Moses is on the backside of the
desert. The Lord ordained that Moses
would be his servant who would deliver Israel out of their Egyptian
bondage. After 40 years being in Egypt,
Moses is led of the Lord to associate himself with the people of God. He saw an Egyptian treating very
roughly one of his Jewish brothers. And Moses came to the rescue
of that brother, and Moses killed that man and hid his body. And then the next day, Moses
was observing his brethren, and he saw two of them fighting.
One of them instigated it, and so Moses, he drew near to them,
and the one who started the skirmish said, have you come to kill me
like you killed the Egyptian yesterday? And Moses was fearful. where
it got back to Pharaoh, that Moses had indeed killed one of
the people of his nation, that is, killed the Egyptian. And
Moses went to Midian. In Midian, there he learned how
to be a shepherd. There he learned more of the
great God of his fathers. Now, Moses, the scripture says,
in Acts 7, he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. The Egyptians were well known
throughout the world that they had the best education and they
were the wisest of people. And Moses, of course, he was
instructed in the wisdom of the Egyptians. But the wisdom of
the Egyptians, as very profound as it was, was just the wisdom
of the world. And the Lord says, through the
writing of the apostle in 1 Corinthians 1, that the wisdom of this world
is foolishness with God. A lot of things Moses learned
being the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, but he didn't learn
anything about God from the Egyptians. The only thing they knew was
worshiping false gods. They knew nothing of the God
of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. They knew nothing about the God
of Joseph through whose influence Israel wound up in Egypt some
400 years before this. Moses had to learn from God. The wisdom of the world did not
benefit him spiritually at all. I tell you, the schools of this
world can impart A lot of knowledge on a variety of subjects. But
they can't teach you the wisdom of God. And they can't teach
you the gospel. Because they don't know God.
They don't know Christ. Most schools of higher education
have no respect for God and no respect for the word of God. In fact, many of them, even religious
schools today, are very quick to deny the inspiration of the
Word of God. And of course, they have no knowledge
whatsoever of the truths of substitution and satisfaction that God has
taught us. They have no knowledge of nor
any interest in the power of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
that washed away the sins of his people. They have no knowledge
of the necessity of the righteousness of God being freely imputed to
those who believe the gospel. They have no knowledge of those
things. They're in utter ignorance of
God. And there they will remain, and
there we would have remained were it not for the Lord sending
a person to teach us the truth of the gospel of his grace. You remember it was said of our
Lord, actually asked of our Lord and of others, In John 7, verse
15, it says, and the Jews marveled, saying to the Lord Jesus, how
knoweth this man letters, having never learned? You didn't learn
in our academies. You didn't learn in our rabbinical
schools. You didn't go to any of our seminaries. You weren't instructed by the
Pharisees. You weren't instructed by the
Sadducees. You weren't instructed by any
of the rabbis. That kind of education no man
needs. And I'll tell you, I know there
are a lot of seminaries today and a lot of so-called Bible
colleges, but they can't teach a man the gospel. And even though you and I, as
moms and dads and grandparents, even though we endeavor to teach
our children and our grandchildren, or as the case may be, great-grandchildren,
even we cannot really instill this wisdom that only God can
give. He teaches us by His Spirit And
he teaches us through the Word of God of himself. He's got to teach us. And of
course, one of the issues today, one of the great problems today
is preachers are being sent out by moms and dads. They're being
sent out by seminaries. They're being sent out by denominations. But here's what's lacking. And
I think of that passage in John 1. There was a man, a man sent
from God, whose name was John. That's what's missing. Where
are the men sent of God? Moses was such a man. He was
sent of God. And God sent him to the backside
of the desert to get an education. And I'll tell you, the greatest
educator of all is the Lord Himself. Because if He teaches you, it's
one thing for me to teach you, and I endeavor to. And before
me, Bill endeavored to, and before him, Brother Henry endeavored
to. It's one thing for men to teach
us, and that's necessary. But only the Lord can make us
a real learner of truth. And so our Savior says in John
chapter 6, and they shall all be taught of God. Oh God, send us somebody who's
been taught at your school. Somebody who's learned from the
Savior himself, the great teacher. And Lord, make us true disciples,
pupils, willing students anxious to learn. You who are educators
or retired educators, you remember there were some students who
were hungry to learn, anxious to learn. May God give us people
who are anxious to learn the gospel. anxious to learn more
about our Lord Jesus Christ, anxious to learn the great doctrines
of the Word of God, the sovereignty of God, and the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus, and the necessity of reconciliation. Oh, God, send
us people who are hungry and willing and anxious to learn. And Lord, as we teach, as we
preach, use that word, to perform a miracle in the hearts of men
and women and young people. I'll tell you this, the hand
of man can never mold, can never mold a preacher. Men's hands
can't do that. Only God can make a preacher.
Only God can make a real teacher. all others labor in vain. No
wonder Paul said, we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the excellency might be of God, and not of man, not of
us. So Moses is on the backside of
the desert, and here within, in the end of chapter two, within
the space of just a very few verses, 40 years goes by. They go by pretty quick anyway,
don't they? His years pass by pretty quick.
But within the scriptures here, the Spirit of God isn't led to
tell us all that happened between Moses leaving Egypt and getting
to Midian and all the things that happened. We get a little
more information, of course, from Stephen's sermon. in Acts
chapter 7, but by and large, 40 years go by and we don't know
much about what happened at all, except this. God taught Moses. God taught Moses to be a deliverer,
and God prepared him for the work that he had to do. So he's keeping the flock of
his father-in-law in Midian. He's on the backside of the desert. And he sees this bush, a thorn
bush, it would read in the original. And this bush was on fire, but it
wasn't consumed. And Moses looked to see. I mean, I'm sure he'd seen thorn
bushes on fire before. A storm comes up, lightning flashes,
and there's a dried up thorn bush, something like that, and
it strikes it and it burns up. Hey, this man now, he's 80 years
old. He's seen many a fire. But this
is unusual. It caught his eye. Because this
bush, it was on fire, but it wasn't consumed. And of course,
we know it's a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. He endured
the very fire of God's wrath to save his people, to honor
the Father, to satisfy justice. He died in our place in the fire
of God's wrath. It just pelted upon him. It beat
upon him. It burned upon him, burned deep
in his soul. But our Lord Jesus was not consumed. Rather, he consumed the wrath
of God. So Moses, seeing this bush, he
said, well, I'm going to stop and investigate, which he did. And the Lord spoke with him.
But back in the second verse, Moses, who wrote this years later,
sometime during his the 40 years of Israel in the wilderness,
he recorded this, and wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
almost all of the book of Deuteronomy until the very end, and most
likely Joshua finished the book of Deuteronomy. But Moses writes,
and he says, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him. The angel of the Lord. Now, Moses
didn't know at that point that he was the angel of the Lord
who talked to him. Moses, when the Spirit of God
told him what to write, Moses said the angel of the Lord appeared
unto him. He said that for our benefit,
but he didn't know it then. He didn't know it then. But we
know because the Spirit of God tells us. The angel of the Lord
spoke to him. Now, the word angel is used many
times in the scripture, singular and also in plural. An angel
is used in three different ways through the scriptures. Number
one, as those created beings, God made them, And they beheld
in wonder and amazement at God's creative glories. Job 38 verse
7 says, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons
of God shouted for joy. The sons of God being the offspring
of God, that is, angels. That's a reference too. Before
the scriptures were finalized, at the end of the first century
with the passing of John after he finished writing that which
the Lord had ordained for him to write. Up to that time, the
Lord often appeared to people by way of angels and conveyed
messages to them. Now, angels, they're still very
real and they're very active. But they don't appear to us in
a visible form to verify the message of God. We don't need
that today because we have the Word of God. We have the Word
of God in its fullness. We have all that God would have
us to know right here in this one book. In these 66 books,
39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament, in this one
great volume, it speaks to us of the Lord Jesus Christ. This
is indeed a hymn book. And this hymn book speaks to
us of the angels that God created. And we know that angels appear
throughout the Word of God. And most notably, the first event
that comes to my mind is in Luke chapter 2, where the shepherds
were out keeping their flocks by night, and the angel of the
Lord appeared to them and spoke to them. Fear not. I bring you
good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto
you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ
the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto
you." Here's the sign. You'll find the babe wrapped
in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And then suddenly,
with that one angel of the Lord, There were a host of angels,
and they're all singing praises to the Lord. This is what these
created beings do. They glorify God. They were singing,
glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill
toward men. Now, without question, There
is an order of beings, these heavenly beings, that God calls
angels. They're the angels of the Lord. And without a question, there's
another host of angels that are fallen angels. As the good angels, or as Paul
says, the elect angels are sent forth by the Lord, So Satan,
he led about, what, a third of the angels in rebellion against
God, and Satan leads them. That's his host of darkness,
demons, evil spirits. He leads those. And as the angels
of God are messengers of God throughout the book of the Lord,
angels of the Lord to convey His message. Well, so Satan has
his evil angels, his vile angels, demons and devils, who convey
his message. And it's no wonder that John
in 1 John chapter 4 says, too, we should try the spirits, whether
they're of God. Evil spirits, bring forth falsehoods. They deny the gospel of grace.
Whereas these good angels, the angels of the Lord, they are
called ministering spirits, Hebrews chapter 2, who are sent forth
to those who shall be the heirs of salvation. To you who know
God, through the Lord Jesus Christ, To you I say, you have far more
friends than you realize. And though we can't feel it,
I'm sure the wings of the angels are hovering around us. I don't
question that at all. Did they not minister to our
savior during his earthly sojourn? On many occasions they did. They
rendered encouragement to him in some way. Sustenance to him
after he had been tempted 40 days and 40 nights of the devil
in the wilderness. The angels came and ministered
to him. And I doubt not but what the Father sent those angels
with food to feed him. And water because he'd be a thirsty
man. And those same angels, they hover
around us. Oh, bless the name of God, how
wonderful he is to us to send these ministering spirits to always be with us, to be around us, And to be there when we're breathing
our last breath, as did Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke. And when
he breathed his last, according to God's appointment, because
you're not going to die early and you're not going to die late.
You're going to die right according to God's appointment. And those
angels immediately whisked the soul of Lazarus into the presence
of the Lord. And how marvelous, how marvelous
it is that our God has so blessed us with ministering spirits.
When the enemies of Israel were coming after Elisha, they're
hot on his trail. Elisha's camped out, he has servants. After the servant and Elisha
had got a night's rest, the servant gets up, maybe to fix morning
coffee for Elisha, for the prophet of God. And he saw the enemies
of God, the enemies of Israel. There were a lot of them. And
he goes running back in that tent and he says, alas, my master,
alas, look how many they are. The prophet of God, he wasn't
troubled. I wish I could be more like him.
He wasn't troubled. He said, Lord, open his eyes. And he looked there, all around,
these chariots, messengers of mercy, angels of the Lord, ready
to attack and wipe out the enemy if God so chose to do so. Scripture says the mountain was
full of horses and chariots of fire round about. They're with
us in life. They're with us in death. Don't
forget that. Don't be downcast. Don't be troubled. You see, the Lord our God has
made provision for us in every way possible. He's done everything
for us and is doing everything for us and will yet do everything
for us that will be good for us. and no harm can come to your
soul, you're washed in Jesus' blood. You're robed in Jesus'
righteousness. God is your Father. Christ is
your Mediator. He's your mighty Savior. The
Holy Spirit is your Comforter who indwells you, who will never
leave you nor forsake you. And then, if that's not enough,
then throw in a multitude of angels that gather around you. Do you need anything else to
encourage you? Well, surely the presence of
God is enough. And yet the Lord assures us of
these, the angels of the Lord who are ministering spirits.
Oh Lord, we have no idea how blessed we are. We have no idea. This place tonight, There are angels of God here,
of that I'm certain. But even more than that, the
Spirit of God is here, who commands the angels. And they minister
to us. The Lord himself sends them on
errands of mercy for his people. angels of the Lord. So angels
are created beings. Secondly, God's preachers are
called angels. Messengers sent from the Lord.
Read at your leisure Revelation chapter 1 verses 19 and 20. The Lord's in the middle of the
seven candlesticks and John sees the glorified Christ and he has
in his right hand seven stars or angels. Who are those angels in his right
hand? Well, we're not left to doubt
about it because of the seven letters to the churches of Asia
Minor, each one is addressed to the angel of the Lord at Ephesus,
Sardis, so forth and so on. In other words, the preacher
of the gospel there. Preachers are God's angels, God's
messengers, God's ambassadors that he sends to do us good. How do you know if a preacher
is an angel of the Lord? Is he an angel of the Lord or
is he a demon sent from the devil? you test their message against
the Word of God. I just read to you or quoted
to you from 1 John 4. Many spirits have gone forth
into the world. They deny who Christ is. They
deny His work. They're all the time twisting
the Scriptures to their own destruction. The Gospel The gospel is the
message that God gives to His servants and His servants give
that message out without compromise. What is the gospel? It's the
declaration of what God in, through, and by Jesus Christ has already
done. The gospel is not what you must do. That's not the gospel. That's
not good news because I'm spiritually dead by nature. I can't do anything. Don't tell me what I've got to
do. Tell me what's already been done for sinners like me. Now
that's good news. The Lord Jesus said on the cross,
it is finished. It's accomplished. The salvation
that I came to work out. The righteousness that I came
to establish. The sins of my people which I
came to wash them all away. It's finished. It's accomplished.
It's done. That's what God's preachers preach.
The angels of the Lord. I saw on a billboard the other
day, it says, believe the gospel found in John 3.16. You have to be careful. how people
twist the scriptures. John 3.16 is the reason for the
gospel. It's the origin for the gospel,
the love of God for the world of his people. But that's not
the gospel. So we'll just preach that God
loves everybody and that's preaching the gospel. That's not preaching
the gospel. Well, what is the Gospel? You've
got to back up to verse 14. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of God be lifted up.
That substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's
the Gospel. That He satisfied divine justice
for all of His people, that's the Gospel. that he honored God
in his life and in his death, suffering the penalty for our
sins. That's the good news. That's
the glad tidings of the gospel right there. That whosoever believeth in him
shall not perish, but have eternal life. You see, true angels magnify
true preachers and magnify the shepherd of the sheep. the savior
of sinners. When we say we preach Christ
crucified, that means we proclaim who he is. He's God and man. Better not a service go by that
we don't talk about that. What did he do? He laid down
his life for his people. Service better not go by that
we don't talk about that. Where is He now as a result of
accomplishing the salvation of His people? He's in glory. He's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not a hell insurance policy. He's the Lord of glory. The man
Christ Jesus sits upon the throne that God has assigned to Him
as His reward for His successful work of salvation. He's not trying
to rule the world. He does rule the world. And He's
not trying to save His people. He already saved His people and
in conversion we find out about it through the work of the Spirit. But I hasten to get to this third
point. This angel of the Lord in chapter
3 and verse 2 of Exodus This is an altogether different angel
now. He's a special messenger. He's
a one-of-a-kind representative of God. He's the omnipotent and
eternal ambassador whom God sent into this world to visit Moses
on this occasion and convey the divine message to him. You're
the appointed deliverer and I'm going to be with you. And you
go and you tell those people when they ask who sent you, you
tell them, I am that I am has sent you. And I'll deal more
fully with that next Wednesday. This is the son of God. Now,
when we say Christ is the son of God or the angel of the Lord,
excuse me, When we say Christ is the angel of the Lord, that
does not in any way take away from His deity. For He is both Jehovah and Jehovah's
messenger. He said, I am that I am. I'm
God over all, blessed forever. And in his mediatorial capacity,
nice big word, as our mediator, as the only mediator between
God and men, as our surety, as our substitute, he's the angel
of the Lord. And oft times in the Old Testament,
he took the appearance of a man to convey his message to men and women. Our Lord Jesus,
make no mistake, he is God. He's God manifest in the flesh.
Philip said, show us the Father and it'll satisfy us. He said,
have I been with you so long? You've been following me, you've
been listening to my teaching, been listening to my preaching.
Don't you understand, Philip? He that has seen me, he's seen
the Father. He's all of God, your physical
eyes and glory are ever going to see. He's God. manifest in the flesh,
and he still is. He still is. You see, he's the fulfillment
of the covenant of grace. That involves salvation by substitution
and representation. He represented us in the covenant
of grace. He represented us when he came
to this world 2,000 years ago. He lived and died for us. He
arose for us. He ascended for us. And He represents
us in glory right now. The angel of the Lord. He made a commitment to satisfy
divine justice and He did just that. And that's why God rewarded
Him with exaltation. Our Lord Jesus came into the
world to make reparation to the justice of God. We hear a lot
these days from some various groups demanding reparation. We've been wronged, and now we
ought to be given money or land or whatever the case may be.
I'm not gonna get into those things, but they're demanding
reparation The justice of God demanded reparation. Now somebody's
going to pay. And Christ said, I'll repair and
restore that which I didn't take away. We had violated in Adam God's
law. Christ came and honored it. He
made reparation by his life. He made reparation by his death.
He made everything right. Everything right between us and
God. What stood in the way of us and a holy God? Lord said
your sins and iniquities like a mountain standing in the way.
Behold our Lord Jesus Christ, the Angel of the Covenant, the
Angel of the Lord. He came and you know what He
did? He moved the mountain. There's no mountain that remains.
He tore the veil from top to bottom. It's done. It's done. We come to God now by Him. The new and living way. I tell you, He's the Angel of
the Lord. He's the angel, Isaiah 63 verse 9 says, He's the angel
of God's presence. And you look that up, that word
presence means face. He's the angel who looks God
right in the face. There is a man, Christ Jesus,
who can stand face to face with God, equal with Him in every
way, and yet, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. He's the angel of God's face. I got an ambassador between me
and God. I have a representative. And
he's in the very presence of God. He's the angel of the Lord. And our Savior is always going
to be the angel of the Lord. Let me show you a reference here. Look at Revelation chapter Revelation chapter 20. Let me
give you this. Revelation chapter 20. The angel
of the Lord. Our Savior is the angel of the
Lord. I know there are created angels
who are with us ministering spirits. I know that preachers are angels
of the Lord. Ambassadors? Representatives? Speaking the very truth of God?
But our Savior is the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord. And Revelation chapter 20 verses
1 through 3, He's the angel who came down with a great chain
and bound Satan. Are you there? Revelation 20
verse 1, And I saw an angel This is not a created angel, and this
sure isn't a preacher. I saw an angel come down from
heaven. He's got the key to the bottom of this pit, and he had
a great chain in his hand. Well, this can't be a created
angel. He can't be a mere man. Because
here's what he did. He laid hold on the dragon. He is the real dragon slayer. He's for sure. He really did
that. He laid hold on the dragon. Well,
who's that? That old serpent, which is the
devil, also known as Satan. and he bound him a thousand years. That's just a symbolic number
for a long, long time. The Savior, the angel from God
did that. The angel of the Lord did that.
Cast him into the bottomless pit. Shut him up. He set a seal
upon him that he should deceive the nations no more till the
thousand years should be fulfilled. To whatever period God has ordained,
that he releases him for just a little season. And then this
angel who came down and bound him, he's gonna cast him into hell.
This is the angel of the Lord, our Savior, our God and King,
our Redeemer, the angel of the Lord. He appeared to Moses. spoke with him. And you know,
by his spirit, through his word, through the preaching of his
gospel, he appears to us. And he speaks to us. By his spirit. The angel of the Lord.