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I have seen some of your paintings of angels. Not very accurate, whatever artistic and symbolic merit they may have. Why do some of these artists try to make us look like lovely soft women? Let's correct that idea right now. When you think of an angel, don't think of soft clouds or chubby little cartoon cherubs decorating packages of bathroom tissue. We belong to the army of God, His heavenly host. We are a mighty, terrible host, surrounded with the blinding glory of God's holiness. Every time a human actually sees one of our physical manifestations, he collapses in terror.

Like your human armies, we have ranks and orders, differing duties and tasks. Some angels are not quite so military of course, but me and my boys are real army. We've been in on some of the great campaigns. Our regiment follows the Commander Himself. He has a very particular interest in earth. So many of our operations have brought us into this arena of conflict.

Earth, you know, is contested territory. Oh, there's no real question of Who really rules, but the final mop-up action is being delayed in order to complete certain rescue operations in which our Commander has taken a personal part. We look forward to the end of it all. The day is coming when the last battle will take place. All of the hostiles will gather against our Commander and will mount a terrible offensive. We will be with Him when He meets them on that day. There's no doubt at all about the outcome of that conflict.

In the meantime, our missions are typically restraining actions related to the ongoing rescue program. We move into an area and secure a perimeter of operations from enemy interference. For instance, on one occasion, Notham, the village of God's prophet Elisha, was surrounded by the Syrian army. Our unit was deployed to ensure the safety of that prophet and clear the area of hostiles. Elisha knew we were there. He had notification from our Commander. But the prophet's servant was uninformed. Elisha requested from the Commander that we be manifested for the benefit of the servant, so we executed a partial decloaking. The servant was duly impressed.

Most of the time, however, we remain undetected. We've been present in numerous instances with the Commander as auxiliary for operations which have been accomplished by human participation. I'm not permitted to detail the particular areas of some of our current activity, although I can relate that some of the prophets have seen into heaven itself and have been enabled to observe us between missions. For example, the prophet Micaiah was shown the throne room with all our host standing on the right and left in council. On that occasion, the item of business was a certain action of judgment against the human king, Ahab. The objective was that he be taken out by his own foolish attack on Gilead. The strategy that was implemented involved only one operative. This operative caused the false prophets whom Ahab consulted to give him erroneous hopes of victory, and thus entice him to attack Gilead.

I understand many of you may have the notion that serving in an army is a matter of grim, unquestioning duty. That may be the case in some human deployments, but it is emphatically not the case with us in the angel corps. Every last one of us serves because of love for the Commander. We would follow Him anywhere and do anything He requested. You can get some idea of our motivation for service by remembering how the soldiers under David loved him. My squad was in the area one time when David and his command were surrounded by the enemy. Maintaining themselves in a secure point of seclusion, David remarked casually how good a drink of water would taste. Some of his men traversed the enemy camp without being discovered, and I might interpose that our escort had something to do with that, and David's men brought him the water just because they loved him.

That's how it is in this army. We love Him. Not one of us would hesitate in the slightest to perform any assignment that He might choose to give. You can hear our love for Him in the songs we sing when we are on parade. How does the saying go? There are three things that are stately in their stride, four that move with stately bearing, a lion, mighty among beasts who retreats before nothing, a strutting rooster, a he-goat, and a king with his army around him. You should see our King with His army around Him.

Actually, some men did see something like it once. I mentioned earlier that our Commander has taken a very personal part in the rescue operation on Earth. By His plan He left heaven and was born into the human race. It was His mission to effect a blow to the key power of the enemy, effectively opening the gates from the inside to secure the escape of the rescuees. We had been with Him in smaller companies since He joined Himself to His human mother's flesh, keeping her under close guard during her season of pregnancy. But we were all there in full array on the night selected for His human birth. There was some possibility that the enemy would attempt to oppose this action, so we were prepared to secure the area. Of course, as it happened, the enemy was not encountered in the area that night and only some time later did he mount the counterstrike. So we had nothing to do but watch, and we sang.

Have you ever heard a really big men's choir? Start with that idea, but imagine them not in choir robes, but girded for battle. Not grim draftees, but soldiers terrible in joy. Not so few you could count them if you tried, but legions and legions. Not singing with weak human lungs, but sounding the eternal chords with which the morning stars sang at creation. Not bare four-part harmony, but every voice with a different song and all the voices fitting together like a million pieces of a stained-glass window into the glory of heaven. Not a song with a few words and a chorus, but a song that could not be contained even if you knew all the greatest words from all the languages of earth. A song, if you tried to sing it, it would say, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men." That was singing.

When you sing that way, you have to share it with an audience. So we found some sleeping shepherds and gave them a little concert--a concert of love. Our love for the Commander. God's love for the earth. And if you have love for this God who joined the human race, maybe you can enlist with our singing army. The twelve voices of Christmas? The twelve legions of voices! Voices of praise, voices singing of endless love, voices singing glory to God in the highest!