Thank you. Let's go back to Revelation
this evening, Revelation chapter 8. I don't usually take my jacket
off, but I am already hot. Somebody said, are you hot under
the collar? I'm hot everywhere. This is another vision that God gives
to John. Our Lord Jesus, He's revealing
these things to His servant. And this being the third one. At the very beginning of this
vision, this is what John sees. The second verse of chapter 8. I saw seven angels and he said
they stood before God. And it was given to them, the
scripture says, seven trumpets. They stand before God waiting
to obey whatever he says. They stand before God ready and
awaiting every word from the Lord that they would fulfill. Seven is the number of perfection. How many angels does God have? He has a perfect number. Just exactly the number that
serves His purpose You go back in the 5th chapter. We read in
verse number 11, Revelation 5.11. And I beheld and I heard the
voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and
the elders. Here's the number of the angels.
Ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands. That's a lot of angels. Well,
another question we could ask is what do they do? What do these
angels do? Thousands upon thousands and
thousands of angels. What do they do? What do they
do? Go back to Hebrews chapter 2.
Look at just a few verses here this evening. Hebrews chapter
2. These are magnificent spiritual creatures. that God uses. Hebrews, the first chapter, sets
forth our Lord Jesus and He's better than everything. That's
the whole book of Hebrews. And certainly in chapter one,
the apostle writes and speaks of how the Lord Jesus is vastly
superior to the angels. In fact, God issued a command
to the angels These angels, ever ready to listen to God's commands
and obey what He says to do, the Lord says to worship Him. That's what God says, worship
Christ Jesus. There are all these tens of thousands
times ten thousand angels and thousands of thousands, and all
of them, God Almighty says to them, worship My Son. And they
do. They do. Well, and this is at least one
of their purposes. It's found in the last verse
of chapter 1, where it says, are they not all ministering
spirits? That is, they're made to serve.
They serve God's purpose. They're sent forth to minister
to them who shall be the heirs of salvation. They're ministering
spirits that were made by God, made by our Heavenly Father.
He sends them forth to serve the needs of those who shall
be the heirs of salvation. They're faithful servants. God
used them in mysterious ways to wait on his people. We know that of all the angels
that God made, a third of them fell with Lucifer. Lucifer, he was the first to
fall. He envied the position that the
Lord Jesus, the Son of God, was going to have as the exalted
man. The Father had ordained that
the Son of God have all authority over all things, and that's what
Lucifer wanted. He wanted the position of the
Son of God. And he desired that in his innermost
being, and in that rebellion, of course, he fell. He fell. Well, there were, of all the
angels that God made, all these 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands
of thousands, one, the scripture says, one-third of them, one-third,
they also fell in his rebellion. Now, you need to understand this. They didn't fall by representation. But, individually, individually,
there is no redemption for the angels that fell. There isn't
any salvation for them. And for this reason, they have
no representative to save them. You see, this is a good thing,
if you can say a good thing about Adam's fall. He was our representative. That's
how we fell. That's how we got into this mess,
through Adam's disobedience. As a result of his defiance of
God, that one man, one act within him in rebellion against God,
Adam, as a representative man, when he fell, we fell. One man's disobedience, Romans
chapter 5. That charged us. That's the reason
the Bible says you're born sinful. There's already a sinner. You
don't become a sinner whenever you commit that first sin. You
actually commit that first sin because you're born a sinner.
You became a sinner through your representative. But here's the
good news. Here's the best news. As we fail
by representative, that's how we're saved. That's how we're
made righteous. By the obedience of another representative,
even the son of God. What was his obedience? His obedience
unto death, Philippians chapter two, right? Obedience unto death,
even the death of the cross. By that death, He brought in
righteousness. He established righteousness
for all of His people. And so, when He was obedient
to God, in that obedience of our blessed substitute, our Savior,
in that obedience, we see our righteousness. We see our acceptance
before God. Know that since one-third of
the angels fell, two-thirds didn't fall. You know what they're called?
Elect angels. That's why they didn't fall.
That's the reason they didn't follow Lucifer and his rebellion,
because God ordained that they wouldn't. You see, our God ordains
all things to fulfill His purpose. Well, now, as to these angels
and us, God uses them to minister to us in, I don't know, mysterious
ways. I've had people say, I wish you'd
explain it to me. I can't explain it. I just know
they minister to the people of God. We know God has a chosen people
made up of people from every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue,
chosen unto salvation, redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus.
We've got to be brought into the fold of salvation, no question
about that. And it is the work of these angels
to watch over us, to be there for our safety, even from our
conception, all the way to the last breath of life. And God
uses them to help us. To minister to us. There's an
interesting passage. Go over to Luke chapter 16. If you would. Luke chapter 16. You know this story of the rich
man and Lazarus. Luke chapter 16. And the Scripture says Verse
19, there was a certain rich man, Luke 16, 19. There was a certain rich man
which was clothed in purple and fine linen. He fared sumptuously
every day. There was a certain beggar named
Lazarus which was laid at his gate full of sowers and desiring
to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.
Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sowers. He came to pass,
the beggar died. And God used angels to do something. Angels of God stood guard over
his soul. And when the heavenly Father
took the life of Lazarus away, when that was fulfilled, when
Lazarus breathed his last breath, Oh, he was, I suspect, as far
as men were concerned, nobody was with him. He was a poor beggar. Nobody cared anything about him.
I don't know, somewhere along life's way he heard the gospel.
But sure, he didn't go to heaven because he was a poor man, any
more than the rich man went to hell because he was rich. This
man, he's going to go to glory because of the The death of the
Lord Jesus. He's going to go because of the
Christ of Calvary. Right? We know that's true. But at His deathbed, wherever
He was when He died, all of these angels gathered around Him. And
the Heavenly Father said, it's time for Lazarus to come home.
And the angels of God took His soul, escorted Him. right into glory. That's what happened with dear
Elizabeth a couple of weeks ago. Angels of mercy had watched over
her ever since she was conceived. Her heavenly father sent those
ministering spirits and they were her servants. They somehow
protected her from evil, from death. They guarded her, led her through life as they
were directed by the spirit of grace. And then Lord took her
home to glory using these angels. Same thing happened to Buddy
yesterday morning, a little bit past six in the morning. The
angels of God, these ministering spirits, they've been with Buddy. Angels have been with Buddy ever
since he was conceived in his mother's womb 80 years ago. And yesterday, what, just 12
minutes past six or something like that, the Lord said it's
time for Buddy to come home. Angels bring him home. And they did. That's what they
do. That's what they do. They're
before God. They stand before God waiting. What do you want us to do? Tell
us what to do. And they minister to you and
me. Look at Matthew chapter 18. Let
me give you another reference here. Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18, look at verse
10. Take heed that you despise not
one of these little ones. And here's the reason, for I
say unto you that in heaven there are angels, there are angels,
angels that are assigned to their case. Their angels do always behold
the face of my Father which is in heaven. You say, oh, so this
is talking about the Lord looks after little children. That's
not what it's talking about. Keep reading. For the Son of
Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. I'll thank
ye if a man hath a hundred sheep, and one of them gone astray,
doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the
mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be
that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more than
that sheep, 99, which went not astray. Even so,
it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of
these little ones should perish. Who are these little ones? His
people. His sheep. Those sheep that he
died for. I'm the good shepherd, the good
shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. And all of these sheep
have angels watching. over them, watching over us. And He says, don't despise one
of these little ones. He's talking about don't look
down your nose at one of God's children. Don't ever do that. Because if you despise one of
the redeemed, you despise the Redeemer. If you despise one of his sheep,
you despise the shepherd. Tell you what, the father holds
his children dear to his heart. You hold your children dear to
your heart? You surely do. I tell you, if somebody wants to
get on my bad side, Do something to one of my children or one
of my grandchildren. Now you're there already, right? You're already on my bad side.
You know what I mean? And I tell you what, don't despise
one of God's little ones. You say, I don't like him. He
rubs me the wrong way. Maybe he does rub you the wrong
way. Well, I can't see eye to eye with him on everything. Maybe
you can't see eye to eye with him on everything. But if he
loves the gospel, Don't you look down your nose at Him. Don't
you despise Him. Don't ever mistreat Him. He's
one of God's little ones. One of God's little ones. One writer said, it's no light
matter to despise those who have angels for companions and friends. It'd be best not to despise somebody
like that. Somebody who's got a host of
angels looking after them? I expect I better not mistreat
them. They might come back on me. Might come back on me. Angels. Angels. I know there's a superstition
that every person has a guardian angel. That's not true. You can't
find that in the Bible. You got lots of angels. You got
lots of angels. In fact, all of God's angels
are our guardians and they wait before the very throne of God. Lord, what can I do for your
sheep? Lord, what can we do for these,
your people? And God says, look after them.
You say, well, does God need the angels? He doesn't need the
angels any more than He needs you or me. But He uses you and
me. He uses preachers of the gospel. He could do without me. He could
do without you. He could have written His gospel
in the sky. He pleased God through the foolishness
of preaching to save them to believe. And it pleased God to
use these angelic beings, majestic beings, these creatures God made. He uses them to help us. They're
very intelligent spirits, excellent in wisdom, excellent in power.
They're the secret servants of Jehovah's Kingdom. I don't have
the secret service looking after me. I have secret servants looking
after me. And I would say, could we see
how they watch over us and how they guard us from countless
evils, how they keep us from all these foes that are against
us, we just absolutely rejoice. I think about Elisha's servant. You remember when Ben-Adad, he
was the king of the great army, the king of Syria, and the Syrian
army, he headed that up, and well, he hated Israel, and so
he's just gonna, he's gonna beat up on Israel, Boy, every time
he'd send a great number of soldiers out
to attack Israel, Israel would move because he'd send a message
to the king of Israel, well, here's where the Syrian army
is going to attack you, so don't be there. You need to pack up
your things and move. They'd do that. Scripps said
that didn't happen one time, it didn't just happen two times,
it happened several times. King Ben-Hadad, he was absolutely
furious. He called all his big shots in. He said, alright, we got a spy.
Somebody's telling the king of Israel all the moves that we're
making. I have my strategy, our generals
have sat down and we've decided we're going to hit them here
and when we go over there, they're gone. We're going to hit them
over here and when we go over there, they're gone. He says,
alright, which one of you is it? And I said, it's not one of us,
it's a preacher. It's a preacher. Elisha. He's down at Dothan. He said,
you go get him. Elisha was camping out, he and
his servant. One morning the servant got up,
he went out the tent. door or whatever it was where
they were staying. He looked and boy, they were
surrounded by Ben Hadad's army. I mean, they were everywhere.
Well, he's scared to death and he goes back into Elisha and
he says, Alas, Master, alas. We're absolutely surrounded. No possibility of escape. Elisha
said, Lord, open his eyes. He said, take another look. And
he looked, and he saw fiery chariots, horses pulling them, angels. Oh, a whole lot more of them
than there was of Ben Hadad's army. You visualize that the
next time you're in trouble and the next time something most
unpleasant happens to you. Let's ask God, Lord open my eyes
that I might see these creatures that you've sent to minister
to me. But now go back to the text.
Because I don't want to talk to you just about these angels. Alright? These seven angels,
a perfect number of angels. We'll talk about the trumpets
next Lord's Day. This is what I want to talk to
you about the rest of the time in chapter 8 verse 3, is this
other angel. He sees another angel. This one is different than these
others. This is what this another angel
did. He came and stood at the altar. And he has a golden censer. There was given unto him much
incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints
upon the golden altar which was before the throne. The smoke
of the incense which came with the prayers of the saints ascended
up before God, watch it, right out of that angel's hand. In
other words, all the prayers of God's people went into the
hands of this angel. This angel hands them to God. Now this is a much more important
angel than those other angels. In fact, these other angels,
they worship this angel. Because this angel is the angel
of the covenant. This is the Son of God. This
is the Lord Jesus. Look back at Exodus chapter 3.
Exodus chapter 3. Oh, I just gave myself a funny.
I've been preaching an hour and seven minutes. That's because
I forgot to reset it from this morning. They see me do the math. I didn't major in math, so I'm
lost. So we'll just keep going. Oh, look at Exodus chapter 3. Exodus chapter 3 verse 1. Now
Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, and the priests
of Midian. He led the flock to the backside
of the desert. He came to the mountain of God,
even to Horeb. You know what that is? Mount
Sinai. Mount Sinai. Make a note if you don't know
that. Mount Sinai. And the angel of the Lord, appeared unto him in the flame
of fire out of the midst of the bush. And he looked, and behold,
the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. By
the way, if you look this up, this is not a big oak tree or
a big cedar tree. This is a lowly thorn bush. That's what it is, thorn bush. After all, many years after this,
he's going to wear a crown of thorns. It's a thorn bush. He speaks to Moses. Moses said,
verse 3, I'll now turn aside and see this great sight while
the bush is not burned. And when the Lord saw that he
turned aside to see, God called him out of the midst of the bush
and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, here am I. And he
said, draw not nigh hither. Put off thy shoes from thy feet,
for the place whereupon thou standest is a holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God
of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he
was afraid to look upon God. This is God speaking to him,
and it is the Son of God. It's the angel of God. That's
who this is. The angel of the Lord. As you go through the Old Testament,
you'll find him appearing over and over and over again. This is the second person of
the Trinity. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. What does the word angel mean? Messenger. Messenger. You see, the Lord Jesus is, at
the same time, God. And He's the messenger from God. And I'll give you a third one.
He is the message of God. Because He is the Word. He's
the messenger from God. He is God. And he's the message
from God. Go over to the book of Malachi.
That's the last book of the Old Testament, so you won't have
any trouble finding that. Malachi chapter 3. Malachi chapter 3. Whenever you
men read from up here or read in the back, always wait until
you stop hearing the pages turn. That's what I try to do. I mean,
unless somebody just can't find it, then we can't wait on you.
If you're that slow, we'll give you a reasonable amount of time
to find it. Malachi chapter 3. Malachi 3, look at verse 1. It
starts off with, behold, be amazed. This is something that's absolutely
astounding. God says, I will send my messenger. Who is that? John the Baptist. Because you see, God's preachers
are also called angels. Right? Yeah. Revelation chapter
1, we learn that. The letters to the seven churches
of Asia Minor, to the angel of the church of Ephesus, to the
angel of the church of Sardis, on and on we go through all seven
of them. Messenger, an angel is a messenger,
and so God's preachers are likened to angels. But he says, I will
send my messenger. The particular messenger he has
in mind is John the Baptist. And he shall prepare the way
before me. And the Lord whom ye seek, he
shall suddenly come to his temple, even, watch it, the messenger
of the covenant, that is, the angel of the covenant, whom ye
delight in, behold, he shall come. And really, that's the
message of every prophet of the Old Testament, isn't it? Behold,
He shall come. All the prophets of God wrote
of Him and spoke of Him. He shall come. He's the messenger
of the covenant. He is Himself the mediator of
the covenant. And it's His blood that ratified
the covenant. In fact, His blood is called
the blood of the New Testament. The blood of the covenant. So
this angel back over here in Revelation chapter 8, this special
angel, this different angel, these other angels, they are
the servants of this angel. This angel is the one that they
worship. And this other angel, he comes
and he stood at the altar. Back in Revelation chapter 8
now. Verse 3, He stood at the altar, He's got a golden censer. That's what they burn incense
in. Now hold your place right there and go to look at the book
of Hebrews chapter 9. Look at Hebrews chapter 9. And this, I tell you what's being,
here's the subject being dealt with is that the new covenant,
the covenant of grace, is better than the old covenant. That's
what this is about. The whole theme of the book of
Hebrews, as you know, is better. That's kind of a key word, better.
Christ Jesus is better, better than the prophets, better than
the angels. His priesthood is better than Aaron's. His sacrifice
is better than the blood of bulls and goats, which can never take
away sin. And he's got a better covenant
too. In fact, He is the covenant. Because God said, I give you
for a covenant to the people. He is the covenant of God. Now
look at Hebrews chapter 9. Then verily the first covenant
had also ordinances of divine service, and the worldly sanctuary,
for there was a tabernacle made, the first, that is the holy place,
wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the showbread,
which is called the sanctuary. And after the second veil, the
tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, which had the
golden censer. The golden censer. Now all of the other, you can
go back to the book of Leviticus and learn about this, and also
in the book of Numbers. But all of the other priests,
they had censers, they burned incense, but they were made of
brass. Only one man had a golden censer
which he used on the Day of Atonement. That's the high priest. That's
the high priest. He burned incense to God. Aaron did. You can read about
it in Leviticus chapter 17 on the Day of Atonement. He's the
only one who used a golden censer. That is the high priest is the
only one who used a golden censer. And he used it on the day of
atonement. Here in Revelation chapter 8,
this angel has a golden censer. He's a high priest. He's the
great high priest. He has a golden censer that he
uses based on His work of redemption. You see, whenever the priests,
even the priests who used brazen censer, whenever they burned
incense, here's what they did. They went out to the brazen altar,
where they had offered a sacrifice to God, and boy, they took those
tongs and they put hot coals in that censer and then put incense
on it. They always did that. See, that's
why Aaron's sons got in such trouble. It says they brought
strange fire. They didn't get it off the brazen
altar. That's something they ignited themselves. Every time a priest doing the
work of God, the will of God, would burn incense, he went out
there and he got those hot coals off the brazen altar where a
sacrifice had been offered. He put it in that censer for
the regular priests, a brazen censer. Went in and burned incense
inside the holy place. On the day of atonement, Aaron,
the high priest, he also offered a sacrifice to God. Remember
he got two goats and one goat died and one goat lived. Because
the one picture, the death of the Lord Jesus, and then I mentioned
this morning about the scapegoat, that picture, the result of the
death of Christ Jesus, our sins were taken away. But Aaron would
take those, he took some coals off the brazen altar, and he
put those hot coals in a golden censer. A golden censer. And then he went in and burned
incense to God. Now that incense, and right there
at the altar of incense, that pictured the, here's a good long
word for you, the mediatorial work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
His work is our mediator. His work is our great high priest.
And you see, everything that he did, all of his prayers to
God and all of his work for God was accepted by God on the basis
of his sacrifice. That's what that pictured, his
sacrifice. And the reason we're accepted,
the reason our prayers are accepted, and our works are accepted, and
our worship is accepted, is because He presents our prayers and our
works to God. It goes to His hands first. See, that's what's being taught
here. Here's this angel of God with
a golden censer. He's offering, look at the end
of verse 3, prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was
before the throne of God." See, everything we do has got to go
through Jesus Christ to get to the Father. You've got to remember
that. He said, I'm the way, I'm the
truth, I'm the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. You can't come to God for anything
except through the person and the work of the Lord Jesus. And even when you offer a prayer
to God, and that's a very holy thing, that's a private thing.
We seek God's face in prayer. And that's certainly one of the
best things we can do. When we come to worship God,
that's a good thing to do. When you read the Word of God,
that's a blessed thing to do. Those will not be accepted by
God just on the basis of you doing them. The reason being,
they come out of a vessel that's sinful. That's the way we are. We're still sinful people. And
I know you want to worship God today, and I believe we are worshiping
God, but it's a sinful worship. You would agree with me on that,
wouldn't you? I mean, the songs that we sing, prayers that are
prayed, the Scripture when we read it, and the preaching of
this, we know there's a lot of self in it. There is. Might as well admit that. It's
a lot of me and I and you and then our minds wander and here
we are trying to worship. You think God's just going to
accept those works on the merits of the fact, well, we're doing
it for God. A holy God cannot accept those
works because they're stained by sin. They have to go into
the hands that are nail scarred. You see what it says? Oh, I love
this in verse 4. The smoke of the incense which
came with the prayers of the saints. Here are all of our prayers.
All of the prayers have been prayed like today by all of the
people of God here. They go up before God. They ascend
up before God out of the angel's hand. And God accepts it. That's just absolutely wonderful.
Here we are, Lord, we're a pitiful bunch of people. Our minds wander. We want to do right. I do want
to do right, and you do too. But we don't do right all the
time, and the best prayer we ever pray. It's stained by sin. It's got pollution. I'm a polluted
vessel. You know, say this glass was
dirty. And Bill put good, clean, sparkling
water into it. And I tell you what, if that's
a dirty vessel, unless I'm just very, very thirsty, because I
get sick so easy anyhow, I'm just not going to drink it. But,
you see, that's the way it is with our prayers. Praying is
a good thing. And this is what is specifically
mentioned here, but he could have said anything else. It comes
out of a polluted vessel. And it's got to go into the hands
of the mediator. And you see, it's the merits
of his substitutionary death. That's the way we come to God.
And then what he does, I don't know exactly how he does it.
Writers have tried to express it. Nobody knows exactly. Somebody
says he washes them in his blood and he puts the fragrance of
his righteousness upon it. That sounds pretty good to me.
But in some way, he takes all the imperfection out of it. Because
God can only accept that which is holy. Right? God can only
accept that which is perfect. A perfect God can't accept anything
less than perfection. You got to pray a perfect prayer.
You ever prayed a perfect prayer? I'll answer for you. You have
not. You ever done a perfect deed? I'll answer for you. You
have not. And if you think you have, you're
very confused. All that we do, even the good
that we seek to do, it's got to go through the Lord Jesus
Christ. And thank God, He takes our pitiful
efforts and He washes them all up. Here,
Father. And the Father says, I accept
that. I'll give you a reference. Hebrews
chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13. See, this much incense represents
the merits of His sacrifice, of His blood that He shed, of
that righteousness He brought in. It's upon the basis of His
sacrifice that He offers our prayers to God. Hebrews chapter 13, look at verse
10. We have an altar where they have no right to eat
which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
for sin, they're burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also
that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without
the camp. Let us go forth, therefore, unto
him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we have
no continuing city, but we seek one to come. By him, therefore,
let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That
is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. By him. Don't miss that. God's not going
to accept anything. He's not going to accept you.
And He's not going to accept anything you do, except you do
it by Christ Jesus. I'm the way, the truth, and the
life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. That is a
hard and fast rule. No exceptions. No exceptions. Oh, thank God, the nail-scarred
hands of the Son of God. He takes our efforts today. Lord,
I've just made a mess of this. That's how I feel like most of
my messages are, is just a mess. But I tell you, He takes them. He puts the blessed perfume of
His sacrifice, which the Scripture says, Ephesians 5, verse 2, sweet-smelling
savor to God. That's what His death is. Sweet
smelling savor to God. And he takes that sweet smelling
savor of his sacrifice and he just dips my prayers into his
blood. And the father says, yep, I'll
take that. I'll accept that worship. And
I'll receive that old poor sinner it came from too. And I'll receive
him and what he tried to do on the basis of his substitute.
who bled and died for them, put his sins away. Well, let's close.