Ministry of Angels

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As the handouts are going around I want to invite you to open up your Bibles with me to Isaiah chapter 6 we have been looking now for several weeks at the subject of angels and we are Looking at the elect angels as I had mentioned in weeks previous We will move from the elect angels to the fallen angels Possibly next week or the week after depending on how far I get tonight the problem with tonight is We have come to one of if not my favorite Old Testament passage certainly one of my favorite Old Testament passages, and so I'm going to have to resist The temptation to stay here all night Because there's a lot that I would like to say on the subject of elect angels and just to give you for those who have Not been with us.
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I want to give you the answers I know it's sometimes a little flabbergasting to have a Sheet full of empty holes in front of you and my problem is I'm not smart enough to make three sheets I just make one sheet and we use it for three or four weeks at a time So let me give you those answers and you'll have them The first was are we two weeks ago? We looked at the existence of angels the Bible assumes their existence It doesn't try to prove it.
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It simply assumes they exist the Bible describes their creation They are not And we mentioned this they are not eternal Neither are they glorified human beings? They are created of a different order than human beings and the Bible is silent regarding when They were created.
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We do not know when angels were created and we've talked in the past few weeks about the differing positions on that Iterate all of that the nature of angels angels are personal beings Meaning how do we define personality? Intellect emotion and will Something that is personal rather than something that would simply be an object or thing it has intellect Emotion and will it's personal It's a the angels are spirit beings.
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They do not exist in the same way as material things exist and we said what was the distinction that we made as anybody remember the difference between the natural and the supernatural or the Invisible Visible and invisible.
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That's the way the Bible describes it It says that God created all things this or Christ rather Colossians says he created all things visible and invisible and that is referring not just to the fact.
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I know we can't see Cells We can't see Molecules, but we can with a strong enough microscope.
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We can look at the cells We can look at those things if we have enough of Amplification for our eyes, but we can't see God no matter how big the microscope.
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I remember a few years ago.
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There was a scientist Astronaut I believe he was a cosmonaut.
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I think he was Russian, but I could be wrong He said that he didn't believe in God because he had been to space and God wasn't there as If getting closer to space somehow made God more physical than he is here and So such a such a silly thought but at the same time that was his reasoning I went as far as I could I looked as far as I could and I didn't see him So he must not be there the Bible describes God as being Outside of the realm of what we can see That's the definition of invisible not just too small to see or too far away to see But actually on a different plane of existence He makes himself known to us.
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He does here but those appearances are rare and Certainly more rare than the health and wealth people would make you think the people who tell you all the time they've seen God What not The last thing we looked at last week is that angels are organized and ranked That's not him.
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I know we're waiting on my son's phone call.
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That wasn't it angels are organized and ranked We talked about the fact that the Bible describes archangels Michael is described as an archangel We talked about the fact that in Daniel chapter 10.
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There are Chief Princes, which we believe to be describing angels.
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And so there are certain Ranks among the angels and we don't understand how that operates completely but the Bible describes it and so we believe it and The where we ended last week as I said, there was two types of angels that the Bible describes That we didn't get to because I did not want to I didn't want to rush this This is where we're going to begin tonight in Isaiah chapter 6 In Isaiah chapter 6 we get a glimpse of the first of the two types of angels We're going to look at in our lesson the first being what are known as the seraphs or the seraphim And that word simply means the burning ones Seraph means burning the seraphim means the burning ones and so let us or fiery Well, look at Isaiah 6 in the year that King Uzziah died I Saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple Above him stood the seraphim each had six wings With two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet and with two he flew And one called to another and said holy holy Holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory and the foundations of the thresholds Shook at the voice of him who called and the house was filled with smoke and I said woe is me For I am lost for I am a man of unclean lips And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the King the Lord of hosts Then one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar and He touched my mouth and said behold This has touched your lips.
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Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for We'll end the reading of God's Word at that verse Several years ago.
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I Was introduced to the teaching of dr.
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R.
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C.
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Sproul by several years.
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I mean going on now 15 or so years it was very early in my ministry and I had the opportunity to go and listen to him in person at some pastors Conferences where we literally were sitting right across from one another getting a chance to talk less than a hundred ministers were invited I had an opportunity to go and be right there with him We even talked about the Jaguars at one point.
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He was a big football fan By that time Maurice Jones drew was it was something so But R.
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C.
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Sproul Has had a tremendous influence on me with people Lord not long ago But his influence on me really reached What I would say the most powerful or most influential When I read his book the holiness of God I Actually have purchased a box of those books and people join the church That's one of the things I give them is give them a copy of the holiness of God R.
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C.
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Sproul gives a sermon on this text that I have in a sense duplicated at times, but never truly replicated it is simply a mastery of Exposition and the way that he explains this is far better than I ever could I'm simply telling you this to say if you've never read the holiness of God Go and read it and if you've never heard his sermon on Isaiah 6 go and find it.
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It's on YouTube It's available for free And I would encourage you to listen to what he has to say about this text as I said I can't preach it quite like he did But I am going to point to a few things that are very important from this text since we are talking about angels This is the only place in the Bible where we see the seraphim Now cherubim which we'll talk about in a moment are seen in the garden They're seen as being modeled over the Ark of the Covenant They are seen as being woven into the fabrics of ancient Israel and in a lot of their arts was cherubim related but seraphim find their place only in this text and We find them to be the worshipping angels The fiery ones they are the they're the fire of God's Worship, they are they are his his his his holy burning angels and they surround his throne Uzziah had died the king and this was a time of despondency for Israel They're their great king had died Isaiah is there and he's in the temple and he sees a vision of what I believe is the Lord Jesus Christ Now we can argue that another day.
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I talked about that.
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I talked to Jesus being Fully man and fully God when we look back to John chapter I believe it's chapter 12 says that Isaiah saw his glory Talk about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it says he saw the Lord and the train of his robe filled the temple that that just Reflects his his majesty the longer the robe the longer the train of the robe of the king was he was expressing his power In those ancient days and so the fact that his robe filled the whole temple was just an expression of his majesty of his Sovereignty of his authority.
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This is the Lord not a lord or a king this is the Lord of heaven and earth and He is surrounded by beings that have been created with one singular purpose Worship to express his holiness over and over and over again there is not any other attribute of God Which is given to the third degree Except holiness and you've heard me say this before for those who listen to me for a while God is never called love love love He is never called mercy mercy mercy He's never called justice justice justice or goodness goodness goodness, but he is called holy holy holy and That is a Hebrew Expression anytime something is said twice.
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It means that it is important This is why when Jesus said Simon Simon or Barely barely he would say it twice to express importance But anytime something is said to the third degree that is the Hebrew expression of the superlative So by God being called holy Holy holy and is expressing the fact that this is the attribute of God Which influences all the other attributes of God God's love is a holy love God's mercy is a holy Mercy is justice a holy justice This is why we say we worship a holy God and there is none other like him holy expresses his Absolute uniqueness.
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There is none like and holy means to be separated to be distinct from or to be other than He is holy.
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There's none like him and that's what these angels are created to do simply to express the unique character of God and his holiness now we get a description of these angels and I'm gonna I'm gonna attempt my a Little artistic flavor and I'm going to draw a picture Not great mind you it's gonna be more like a stick figure, but I do want to I want to do this because we see The angels as Having six wings It says with two they covered their feet.
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I'm gonna try to make that look like a wing Okay with two they covered their face and with two They flew why Did they cover? Themselves and by the way, have you ever seen a Christmas tree angel that looked like that? No, you don't see angels depicted with all these wings sticking out of every place in fact, it's The only time I've ever seen it was an R.C.
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Sproul's church He had stained glass Behind his it was actually in the old st.
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Andrews.
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They have a new building now, but in their old building It was a it was about a 12-foot circular stained glass window It was beautiful and it had Seraphim around a throne and they were and you knew it was a seraphim because they had the six wings and The idea is this God's holiness and his Radical glory when I say radical, I mean in a good way.
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It's it's it's an incredible glory It's so much that they must cover their faces But His presence is so holy that they must also cover their feet Because they're standing on Holy ground you remember when Moses was before the the fiery bush God and the Lord spoke from the bush and he said take your sandals off because the ground upon which you stand is holy ground So their faces Their faces are covered so as not to look upon the holiness of God their feet are covered so as to not stand Open toed in the presence of the glory of God and they have the wings which allow them to circle the throne It's an amazing picture of what these creatures and they are creatures Look like and what they were created to do They are God's worshiping angels Now I want to move on to that again We could go on and talk about What it means when they go and they take the torch or they take the coal and they burn his lips again Listen RC.
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No, it tells much better than I do but it's a wonderful picture of how God takes a man of unclean lips and Gives an atonement for him And it's all there.
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It's a very wonderful picture of what is done for us in Christ So there is the picture of the seraphim now, I want to invite you to turn to Genesis 3 And we're gonna look at the chair of them the chair of them now Most of you know enough about the Bible.
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I don't have to give a big background to this, but you Just in case you understand this is after the fall Man has been exiled from the garden God has Sent him out where now he will have a new life no longer under the protection of the garden no longer under the Providence of the garden which was giving him everything he needed for life and happiness Now he has been exiled and we're going to read verses 22 24 says then the Lord God said behold The man has become like one of us knowing good and evil now Lest he reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden deep to work the ground from which he was taken First 24 that he drove out the man and at the east of the Garden of Eden He placed the chair of them.
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This is the first reference to The Angels scripture says he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword That turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life if Seraphim were created by God to worship Cherubim were created by God to protect to protect If you say why do you know that how do you know that everywhere we see cherubim mentioned in Scripture They are functioning in some way In a protecting fashion even carved over the Ark of the Covenant They were there as in this sense as a protectors of God's Holy Ark And so the first time we see we see an angel with a sword Holding back anyone who would make his way into the garden there is a Passage in the book of in the book of Ezekiel Which gives a little bit of a description of the cherubim? We do have to be careful.
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However Ezekiel is highly apocalyptic literature and thus it uses Symbolic literature, and so we have to be a little careful as to how we I remember I just I remember reading this text years ago, and I remember somebody saying I hope angels don't look like that And Or no actually what she said was I never pictured an angel looking like that I said well, you've never seen an angel.
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All you've ever seen is Christmas tree toppers and You know the things you see at the store.
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You know we don't Exactly yes, they don't look like The thing with the arrow Well, let's look we'll look at the Ezekiel passage Go to Ezekiel chapter 1 it's actually several times in Ezekiel But we'll go to chapter 1 we'll look beginning at verse 4 Again this is all this is This is a picture here How much of it is is meant to be taken extremely literally I cannot give you a certain But I know this it's certainly meant for our instruction, so it's good to read seek to understand as best we can He says as I look behold a stormy wind came out of the north and a great cloud and brightness around it Fire flashing forth continually and in the midst of fire as it was we're claiming metal And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures, and this was their appearance They had a human likeness that each had four faces And each of them had four wings their legs were straight and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot and They sparkled like furnished bronze under the wings on their four sides They had human hands and the four had their faces and their wings thus their wings touched one another Each one of them went straight forward without turning as they went as for the likeness of their faces each had a human face The four had the face of a lion on the right side the four had the face of an ox on the left side And the four had the face of an eagle Such were their faces and their wings were spread out above each creature had two wings Each of the wings touched the wing of another while two covered their bodies And each went straight forward wherever the spirit would go so they went Without turning as they went as for the likeness of the living creatures their appearance was like burning coals of fire Like the appearance of torches moving to and fro among the living creatures and the fire was bright How did the fire went forth lightning and the living creatures guarded to and fro like the appearance? of a flash of lightning Now it goes on to talk about Creating a wheel or seeing the wheel and these things And I know I do not want to try to get into trying to explain.
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It's equal tonight.
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This is quite before you draw But I only want to say this there's there's one thing in there I want to mention not the four faces But again the wings Remember we we learned something about the seraphim by the wings their wings They had two for flight to they covered their feet to they covered their face.
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Well the cherub had Four wings you remember you just read that as four not six with two they had blue And they're actually like this they kind of connected right so they would touch They said their wings were touching one another and I think that's how we get the wheel around But with two they covered their bodies So they had two wings that were extended and two wings that covered their bodies.
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I Believe and again you take it for what it's worth.
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I Believe this is a picture of the fact that again.
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They are protecting angels, and it's an armor a picture of armor Okay, because their role in the economy of God is the protection of God's holy things You've got those who proclaim God's holiness and those who protect God's holiness the proclaimers have the covered faces and the covered feet the protectors have the covered body Because they are the ones who are armored ready for battle again highly symbolic picturesque and yet still I think Reasonable as a way to understand why there's a different wing assembly Almost like you got your fighter jets You've got your your other kind of jets.
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Maybe I'm thinking about jets But you know you've got you've got different purposes right God creates these these creatures with different purposes and so we have two different types of Angels the imagery here being I believe of the cherubim All right, so that finishes last week's lesson And We don't have much time to get into the next but I'm going to give you the answers here and I'm going to make a few comments on these things and then uh We will have done what I wanted to do and that's talk about the because we've spent a lot of time last few weeks talking About this.
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I don't want to belabor it the answers to this last part the ministry of angels We've already talked about the seraphim and how they minister and the cherubim and what they minister Well, let's look at the the blanks here number one they worship God we've already talked about that tonight we've seen that in the Seraphim all angels that were created as worshiping beings as we are created as worshiping beings We are created to worship God.
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That is our main Purpose.
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What's the first catechism question? Well, I would say which catechism right? What is the chief end of man? to glorify God Forever that's right.
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That's our chief end.
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Our chief purpose is to worship God That's what we were created to do.
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In fact, why does it those will sign it? Why does evangelism exist? Because worship doesn't We are going not to get people saying We are going to get people to worship God because that's what they were created to do now in the midst of that they get Saved and that's the benefit But the real reason why we evangelize is because God deserves to be worshiped Evangelism exists because worship doesn't you're not worshiping God and you should That's the call.
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Yeah, they get saved and that's great.
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But the real reason is the glory of God If God didn't save me, he would still deserve my worship That's that's a hard thing to do If God chose not to save me, he would still deserve to be worshiped by me Because he'd still be God so and you pray to worship they worship God number two and in the scriptures again good Isaiah 6 Revelation 4 6 to 11 also talks about that praising God There's several scriptures number letter B.
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They ministered to Christ And again, there's several times we can they announced his birth they protected him as a child They strengthened him as a man they explained to other men his resurrection the angels were all through there I can give you several scriptures, but for sake of time would just you understand these things yourself this next one might Take a minute They carry out God's government They say wait a minute.
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What do you mean? Angels are part of the Providential work of God Do we understand I think we do we call ourselves sovereign grace we understand God is sovereign Which means that God is? Absolutely in charge of everything in the world start to stop beginning to end God answers to no one And he is the one who is the cause of all things in the sense that he's the first cause of all things Nothing would be without him and we can talk about secondary causation.
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We can talk about means and ends And we will talk about that at some point with the point and purpose of what I'm saying is God is sovereign yet God does use People to accomplish his will We know this that's why we're called the evangelist Right if God was simply going to enact his will without our participation We would have no command to go and do but we have the command to go and do which means God Places us in those positions to fulfill his will in whatever way that he sees fit.
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You've heard people talk about divine appointments You know, I ran into this one or I did this or this happened This person was in my life at this time and it just happened to be a divine appointment.
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We talked about that.
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That's God's Providential Leaving in people's lives to get accomplished what he means to get accomplished God's will will be done in that sense So God uses men to accomplish his purposes.
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Yes God also uses angels to accomplish his purposes Let's we look at his scripture Psalm 103 just if you want to There's there's many many scriptures but just for for the sake of Giving at least something to consider it says in Psalm 103 verse 20 Bless the Lord.
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Oh you his angels You mighty ones who do his word? Obeying the voice of his word notice.
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It says they do his word Now, why does God have them do anything? because he's Working out his providence through them.
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He's calling about there He's calling about the things he wants done through them read the book of Revelation See how many times God uses angels in the apocalypse and the bringing about of the end of all things You know, you know, I'm talking about even in the midst of the member John sees the angel falls down Don't worship me because I'm not God, but I'm here.
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I have purpose Hebrews 1 and verse 7 Says of the angels you have to go there just says of the angels.
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He makes his angels winds and a minister And his ministers a flame of fire.
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They can calls them his ministers.
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What is the word minister mean? Servant yeah, it is a servant It's it's the root of that word that we use Administer it or administer Ministers the root of that word the idea is the functioning go between the person who's doing if I hire an administrator to Work my business.
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I'm putting them in charge of certain things in my business to see to it that those things get done Right, and that's what we call it up call that person administrator.
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But the root of that the idea behind that is a minister That's you know people often call me you're the minister of the church that's because the job is Ministry, it's administrating God's purpose and plan in the will of the church right for his or his will for the church But yet at the same time We're all called ministers.
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All right.
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In fact, what is the purpose of the pastor and the elders according to Ephesians? With the Saints for the work of ministry The job of the pastor is not to minister but to equip the Saints to minister to one another Right.
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Our job is to teach you how to do that to each other Right to become ministers of one another Well angels are ministers They're administrating God's will on the earth.
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God is sovereign His providential control is over all things and yet He uses means He uses People he uses angels.
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He uses whatever he sees fit to use to bring about his will All right number letter D.
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They protect God's people Protect God's people if you're in Hebrews, I mentioned Hebrews 1 earlier this Hebrews 1 mentions a lot about angels But this is what it says in verse 14.
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It talks about the minister and spirits.
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We just use that phrase Sit out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation They are to serve those who are to inherit Salvation now, I want to talk about something again.
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I got a few extra minutes.
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You guys give me a few extra minutes, right? Don't leave There's a big question mark over one thing that Some people are really firm on this some people are not so firm I tend to be in the not-so-firm category, but it's the concept of what's known as the guardian Meaning every believer is assigned his own particular angel for the purpose of Watching over that individual you've all heard of this.
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You've all seen this Fantasized and film and remember the show highway to heaven with Michael Landon and When he grew up it became an angel and his job was to go from town to town in the back of a big Car and he would go along and he would help people out later on They they fantasize that a little further would touch my angel that sort of the same idea there were these people who were responsible to minister and Those shows were not highly theological neither were they really accurate Theologically, but the point being there are some passages that seem to live to the idea that as believers We have a certain Providence of God that has worked out through angels I want to show you a passage that just sort of sort of comes to me on this and smacking chapter 18 In verse 10 Matthew 18 in verse 10 See that you do not despise one of these little ones now I have to stop because Immediately we hear little ones.
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We think children and yes, the context here could be children could also be believers Just keep that in mind that this can't be referring to believers So we'll talk about that another time Point is he goes on to say for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my father Notice he refers to them as their angels The HDI are in English is We know there's different ways of saying there the HDI are in English means the possessive form of their Meaning that angel is Theirs it belongs to them and so this passage makes people Question whether or not this angel is referring to special angels given care over children Because it says little ones or special angels given care over believers.
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I Tend to fall into the second category that it would be referring to believers, but then you have to come to the next thing Does that mean that I believe that every believer has a guardian angel I Think it's possible.
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I think the passage is certainly possible, but again, I'm not willing to die on that hill.
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I Do know this It's a nice thought To believe that God would so concern himself with my life that we would have Angels watching us.
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Yes, sir I Yeah, I would think so if I'm interpreting correct Like I said, if this little one shares referring to believers, then I would say yes But if it's referring to children again We could we could we have to spend a little more time digging into it to see where we might land on that We may we may land on a different understanding and that's okay.
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This isn't a this is certainly not a salvation issue It's just an issue of how we would understand this particular text But if it is referring to believers and I would say yeah, then I would say unbelievers would not necessarily have appointed Watchers watch and I'll give you my answer a forwarding answer as to why I think that I want it We're gonna end here go to Luke 16 Go to Luke 16.
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We're in here because this is actually where we're going.
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Anyway, you led me right where I was gonna go Letter E on your sheet.
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They assist believers at death They assist believers at death In Luke chapter 16 We read the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus I say the narrative Because some people believe this is a parable.
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I don't I think this is a narrative I think Jesus is telling a story of something that happened However, again, there are those who say it's a parable and I'm not gonna argue that tonight The point is there is no other parable in all of Scripture where proper names are used He is called Lazarus He is given a name Nowhere else the Good Samaritan didn't have a name The good steward didn't have a name The men with the talents didn't have a name, but we're given a proper name here.
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I think there's something to that But this is what it says There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted Sumptuously every day and at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus Covered with sores who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side The rich man also died and was buried and in hell or Hades being in torment He lifted up his eyes Saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side I don't have time to go through the rest of the text and explain everything But for now, let's just stick with what we've just read when the believer died He had an angelic escort into the presence of Abraham It's clear he died and was Carried by the angels.
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That's why I said in your sheet here.
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They're assist believers of death I believe that when I die, it's going to be the most comfortable thing that ever happens to me after it's over But at the moment lights out on this side It's going to be comfort on the other side because God has established comfort as our Passage But for the unbelievers, yes, this is going there the unbeliever it says he closed his eyes And he opened his eyes in hell.
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No angelic escort Some of you have seen the old movie ghost With Patrick Swayze where the demons come out of the ground and they're pulling down not bad either They don't get any demons either.
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It's just close your eyes here open them in hell, and that's it What a tremendous and Fearful reality that there will be not a moment of rest Between the death of the damned And his condemnation forever No angelic escort No moment to rethink what's happened Open his eyes in hell So I would again blend to the idea that there wouldn't be angels for unbelievers So we've looked at a lot over the last few weeks.
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I know you probably have many questions But that this is going to conclude the portion of the elect angels Next week, we're going to look at the fallen angels There are two categories of fallen angels.
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There are the demons and Then there is Satan.
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So we'll have at least a couple of weeks on that subject And Absolutely, and there's another example of them protecting his people God has such an amazing way of protecting his people Whether it's individual as guardian angel as we again We sort of fantasize that or romanticize that or at or it's legions.
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I don't know I pray and Thank God that That I know that he has me in whatever way he has He's protecting Absolutely, thank you.
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All right, let's pray Father, I thank you for your word May it be that we feel tonight if we are in Christ Lord an even greater sense of being in your Care Oh God, but you have your elect angels who are watching over your elected people And Lord in whatever way you have that happening.