Spring City Fellowship
260712Sunday
Sunday July 12, 2026 10:15AM Service

      • Psalm 150:3NIV2011

  • Almighty
  • How Great Thou Art
  • He Is Yahweh
  • So Will I (100 Billion X)
  • Echo Holy
  • Mighty Name Of Jesus

      • 1 Chronicles 16:34NIV2011

  • It’s 2026 and our Theme is “Embrace Transformation.”
    During the months of June and July, I am preaching the sermons that you requested. I call it, “Hot Topics.”
    This weeks hot topic is a combination of two submissions:
    One simply put UFO’s??
    Another wrote “Angels and Demons: what to they look like and do they exist today?”
    I thought it would be good to address both of these at the same time because I think they are overlapping topics.
    Essentially, the question becomes, “Are UFO’s really angels and/or demons?”
    UFO’s have been a prominent subject in the media recently.
    In a March 27th interview with podcaster Benny Johnson, Vice President J.D. Vance was asked about UFO’s.
    To which Vance responded, “I don't think they're aliens, I think they're demons.”
    That’s an interesting comment coming from someone who has high level clearance.
    Early in May, several prominent Christian leaders claimed to have been part of a secret briefing by the White House, presenting some of the information that is allegedly about to be released regarding UFO/UAP’s
    They claim to have seen evidence of creatures that were not human.
    And they were supposedly told to prepare the church because what was about to be made know may challenge people’s faith and their deeply held beliefs.
    Then on June 12. just last month, the pentagon released a third batch of previously classified UFO files.
    They published them to a public website - you can go and look through them yourself. (war.gov/ufo)
    And people have been combing through them.
    Mostly, it just what you would expect - blurry images and unexplainable accounts of objects moving in ways that seem to defy the laws of physics.
    I think a lot of people were disappointed - thinking there would be more new information that wasn’t already leaked.
    However, there is likely more to come.
    This morning, I want to address this topic from a pastoral and a biblical perspective.
    This could be a deep “rabbit hole” that we could go down and never come back up.
    I will make some statements today that could be a whole other sermon.
    I want to focus on the points that will help prepare us to face what we don’t know, with the truth of what we already know from the Bible and about God.
    So here’s the plan:
    I want first, remind us of what we should already know - that we are not alone - nor were we ever alone in the universe - the Bible makes that clear.
    But I want us to think about unknown phenomena, not just in terms of “outer space”, but as part of the unseen spiritual realm that the Bible talks about.
    And then I want to exhort us to be spiritually alert and to discern what we are hearing and seeing with spiritual insight and with Christ’s authority.
    I don’t know what revelations may be coming out in future months or years.
    But I can tell you that God is still the Creator of the universe,
    Jesus Christ is still Lord of all and over all
    and we still have a role to play in all of this,
    even if we feel small and insignificant.

    We were never alone.

    Psalm 8:3–6 ESV
    3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,
    If you have ever gone out at night and looked up at the stars - you can feel just how large and vast are the heavens.
    In the ancient world, they typically imagined that the stars represented heavenly beings.
    There are lots of them!
    They are different and they move according to observable patterns.
    Ancient people believed that events on earth could be understood and even predicted by observing the movement of the stars.
    We now have telescopes that help us recognize what we now know are not just stars, but planets and even galaxies.
    What ancient people believed about the stars,
    was not really about the stars,
    they perceived that they were not alone in the universe.
    It is still true that we are surrounded by a whole host of heavenly beings.

    Angels are real.

    Hebrews 13:2 ESV
    2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
    Have you ever encountered a person and later thought, I wonder if that was an angel?
    The Bible confirms it, there are angels - messengers from God who attend to God’s people.
    Psalm 34:7 ESV
    7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.
    Angels can take many forms - sometimes blending in like ordinary people.
    Perhaps sometimes they are ordinary people who are moved by the Spirit of God to help in ways that they could have not known or done on their own.
    But the Bible also describes angels as heavenly beings:
    Seraphim literally means “burning ones”
    They are guardians of the throne of God.
    They are described as six-winged creatures
    They are also associated with radiant light.
    Cherubim literally means to possess knowledge.
    They are depicted as guarding the garden of Eden and the tree of life.
    They are four-winged creatures who have multiple faces, including a human one.
    No, they are not little babies - they are impressive warriors!
    Archangels are commanders of angelic armies.
    The Bible names Michael (and possibly Gabriel) specifically.
    These are high-ranking angels who intervene on behalf of the Most-High God.
    The Bible list many other types of heavenly beings according to their rank or function.
    Colossians 1:16 ESV
    16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
    Commentators will point out that Paul seems to be identifying a whole hierarchy of spiritual beings here.
    But let’s not miss the main point - which is that all of these are created by God and recognize the preeminence of Jesus Christ as God.
    Without going into all of the different characteristics and functions of angelic beings - that would take a whole sermon - suffice it to say they exist and they are all around.
    They have been around since the dawn of creation.
    And there is no reason to believe that they have gone away.
    One of the characteristics of angels is that they are careful not to draw attention to themselves, but they worship and glorify God.
    So yes, there are angels.
    They can look like humans, like winged creatures or simply like bright lights.
    They are not designated as male or female, but the ones that are named in scripture seem to always appear as male.
    And, with the exception of some fallen angels who the Bible say are currently bound, we have no reason to believe that they are not still here.
    We are not alone - they are all around us.

    And so are demons.

    Ephesians 6:12 ESV
    12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
    Angels are real and so are demons.
    The Bible doesn’t really tell us much about what demons are or where they come from.
    Most American Christians simply believe that demons are fallen angels.
    However, the only fallen angels mentioned in scripture are already bound in chains, waiting for judgement.
    2 Peter 2:4 ESV
    4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;
    First century Jews and the Early Church believed that demons were the disembodied spirits of evil beings who existed before the flood.
    These being were partly descended from the fallen angels and also part human.
    They were essentially genetic experiments (part human and part non-human) and this is believed by some to be the reason why God had to send the flood.
    They are mentioned in many other ancient mythologies as demigods (divine-human hybrids).
    The Book of Enoch states this clearly:
    The Book of Enoch Chapter 15

    8Now the giants, who have been born of spirit and of flesh, shall be called upon earth evil spirits, and on earth shall be their habitation. Evil spirits shall proceed from their flesh, because they were created from above; from the holy Watchers was their beginning and primary foundation. Evil spirits shall they be upon earth, and the spirits of the wicked shall they be called. The habitation of the spirits of heaven shall be in heaven; but upon earth shall be the habitation of terrestrial spirits, who are born on earth.

    Bible scholars who take the scripture seriously and are open to a supernatural world-view believe that the Biblical story takes place against the backdrop of a cosmic spiritual rebellion.
    Supernatural beings (essentially angels) defied God’s commands and taught humans to do the same.
    Fallen angels comingled with humans creating a corrupt offspring.
    The story of the watchers that Enoch spoke of is essentially that of Genesis 6:1
    Genesis 6:1–2 ESV
    1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.
    Enoch tells us that they were doomed to be bound on earth where they would watch their offspring die as mortals.
    And these offspring, because they are also mortal, belong to the earth, they are doomed to an eternal existence as wandering disembodied spirits.
    They are constantly seeking for a body to inhabit.
    They were once giants, super-human so they are never satisfied with any body they inhabit.
    And they are still obsessed with strength, appearance and achieving perfection.
    They oppress and harass people and will gladly take over a person’s mind in order to operate through their body.
    That is what the New Testament calls demon-possession,
    though it is rightly pointed out that demons cannot truly possess a person as long as their own will remains even a little bit operative.
    when I learned to practice deliverance ministry, i learned that it is important that people realize this.
    The more you can get a person to exercise their own will the easier it is to get free and the more likely they will be able to maintain their deliverance.
    If you want to know if there are still demons in the world today - I could spend all morning telling you stories - but that’s not where I want to go right now.
    So that’s a very brief description of the spiritual realm - but what does this have to do with ufo’s.
    The first step is to recognize that we are already not alone.

    They are not just "out there” but all around us.

    Science fiction portrays the galaxies as filled with inhabited worlds with many different types of creatures
    Some are humanoid (resembling humans) and some are not.
    Movies and TV provoke our imaginations to consider that the same kind of diversity which can be found in the world may also reflect the larger universe.
    That may be true - the Bible doesn’t rule out the possibility that there may be other worlds out there.
    But the biggest concern that Christians should have about science fiction is that, almost as a rule, God is nowhere in the picture.
    Granted there are a few shows that portray religious forms and traditions as if they are simply a cultural phenomenon.
    Some of them have attempted to describe a transcendent being, but they can’t do it without also diminishing that being and making them flawed, like us.
    I digress - the point I am trying to make is that we don’t have to look to outer space to find a vast largely undiscovered universe.
    It’s all around us in the unseen realm.

    Think interdimensional, not just extraterrestrial.

    Some of the recent talk about preparing to be enlightened about what else is out there is that we need new vocabulary.
    First of all, instead of UFO (unidentified flying object) the pentagon is now using the term UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon).
    The reason is because some of what these reports describe does not exactly meet the definition of “flying”
    Things appear or disappear and move in ways that defy the known laws of physics.
    That's not exactly “flying” and it may not even be an “object.”
    Another proposed change is that we use the term interdimensional instead of extraterrestrial.
    The basic idea is that space and time, matter and energy are all relative to one another. - that was Einstein’s theory.
    What we have come to realize is that we don’t need to go to outer space to explore vast unknown worlds.
    Many worlds can occupy the same space.
    Different realities can exist at the same time in different dimensions.
    In more recent years there have also been breakthroughs in quantum theory.
    Instead of going large - quantum theory goes small - whole universes can exist in the space occupied by our molecules.
    Beings don’t have to take up space when they exist as energy instead of matter - does that sound familiar?

    There is also the dimension of time.

    2 Peter 3:8 ESV
    8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
    If I blows your mind to think of space as being infinite on both a macro and a micro level, now add the dimension of time.
    God is completely transcendent of both time and space.
    He knows the end from the beginning.
    Revelation 13:8 NLT
    8 And all the people who belong to this world worshiped the beast. They are the ones whose names were not written in the Book of Life that belongs to the Lamb who was slaughtered before the world was made.
    Imagine that, God already knows who is His.
    And Jesus’ sacrificial atoning death extends backward in time as well as forward.
    I’m not even going to go in to theophanies - apparent appearances of Christ in the Old Testament.
    This all sounds like the stuff of science fiction!
    Maybe the Bible isn’t really outdated?!
    Maybe the scripture writers were way ahead of their time?
    Or actually, you could say that God is in charge of the the entire multi-verse timeline! (only sci-fi fans will even know what that means)
    Ok, that’s probably far enough down the rabbit hole for most of you.
    Suffice it to say that believing the Bible already demands that we accept a certain amount of mystery.
    There is plenty that we don’t know or understand.
    All we really need to know is to trust God - who both knows and understands.

    Finding our place in a much bigger picture.

    Time for some grounding exercises:
    It’s Sunday July 12th and you are at Spring City Fellowship
    Notice the texture of the fabric of your chair.
    Count the lights - observe a few colors in the room.
    Now what does this have to do with us here today?
    How do we prepare the church for whatever disclosures may be coming?
    First of all, it’s a similar message to the one I gave on flat earth.
    If our understanding of God and the world that we live in all revolves around us, we are not going to have a framework for understanding anything else.
    I believe God loves each of us and that we are special to Him, but that doesn't make each of us the center of our own universe.
    Even a view of the Biblical story that centers on mankind as the sole object of God’s attention and affection misses the point.
    The Bible writers, especially the Apostle Paul allude to our redemption as being a demonstration to other spiritual beings:
    Ephesians 3:10 NLT
    10 God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
    1 Corinthians 4:9 CSB
    9 For I think God has displayed us, the apostles, in last place, like men condemned to die: We have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to people.
    1 Peter 1:12 CEV
    12 But they were told that they were serving you and not themselves. They preached to you by the power of the Holy Spirit, who was sent from heaven. And their message was only for you, even though angels would like to know more about it.
    Could it be that, not only are we not alone, but that heaven is watching us to learn something about God?
    I wonder what we are teaching them by our example?
    These frail mortal creatures who can even perceive most of what surrounds us...
    We are examples of God’s infinite mercy and grace.
    So how do we find our place in this much bigger picture?

    Beware of deception.

    As I was praying for and preparing this message, my thoughts went to a story from the book of Joshua.
    I don’t know If I have ever heard it spoken about in this context but I see some striking parallels to our discussion of the spiritual world and possible revelations.
    It’s the story of the Gibeonite deception.
    The Gibeonites were a tribe from the hill country in what would become Judea.
    When they saw how Israel defeated AI - they came up with a clever plan.
    They disguised themselves as travellers from a far country -complete with tattered cloths and moldy bread.
    Joshua 9:6 ESV
    6 And they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant country, so now make a covenant with us.”
    Joshua didn’t question it - it all looked legit.
    Only after making a treaty with them did he find out about the ruse.
    By that time, it was too late - he couldn’t attack them because they were sworn to protect them.
    The only recourse was to keep them alive and consign them to a life of servitude.
    Later they would claim mistreatment by Saul and demand blood as repayment for breaking the covenant, even though they themselves were spared.
    I mentioned earlier that some, including our vice president have identified what we consider to be aliens from outer space as likely being demonic in origin.
    He’s not alone. Investigators for decades have noted the parallels between alien abduction stories and occult practices.
    Those who practice deliverance ministry have found similarities between alien encounters and demonic encounters.
    People even testified that the encounters stopped when they invoked the name of Jesus.
    Many so-called alien and UFO sightings have already been explained as forbidden genetic and technological research - the kind our government has consistently denied conducting.
    It would seem the alien rumors are better and more believable that telling what’s really going on.
    The real story might sound more like the mythological happenings which are rumored to have been going on before Noah entered the ark.
    Remember Jesus also said:
    Matthew 24:37 ESV
    37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
    When they think the world is ready, I’m sure we will be introduced to whatever beings these creatures are.
    We will be told that these are travellers from distant worlds.
    That they come in peace and want to make a peace agreement with us as citizens of earth.
    They may even produce evidence - technology and abilities that we have never seen before.
    Just remember the Gibeonites.
    They may be from a source much closer to our world than they are letting on.
    Fortunately, the Bible gives us the tools that we need to discern the difference.

    Jesus Christ is Lord of all.

    1 John 4:1–3 ESV
    1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
    The simplest way to know if something is demonic in origin is to invoke the name of Jesus.
    Try it and you will find that it often brings an immediate reaction.
    Not just from unknown beings but from people who have sold out to various deceptions or demonic influence - they don't want to hear about Jesus.
    That name reminds them of their doom - which God knows is still coming.
    Their goal seems to be to take as many people down with them as they can - just to get back at God and to despise His mercy.
    The best way that we can prepare is to continually and humbly submit ourselves to God’s love and care.
    And to know our authority in Christ.
    That is that we can use that name of Jesus because we are fully submitted to Him.
    Philippians 2:9–11 CSB
    9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
    Notice that every category of the unknown is covered by this statement.
    In heaven - that includes outer space - or whatever may be “out there.”
    On earth - the earthly realms - humanity and everything that surrounds us, visible or invisible.
    And under the earth - this specifically calls out the unseen realm - the habitation of spirits - as this describes the place where fallen angels were said to be bound.
    Maybe it’s an actual place or maybe it’s another dimension - the point is the same - Jesus Christ has conquered it all.
    And that is all we really need to know - Jesus Christ is Lord
    Of every place.
    Of every being.
    Regardless of time and space.
    His Lordship is all-encompassing.
    His reign is eternal.

    Questions for reflection:

    Do you believe there are angels and demons? How would you know if you encountered one? How would you tell the difference?
    Have you ever thought about God being outside of time and space? Does it comfort you that He knows the end from the beginning? How does meditating on the transcendence of God help you make the most of this moment?
    Is Jesus Christ the center of your universe? Does your life, your being and your future revolve around Him? Can you trust Him with the mysteries of the unknown knowing that He is Lord of all?

      • Psalm 8:3–6ESV

      • Hebrews 13:2ESV

      • Psalm 34:7ESV

      • Colossians 1:16ESV

      • Ephesians 6:12ESV

      • 2 Peter 2:4ESV

      • Genesis 6:1–2ESV

      • 2 Peter 3:8ESV

      • Revelation 13:8ESV

      • Ephesians 3:10ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 4:9ESV

      • 1 Peter 1:12ESV

      • Joshua 9:6ESV

      • Matthew 24:37ESV

      • 1 John 4:1–3ESV

      • Philippians 2:9–11ESV

  • I Stand In Awe
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