave. A year later, the chief of the tribe was converted to Christ. Remembering what had happened, Paton asked the chief what had kept him from burning down the house and killing them. The chief replied in surprise, "Who were all those men with you there?" Paton knew no men were present, but the chief said he was afraid to attack because he had seen hundreds of big men in shining garments with drawn swords circling the mission station. 7 When Daniel’s friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the blazing furnace, God provided a fourth man, an angel, to rescue them from death. Later, Daniel himself was thrown into a lions’ den for failing to bow down to an earthly king. After surviving

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