ANGELS WATCHING OVER ME
By John Jenkins
Hi... my name's John and I'm a Bible based Christian living in Leeds in the North of England. Prior to 1999 I lived in London, the capital city of the United Kingdom, and while I was here I had some very unusual spiritual experiences. I'd like to describe one of them to you now.
During 1997 I was living in Brixton, which Londoners will know to be an area of high drug use, extensive New Age activity, witchcraft, voodoo, and the like. It's not surprising then that I experienced severe spiritual attacks.
To counter this I used to prayer-walk and 'prayer-cycle' my block and my local area, which was situated between Brixton Hill and Acre Lane. I prayed, not only that the activities of the enemy would be held back in that particular area, but that the people who lived there would experience God and be led closer to Jesus.
One day as I was out walking - not praying this time - I left a side street and entered Acre Lane. It was as if I had walked straight into a solid wall of spiritual blackness... a barrage of dark demonic beings. I stepped back and thought, "Whoa... what's going on here?", and immediately I realised that Acre Lane was the boundary of the area I had been praying for.
"Silly me", I thought, "I should have include both sides of Acre Lane in my prayers." But that's not the point. The main thing is I suddenly became aware that my prayers had been effective and had created a literal geographical area of spiritual light within that dark region of London. (I hope one day that I might meet one or two people who came to Christ as a result of those prayers.)
But that's just the start of the story.
Two minutes from my home was Brockwell Park and I used to go cycling in it for exercise and relaxation. There's a dirt BMX track in the park and I enjoyed riding around it on my mountain bike for a bit of fun. At the start of the track was a notice board stating that only BMX bikes should be used, and that full protective gear - including helmets - should be worn. Of course I ignored it!
One day I was all alone and navigating the humps and troughs of the track. As usual I was pedalling in a standing position so that the bike would be safely balanced around a central point. However, my mind became distracted and as I sped down a dip I sat down on the saddle. When the front wheel hit the next upward slope it was too much for the spokes and one of them broke. Well the bike stopped short, but I kept on going... head first!
Needless to say, my bare head made contact with the upward rising slope and I was knocked unconscious (or semi-conscious). However, in the split second before I passed out I had a vision, and it's a vision that sends a shiver down my spine even today.
In that brief moment - which in God's time scale could have lasted an eternity - I saw what looked like a six-pack of ferocious beasts, fangs bared, charging at me as fast as their short legs could carry them. What struck me more than anything else about them was their horrendous ferocity - completely unbridled - as if they were the sheer embodiment of anger, hatred, bitterness, murder, and revenge all rolled into one.
It's clear to me that they had only one aim in mind, and I believe that if they had succeeded in their goal I would have died on the BMX track that day. But God had other plans for me.
Suddenly, from just above and slightly behind me six or seven ethereal beings appeared. They had no specific shape and they were completely transparent, like liquid glass or crystal. What struck me most about them was their utter transparency, beautiful in its simplicity, as if they had nothing whatsoever to hide spiritually speaking. I also perceived that it was their absolute purity which gave them their power and authority, and I got the impression that they were used to being in the presence of God.
All that took just a moment to grasp. Then, like a flash of lightening, those remarkable beings went streaking towards the pack of beasts and scattered them completely. They simply disappeared. What stuck me this time about the angels was their amazing speed of flight. Compared to them those demonic beasts were like steam rollers competing in a formula one race!
At this point let me mention something about speed and relativity. Einstein explained that if one was to place an extremely accurate atomic clock at the earth's equator - in Quito, Equador for instance - and synchronise it with another atomic clock which you took to the science station at the South Pole, after a year or two the clock in Quito would be behind the clock at the South Pole by a discernible difference (just a few microseconds).
In other words, time passes slightly more slowly at the Equator than it does at the Poles. This is because the equatorial clock is travelling several thousand miles per hour faster than the polar clock, relatively speaking. In other words time passes more slowly the faster you go. Einstein's Theory of Relativity goes on to say that if we could travel at the speed of light time would actually stand still for us.
When I think about the speed with which the angels in my vision shot towards the beasts, I find it easy to understand why time stands still for God, who is after all pure light. It also makes me wonder if time stands still for the angels as well, since they too are essentially made of spiritual light.
OK, I told you all that partly to point out that I'm a scientist by training and not someone taken to 'flights of fancy'. But back to the story...
The vision took just a moment to experience, and a medical person might say that it was the product of a brain in shock. However, what happened next roots the whole thing into earthly reality for me.
Instead of passing out and waking up some time later at the same spot, the next thing I was aware of was gradually coming back into consciousness while sitting on a grassy bank some 80 yards downhill from the BMX track, and maybe 200 yards uphill from the 'Brockwell Lido'... an open-air swimming pool. As I became aware of things around me I was actually in the process of taking my mobile phone out of my back-pack and punching in 999.
At the same time I was also aware that my bicycle, with it's badly buckled front wheel, was now securely locked to some iron railings about 20 yards to my left. How could that have happened? There are two possible explanations.
The first is that in my semi-conscious state I somehow managed to carry my crippled bike off the dirt track, with it's dips and hillocks... over the two foot raised lip at the track's edge... through some rough uncut grass... down a fairly steep grassy slope some 90 yards... and then, after all that, find my keys, unlock the bike chain from the saddle, and lock the bike to the railings... all of which I have no memory of whatsoever.
The second possibility is that God's angels did it for me and carried me to the spot where I woke up. I favour the second explanation.
Which ever is true I dialled 999, told the emergency services where I was, and passed out again. I woke up in Kings College Hospital, Camberwell, some six hours later.
This may sound like a remarkable story, and I suppose it is, but ever since my early childhood in India (where my parents ran a mission hospital) I've been unusually spiritually aware. It seems that I have the 'gift of discernment', or 'discernment of spirits', which the Apostle Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:10. Perhaps because of that my life has been full of supernatural events of one sort or another. Although very unusual, this day's experience was just one more of those.
I don't say that to boast but simply to point out that what we call 'supernatural' really isn't so unusual after all. We are surrounded by another dimension - a world of spiritual beings. Those beings which are in everyday contact with us are, unfortunately, evil by nature. The Bible says that this world has been given over to Lucifer, the ruler of all demons. It calls him 'the ruler of the kingdom of the air' (Eph 2:2) which implies that he and his army of followers inhabit this world - in the fresh air above ground - much as we do.
There's a common misconception that Satan lives somewhere 'underground' in some deep dark place which the ancient Greeks called Hades, and which today we might call Hell. According to the Bible that's simply not true. Hell will be the place of eternal punishment and torture for Satan and his hosts. One day they will be sent to that eternal prison, but until then they inhabit our world, which largely explains why there is so much pain and suffering here.
So, what about the angels? Well, they inhabit what we commonly call Heaven. But it seems from the Bible, and from other ancient Hebrew texts, that there's more than one level of Heaven (see 2 Corinthians 12:2). Some theoretical physicists now believe that there's more than one dimension of reality. The figure of ten dimensions has been put forward, which would tie in with the ancient idea of ten levels of Heaven.
It seems likely to me then that the physical universe we live in, and are part of, is also a part of the 'lowest' level, or dimension, of Heaven. That would explain how angels can interact with our world when God sends them to protect us, or to give us His messages. (See Hebrews 1:14. Also Luke 1:5-20 and 26-38.)
For many of us the idea that there really is a realm of the supernatural may seem rather 'airy-fairy', and even scary! The very word 'supernatural' implies that it's somehow 'un-natural'. But if such a realm does exist, and if intelligent beings do inhabit it, then it's not un-natural at all. It's certainly no more un-natural than our realm, and of course it would be quite 'natural' to those beings which live there. To them we may be the un-natural - or 'subnatural' - ones!
Anyway, to get back to my story... I believe the reason I had this experience was not primarily for my own sake, but so that I could share it with you, and so that you could learn something from it about the nature of the spiritual warfare that's going on around us all the time. Satan and his demons are very real, and they're out to either deceive you and lull you into spiritual sleep, or they're out for your guts!
But always remember this. The angels of light who serve our Father God are hugely superior to the minions of darkness in every way. And if you love Father God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, there are angels protecting you every day of your life. Never doubt it!
Remember though that Scripture tells us we mustn't worship angels (Col 2:18). But I do hope that one day we will be able to commune with them. I very much want to meet those beautiful beings who showed themselves to me, so that I can thank them for what they did for me that day in Brockwell Park, South London.
© John Jenkins, August 2002
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