Angel-Mania

Well, good morning and welcome to New Grace Baptist Church. And we are so glad that you are here today. And I hope everyone is had a good week. Well, it's always an exciting day when we're going to start a new series from the Bible. And today we are starting a new series that's going to run us all the way through Christmas to the first of the year. And so what we going to begin studying today, that's what I've called Angels Messengers from God and so we're going to look at angels and all the different aspects of angels and what the Bible teaches. So we can really understand why they're here and what they're doing. There's just a lot of things that we are going to look at. Now. For some reason, the secular world has become very interested in angels really ever since the mid-90s. There's been a crazed going on about angels and I can't even remember her in the mid-nineties, my wife and I we would watch I think it was a show in tight it on CBS Touched by an Angel, and I can remember that. So this kind of been this Angel craze for the last two or three decades. Now, why would that be well? Perhaps? It's because some are trying to feel that god-shaped hole in their life with something less threatening than God or perhaps. It's because a lot of people are just longing for spirituality and they want to do something. Maybe that's not so conventional. So they turn to Angels or simply the angels are intriguing and there's plenty to read about them. Now. The only problem with that is a lot of the secular book on angels are not accurate. The secular Market is more interested in the Fantastic aspect. If you will, then they are in spiritual truth. So Angels by their very nature, or spiritual their, Heavenly beings who were created by God, and they are commanded by Jesus. So, to get a, a correct fix on them. We need to consult God's book, The Bible and we're going to find out what God says about them.

In the coming weeks and Ma. So there's plenty of information to investigate. There's hundreds of references to angels in the Bible that they described on their appearances and their characteristics. So we're going to begin by looking at the recent Angel, craze. And today's sermon is entitled Angel Mania, what culture and the Bible says about angel. So angels are intriguing but they're not worthy of our worship. And where did they come from? And what are they like with? These are some of the questions that we're going to answer in this series and also some of the characteristics that's never mentioned in secular Books, A lot of people and perhaps, without realizing it, you know, we've heard of some of the specific Angels or the types of angels, you know, there's only two angel. In the Bible who were mentioned by name, one was Michael and one was Gabriel. And then, of course, there's different types of angels in the Bible. Use a different wording that they talk about the host or host of God. There's the seraphine and then there's the cherubim. And then also, we're going to look at this concept of guardian angels. This is a something that is never mentioned by that name in the Bible, but we'll look at the concept of guardian angels and where that belief came from. And then we're going to see if it if there's a basis in the Bible for us to believe in Guardian Angels or is it more likely that we may have hundreds of angels looking out for us. Now, there's one Angel who is doing the opposite of looking out for us and he's a fallen angel. And his name, the Bible says, is Satan. And a lot of times we give a lot of importance to Satan maybe more. So then we should he is a formidable foe but Satan is an angel. He's not a power that's opposite to God. Just a little below. He's an angel. He was created as all the Angels were created. And the reason for his fall we going to talk about that when we get to that section in a couple of weeks. Because when Satan fell, the Bible says he took a third of the angels with him. So, what do we call these angels? Well, we would call them demon and they come in two categories. The ones who are imprisoned and the ones who are not, those not in prison are free. To possess unbelievers and oppress Believers. And in one of our messages, we going to look at maybe several several different ways to avoid this oppression, but most angels in the Bible or a help, not a hindrance. And matter fact, there are special help at the death of a Believer. It seems the Bible teaches the Angels, come for believers in their moment of death and then carry them to heaven and will look about that as well. But there's one special Angel. We're going to look at and that's in the Old Testament. It's called the angel of the Lord. You ever wonder what Jesus was doing before his birth in Bethlehem. Well, one of the things he was doing was making special appearances on Earth, as he was called, the angel of the Lord. He was revealing God to those who would never know, God as Jesus, the son of, man, and think about it. When Jesus was on Earth, the Angels appeared often they were there to announce his birth. They ministered to him after he was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, they ministered to him in the Garden of Gethsemane. They were there at the resurrection. They were there when Jesus ascended back to heaven. And the Bible says, when Jesus comes back to this earth, the second coming that they're going to be there with him then. So any time the Bible talks about something that much then we as Believers, we need to understand the ministry. And the reason for Angels, not know many of you have heard stories in the past of people who maybe they thought they saw. An angel. Or experience, maybe some something Angelic and their life. Billy Graham reported that when his grandmother died. He said the room scene to be filled with Heavenly. Like he said, his grandmother set up in the bed and he said, almost laughingly said, I see Jesus and he has his arms outstretched toward me. He said then she said I see being mean or being was her husband who had died a few years earlier and then she said I see the angels and he said when she said that that she slumped over in her bed absent from the body and present with the lord. Well, they was the editor of leadership magazine and that was at 1 time a popular publication for church leaders. He spoke about hit how his young daughter was comatose one night, and she was very near death. And he said a hospital staff work or stop by her room in the door in her room was cracked and she was just looking in on her and said that when she looked in she witnessed this astonishing sight. She said they were angels that were hovering over that little girl's bed and said by the following morning the daughter had amazingly recovered and was able to sit up in bed and carry on a conversation that he was not one to be prone to sensationalism. But he didn't hesitate to believe, Angels had truly visited his daughter that night. There was a missionary, his name was John G Patton and he was a missionary in Africa. And according to his testimony. He told a story one night that his mission headquarters were surrounded by hostile Natives and Warriors and they had planned on burning the building down and They were going to kill John and his wife. Well his he and his wife didn't know what to do. So they turned to God and they just threw themselves on his mercy and Grace and ask for delivery and he said they praised throughout the night. It was only them to there and they had like a bedroom in the kitchen back in the back of the complex. He said, when the first rays of sunlight came the next morning, he says, they looked out their windows and they were amazed not to see any of the Warriors or natives there. And he said, about a year later the chief of that tribe that had surrounded his house. He had become a Christian and patton asked the chief one time. He asked him. He said what why when you were leading this tribe, why did you not burn down our headquarters on that night? And he said the chief said, well, we weren't. We were we were going to do that and he said we were going to kill you and your wife. He said but then we saw all those men that you had guarding the complex and Pat and looked at him and said with that, there was no men there. He said it was just my wife and I and the chief and told Patton that he and his warriors were going to attack. But they had seen hundreds of men standing guard outside the headquarters at night. He said they were all dressed and Shining garments and had their swords drawn. You see these guards, completely encircled to headquarters and the tribe fled away. It was then that Pat realize that God had dispatched his angels to protect them. So there's many Angel stories such as he's out there. What we need to ask is, are there really angels in our world today? Do angels, really intervene in the events of life. As some of these stories here, seem to indicate, should we look for angels to intervene in our lives and to help us. These are all questions we going to deal with in this study. And of course, we going to allow the Bible to be our God. And I think you will probably be surprised to discover what the bible really says about angels and probably some of our preconceived ideas. And presuppositions. We're going to see are probably just false. So we are living in a time of Angel, what I would call Mania, according to a Time Magazine, about 71% of people believe in the existence of angels over 50% believe that they have a guardian. Angel, a specific. Angel that looks after them. So if someone would ask you today, do you have a guardian angel? What would you say? Do you think that God has an angel that looks just after you and your family? Well over, 50% people believe that and even young people today, since 1978 the percentage of young people who believe in angels, has grown some twenty-five 28%, There's Angel Network. So there's one in New Jersey and it monitors Angel at comings and goings and they even have a bi-monthly journal. And there's several thousand people who are subscribe to that. There's another club just called the angel collectors club, and they have over 2,000 members and they exchange information on everything from Angel cookie jars, postage stamps. Angel food recipes, they have a convention every two years and across the country. You find boutiques have open, they sell Angel Collectibles calendar perfume. You can get napkin, rings placemats, postcards t-shirts, even angels sunglasses and in many places and funeral homes is said, in the last couple of decades that a lot of people quit sending flowers to funerals and and they'll send like some type of collection of angels and their seminars going on that people go to and people try to get you to get in touch with your inner angel. That your inner angel will help you, solve your problems, other people study, how people have had early Angel experiences that maybe didn't even realize it. The Harvard Divinity School has an entire course on Angels, Boston College. Two courses on angels and their special prayer groups that meet and people joining together in praying for their Angels. So, there's a lot of information here. And so in this introduction here, and we're just kind of going to generalize this morning. I want us to look at first of all, in this, this will be our first point. First of all, I want us to look at angels and the Bible you see when I took two to this study. One of the first things you do is you have to find out what how many times are angels actually mentioned in the Bible? Well, in the Old Testament, angels are mentioned, a hundred and eight times and then the New Testament 165 x. You see in the Bible, when you read about angels, you going to find an angel that cooked a meal for profit. The Israelites Angels food. There was a donkey who saw an angel and there was a prophet who acted like a donkey and was almost killed by an Angel. Angels fought battles for men, Angels fought battles for Israel. One Angel slew over a hundred and seventy-five thousand in one night in scripture. There was a man who wrestled all night with an angel. There was an angel who save one man from sacrificing his son. They was a angel that was involved in the New Testament in a jailbreak. And the man who escaped was mistaken for an angel. And then there's many more angels in the Bible in Revelation. I want you to look at what John says in Revelation chapter 5 in verse 11. And this is when he was on the Isle of Patmos and when he wrote the Book of Revelation and God, open the door of Heaven for him to see. And look what verse 11 says. Chapter 5, then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders. And the number of them was 10000 times 10000 and thousands of thousands. Now, to give you a perspective on how many angels this is. Let's use a sports analogy, the average football stadium in America, holds about 50 ft. 5,000. People. It would take some 2000, stadiums of that size to hold a hundred million people. And the total number of angels, John. Saul may have been far greater than 100 million. You see 10,000 was the highest numerical figure that was used in the Greek language. So 10000 * 10000 may have been John's way of describing and innumerable large company. Of angels. So angels in the Bible. They are very prevalent in the Bible and then point number two. Angels are involved in our world today. So these millions of angels are involved in our world, but not only in the world are involved in the lives of Believers. Now. Look what Hebrews chapter 1. In verse 14 says, Hebrews 1 verse 14, are they not all ministering Spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation this is talking about angels. And if they are, they not all ministering Spirits, in this word, the root, meaning of this word, ministering has to do with rendering service. So God created angels to render service in various capacities. So what we need to look at is in what ways are angels involved in our ministry in and in serving the lord and maybe even intervening in our lives. Five ways that angels are involved. Will let me give you five here. I put a scripture out beside. I could put Many more, but just for the sake of time we'll just look at one for each one. So how are angels involved with number one? The Bible seems to state that angels, protect us, angels protect us. Look at this and Psalm 91 11 and 12. This is what the song is set for. He shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. In their hands, they shall bear you up. Lest you dash your foot against a stone. So, we see here. It seems that God can call his angels, and he's going to give his angels charge over us to keep us in all of our way. So number one. God uses angels to protect us. Well number to not only that but Angels guide us. Now, look at it and Matthew to 19 through 26. Now, after Herod had died, but hold a angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. This is Joseph and Mary with the baby Jesus saying, get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel for those who were seeking the life of the child or dead. So we we see here that the angel was guiding Joseph and Mary, it would not let them go until it was safe to go. Remember in the Old Testament, Angels Came and they grabbed a lot in his family and kind of push them away from the the destruction that was coming up on Sodom and Gomorrah. I read the story of a missionary. Her name was mutsuko Hasegawa, and she wanted to be a missionary like the one that had led her to Christ. But her desire was kind of Dash. When she learned that her parents had already arranged her marriage to a non-Christian man. Well, she went ahead and married the man and she said that the lord gave her shorts that he was going to work in her life. Well, she had $3 with her husband, but then her husband died in World War II and after that she was at first kind of suicidal, but then she started praying. She said she heard the Lord say, you know, you can't I don't want you to do this. I want you to raise those three girls up to be missionaries for me. Well, she returned to Hiroshima and she work for her sister and she said one night she was in bed and she just sent the Lord telling her you need to escape to the mountain. She didn't know what for but the next And she got up and took her three, daughters up the mountain in the morning after they had escaped. That was the morning. The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and she believed God's angel had let her and her daughters, who were potential missionaries out of Harm's Way. Many times angels will guide us. Not only that. Not only will they protect us and guide us but Number Three Angels, encourage us. Now. Look at it in judges 6 in verse 12, and he says and the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, the Lord is with, you, you mighty man of Valor. Well this the Lord come to him. And and said, okay. Look, I'm going to get you to deliver the children of Israel and he called him, a mighty man of Valor. Aren't you glad that the Lord sees us, not as we are. But as what we can become, if we will obey him. And so hear the Lord is with you, you mighty man of Valor. So the Lord comes to us many times, and he comes with his protection, and then again, he comes, and he guides us. And then again, that maybe something in her life. Do you know? We're not sure about we unsure but sometimes he'll send an angel to encourage us. Not only that, but number 4 in the Bible, Angels deliver people in the Bible and we can look at it and Acts chapter 12. Amber 7. Now, this is when Peter was in prison. Look what the Bible says. Now Behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him and a light Shone in the prison. And he struck Peter on the side and raise them up saying, arise quickly in his chains fell off his hand. So there's Peter, probably asleep in prison. And I Angel, says, now this is going to be a jailbreak and he just kind of elbows Peter in the sides and Peter get up. You need to get up arise and leave. And as soon as he did, his chains fell off his hand. So many times, angels will Deliver Us. Well, there's also one more weight. Angels are involved that we see in the Bible, in this, many more than these, but these are just ended up tree here and that is Angels. Empower us know, if you remember when Jesus was in The Garden of Gethsemane, and he was such in a, an emotional state, and so distraught that he started sweating drops of blood looking. What the Bible says. It says Den, an angel appeared to him from heaven. Strengthening him. So you see these five ways that angels are involved. They protect us me. I was may have been protected. You might have been in a car wreck wants and there's no way that maybe you should have left through that but you did, maybe it was an angel protecting you Angels guide us, they'll send people in our life, maybe they'll come into our lives and we don't even know. There's Angels, they are angels, angels encourages us Angels deliver. They will deliver us and they will Empower us to do what God has called us to do. So, I think right now that this would be a good place just to stop and think. What is a good definition? Four Angels, you know, it's wonderful to review what angels can and will do in our lives. But we always need to remember that our standard is the word of God and much of what you going to read today in our world. Speaking of angels is not biblical at all. And we need we need to take care of that. We don't get called up in this web of Angel Mania of our day and whatever your experiences with angels have been or will be in the past or future. We always need to check them by what the word of God says. So, here is a good working definition for angels, and this is just my definition here. And we can expand on this later. But just for our introductory sermon, angels are intelligent moral and Spiritual Beings created by God to worship Him and carry out his will and purpose is in heaven. And on Earth. They are created beings. Just like you and I were created there intelligent, and most are more all except for the ones who are falling. But if you reading your Bible, you'll see, especially Book of Revelation. They're constantly worshipping God in heaven and they carry out his wheel, just read the book of Revelation. It's the Angels who blow the trumpets, and open the trumpet seals and, and all the other rafts that's come in upon this Earth. The angels are really involved in that. So they're intelligent moral and Spiritual Beings created by God. They worship Him carry out his will and Pearl. In heaven and on Earth and yes, even in the lives of Believers, so what I want to leave you with today is what I call, three key principles, three things that we need to remember, as we begin this study, as we are studying angels and how they Minister and how God uses them. So number one, we need to remember this Angels. Must never replace God in our lives and I'm going to read you some quotes here. Time Magazine said this several years ago, said for those who choked too easily on God and His rules, angels are the handy compromise, all cloth in Moraine kind and non-judgmental. They are available to everyone like aspirin and other words will just replace god with angels because they are non-judgemental. And if you ever noticed the pictures that you see or the paintings that you see of angels, it seems like they're always kind of plump a little bit chubby and it seems like the ones I've seen is always had curly hair and it's it's like that day just kind of playing an instrument of flute or something like that and it kind of floating around on the on the clouds and they're just kind of kind and non-judgmental. They're available to everyone. That Christianity day said this Angels 2. Easily provide a Temptation for those who want to fix of spirituality without bothering God himself. So many people just want to be spiritual and the way they do that, they can talk about angels or they can talk about their Guardian Angel where they even pray and talk to specific angels. And then another one said, the Angels offer a form of spirituality duvvuri, the void of Jesus and God believe in God has been soda popularized in America. That now belief in Anything Can Happen. The search is on for spirituality, but as a spirituality without God and then one more George Landis who at one time was professor of Old Testament at Union Seminary. This is what he said. He said in the eyes are the traditional church leaders, the popular authors who render Angels into household pets, To invite readers to get in touch with their inner Angels, or summon summon their own, Angel psychotherapist or view themselves as angels in training, our trafficking in discount spirituality. Angel's Friends must never replace God in our lives. If we start worshiping angels that what we're doing is we're worshipping the creation and not the Creator. And anytime we worship the creation and not the Creator. We are idolaters. That's exactly what we're doing. Number two. Angels must never be reshaped to meet our fancy or to meet our presuppositions about them. You see, in the Bible, angels of God always appear. And many people probably don't realize this, but in the Bible, the Angels always appear in the masculine gender. Now, Angels appear in his females show up in some of the secular historical accounts and in some personal experience is I've heard people talk about an angel who was a female but that's never the case. In the Bible, an angel, an angel never appears as a female in the Bible and the angel of God never appears as an animal or bird. According to the Bible angels are a created class of beings of beans, but they're never represented as spiritually, progressed, humans. In other words. What I'm saying is humans, do not involve into Angels. Now, many times. I like to read obituaries. And you'll read in there, especially when a child may die. And, and you'll hear apparent may say or someone who spoke at the service may say that so-and-so has earned their wings. In another words, many people believe that when a person dies that person, especially a child becomes an angel before, and that's just not biblical at all. If you are a man or woman on this Earth within you going to be a man or a woman in heaven or wherever you end up being, you're not going to turn into an angel people, don't learn their wings angels, don't age. Angels Don't Die, God's angels exist eternally. As they were created in another aspect of of the way. We like to think of angels are just kind of young almost like boyish, your girlish age. Maybe, you know, 10, 12, 13, 14 years old, but what does the bible State about the Angels? Well, the Bible says that God's angels are powerful creatures. Remember, in Genesis. They guard the East Gates of Eden and it said they had flashing sword in Ezekiel day. They overpowered a profit with all these Visions in four-headed multi wind in mini. I'd and then of course, in Revelation, they do battle with the dragon. But in modern times, what we see is there, just kind of these little Fearless, these little bite-size beings that are just so soft and cuddly.

And they just become like little little dolls or something in that nature, but that's not biblical. That's not the way, the Bible speaks of angels. So we need, you know, Angels must never be reshaped to meet our fancy or the presuppositions of a secular culture or Society. We need to know exactly what the Bible says. About a 3in will close with this. Angels must never receive worship and other words, we should never worship Angels because that will always lead to trouble. Look what Colossians 2 + 18 says, let no one cheat. You of your reward, taking the light in false humility and worship of angels intruding into those things, which he has not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. You see, I believe one reason why angels are invisible to two humans. Maybe. That if we were able to see angels, we would start worshipping them. Because that's just the way that's the heart of mankind. We are so prone to a Dollar Tree and we're so prone to worship The Works of our own hands. Who would be able to resist the worship of angels if they were standing there before our eyes and we could see them perform Miracles. We would probably just want to fall down and worship. Now. The reason I say that is simply this the Apostle John was on the Isle of Patmos and then the lord gave him the division for the Book of Revelation. And two times, John was speaking to an angel and that angel showed him something. So wonderful that he could not believe it with his eyes. And I want you to notice what John did both times and what the angel said, each time. The first time was in Revelation chapter 19, in verse 10. Now. Look what John says and I fell at his feet to worship him. He's speaking of the Angel here, but he said to me the angel see that you do not do that. I am your fellow servant and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus worship. God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of Prophecy. John seen some. That was so remarkable. So wonderful. He just wanted to Fall Down and Worship the same and this angel in the first thing, the angel said don't do that John. I'm just like you, I'm just a fella server. I'm just a creation to Just one of God's servants. I'm the one of God's Messengers just like you worship. God. Well, then a couple of chapters later chapter 22. It happens again. Look what John says now, I'll John saw and heard the stain and when I heard and saw I fell down to worship before the feet of the Angel who showed me these things. He said I fell down to work because the angel showed me these wonderful things. Look what the angel said. Then he said to me, see that you do not do that for. I am your fellow servant and of your brethren, the prophet and of those who keep the words of this book, worship God, you see friends. One of the key things that we need to remember. One of the three key principles is Angels must never receive our worship because only God is worthy to be worshipped because he is Holy, he is Sovereign and he is The Sovereign Lord of this universe Angels, although they may be have been created a little higher than us and we'll talk more about that in the studies to come. There still a part of God's creation just like you are and just like I am and we are to never worship angels and Friends. It is wrong to ask your angel. Something. We're never told to pray to angels. We pray to God and he Sends the help that we need. So that is the introductory sermon to Angels. God's Messengers are messengers from God. So I hope that helped today. This was just an introduction next week. We're going to look at how Angels were created and when they were created and how they were created and threw that out, this study. We going to look at good angels and we going to look at demons and we going to look at bad angels and we going to look at the angel of the Lord and how Angels were involved in Ministry of Jesus how they're involved in our lives. So I hope it's going to be very intriguing but we need to remember these three key principles as we do this, Angel study never allow angels to replace God in your life never reshape or remake an angel into what you want them to be. And never ever worship Angels. Well, we will see you next week and we will talk more about this. Let's pray, father. We thank you and praise you and love you today that we can come here this morning and Laura we can study your word. And as we begin this study on angels, I pray Lord that you would open our hearts and our minds that the Holy Spirit would teach us Lord. That we would be good interpreter of your word and Lord that we would have a Biblical understanding of angels nautic, not what the world says, not what our culture says, but what your word says? Lord. We look forward to this study and we ask that you continue to bless us as we seek to obey you and learn more about your created beings called Angels. Forcing Christ name, I do pray. Amen.