There's no question about that.
And they hunted him. They were after him from his
birth. And the religious leaders, they
all turned thumbs down on him. None of them had anything to
do with him. They all sought to kill him. They all sought
to put him away. They all sought to do away with
him. And yet, they could not destroy
him. You say, but they had him arrested
and crucified, but that didn't destroy him. Because you see,
that was all according to the purpose of God. And his death
was not the destruction of the Lord Jesus. His death was the
destruction of our sins. By his death, he put to death
all of our iniquities. By his death, he dealt a fatal
blow to Satan. That wasn't his defeat. No evil
shall befall thee. He's been proven to be the perfect
man. The man who made God his habitation,
the man whose faith never wavered, the man who always loved God
perfectly and loved his neighbor as himself. And therefore God
says, as a result of that, no evil's gonna befall you. and no plague shall ever come nigh in thy dwelling. This is the man that God watched
over. He's the perfect one. And I want
you to understand in all of his perfections, he was not living
just for himself. He was a representative man.
All that he did, the reason he came into this world was to save
his people. God in covenant grace gifted
him a people. And those people became, we became
transgressors through Adam's fall. But our savior way back
in old eternity, he stood as our representative in the covenant
of grace. And he promised himself, he promised
to the Father that he himself would enter into this world and
do for us what we could not do for ourselves. You see, God's
demands have not lessened. God did not say, well, since
these people, they can't love me with all their heart, mind,
and soul, and strength, they can't have an unwavering faith,
so I'll just, I'll make exceptions for them, and I won't demand
as much since they have no ability. No, that's not the case, because
God cannot lessen his demands. But this is what God did. He
sent a representative who in our stead lived that life of
perfect faith and perfect love and perfect obedience, doing
everything with this motive, God's glory. Aren't you thankful
for such a representative? He lived in your stead. Moreover,
he died in your stead and in my stead. Why? Because that's what God's law
demanded. The soul that sinneth shall die.
There's gonna be death. There's got to be death for sin. And behold the death of the Lord
Jesus. In all his ways, in all of his
actions, in his life and in his death, he was always the obedient
servant of God. Isaiah calls him God's righteous
servant, who established righteousness for his people by his obedience
unto death. And by his death, he satisfied
God. Now watch this, he says, verse
11, therefore, the word for means therefore or because of what
he's done. He shall give his angels, he
shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all
thy ways. What does the word charge mean?
Now we use that word sometimes, we'll say, well, you're in charge. Lots of times when I leave the
office, I'll say to Ron, you're in charge now. That means you
run things around here while I'm gone. You have the authority. But that's not what the word
means here. When it says he shall give his
angels charge over thee, it doesn't mean his angels will govern over
you. The angels of God will have power
over you. That's not it at all. Think of
the word charge as being given a commandment. He shall give his angels a commandment
about you. Well, what is that commandment?
What does God ordain that these angels do? To keep thee in all
thy ways, to protect you. to hold you up in all your ways. In fact, he says this in verse
12, they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy
foot against a stone. This is very amazing. Because
the one that's being, the first one who's being spoken about
here is the Lord Jesus, our Savior. One who is equal with God in
every way. He is the perfect God. He had
to be God to be a savior to us, right? We know that. He had to
be God to do business with God. Nobody can do business with God,
but one who's equal with God. One who can look as it were eye
to eye with God. and meet all of his demands and
meet all of his requirements. Our Lord Jesus was God. He is
God. He's always been God. He's the
perfect son of God. This is one of the issues that
the Jews had with him, that he said he was the son of God. They
considered that to be blasphemy. But he also had to be man. Man had sinned, man had broken
God's law, therefore man must die. And I spoke this past Wednesday
night about the complexity of the Lord Jesus. This enters into
that. Here he is, the mighty God, the
everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, that one whose name
is Wonderful and Counselor. And yet here he is, and here's
the promise of God to him, the angels will bear you up. This
is quite astounding because you see, as they bore him up in his
divinity, in his might, he was bearing them up. Oh, how wonderful
and marvelous and mysterious is this one, the Lord Jesus Christ,
God and man. The Amplified reads verse 11
in this way, for he will give his angels a special charge over
you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways
of obedience and service. And they held him up. How often we read of them coming
to him to minister to this one who is the angel of God. They shall bear thee up. They
shall sustain you. They shall hold you up. They'll
preserve you. The angels, they were, here was
their charge. God said, keep my son safe. Isn't
that astounding? And in saying, keep my son safe,
he was also saying, keep my son's people safe. Keep all the families
safe. And we'll get into that even
more this evening. Yes, here's the reality of our
Lord's manhood. Now, as I begin to deal with
this subject of angels, understand this, the word angel means messenger
or ambassador or one who is sent. And in the Bible, the word angel
has a threefold reference or usage. Number one, it refers
to that, pre-incarnate revelation of God to man. The Lord Jesus
is spoken of as being the angel of the Lord. This was the Son
of God, the invisible God taking upon him the figure of a man
before his incarnation. Secondly, Angels refers to heavenly
creatures who are said to be in Hebrews chapter one in verse
14, ministering spirits who are sent forth to those who shall
be the heirs of salvation. This is the usage here in Psalm
91, when it says he shall give his angels charge over thee. The meaning is these heavenly
creatures, about which we know a few things,
and I'll get into that subject more this evening. But they're
still very mysterious. They're numberless, and they're
invisible, and they have tremendous power as given to them by God. Invisible creatures, which oft
times in the Bible took on a visible appearance. Otherwise, men couldn't
have seen them. They were the guardians of our
Lord Jesus while he was on this earth, and they are the guardians
of God's people. It is wrong to say you have a
guardian angel. You have many angels who guard
you. That's a wonderful thought, isn't
it? Let me ask you this. Did they guard the Lord Jesus?
They'd never disobey God. Some of the angels did and they
fell, but God keeps the elect angels always in obedience to
him. And they guarded over and they
preserved, they held up our savior. They do the same thing for us.
Did they fail with him? No. Were they obedient to God
in holding him up and safekeeping him and preserving him? Yes.
And so they will be obedient to God in guarding you, in watching
over you and preserving you and preserving me. And we'll deal
with that tonight. And then also the word is used
with regard to preachers of the gospel. John, the apostle John, in the
book of Revelation chapter one, he saw the magnificent glorified
savior in the midst of seven golden candlesticks. And then he noticed in his right
hand, he had seven stars. Later in chapter one, right toward
the end, the last verse, I believe, He says of those seven stars,
he said they're the seven angels of the churches of Asia Minor. Seven angels, that is seven preachers
or pastors of the gospel. So angel means what? Messenger. What else does it
mean? Ambassador. What else does it mean? One who
is sent. And we see the usage in the Bible
to the pre-incarnate revelation of God to men, referred to as
the angel, the angel of the Lord. And then secondly, heavenly creatures
who are called ministering spirits, and then thirdly, preachers of
the gospel. Now, I wanna talk to you about
the angel of the Lord. The first usage of this, and
I'm actually not gonna turn to this passage, and if you want
to jot it down and read it later, certainly I encourage you to
do that. It's in Genesis chapter 16 and verse 7, where the angel
of the Lord appeared to Hagar. Remember, she was Sarah's handmaid,
to encourage her to make various promises to her. And in that
setting, in that context, the angel of the Lord said to Hagar,
I will multiply the seed of thy son. Her son was Ishmael. Now the angel of the Lord did
not say, God will, multiply the seed of Ishmael. The angel of
God, the angel of the Lord said, I will. Listen, nobody's got
the authority or power to do that sort of thing save that
one who is God himself. This is a pre-incarnate appearance
of the Lord Jesus, and He frequently revealed Himself throughout the
Old Testament as being that messenger from God, that one scent of God,
that ambassador who was commissioned by God to come to this earth. And he appeared to many different
people. If you're able to search it out
on a Bible software, type in the angel of the Lord, you'll
be amazed at the numbers of times that was used. when the Lord
appeared to Moses in the bush that burned but wasn't consumed.
He appeared as the angel of the Lord. And then the angel of the
Lord told Moses his name. My name is I am. That's what
he said. I am that I am. That's the angel
of the Lord. This angel of the Lord is our
savior. Now, let me give you three things
here. I want you to first of all, go
to Malachi chapter three. Of course, that's the last book
of the Old Testament. And I wanna show you these three
things. Number one, our savior is the
angel of the covenant. Malachi chapter three and verse one. Behold, I will send my messenger. Who's the I? Who's the speaker? Well, it isn't Malachi. It is
the son of God. It is the Lord Jesus himself.
Behold, I will send my messenger. Watch it. And he shall prepare
the way before me. The speaker is the son of God. The one he's referring to as
my messenger is John the Baptist. And he shall prepare the way
before me. You see that identifies the speaker. And then Malachi says, and the
Lord, The Lord whom ye seek, he shall suddenly come into his
temple, watch it, even the messenger of the covenant, or the angel
of the covenant, or the ambassador of the covenant, or the representative
of the covenant. whom you delight in. Behold,
and this is the message of all the prophets of the Old Testament.
You ought to underline this next expression. Behold, be amazed. He shall come, saith the Lord
of hosts. He is the sent one. He is the
angel of the covenant. He is the messenger of the covenant. He's sent to restore that which
he took not away. He was sent to redeem the slaves. He was sent to reconcile enemies
to God. Our Lord Jesus, the angel of
the covenant, he came into this world to fulfill his covenant
obligations. Obligations which he willingly
took on himself out of love and grace to his people. There never was any reluctance
on his part. There was never any hesitation.
We were given to him by the Father in the covenant of grace and
he willingly came forth. This messenger, this angel of
the covenant, his children were given to him
in covenant mercy and received by him, he came to satisfy God. You see, in that covenant of
grace, now of that covenant of grace, what do we know? Well,
it took place before the world began, but here's what I want
you to see. In that covenant of grace, wherein
salvation was ordained, the people were ordained unto everlasting
life, the Savior and the means whereby he would save his people,
all of that, was worked out in the covenant of grace. But here's
what I want you to see. We had a representative in that
covenant. We had somebody there who stood
for us, who represented us, who spoke for us. And he promised
the Father perfect obedience, obedience up to and including
death. and his resurrection by which
he would save these people that the Father gave to him in covenant
grace. He's the angel of the covenant.
Why, his blood is called the blood of the covenant. You remember
when our Lord Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, he said, this
is the blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the
remission of sins. This is the blood ordained in
that everlasting covenant where I stood as the representative
of all my people and I pledged my life, my life's blood. I'd save him. I'd save him by
my death. He's a messenger of the covenant.
He's the representative of the covenant. You see, the head of the church
was in that covenant, not as a mere onlooker, but as one who
represented his people and had a vital interest in us. He's
the messenger of the covenant. And on our behalf, he stood for
us and entered into covenant, a covenant in which he obligated
himself. to be the savior of his people.
Learn two things. First of all, Christ's fulfillment
of that covenant involved substitution, or we could put it this way,
satisfaction by representation. He took our place when he lived
and when he died. His life was necessary, but it
wasn't his life that put away our sins, it was his death. and God didn't spare him. God
poured out the entirety of the wrath that he had due to the
sins of his people. He poured it all out into the
very bosom of the son of God. So much so that our savior said,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Not my father, but
my God. The perfect servant. He was our substitute. Substitution
and representation. Learn that. Here's the second
thing. Christ's fulfillment of the covenant involves salvation
by satisfaction or by reparation. Reparation. God demanded death
for sin. Yes, he's full of mercy. He's
full of grace. He delights to save the sinful,
but he can only do so in a manner consistent with his justice. Our Lord Jesus made reparation
for all of his people. Listen, we had attacked the glory
of God. We had attacked the honor of
God. We wronged God. There had to be reparation. Somebody
had to come and repair the breach. And somebody had to come and
restore honor from one man on behalf of all of his people.
And our Lord Jesus did that. He made reparation to God. He made satisfaction to God. What will it take to make this
right? It will take your death, so be
it. And the scripture says his life
wasn't taken from him. He wasn't reluctant. He laid
down his life. He said, I have the power to
lay down my life and I have the power to take it again. Who is
this? He's the angel of the covenant.
And then secondly, I want you to look at Isaiah chapter 63.
Isaiah chapter 63. So our savior is number one.
He's the angel of the covenant. Number two, our savior is the
angel of God's presence. The angel of the covenant, the
angel of God's presence. Isaiah chapter 63 and verse nine. In all their affliction, he was
afflicted. And the angel of his presence
saved them. In his love and in his pity,
this angel of his presence redeemed them. And this angel of his presence,
he bared them and he carried them all the days of old. Now this angel is not a created
angel. This is the angel of God's presence. He is the angel who has always
been in the presence of God. John says he was with God and
he was God. This is the angel who stands
in the presence of God as one who is his equal. He stands face
to face with God. In fact, this word presence You
can look it up, the original word is very often translated
as face. He is the angel of God's face. He's the angel of God's face.
You see, to see him is to see the face of God. You're not gonna
see the face of God anywhere else except in the face of the
Lord Jesus. After all, we read in the book
of Colossians chapter one in verse 15, he is the image, the
visible image of the invisible God. And you remember second Corinthians
chapter four in verse six, For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, where is it? In the face of Jesus Christ. He's the angel of God's presence. He's the angel of God's face. Go with me back to Exodus. If
you would, Exodus chapter 33. Exodus chapter 33. Yes, our Lord Jesus came forth
from the face of God and to see him is to see the face of God. Do you remember what? on one
occasion there in John chapter 14, Philip said to the Savior,
he said, show us or manifest to us, give us a revelation of
God and we'll be satisfied, it'll suffice us. The Lord Jesus said
in him, Philip, have I been with you for so long? Don't you know,
don't you understand, don't you perceive that to see me is to
see the Father. Those who've seen me have seen
the Father. You've seen the face of God.
Here next is 33. Look at verse 13. Moses is speaking
to the Lord. Now therefore, Exodus 33, 13.
Now therefore, I pray thee, If I have found grace in thy
sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee and that I may
find grace in thy sight and consider that this nation is thy people. And he said, my presence, remember what that word presence
means so often, my face. shall go with thee, and I will
give thee rest. And then he said unto him, if
thy presence, if thy face, if the face of God go not with me,
carry us not up hence. Look back up here at verse nine.
And it came to pass as Moses entered into the tabernacle,
Something happened, the cloudy pillar descended. You know that pillar of cloud
and the pillar of fire, pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire
by night. You know that, that was the presence
of the Lord Jesus. He's the face of God. Once again,
over in chapter 34 in verse five, and the Lord descended in the
cloud and stood with him there and he proclaimed the name of
the Lord. Our savior is the angel of God's
presence. To see him is to see God. And God said to him, my presence
shall go with thee, my face will go with you. And I'm saying to
the people of God, to you who believe now, to you who rest
all of your soul's salvation in Christ Jesus the Lord, God
makes this promise to you. My face will go with you. My presence will go with you.
The angel of my presence, he'll carry you through. He is the
cloudy pillar by day, and he is the pillar of fire by night.
He's the face of God. Now how safe are you? How preserved
are you? Our Savior is the angel of the
covenant. Number two, he's the angel of
God's presence. Now here's the last thing, Genesis
22. Now, he is the angel of the Lord. That's the title of the message,
and I'll get to that now. The angel of the Lord. Other than that passage in Genesis
that I referred to where the angel of the Lord appeared to
Hagar, this is the next time this expression, the angel of
the Lord, is used. And you know the story, the Lord,
has commanded Abraham to take his son whom he loved, his only
son Isaac, up on a mountain that he would show him and to offer
him there as a burnt offering unto him. And so they went forth,
he and Isaac and two servants. After they had traveled for a
little bit, Abraham said to the two servants, you remain here.
I'm the lad will go yonder and worship. That's what Abraham
said. And so he and Isaac went forth
to a mountain that God showed him and Abraham piled some rocks
together. He made an altar. Of course,
along the way, Isaac being a very bright young man, Having witnessed
his father offering many a burnt offering, as they as a family
worshiped God, he said to his father, behold the fire and the
wood, where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And I'll just read
in verse eight, Genesis 22, eight. And Abraham said, my son, God
will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering, so they went
both of them together. God will see to it. God will
take care of it. And so verse nine, they came
to the place which God had told him of, and Abraham built an
altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his
son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched
forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. Here's this
angel of the Lord now. The angel of the Lord, this ambassador
from God, this representative, this one who is the very angel
of the covenant, the angel of God's presence. The one who is
the face of God, the angel of the Lord, called out unto him
from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am
I. And he said, lay not thine hand
upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. Watch this,
for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld
thy son, thine only son, from This is the voice of the one
who gave him the command to begin with. You've not withheld him
from me. This is the angel of the Lord. This is that messenger who came
to him. Our savior, who's the representative
to us sent from God. You see, he is both Jehovah and
he is Jehovah's messenger. He is both God and he is the
face of God. This is the angel of redemption.
In Genesis chapter 48, and if you wanna take note of this,
it's verse 16, Jacob, and in that context, he's called Israel,
the prince of God. He was blessing the two sons
of Joseph. And he says, the angel of the
Lord who redeemed me, who redeemed me. Bless you boys. You see this one who is the angel
of the Lord. He's the one who redeemed us.
He's the one who's our savior. And because he purposed to do
that, we're the recipients of the blessings of God in a manner
consistent with the justice of God. This is the angel of the
Lord. And I'll give you three things
to close with. He's the angel who, according
to Revelation chapter he came with a great chain in his hand
and he bound that evil serpent, Satan. He bound him. He did that at the cross of Calvary
in fulfillment of Genesis 3.15. A necessary work that this angel
of the covenant, this angel of God's presence, the angel of
the Lord, he must bind the evil one. lest he do any damage to
us. And secondly, in Revelation 20,
he is the angel who will exercise judgment over all the wicked
at last. And thirdly, he's the angel of
the Lord who sets upon his throne of glory. He is that one who
is the face of God the face of God. And he's the one who's gonna
bring all of the purpose of God to fulfillment at last. In fact, we read right at the
end of the book in Revelation chapter 21 and verse six, he
will say, it is done. That's what he said when he was
dying. It is finished. Redemption is
finished, he said. And then in the end of Revelation
there in chapter 21, he says, it's done. What is done? All the purpose of God. Everything
God commissioned him to do, he did in perfect conformity to
God's will. He glorified God in all things
and he saved his people from their sins. He's the angel of
the Lord. Do you know him? Do you trust
him? Oh, people of God, here is our
safety. Here is our preservation. This
one who is the angel of the covenant, the angel of God's presence,
this one who is the angel of the Lord, he has been commissioned
to take care of us. to guard us, to hold us up. And he said in John chapter 10,
concerning his sheep, he said, I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish. Neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Oh, what a savior
is ours. And what a salvation we have
in this one who is the angel of the Lord. Let's close in prayer.