Angels and Demons

The pastor preached on angels this morning. It made me think of a conversation I had with the young mother of our first great-grandchild the other day in Tennessee. She had brought the baby by for his Mimi (my daughter) to watch while she went to a work meeting. She is a C.N.A. and works at a nursing home. I asked if she liked working with the elderly, and she said she enjoyed it.

“Is it sad when they pass away?” I asked her, thinking of our experiences ministering at nursing homes and how we missed some of the faces we had grown used to as they passed on.

“What is sad, is that many of them have no one who comes to see them,” Shelby replied. She told me of one patient whose passing was imminent, and she asked Shelby to hold her hand. “I held her hand for a long time,” she reflected, “then she smiled, and was gone.”

“Have any of them seen angels?” I questioned, to which she exclaimed, “Oh, yes! Just before she died, one lady kept pointing to the corner of the room and asking me if I saw the angels.”

“I had one man, though,” she continued soberly, “that kept saying, ‘I’m hot! I’m hot!’ Then he started yelling, ‘I’m burning! I’m burning! I’m going to Hell!’ Then he died!”

I had heard of this before. Some pastors we knew in Mississippi told this story that had happened to them: One night the pastor’s wife (a preacher herself) woke her husband up with the urgent impression to make a call away out in the country at the house of someone they knew of who had been ill. There was no phone, and, reluctant to get out in the middle of a cold winter night and knowing how hard it was to start their car, he said, “I’ll go only if the car starts right away.” To his amazement, it cranked right up. Then he said, “If their gate is not unlocked, I’m not going in.” The gate, which was habitually locked, was open. He added one more condition: “If the light’s not on, I’m not going up on that porch.” They saw a dim light. Then another caveat: "We're not going in unless someone comes out on the porch."

As their car lights illuminated the porch, the front door flew open and a man rushed out. “Come quick!” he yelled, “Mama is dying and she says she’s burning! She's been calling for you, but I couldn't leave to go get you!” They went in to find that in her agony she had pulled out most of her hair. And sure enough, she was screaming, “My feet! They’re burning! Help me!” She had refused the Lord before, but as the pastor couple prayed for her, she gave her heart to Him. Not only that, she recovered and, if I remember right, became a strong church worker and maybe even went into the ministry. Angels and demons. Something to be taken seriously.