Alright brethren, Psalm 104. As our Lord is declaring here
how that He created all things, as the psalmist is praising Him
for creating all things. He said in verse 4, Who maketh
His angels spirits, His ministers a flaming fire, who laid the
foundations of the earth that it should not be removed forever. And when we read that verse 4
there, that He maketh His angels spirits as ministers of flame
and fire, we have to go to Hebrews 1. I want you to go with me to
Hebrews chapter 1. The Lord quotes this. The Spirit
of God gives the writer this very word. And for these first
two chapters of Hebrews, He's declaring Christ as preeminent.
He's better and exalted higher over even the angels. And He
says to us here, I want to begin in verse 1, He's showing us that
He's Jehovah who created all things, even the angels, that
He rules all things, even the angels. that He's superior and
raised above all things, even the angels. And this is His Son,
this is Christ. He says now, verse 1, God, who
at sundry times and in different manners spake in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things,
by whom also He made the worlds. You see that? By whom also He
made the worlds. Our Psalm is speaking of Christ.
who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image
of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his
power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on
the right hand of the majesty on high, being so much better
than the angels, as he hath by an inheritance obtained a more
excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels
did God say at any time, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten
thee. And again, I will be to him a
father, and he shall be to me a son. And again, when he bringeth
in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all
the angels of God worship him. Worship him. And of the angels
he said, who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flame
of fire. You see that? That's our Psalm. The Lord said to the angel, he
made the angels his spirits. and it made them a flame of fire.
But unto the Son, he said, thy throne, O God, is forever and
ever. A scepter of righteousness is
the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness
and hated iniquity. Therefore God, thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Thou,
Lord, still speaking to Christ the Son, thou, Lord, in the beginning
has laid the foundation of the earth. and the heavens are the
works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest. They all shall wax old as doth
the garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and
they shall be changed, but thou art the same, and thy years shall
not fail. But to which of the angels said
he at any time, sit on my right hand till I make thine enemies
thy footstool? Are they not all ministering
spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of
salvation? Jehovah, that created all things,
even the angels, is the Son of God, is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He made His angels, ministers, to do His bidding. The Father
trusted all salvation into the hand of His Son. And our Lord
Jesus created all things. He created the heavens and the
earth, all things. God the Son did this. He laid
the foundation of the earth, the heavens are the works of
His hands. And that's what Psalm 104 is declaring. And as we go
through Psalm 104, we'll see how all creation typifies Christ
and His work of salvation. He's sovereign in creation, He's
sovereign in providence, and He's sovereign in salvation.
But all of this illustrates Christ, but now what I want to focus
on today is the Son made His angels spirits and His ministers
a flame of fire. The angels are His ministers.
And why did He make them? Hebrews said, their ministering
spirits sent forth to minister to them who should be heirs of
salvation. God chose His Son, chose His
people and His Son, and when He did, He made His Son the heir,
and He made all His elect joint heirs with Him. So we're going
to inherit everything Christ inherits. And so He sent these
spirits, these angels, to minister to you and me who will be heirs
of salvation. This is the firstborn's responsibility
as the head of the household to save each and every one of
God's elect children and bring us all safely to Him. And this
wilderness we're going through, the Scripture describes it, paints
a picture of it for us, just like He did with the children
of Israel. It is a waste-tiling wilderness. It's full of robbers
and men who lay by the way that want to try to rob us. We're
described as sheep in the midst of wolves. Sheep counted for
the slaughter. All these dangers and all these
troubles that we face in this life. But He's provided angels,
ministers to minister to us to bring us safely into that inheritance. Men are not to worship angels. Some vainly do. Some religions
do. Paul said in Colossians 2.18,
let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility,
worshiping of angels, intruding into things that he's not seen,
vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding Christ
the head from whom the body by joints and bands have all the
nourishment ministered and are knit together and increased with
the increase of God. He said don't let somebody beguile
you into trying to worship angels. That's not what we're to do.
The worship of angels was a real problem in the early church,
and it's a real problem today in some religions that worship
angels. That first two chapters of Hebrews,
the whole thing is declaring Christ is preeminent above angels. The angels are serving Him and
serving His people. It's Christ we're to worship.
It's Christ we're to worship. In fact, He said, let all the
angels of God worship Him. They all worship Him. Isaiah,
remember when he saw the Lord's glory, he saw the cherubim on
each side of the mercy seat praising the Lord, crying, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God. They worship Christ. The angels
do. These things that we hear in
the gospel, this is what's amazing. Listen to this. These are things
that angels desire to look into. And it is how God is going to
reveal Him to them is by what He works in you who are His church. Go to Ephesians 1.9 and look
at this real quick. This is so good. Ephesians 1.9. You just think
about the angels. They are really angels. He created
them. But I want you to see this in
Ephesians 1.9. I'm sorry, I can't remember where
I... If you know where this is at,
you turn to it. Here it is, Ephesians 3.9. Ephesians 3.9. He says here, He's come to make
all men know what is the fellowship of the mystery, that is His people.
Now watch this, which from the beginning of the world has been
hid in God. The gospel is a hidden mystery,
hidden in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ to the
intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places,
that is to His holy angels, might be known by the church the manifold
wisdom of God according to the eternal purpose which he purposed
in Christ Jesus our Lord in whom we have boldness and access with
confidence by the faith of his hand. The angels desire to look
into the gospel and Christ's dealings with his church and
it's by beholding what Christ works in his church that the
angels learn these things. And that's God's purpose. He's
teaching the whole heavenly host these things of salvation and
His glory and saving His people. Now the angels weren't redeemed
like we were. They weren't. But they do have
an interest in it. They desire to look into it and
they're beholding God's wisdom in it. And so by God's grace
and by the Spirit of our Lord, The Spirit makes God select,
behold Christ, and we're too beholding the wisdom of God.
So you have the angels looking at what the Lord's doing in His
church, and you have His people being made to look to the Lord
and what He's doing. God will have all eyes on His
Son. He's the wisdom and power of God to salvation. So, last
time we saw the clouds his chariot. This time we're going to see
the angels, his ministers. We're not to worship angels.
They worship in Christ and he's given us the spirit and faith
to worship Christ and we're all looking to Christ. But those
angels are ministering to us. They're ministering to us. First
of all, God our Savior created all the angels just like He created
man. And in some ways, in some ways
we see a parallel or an illustration of Christ's salvation of His
people in what He did with the angels. God our Savior created
all the angels, the Lord Jesus did. They really are angels and
He created these angels. But in heaven a host of angels
rebelled. They rebelled, and they fell,
and he cast them out of heaven. Lucifer, the devil, God Lucifer,
he was a created angel, created of our Lord. Our Lord Jesus said,
he abode not in the truth. He abode not in the truth. He
was there when it happened, and he abode not in the truth. Now
who did we hear this morning is the truth? Christ is the truth.
and the devil abode not in the truth. Christ said that, and
here's what we can kind of read between the lines. He heard God
the Father declare. Well, we don't have to read between
the lines. This is what the Hebrew writer tells us. God said, let
all the angels worship Him. Now, it wasn't that the devil
had a problem with worshiping Him as God. He's going to become a man. And
the devil is going to have to worship the man Christ Jesus. The God man. And that was beneath
him. That was beneath him. That stained
his so-called dignity. And he rebelled. He would not
abide in the truth. He was insulted and he refused
to submit to God and trust Christ. And so he led a revolt against
God and in doing so he led a third of the heavenly angels into rebellion
and God cast them out of the garden. I mean out of heaven.
Our Lord said, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
Christ said that. Now, we see a parallel in that
between the devil's fall and Adam's fall. But it wasn't just
a third of men that fell in Adam. All fell in Adam. All sinned
and fell in Adam. Because the devil entered the
garden, he beguiled Eve, and he used Eve to tempt, to trick
her, and then when Adam saw Eve, he fell into sin. He sinned with
his eyes wide open. Plunged us all into sin. But
God's trust, now get this, God's trust was not in His angels.
In the heaven, when He made His angels, His trust was not in
His angels. And His trust wasn't in Adam
either. And His trust was not in you either. Job 4.18, Behold,
He put no trust in His servants. Those angels were His servants.
He didn't put any trust in them. Adam was His servant. He didn't
put any trust in him. And His angels He charged with
folly. How much less them that dwell
in these houses of clay, whose foundations in the dust, which
are crushed before a moth. He's not putting this thing of
salvation in our hand. But remember, that fall of those
angels and nor the fall of Adam, none of that took God by surprise.
God, He was fulfilling God's purpose. How was it? that the angels are going to
worship Him as the God-man. It's going to be because He's
coming to this earth and take flesh to save His people. Why?
Because the devil would fall, enter the garden, be the catalyst
to create sin entering the world and death by which Christ is
going to manifest His glory in saving us from it. This was all
the purpose of God. Nothing out of His control. He
purposed it. He ruled over their rebellion
so that Christ might come into the world and glorify Him in
the salvation of His people. Now that gives me comfort. That
gives me comfort knowing everything God's been doing from the beginning.
If the fall of the angels was according to His purpose, and
the fall of man was according to His purpose, I can rest in
His purpose. Because I know He's bringing
glory to His name in whatever He's doing in this life. Now,
secondly, not only in the creation of the angels do we see a parallel
in God's salvation, but we see it in His election. Before the
fall of the angels, before they ever fell, our Lord had chosen
some angels. He had chosen some angels. Paul
spoke and charged Timothy before God and the Lord Jesus and the
elect angels. God had chosen some angels. He
elected them. And so we see a parallel in that
to God's saving grace toward His people. Though we all fell
in Adam, and though we sinned in Adam, before that ever took
place, God had chosen His people in Christ who He would save.
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Him. Don't ever
forget this now. The only one who made the difference
between the angels that fell and the angels that didn't fall
is the grace of God. And the only one who made the
difference with you who know Him now and love Him and worship
Him and believe Him is the grace of God. Don't ever forget who
maketh thee to differ. You didn't do it. I didn't do
it. God did it by his grace, by his
grace. Now here's the third thing I
want you to see. We got to remember this. There is a difference between
God's elect angels and his elect children. And we saw a sort of
a parallel between how He created them and how they fell. We see
a parallel in that He has some elect angels, but there's a big
difference in His fallen children and the angels. The elect angels
needed no redemption. They didn't need any redemption.
They didn't follow the devil, but we did. We did. We sinned. And we need redemption. Now go back over there to Hebrews
chapter 2. This is what the Hebrew letter is declaring. They, I
tell you now, they just like you and us by nature, they was
worshipping the works of their hand, they was worshipping angels,
just all kind of superstition. And the whole first two chapters
of this Hebrew letter is declaring Christ is the only one to worship.
He's the only one. He created the angels. Now look
here, Hebrews 2.14, speaking of Christ and why we needed redemption,
he says, verse 14, For as much as the children are partakers
of flesh and blood, he also took part of the same, that through
death he might destroy them that had the power of the death, that
is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not
on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of
Abraham. in all things it behooved him
to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation
for the sins of his people. In the angels, you think about
this now. You can hold your place right
there in Hebrews 2 once you see this. You think of what the angels
saw, the elect angels. This is the wisdom of God they
saw. And you've got to think, they must have been amazed at
this, to see this. Because this was a hidden mystery.
They didn't know what all was going to take place. But here's
what they saw. They saw the devil rebel and
that whole host of angels fall out of heaven. Then they saw
the devil enter the garden. And they saw him begotten and
they saw Adam fall and plunge the whole human race into sin. But this is what they saw. Verse Becker in Hebrews 2.9,
they saw the Lord Jesus descend past them when He was made a
little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that
He should taste death for every elect child of God. They watched
the Son of God, here they are, wherever they are on that level
they're at, they watched Him go down below them. and go down
to this earth and become a man. Don't you know that was astounding
to them to see Him do this? And they saw the wisdom of God
declaring His righteousness and justifying His people on that
cross. They saw. This had to be astounding. They
saw the Lord Jesus Christ go to the cross and they saw God
pour out His vengeance on Him and they saw Him die and go into
the tomb and be buried. But how they must have been amazed
at this. They saw the Son of God, who
had been made a little lower than the angels. They saw Him
descend as the Son of God. But then they saw, as the Father
declares in Ephesians 1, they saw Him ascend, not as the Son
of God. They saw Him ascend as the God-man. High above what? All power and
all principality above them. As a man, to the throne of God,
to the majesty on high. having accomplished the redemption
of his people. And they behold him now crowned
with glory and honor, as Hebrews 1.4 says, being made so much
better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained
a more excellent name than they. And that's why when Isaiah saw
the glory of the Lord, he saw the cherubims praising Christ
and crying out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. He's
crowned with glory and honor. So the angels now behold God's
wisdom as Christ sends forth another kind of angel called,
the word angel just means minister. And they behold the wisdom of
God in this. He sends forth his pastors to be, as he refers to
them, his angels to minister the gospel. And they behold as
the Spirit of God goes forth, like what Brother Greg just read
in Acts 1, that He sends the Spirit of God and quickens His
people and gives us life to believe on Christ. And they see Him,
all this wisdom of God they witness in how He is saving His people
from our sins. And so the angels in heaven rejoice
over one sinner that repents more than 99 that need no repentance.
They behold in all this work of grace God's doing in His church
for His people by Christ Jesus. And they rejoice in it. They
rejoice in it. And those Christ has taken. and made His own. He's taken
us and made us His own. And by doing this, by taking
away all our sin, by putting it all away and making us the
righteousness of God in Him, He's taken away all the devil's
accusing power. All of it. That's what keeps
you in bondage. That's what kept his children
in bondage, was the devil's accusing power in your conscience, constantly
keeping you in bondage. And he has no more power, because
Christ has put away the sin of his people. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Who's
he that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea, rather,
that's risen again, who's making intercession for us at God's
right hand. And so the angels saw all this.
They saw every bit of this. So here's what I want you to
get lastly. I want you to get this lastly. Angels are real. They're real. And they have a real purpose.
And they see what, they elect angels to see what God has done
in Christ and they rejoice in it. They see what he's doing
in his church and they rejoice in it. Because Christ promised
the Father, He's going to bring all His people to Him, and we're
in this wilderness, and we're surrounded by wolves, we need
protection. And Christ is protecting us,
and He's using His angels to protect His people. This is why
He created His elect angels to be ministers, to minister to
us. Hebrews 1.14 said, Are they not
all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who
should be heirs of salvation? Sinners like to boast about their
will, and their wisdom, and their strength, and how far they've
come, what they've accomplished, and how they're in charge of
their destiny. The Spirit of God tells God's
children this. Now listen carefully. This is
what the Spirit of God says. We wrestle not against flesh
and blood. but against principalities, and
against powers, and against the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness in our places. In other words,
we have a bunch of enemies that we can't see. Now God's going
to have to give us faith to believe this, but this is so. If it's
in this Word, it's true. And this is so. Men want to boast
of their will, and their wisdom, and their power, and their might.
And man's no match for the devil. And there is a ton of his wicked
fallen angels that he has with him, a third of the angels. And
that's who are our enemies. We don't have any wisdom and
power to refute them because we can't even see them. We can't
even see them. But you remember Elisha's servant?
Remember Elijah's servant. Go over to 2 Kings chapter 6. I wish we could get this next
time we get too proud to remember. There's enemies you can't even
see. It's not men you got to worry
about. There's wicked spirits you can't even see. And watch
this now, but there are a host of ministers that are ministering
to his people. 2 Kings 6 verse 14, the king
of Syria, this is a picture of the devil, he had sent horses
and chariots and a great host and they came by night and they
compassed the city about. All this great host, that's what's
being described to us about rulers and principalities and rulers
of the darkness of this world. Now they can't do a thing but
what God permits them to do. Christ isn't the ruler of everything,
but they're there. And just like this servant, verse
15, when a servant of the man of God was risen early and gone
forth, behold, a host compassed the city, both with horses and
chariots. And his servant said unto him,
Alas, my master, how shall we do? You just imagine, you walk
out of the tent, you look up and on the mountain, all the
way around you is all these horses and chariots got you surrounded. And he said, Master, how shall
we do? And he answered, fear not. They that be with us are
more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed. And he said,
Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord
opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold,
the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about
Elisha. And when they came down to him,
Elisha prayed unto the Lord and said, smite this people, I pray
thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness
according to the word of Elisha. Why does this tell us, why does
that passage say that that host of angels, in their chariots
and in their horses of fire, surrounding with so more in number
than the enemy, why does he say they were round about Elisha? because Elisha's a picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ and these angels. We're ministering spirits
sent forth by our Lord Jesus Christ to minister to his people.
And they're doing whatever Christ tells them to do. That's what
you have pictured here. And Elisha praying to God to
open his eyes. And Elisha praying to God to
blind their eyes. And the Lord doing it. Christ
is, he's working everything. The Father giving him his petition.
And he's using these angels to minister to his people. There's
more that are with us than are against us. We can't see them
either, but they're there. God opened our eyes to make us
see them, but they're there. And they're always obeying Christ
in ministering to His people. They're always doing what Christ
bids them to do for us, for our behalf. Look at Psalm 103, back
there at verse 19. The Lord hath prepared His throne
in the heavens, and His kingdom ruleth over all. Bless the Lord,
ye His angels, that excel in strength, that do His commandments,
hearkening to the voice of His Word. Bless ye the Lord, all
ye His hosts, ye ministers of His, that do His pleasure. They're
always obeying our Lord Jesus. They're doing exactly what He
commands them to do. And what does our Lord command
them to do? His pleasure is that His angels keep us all our days. that they surround us and protect
us and keep us all our days. And even, He'll even use His
angels to bring us home to glory. That's true. Listen to this.
We saw last time the clouds are Christ's chariot, so are His
angels. We read of Elijah, 2 Kings 2.11,
there appeared a chariot of fire and a horse of fire and Elijah
went up by whirlwind into heaven. The angels come and took him
up to heaven. And what's going to happen in the end? Matthew
24-31, our Lord said, He shall send His angels with a great
sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect
from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other. We're
thankful for His angels. Now, you may see a lot of enemies,
and you may think you've got a ton of enemies in men that
you can see. Well, you've got a whole lot
more that you can't see. And you are absolutely thirdly
without any strength as dust to defeat those that you can't
see. We can't defeat the devil. We need Christ. Thankfully we
have him and we have a whole host of angels that he's using
to minister to us to protect us. So brethren, as God's elect,
you have this assurance. This is the greatest assurance
you can possibly have that God will keep you. The greatest assurance. I don't want to beat you down. I don't want to crush you. I
don't want to Use your sin as leverage against
you. I want you to be comforted and
strengthened in your heart by what our triumphant Redeemer
has accomplished and is accomplishing in this world. And this is how
He's going to strengthen you. This is the greatest confidence
we have, the greatest assurance we have, that He will keep His
people to the end. This is it. Number one, our Lord
Jesus Christ, when God the Father, first God the Father chose us,
that's the first thing. But He chose us in Christ and
trusted us to Christ. And when Christ entered covenant
to save us, Christ promised the Father. He promised the Father. God who cannot lie promised His
Father, I will not lose one. I will bring them to the Father.
And He shall. And our Lord Jesus came forth
and He laid down His life. He poured out His blood. He gave
His life to redeem us from the curse of the law, to save us
from ourselves, to bring us to Him. and His blood's precious. His name is Jesus for He shall
save His people from their sin. He will not fail. He will not
fail. And we're weakest dust. You and
I are dust. You read the Psalm before it.
He remembers our frame. He even remembers we're just
dust. That's all we are. We gotta cease ye from man. Hannah prayed cease from speaking
so exceedingly proudly. We just dust, brethren. Next
time you're at home and you're cleaning off that stuff off your
furniture, just stop a minute and get a good look and realize,
there I am, right there. Just that week, dust. But here's
our confidence. If he's going to get all the
glory, he's getting it all. He's getting it all. And here
it is. Our Redeemer has a heavenly host of angels ministering to
us, doing His bidding, 24 hours a day, 365 days out of the year,
even when you're asleep and don't know you're even in the world. Even when you're asleep and don't
know, aren't conscious of anything. They are protecting His people.
They are guiding His people. They are looking over His people.
The promise of our Father to our Redeemer in Psalm 91 is the
same promise He gives to us. Go to Psalm 91 and look at it.
This was first of all the promise of the Father to the Redeemer
and now it is the promise of Christ to you and I right here.
Psalm 91 and verse 9. Because thou hast made the Lord
which is my refuge, even the most high, thy habitation, there
shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy
dwelling." Well, I know people who've died of the coronavirus,
brethren who've died of the coronavirus. Does that mean that's not true?
It means nothing shall ever separate you from the love of God in Christ
Jesus. Your body's going to die, whether
it's by a plague or whatever. That's not the important thing.
Nothing is going to harm His people. Nothing, not the new
man, not the real you, not you in Christ. There shall no evil
befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling,
for he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee
in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their
hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. That was God's
promise to his son. He fulfilled it faithfully in
his son, and that's his son's promise to you now, to trust
him. His ministers are keeping His people, and you're never
going to be separated from Him. Go to Psalm 34 7. Psalm 34 7. Here's how we know this is so.
The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him,
and delivereth them. That's His promise, and that's
what He's doing. So the next time you see a host of enemies
in this world, if whatever's taking place in this world and
you see the enemies you see, just remember this, there's a
lot more than that. Now that's not to scare you,
that's just to make you to know, if He's ruling all those you
don't see, and He is, He's ruling those you do see. He is. And He's got a host of angels
doing His bidding and they're ministering to you. Because you
know why? Because God the Father made you
heirs of salvation and you're going to have your inheritance.
And that's Christ's promise. Believe Him. Look to Him and
trust Him. That's not to give us some vain
curiosity and angels and make us start worshiping angels. That's
to make us do what the angels do when they behold God working
all this. Worship Christ. Praise Christ. Glory in Christ.
Amen.