http://www.christiananswers.net/q-acb/acb-t005.html
The unnamed angels who appear most often in
Scripture carry out a variety of tasks—all designed to serve God…
Worship and praise - This is the main activity portrayed in
heaven (
Isaiah 6:1-3;
Revelation 4-5).
Revealing - They serve as messengers to communicate God's will to men. They helped reveal the
law to Moses (
Acts 7:52-53), and served as the carriers of much of the material in
Daniel, and
Revelation.
Guiding - Angels gave instructions to
Joseph about the
birth of Jesus (
Matthew 1-2), to the women at the
tomb, to
Philip (
Acts 8:26), and to
Cornelius (
Acts 10:1-8).
Providing - God has used angels to provide physical needs such as
food for
Hagar (
Genesis 21:17-20),
Elijah (
1 Kings 19:6), and Christ after His
temptation (
Matthew 4:11).
Protecting - Keeping God's people out of physical danger, as in the cases of
Daniel and the
lions, and his three friends in the fiery
furnace (Daniel
3 and
6).
Delivering - Getting God's people out of danger once they're in it. Angels released the
apostles from
prison in
Acts 5, and repeated the process for
Peter in
Acts 12.
Strengthening and encouraging - Angels strengthened
Jesusafter His
temptation (
Matt 4:11), encouraged the
apostles to keep preaching after releasing them from prison (
Acts 5:19-20), and told
Paul that everyone on his
ship would survive the impending shipwreck (
Acts 27:23-25).
Answering prayer - God often uses angels as His means of answering the
prayers of His people (Daniel
9:20-24;
10:10-12;
Acts 12:1-17).
Caring for believers at the moment of
death - In the story of
Lazarus and the rich man, we read that angels carried the
spirit of Lazarus to “
Abraham's bosom” when he died (
Luke 16:22).
