Acts, Week Six

A young college student was studying late at night, a small Texas school. She was really tired and was starting to walk home toward her dorm, and there was a shortcut you could take through a bunch of woods. The school recommended students stay on the lighted sidewalk, but she was really tired, said, this will save me 10 minutes. So she cuts through the woods. Halfway through begins to regret her decision. There’s this man kind of standing there, leering, sneering women. Have you ever met a guy that just kind of oozes evil? There’s just something about him. You’re thinking this, this is not a good guy. She starts to freak out, but she doesn’t know what to do. Nobody is around. So she’s just praying, praying, praying, and looking over her shoulder. And she gets out of the woods, gets back to her dorm room, just collapses in front of her roommate was so creepy. I’m never gonna do that again. I don’t know what was going on. She was just freaking out.

Next day, the school made an announcement that a woman walking through the woods the night before had been assaulted. And if anybody had any information, would they please come forward? So she went down to the police station, gave a report. She’s able to identify him. They did a a lineup. She never would forget that face. As the proceedings continued, somehow she was able just to ask him a quick question. And she looked at him and she said, why did you let me go? Why didn’t you attacked me? He sneered her and said, with that big guy walking next to you, not a chance, she felt chills. There was no big guy walking next to her or was there to this day, or family and her pastor, or convinced she had an angel that was protecting her that night. A friend of mine’s father was a medical missionary in Durban, South Africa.

Durban is one of their bigger cities and he had to pay a huge bill for the mission. And so they gave him a blank signed check, didn’t know who’s gonna make it out to, they didn’t have the money filled in, and he’s taking this check through a crowded marketplace. The guy finally comes up to him and says, look, I, I gotta shake your hand. He’s what? Why? He opens up his coat. He’s got all these dollar bills, he’s got watches and things. He goes, I’m a professional pickpocket ’cause I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve been trying to pick your pocket for 15 minutes. Every time I get close, it’s like there’s this hand that won’t let me get in. In all of my years of doing this, I’ve never experienced this. It’s gotta know what’s going on. You’ve got to explain that. He was a believer and said, I believe you may have wrestled with your first angel.

I don’t hear stories like this every week, but I hear ’em often enough. And after the last service enough to convince me that what the early church needed in the book of Acts is something we need to and still exist today. When we step out boldly in God’s work and service, the need for angelic protection, we’re still in Acts chapter five and the church is exploding in a good way. It’s really growing. We read in chapter five, verse 14, multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number. But whenever a work of God is lifted up like that, you can be sure that it will be attacked. And this one was, we read in verse 17, but the high priest roses up along with all of his associates and they were filled with jealousy. They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail.

But during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the gates of the prison and taking them out. He said, go stand and speak to the people in the temple. The whole message of this life, the early church needed angelic protection to fulfill its mission. What if the same is true for us? I know for some of us we might be a little bit embarrassed talking about angels. I can imagine some social circles that would hear me and say, okay Gary, and next week are you preaching on the Easter Bunny? But if we believe scripture and I do, we have to believe that the angels have been active and are still active today in God’s work on this earth. In fact, go to the very first couple. Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden of Eden. Not allowed to go back, needed to be protected.

What did God use to keep Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden? Any guesses? Angels then you have Abraham. He’s getting told that you’ll become your fatherless person. You’ll become the father of many nations. ’cause I’m way too old. My wife is way, way too old. No man could convince Abraham what was going to happen. So guess who God sent to tell Abraham he was about to become a father. Angels look at a Abraham’s nephew lot. He was in a really bad and wicked city with men that wanted to do bad and wicked things. And God promised Abraham he would get lot out of there. There weren’t enough men to go in there. So he sent a couple of angels who go in and grab at lot’s hand. And they grab his, his wife’s hand and his children hand and they get them out of the city.

You go forward in biblical history, you have an impressive young man, Daniel Key for God’s work on this earth. But again, because of his effectiveness, people are jealous. They want him to be killed. They get him on trumped up charges. King Darius doesn’t wanna kill Daniel, but to save face, he’s gotta throw ’em in the lion’s den. He gets up early in the morning hoping that Daniel had been spared and we find out that he was. How did God spare Daniel in the lion’s den? Here’s his testimony from Daniel six. My God sent his angel and he shut the mouth of the lions. We could go to Elijah attacked by a queen running for his life. Doesn’t think there’s anybody else who’s faithful, doesn’t know anyone else who will help him. He’s in the wilderness desert. He’s hungry, he’s tired, he’s discouraged, he’s thinking this has come to an end.

God sends to him, angels who feed him, refresh him and tell him, your fight isn’t over. It’s just beginning. You’ve gotta go back. You could have so many more instances in the Old Testament, but let’s go to the new Zacharia. The husband of Elizabeth goes into the inner sanctum of the temple, which you’re only allowed to do once a year. You gotta be a particular kind of priest to do that. And there an angel appears to him ’cause no man could get in there and not be killed. You’re gonna become the father and of a boy and you’re to call him John. You he’ll pave the way for the Messiah. That seems like a difficult task getting in there to convince a childless father again. He’s gonna become a father. Imagine the task to convince Mary that she’s gonna become a mother. God has to send an angel to Mary.

I know this doesn’t make any sense. I know you’ve never been with the man, but God is doing a special work here. And you’re gonna give birth not just to a child, but to the Messiah that needed an angel. God needed an angel to make that happen. And then of course, we shouldn’t be surprised that Joseph needed an angel. Seriously, you find out your fiance is pregnant and you know you Didn’t you think any man on this planet convinced Joseph, Hey, I don’t think it was a guy that did this. I think it must be some God kind of thing. Good luck with that. And so God sends an angel to tell Joseph it’s okay. You can take care of this child. You can take Mary as your wife. She’s been faithful. Jesus is born. God wants the word to get out. He wants it to get out.

Broadly, how do you convince a bunch of shepherds to leave their sheep to go see the baby firsthand? There’s no human that could convince them, Hey, this is really cool. You gotta come see it. Well, yeah, but we’re shepherds. We have to stay with the sheep. You send a host of angels and like this is something special. This is something new. Then Jesus is born. There are no news accounts. There’s no bulletins that can go out on email. But King Herod wants to kill the infant. Jesus. God has to go to Joseph with an angel and say, you gotta get Jesus outta here. You gotta send him to Egypt. Jesus grows up tempted by the devil battles 40 days. He’s hungry, he’s thirsty. He doesn’t have any disciples yet, but he needs encouragement. And so God sends his angels to Jesus to encourage him. Now he’s at the end of his life.

Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, he has plenty of followers. They’re not faithful. He pleads with ’em. Look, could you just stay awake? I need encouragement. I need fellowship. It’s about to get really thick and tough in here. They all fall asleep, but his heavenly Father knows he needs encouragement since no human is available. We read in Luke 22, an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. Jesus goes to the cross. He’s raised from the dead. We look back, we see all the scriptures that talk about Jesus’s resurrection in the first century. Not quite so clear. They can’t figure it out. Who can tell these women at the empty tomb what had just happened? There’s nobody that understood it. No human. So God sends angels. And now the church is moving forward. We see this in Acts chapter five. They don’t like it.

They’re starting to gel the apostles, they get out. And so the persecution increases. They kill the disciple named James. And then they, the king finds out how much that pleases the church’s enemy. So he jails Peter. He said, okay, in Acts five, of course he didn’t know he was referring to Acts five back then. But a while back, all of these disciples got out, heard rumblings of an angel. I don’t believe it. So he put 16 Roman soldiers to guard Peter who is in chains. Nearly church is terrified. I guess it’s come to an end. It’s been nice while it last that they’ve got James. Now they’ve got Peter. How are we gonna go on? And yet unbelievably Peter gets out. They can’t believe it until Peter tells them how the Lord sent his angel to rescue me. Now, Paul is crossing the Mediterranean, courageously serving God.

There’s a storm that comes up. The sailors know we’re dead. We’ve seen storms like this. We know the sea. We know what our ship can handle and what it can’t. They’re panicking. Paul wakes up with a supernatural calm and says, Hey, let’s have breakfast. Are you crazy? How are we gonna eat breakfast? Why did Paul have such calm in the midst of serving God? He explained to them last night, an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, stood beside me and saiddo not be afraid. Paul, all through scripture, God’s servants depended on angelic protection to stay on the offense, to be bold, to do what God has called them to do. Why would we think it would be any different for us? Even Jesus, God in the flesh took great comfort knowing what was available on his behalf. He’s threatened in the garden of <inaudible> when, when he’s arrested and the disciples finally decide, well, maybe we’ll have an armed rebellion. And I don’t, I don’t think Jesus wants to insult them. Like, well, thank you very much Mr. Tax collector and a fisherman. If they were a fish or a whale, maybe you could handle something. But he says to him, look, do you not think I cannot call him my father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels. Anybody know how many soldiers were in a legion of Roman military groups?

6,000. Somebody really knows <laugh> history. 6,000 people. Jesus is saying, yeah, a few of you think you can stand at defense. I could call down 72,000 of angel armies if I wanted to stop this from happening. Like, well, that’s, that’s maybe the big heroes of the faith. Real people don’t interact with angels, do they? According to Hebrews, do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for by so doing, some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. The Bible doesn’t treat angels as rare or as insignificant. Their primary and active in God’s work on this earth. We serve a supernatural God who calls us to sacrifice, to take risks, to be bold. Kurt preached about this a few weeks ago, and he says, and as you do this, I’ve got angel armies. They’ve got your back. You can step forward in confidence. So wanna spend a little bit of time dispelling all of the false notions our culture has about angels.

If they get anything in the Bible wrong, they get angels wrong. I think more than anything else to begin with, angels are never glorified or evolved. Human beings, we are a different being entirely. I will not become an angel. You will not become an angel. It just doesn’t happen. They’re different entirely. Secondly, they, they don’t age, I’m sorry Jimmy Stewart. But angels don’t get their wings when the little bell rings. Nice little motif in a Christmas movie. But it’s simply not true. But here’s what’s powerful about this. If angels don’t age, think about this. You’re stepping out on God’s behalf. The same angel who got lot out of Sodom and Gamora who shot the mouths of the lions for Daniel who lifted Peter past 16. Romans soldiers can be dispatched to protect, to guide, to work with you. Certainly we know from scriptures that angels do not look like little naked Valentine’s Day babies.

Nothing could be further from the truth, though. Angels should be thought of as genderless. Every time an angel is mentioned in scripture, it uses a masculine name or a masculine pronoun. Now, I gotta admit, in my own family, there’s been a little pushback on this. My wife grew up Catholic and she’s convinced she had a guardian angel named Theresa. I’ve tried to show her the scriptures and she says, you will not take Theresa away from me. And when we get to heaven, I’m gonna introduce you to Theresa and you’re gonna have to apologize. And maybe I will. I’m making an argument from silence. But I think it’s significant. There’s a reason why scripture says that we, I was at a benefit one time and they gave us giant picture of an angel. And it looks like our culture depicts angels just feminine, beautiful, holding a baby.

And, and Lisa loved it and wanted to put it up. And we did in Houston. I, I kind of protested saying, I I don’t want that in our house. And she said, why? Because we’re lying to everybody who visits our house. That’s not what angels are like. It, it got more personal. When we had our first granddaughter and for her first Christmas, we were looking for that first Christmas tree ornament, you know, that you put on Lisa found one. It’s really cute. It was adorable. It’s this little girl angel and I, I liked how it looked, but I said, I can’t give that to Anna for Christmas. She goes, why not? It’s beautiful. I go, yeah, but I can’t lie to my granddaughter on her first Christmas. For the record, I didn’t lie to my granddaughter. My wife may have, you can take that up with her.

Why does this matter? I’m not trying to be sexist and I’m speaking from silence. There may be what we would think is more feminine angels, but the reason is the way our culture looks at angels is so ridiculously against the biblical record. Somebody says, you’re angelic. You’re thinking feminine. You’re thinking beautiful. Maybe you’re thinking holy and good and pure. That’s how our culture tends to think of it. When scripture talks about angels, these are powerful servants sent to fight God’s battles. What Paul said to the Thessalonians, two Thessalonians one, seven, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. So when you think of angels, you should think more the rock. And not Anna Kendrick in a Cinderella dress <laugh>. If you were to talk to 90% of our culture, they would think, yeah, that’s the angel in scripture.

No, it’s, it’s the reverse. Which means, guys, if you’re out on a date and your wife does a wonderful job getting all dressed up and you’re saying, babe, you look amazing. You look like an angel. You’re kind of saying, she looks like this <laugh>. Now wise, if you wanna say that to your husband, he gets all dressed up. Dad, you’re my angel. Like, yeah, he’ll take that, he’ll look like an angel. It’s just the, the whole notion of the Victoria’s Secret angel is wrong on a hundred million counts. When you look at what scripture is talking about, these are powerful. Be, in fact, I, I see Christians all the time that are so worried and concerned, and I would say even fearful of Satan. Can I point something out? One angel will take Satan down. Revelation chapter 20, verse one. Then I saw an angel.

How many is N one coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit and a heavy chain in his hand? He sees the dragon, that old serpent, who is the devil, Satan, and bound him in chains for a thousand years. The angel threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked. So Satan could not deceive the nations anymore. There will be a time when God says enough Satan’s work is done. He doesn’t even have to send an army of angels. He has to send one who gets the job done. These are big, powerful dudes. Now, why do I stress that? It should so encourage us because they serve God by serving God’s children. When we give our trust to God, when we’re enlisted in his kingdom work and we’re active reaching out, serving him, we get angelic protection. Psalm 91, 9 and 11.

If you say it’s conditional, if you say, the Lord is my refuge and you make the most high your dwelling, what do you get? He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. Very minute you say, okay, Jesus, you’re mine. You’re my savior. You’re my Lord. I’m serving you. You God goes to his angels. Hey guys, this is my daughter. You watch over and you’re reporting to me. I want you to make sure she’s okay. This is not protection offered to non-believers to angels serve God, not humans. They were created to serve God, not humans. So they serve humans who are serving God. The notion of everybody having a guardian angel, that’s legend. It’s not scripture. Hebrews tells us who they care for. Angels are only servants. Spirits sent to care for. Let’s read together. Who angels care for people who will inherit salvation.

They’re after those who are following after God. Membership has its privileges. It’s a famous line from American Express, and I bought it a couple decades ago. ’cause I travel a lot. I got an American Express business, platinum card. ’cause There are a lot of benefits and privileges being a member. I get to use the Centurion lounge, which is fantastic in Denver. I’m flying out somewhere later today and I’m gonna get to visit the lounge for that. But even more, I get it to protect me from rental car companies. They handle an extra level of insurance. So I never have to buy insurance for rental cars. Usually I don’t need it. I’m a pretty careful driver. But one time Lisa and I were returning a car in Europe and this guy is looking at the car with like a magnifying glass. He wants to charge me $600 for the damage.

I go, what’s the damage? He goes, it looks like the hubcap was scraped. I don’t think I did that. He goes, and you wrecked this seat. There was a little chocolate smeared on the seat. So I took a napkin and poured some water in it wiped the chocolate off. He said, well, now it’s all wet. I said, yes, and in 15 minutes it will be dry. All right. Is this worth 600 bucks? Well, he, he wouldn’t, I I didn’t worry about it. ’cause Amex will take care of it. I don’t know if they paid it. I don’t know if they contested it, but they’re there to protect me from shady European rental car companies. I just let them deal with it as Christians. If we have the boldness that Kurt preached about a few weeks ago, and I hope all of us do. We know he’s got me, he’s before me.

He’s behind me. He’s got angel armies. I don’t have to worry. Now, the application, let me just say the application is not to seek out angels to try to name ’em. Certainly, we should never pray to them or worship them. Could I be honest? I I believe angels are present here. I try to explain why. You’ll think I’ve lost your mind. I’m not gonna get there. But this isn’t their favorite sermon. I bet they liked last week’s about fearing God far more. Why? They’re all about glorifying Jesus. If we could be in the presence of Jesus, we wouldn’t argue about who’s anointed, who’s this or that. We would just say, Hey, let’s all look at Jesus. And that’s what angels do, but remaining conscious of them. Why do we do that? It’s not to glorify them. Well, we just preached through scripture and it came out, but even more, it lifts my eyes from those who would persecute us, those who would threaten us from the chaotic world and reminds us that God has our back.

God is ahead of us with his angels so that we can be bull. Myron during worship talked about Elisha, who kings and an entire army to take Elisha out and he just doesn’t care. And his servant is, are you. Look, we’re we’re surrounded. We have no hope. And Elisha just says, God open up his eyes and he sees the hillside filled with angel armies. I’m working on a, a book. I had some early readers, it’s got a chapter on this talking about angels. And a widow wrote to me, and I I was so moved. She said, Gary, I I’ve been crying tears of joy. I can’t tell you how much this ministered to me. She told me what it felt like. She says, I feel the desperate loneliness of a new widow living in a world raging with anger. I never thought about that. What it’s like you wake up with your husband 30, 40, 50 years, there’s a noise at night. He takes care of it. He’s there.

Suddenly he’s gone. The world’s no less dangerous. What moved her to tears? She goes, I realized I am not alone. My husband may not be beside me physically, but God’s angels are with me spiritually. It’s all about making us bold to serve. God has spoken at so many conferences. People will say nice things and then often I’ll hear him say, Gary, I’m gonna be so praying for you. Well, thank you. But why? He goes, Satan must hate what you’re doing. You must have a target on your back the size of a target superstore. Now, I appreciate anybody who wants to pray for me. Thank you for anybody who decides to do that. But here’s why I don’t freak out about that. And I, I don’t wanna knock Christian traditions on this, some focus on this most. But I’ve been at churches where they’re so obsessed with what Satan is doing and they spend so much time playing defense.

I bind this. I I command you to do this. I protect, hedge and protect all. Okay, fine. If they wanna do that. I mean, the Bible does talk about demons. I counted, I’m obsessive. I count 38 times. It either refers to demons or teaching surrounding demons, which isn’t insignificant. You can talk about ’em. You know how many times the Bible mentions angels over 300 times? The Bible mentions angels. It’s about a 10 to one ratio. Those who remember angels practice offense because I don’t have to worry about playing defense. I have nothing to say to Satan. He’s outnumbered and out powered. What he wants to do is irrelevant. What matters is what God has called me to do. And knowing that God has my back and he has yours. In fact, more than 250 times, this doesn’t count references to angels more than 250 times God is called the Lord of hosts.

How many of you have read that in scripture? God’s called the Lord of hosts. You know what that means in the Hebrew? It’s commander of armies. That’s how it was used. God is declaring himself my identity. I am the God of angel armies. And he wanted us to know it. Not once, not twice, not a 10 times, not a hundred times, 250 times. This is how God would have himself known. He’s got angel armies and these are tough dudes. Shook Jordan last century was the coach head football coach of Auburn University. Won a national championship. He’s a colorful guy. And one recruiter recounted, it was the first time he was hired to be a recruiter. And Suge sat him down and said, look, you’re gonna go out in the high schools and you’re gonna see some players that look really good, but they get knocked down and they don’t get back up.

That’s not right for Auburn. We don’t want that guy. And there’s another guy that you knock him down and he gets back up. You knock him down again and he’s just a little slower. He’s a little more tentative. We don’t want that guy either. But there’s a third kind of player. You knock him down, he gets up, you knock him down, he gets up. You knock him, you knock him down throughout the entire game. He keeps getting up and coming back for more. And the recruiter’s all excited. That’s the guy we want coach, right? And Suge George said, no, we want the guy who’s knocking him down 20 times.

That’s who you recruit. When you make serving God the aim of your life, you are fearing God. You are on the lines. You’re taking risks. That’s the kind of person. It’s the kind of being that’s protecting you. There’s nowhere you can go where God can’t find you. Sheila Walsh was 34. She’d come out of the punk rock movement, pretty successful. And then her faith gave her some renowned, and she became a co-host of the 700 Club with Pat Robertson. Younger People won’t remember this. It was a big Christian show. Millions of people watched it in years past. But she’d been dealing with a lot of issues in her life. And one after, after she’d been on television, she made the very wise and courageous decision to check herself into a psychiatric hospital because she was fearing self-harm. She had these obsessive thoughts about self-harm. She didn’t know how to handle it.

So she goes into the psychiatric ward and she doesn’t tell anybody. She’s too embarrassed. She’s thinking, what is this gonna do? Am I gonna lose my job? Will I lose my witness? Because I mean, is a Christian supposed to go through with this? She was ultimately diagnosed with severe depression and PTSD, she didn’t know it then, but she, she’s just in a fog. When you’re on a suicide watch. They’re coming in every 15 minutes. They’re doing blood pressure heart rate checks, everything. And, and she’s being poked and prodded and she can’t get to sleep ’cause she thinks I’ve just wrecked it. Nobody knows where I am. And then in the middle of the night, a man walks into her room. He’s not wearing medical

Gar.

And you know how I said the guy at the start just oozed evil?

This guy was the opposite. He oozed light and life and love. He didn’t

Do any medical procedure. He wasn’t wearing medical gear. He just stood in front of her. And then he placed this plush lamb in her hands. He started to walk out. But he paused and he looked back and he said, Sheila, the shepherd knows where

To find you. And he left. Sheila had felt so alone and

Words, the shepherd knows where to find you. Lifted her up. So she fell

Asleep.

She woke up and she wondered, is it a dream? And so she’s asking around, they said, nobody got in here. We watched the room. But when you’re in the psychiatric ward, you wanna press that. You think you’ve seen an angel, right? That’s not gonna help your cause. But she looks at the foot of the bed.

The lamb is still there.

Christian, the shepherd

Knows where to find you

If you’re going through the woods, if you’re checking yourself into a psychiatric ward, to a rehab clinic, if you’re finding comfort in a closet ’cause your parents are fighting and you just can’t stand it anymore. If your widow who’s learning to sleep alone,

Shepherd knows where to find you,

And there’s no place where he can’t get one of his angel armies in, this is our promise. If you say, the Lord is my refuge, and you make the most higher dwelling, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. I want you to listen to the words of this song. It’s really the end of this sermon, the promise we’re given when we make our refuge. Jesus Christ.