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     Although some naively protest, in the Western world as in the former Communist nations, materialism is its religion.  Fundamentally, if it can't be detected with the senses it does not exist or can not be genuine.  Implicitly this says there is no spirit world, only the tangible material world.
     In contrast, primitive societies (better read pagan) see a spirit in everything.  In Thailand, I observed that where a house was built, there was a small house on a pole for the spirit of the soil to live in that was displaced by the building of the house.  A friend of mine, working in Africa was visited by a woman whose baby had a ghastly burn on his forehead.  She explained that he had a fever, so took him to the village witch doctor, who put a hot coal on the baby's forehead to drive out the demon (evil spirit).  While doing mission work in the Arctic North of Russia, I encountered a person whose beliefs were an ancient tree worship — tree spirits.
     Ancient literature and archaeological artifacts reveal man's religious nature, manifested in his preoccupation with spirits and demons.  Man saw these gods who controlled the world as being angry, fickle, impure and malicious, constantly making mankind miserable.  Thus, the gods were in constant need of appeasement.  "Keep the gods happy so they won't harm us, but give us a good harvest" was the main tenet of pagan religion.  For the most part, man characterized the spirits as he himself — selfish, irritable, insatiable and cruel.
     The Bible, too, reveals the spirit world to mankind.  God is a spirit (John 4:24).  In the third chapter of Genesis we are introduced to the devil in the form of a snake, whose designs are to make us miserable, both in this life and eternally.  Demons are also acknowledged, especially in the time of Jesus, where He had total power over them (e.g. Luke 8:26-36).
     Whereas our society still has the influences of our Biblical heritage, reflected in our mores and customs, it is unlikely that most of us have given thought to the uniqueness of angels.  From being knee high, we heard of our guardian angels.  We call our daughters little angels and we watched "Touched by an Angel."
     In contrast to all pagan literature, a unique feature of the Bible is angels who are also spirits.  In contrast to man's homemade conception of spirits, angels are presented to us as sinless, humble, kind, gentle and in every way dignified as messengers of God.  Nowhere in ancient literature written during the period of the Bible, do we see the likes of angels.  They simply did not originate in man's thoughts.  So why does only the Bible speak of these benevolent angels?  We conclude that revelation of angels and demons points to the inspiration of the Bible by God.

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