Shootin' from the Hip - The Angel of the Lord

Genesis 22 and the Angel of the Lord as Yahweh

So, gentlemen. Yes, sir. Who's the angel of the Lord? I'd say it was Jesus. I'm gonna have to agree with you. I am too. Jesus Christ. And... I can't argue that one. I'd like to show you why I think that.

May I begin in Genesis 22? Okay. And then you want some Zachariah? Zachariah 3. Alright, let me start with Genesis 22. I mentioned this to Bill a while back. Okay. Genesis... Twenty... You know, I'm such a dork.

I only ever tell people the chapter. Because if I don't... Like, I didn't mean Genesis chapter 20, verse 2. I meant Genesis chapter 22, right? That's why I never give the verse at the beginning, because people get confused by that.

And I'm the only person that thought of that, but I'm gonna say it again. That's why I do it. Alright, so, background. Genesis 22. We have Abraham and Isaac. And we all know this account. Some really cool things that I missed for a long time.

I'm sure you two smarter than me probably are aware of it. Anyone watching around may or may not, but... It wasn't just Abraham and Isaac that started walking. There were two servants there. I want to talk about them for just a minute, if I may.

The Bible says that it took about three days for them to walk there. To this mountain. I don't think that's a mistake, by the way. That the son was going to be sacrificed on the third day. Right. We'll get there in a minute.

And that he rose up... Yeah, okay. He rose up on the third... Okay, alright, alright, alright, that's enough. Okay. Add to my study of threes. This is what Abraham said. And I once had an unbeliever tell me this, and I at least see his point.

He said, Josiah, from my vantage point, Abraham had the most faith of anyone in the entire Bible. And I said, okay, why? He goes, okay, well, Jesus, for example, knew the end. Okay. God told Paul what was going to happen.

God told Moses what was going to happen. God told Abraham two things at the same time. One, he told them, your seed will be traced through Isaac. Two, go kill Isaac. Okay? Now, you read, they're walking for three days.

They're eating together, sleeping together. The only person who knows Isaac's about to die is Abraham. There's two young men with him. In verse 5, Abraham says to the young men, stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there.

We will worship and return to you. I don't think Abraham was lying right there. We're going to go worship, and we will return. Now, I believe simultaneously, did I say that word right? Simultaneously?

Close enough. That Abraham believed he was about to kill Isaac, and that they would return. And when you read Hebrews, you know, how does the writer of Hebrews say? Abraham believed that God could even raise someone to death if he wanted to, to keep his promise.

They go, and then here we are. The angel of the Lord, verse 11. So, if you go back to verse 1, in verse 1, who's talking to Abraham? It says God. Right? Verse 11, the angel of the Lord, and I point out to anyone maybe listening at home, whatever lords in all caps, that's the personal name of God, Yahweh or Jehovah.

It said, Abraham, Abraham. He said, here I am. Verse 12, he said, personal pronoun, masculine, he said, do not stretch out your hand against the lad or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son from me.

Now, as I point out to you guys earlier, before, most of the time, angels like Gabriel will speak for God, speaking about God. In other words, they'll say, God told you this, Mary. God said this, you have found favor with God.

They would never say, Gabriel did not say, Mary, you have found favor with me. Gabriel did not say that. The angel, now notice I didn't say an angel from the Lord, a messenger from God. The angel of the Lord said, you have withheld your son from me.

Now, in Hebrew, there's a perfectly good word for a, but he chose to use the word the angel of the Lord, and I don't think that is an accident. You read on in verse 15, the angel of the Lord calls them and says, by myself I swear.

Yeah, this version says, I solemnly swear by my own name. Yeah, yeah. Verse 17, I will greatly bless you. I will multiply you. I'll see to it that your seed is as the stars of heaven, the sand of the seashore.

So on and so forth. No angel would ever say that. No ordinary angel would ever say that. After what they saw, what happened to Lucifer. Yeah, exactly. You know, I like to think that those angels in Revelation, when John twice falls to the temptation of worshiping the angels, even though Paul warns against it in one of his books, that angel says, no, no, no, get up, don't do that.

No, no, no. It's all what happened last time. Right. Did you not just hear the whole thing about the worship of other things, the fire of assault for all that? We don't want that around here. So that's the one that, for me, settled it to Bill's point.

Yeah. But I'm sure you guys got some others. Yeah, I was looking at Zechariah this morning. Like I said, I've got serious ADHD, and I ended up all over the place. How long before y 'all realized Zechariah was spelled with an E instead of an A?

Every time I look at it. Because I spelled it Z-A-C-H until I was like 22. Oh, Z-E, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's Z-E. Bill's like, I'm always doing that because I read the Bible.

I have to go to these. Oh, the little tactics?

Yeah. I don't think. Oh, I did do some highlighting. Yay. Wait, you highlight in your Bible? Don't you know anyone who just takes away from. Okay, that was a joke. That was a joke. Here's some bright orange for you.

Let me make sure everyone understands that was a joke. Is that orange for the University of Tennessee? Because now you're. Shut your mouth. Go blue. Now God will bless us. You can love Memphis and Tennessee.

Michigan. Oh, that's for Michigan? No, go blue. Oh, goodness. All right, go ahead. All right, you're going to have to forgive me. It's going to take a sec. That's right there at the beginning. Yeah, I'll remove.

There is one certain. Oh, my gosh. Now I'm thinking if it was even in Zechariah. I'm reading verse one. No, I know about the angel of the Lord. Okay, next I saw Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.

That's where I think I started looking at the joke. That's the story on Satan because in Job, Satan is just simply technically the accuser as if that's a position in God's divine counsel and not necessarily the fallen Lucifer.

The Lord said to Satan, May the Lord rebuke you, Satan. May the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Isn't this man like a burning stick snatched from the fire? Now Joshua was dressed to fill the clothes as he did before the angel.

Joshua the angel spoke up to those standing all around, removed his filthy clothes. Then he said to Joshua, I have freely forgiven your iniquity and will dress you in fine clothing. So I got that double underlined.

Yeah, I have freely forgiven. Wow, I did not catch that. So can just a regular angel say, Hey, I forgive you because I'm like God. No, because back to the Lucifer talk. And that's one of the proofs the Pharisees used to prove that Jesus was referring to himself as not just a God, but God.

Because the Pharisees asked, and to Bill's point, Bill pointed me out to that new show. Which new show? Chosen. I have not watched it yet. I've seen two episodes. He looks disappointed in me. No, I've watched two episodes.

But one of their proofs, biblically, not just in the show, biblically was Jesus looks at them and says, he does this in Matthew. What is more powerful? Telling this man your sins are forgiving. Oh, yeah.

Or saying, get up and walk. Because just in case you're not sure, I'll do both. And then the question is, but only God can forgive sins. And Jesus does not repeat that statement. So here we have the exact same scenario.

I swear, if you think about it, Jesus' personality was spot on perfect. My wife, Colson, the sass master. Oh, yeah. The sass master. Who is it? Phillip? Yeah, I saw you under the fig tree. Follow me. Yeah.

Oh, yes, Lord. What? Because I said I saw you under the tree? That's why. Really? I love that he uses sarcasm. I wish that I could do it without being conceited. Because I would use it as an excuse to use sarcasm way more often.

But he does. And the woman at the well, he was so kindhearted to her. But at the same time, that kindheartedness did not make him not say the truth. Right, right, right. Hey, go get your husband. Oh, I don't have a husband.

Hey, you're right. You've had five. And the dude you're shacking up with, you're not married to. You're right. You haven't seen that episode. I did because, remember, I watched episodes seven and eight out of order.

Oh, man. Yeah, that's great. Don't ever do that. It's always got to be in order. It's almost like Jesus went out of the way. That's heresy.

He's got everything in order. It's ungodly. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't he say, I've got to go through Samaria? Yeah. Yeah. There's somebody I need to see. Yeah. Okay, is it on Netflix? Amazon? No, you've got to have, it's an app.

You can get an app. The Chosen app? Yeah. I think I did. And then you can, like, cast it to your TV. I think I did Amazon Prime. I think there's more than one option. Is it on Amazon Prime?

I think so. Look, man, you've got options. You can catch it on YouTube. We need a fact checker. Our camera guy will let us know in a minute. How can you watch The Chosen? Oh, wait, he can't because he's filming with his phone.

Never mind, continue. But yeah. We're real high tech here. I never noticed until you just said that. Yeah, I know. I noticed at this point. And I don't think I even remembered it. The Bible says only Yahweh God can forgive your sins.

Ergo. Yeah, there you go.

There you go. Bill, give us another good one. Okay, let's go over Judges 13. This is where the angel of the Lord appears to Samson's mother, who is barren. And says, you're going to have a son. Which chapter is it?

Chapter 13. She runs back to the house to get her husband. And he prays and says, you know, please send the man that talked to my wife back. And he did. So the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, of all I said to the woman, let her be careful.

She may not eat anything that comes from the vine. Nor may she drink wine or similar drink or eat anything unclean. All that I have commanded her to observe. And then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, please let us detain you.

And we will prepare a young goat for you. And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, though you detain me, I will not eat your food. But if you offer a burnt offering, you must offer it to the Lord. For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.

And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, what is your name? That when your words come to pass, we may honor you. And the angel of the Lord said to him, why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?

So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it upon the rock to the Lord. And he did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his wife were gone. It happened as the flame went up toward heaven from the altar.

The angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground. When the angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord.

I just found the fact that he went up in the fire of the sacrifice. I mean, he went up. It's like he was going up as the sacrifice. Yeah.

Sure. So, like, what version are you? This is New King James. New King, okay. Yeah, verse 18, like this, is to NET. The angel of the Lord said to him, you should not ask me my name because you cannot comprehend it.

Yeah. Because it is wonderful. Full of wonder. It cannot be comprehended. To Bill's point, I literally just saw something I've never read before. So the angel of the Lord goes up in the flame. Then look at verse 22, exactly to Bill's point.

So Manoah said to his wife, we will surely die for we have seen God. Do we need any more? I mean, look at that. He literally says, we have seen God. Yeah, verse 23 expounds. If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted our burnt offering.

Wow. They saw the angel of the Lord, and then they can say, we have seen God. This right here. Maybe for those of you who haven't heard, this is a theophany, a Christophany. It's Jesus appearing before his natural birth.

Before his becoming into the flesh. Christophany, theophany. Even the term theophany is God appearing. One of the most amazing testimonies about who Jesus is, that I missed until last year, is in John chapter 12.

And you two, being much more Bible literate than I am, may have already come across this before. But I'll just take you there real quick. Because this is along the same lines. I think after Bill's text there, there's no denying who the angel of the Lord is.

Different from just saying a messenger of the Lord, or an un-angel of the Lord, because we recognize angel just means messenger. The angel of the Lord is who we're talking about right now. John chapter 12 has something, and this is one of those examples of where it is of my opinion, that you should own a Bible that makes it easy for you to tell when the Old Testament is being quoted.

So whether that's with bold, or italic, is it italics or italics? Andrew? Italic. Well, italic. I'm Italian, that is italic. Right here from Mississippi. Italics. Yeah.

To the point, the chosen can be found on Peacock. Peacock. Peacock. NBC one. I don't know what it is. Is that NBC? Yeah.

Yeah. We've got that. Probably. So anyway, you should recognize that in John chapter 12, verse 38 and verse 40 are quotes from the Old Testament. We should be able to see that, right? Yep, yep, yep. Okay.

Now, this is why this is so cool. Let me give you a background. If you have never read Isaiah chapter 6, and you're watching this right now, go home and read Isaiah chapter 6 before you go to church tomorrow.

Isaiah chapter 6 is the one that starts off, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw Yahweh, the Lord, seated on the throne. When the earthly king died, notice God is still reigning on his throne, by the way.

And we have the angels crying out, the seraphim, excuse me, crying out, Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts, is Jehovah of hosts, the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And there's a lot I could say there.

I'm going to let it go for a minute. Day and night, they never stop singing it. Notice when you read Revelation, they're still singing it. Because they haven't stopped yet, because they're obeying the voice of the Creator.

And they were created to do that. And it says that the temple shakes, not at God speaking, but at the voice just of the seraphim singing. Just the created beings created to sing His praises at their voice.

The foundations of the doorposts of the temple are shaking. And they're singing the same words over and over again. Sorry if you don't like new modern worship music, because it repeats itself. You're going to have a tough time in heaven, because they continually sing, Holy, holy, holy is, I almost said Lord God Almighty, that's Revelation, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.

Yahweh, Lord in all caps, right? And Isaiah says, woe is me, I am undone, I'm coming apart. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. I've seen God, I know what happens to people when they've seen God.

The angel gets the hot coal, purifies his lips. Who will go for us? Who will go for us? Here I am, send me. Okay, so that's Isaiah 6. Now, you look at John 12. And you see in verse 36, Jesus is speaking.

While you have the light, believe in the light, so you may be sons of light. These things Jesus spoke. Everyone good so far? Okay. Verse 38 begins the quotation of Isaiah. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet.

Yahweh, who has believed the report, to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed to? That should be from what, 52, 53, chapter 52, I think. Or the beginning of chapter 53. 53 -1. All right. For this reason, they cannot believe, for Isaiah said again.

Now, if you look at verse 40, that is a quote from, guess what? Isaiah chapter 6. Right where we were just referring to. Is everyone with me so far? Now, verse 41. These things Isaiah said, because he saw his glory and spoke of him.

Yep. Nevertheless, even many of the rulers believed in him because the Pharisees, they were not confessing him for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue. And Jesus cried out. Okay. The Pharisees didn't believe in who?

Jesus. Isaiah saw these things because he spoke of him. The him referring back to Jesus. Okay. Think about what I'm, not what I'm saying, what God is saying. But the point being made here is that John is writing this down.

And John just said that in Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah saw Jesus. Okay. Is everyone following? So my point is this. Pretending that they had no knowledge of other scripture, if I set Isaiah down right there and John down right there and I said, Isaiah, who did you see?

He would say, I saw Yahweh. And if I asked John, who does Isaiah? He goes, well, he saw Jesus. And that is not a contradiction. Because if we've already testified from the angel of the Lord, Jesus is Yahweh.

Because Yahweh has always existed. Triune. And the fact that John can say, Isaiah saw these things and spoke of him. There is a really odd passage in Hebrews chapter 11. Is that the one that's supposedly the faith chapter?

The faith chapter, yeah. Where it says that Moses forsook all the treasures of Egypt for the reproach of the Messiah was worth more than all of them. The reproach of the Messiah. How did Moses know who the Messiah was?

In other words, who is Moses speaking to all along?

Jesus told the Pharisees, if you would have believed Moses, you would have believed me.

In other words, what's so amazing about that is, as you guys know, the two major Jewish sects of that day were the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees believed in the whole of the Testament and all their man-made rules on top of that.

The Sadducees only believed the first five books, the books of Moses, were inspired by God. So Isaiah and Daniel are really cool history books, but only the books of Moses are inspired by God. Okay. So they didn't believe in a resurrection of the dead.

Right. Because it is more clearly taught in Daniel, for example, than in Deuteronomy. You're talking about the Sadducees. Yeah, that's the Sadducees, right? Yeah, yeah. Jesus just destroys all of that.

If any of you actually believed in Moses, you would believe in me. In other words, you may memorize numbers, but you don't understand the book of Numbers. Because if you did, you would believe in me. You search the Scriptures.

You pour over them. Thinking you have eternal life. And don't realize they testify about me. Me. In Luke 24 -44, Jesus says, The Law of the Prophets and the Psalms all testify about me. Moses, Esther, Job.

It's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus. And that's not a cheap Sunday School answer. Jesus said that. It's about me. So when I read stuff like that in John 12, This is not something that was developed in the 5th century by Roman Catholics.

Jesus taught this. Jesus taught John right here. A 1st century eyewitness account testimony recognized that Isaiah was speaking about Jesus. Paul recognized that Joel is about Jesus. When he quotes Joel and says, Whoever calls on the name of Yahweh will be saved.

I can't help but smile when I think about what God has given us in his word. It's so clear. Which is why we can look at the angel of the Lord, like we've already said, As a different type of messenger than any old ordinary angel.

It's one who accepts worship which no other angel would dare do. So, pretty cool stuff, man.