I'm going to read verses 11,
maybe through verse 20, and then we'll start working from verse
11 in our new outline. You guys should have a new outline
from last week, and that's where we'll start. And when Peter was
come to himself, he said, now I know of a surety that the Lord
hath sent his angel and hath delivered me out of the hand
of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jews. And when he had
considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary, the mother
of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together
praying. And as Peter knocked at the door
of the gate, a damsel came to hearken named Rhoda. And when
she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but
ran in and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said
unto her, you are mad. But she constantly affirmed that
it was even so. Then said they, it is an angel.
But Peter continued knocking, and when they had opened the
door and saw him, they were astonished. But he, beckoning unto them with
the hand, told, beckoning with the hand to hold their peace,
declared unto them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison.
And he said, go, show these things unto James and to the brethren,
And he departed and went into another place. Now, as soon as
it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers. What
was become of Peter? And when Herod had sought for
him and found him not, he examined the keepers and commanded that
they should be put to death. And he went down from Judea to
Caesarea in their abode. And Herod was highly displeased
with them of Tyre and Sidon. But they came with one accord
to him, having made Blastus, the king's chamberlain, their
friend, and desired peace, because their country was nourished by
the king's country. And upon a set day, Herod, arrayed
in royal apparel, sat upon his throne and made an oration unto
them. The people gave a shout, saying,
it is the voice of a god and not a man. And immediately the
angel of the Lord smote him, because He gave not God the glory
and was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost. So we'll stop right
there. This chapter is filled with two
ominous miracles. The one of Peter's deliverance
of which for several weeks we have been working through the
significance and typology of deliverance as we have seen Peter
being a type of the redeemed sinner coming out of bondage
and being delivered out of bondage by the presence of the angel
who served as a model of the gospel coming to us to break
our shackles, deliver us out of prison and captivity, to liberate
us unto the cause of Christ. And so without going any further,
we're going to deal with our seventh point, which is, do we
have angels? And that's where we are in our
PowerPoint. Do we have angels? And this is where Peter Acknowledges
over in verse 11 and when Peter was come to himself He said now
I know of a surety that the Lord had sent his angel and has delivered
me out of the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of The
people of the Jews, that's what we're starting Do we have angels? The answer is yes and no so one
has to be very careful Do we have angels? It's rooted in the
assertion and the notion that people have that every believer
has an angel assigned to them. And what I would tell you is
that that answer is not so. It is not true that you have
an angel assigned to you. That's paganism. It's not Bible. So you always want to be careful
to affirm what you think you believe to be true, no matter
how comforting it is. with the scriptures. You and
I are called to be scriptural Christians. I guess it would
feel pretty good to know that you had an angel watching over
you. But you would not be able to
substantiate that by the Bible. What you would be able to substantiate
is that you have a host of angels watching over you. A host of
angels. And I'm not saying that for a
fact, I'm saying that from a biblical standpoint. What I am denying
is the idea that somehow that you and I on a personal level
are so defective or so weak or so flawed that God has to assign
an angel to hang out with us 24 hours a day everywhere we
go. That would belie or bring into
question the nature and the impact of what it means to be a child
of God. It would bring into question what does it mean to be born
again and actually have the spirit of the living God in us? It would
bring in to question what it means to have access to God to
be in his presence and us to be his temple I mean at some
point there has to be a greater sense of confidence of Christ
in you the hope of glory than mere angels around you if you
and I fall prey to angel ology from a from a secular standpoint
or from a pagan standpoint, then we're going to diminish the significance
of the presence of Christ for his agency in our life. You guys understand that? It's
very important that you know that. There has been constant
stumbling on the part of the church around the notion of angels. The last book of the Bible does
this in a couple of places Revelation chapter 10 revelation chapter
19 and in Revelation chapter 22 where John is so overwhelmed
by the revelations that are given to him by the angel that is present
that he falls down to worship the angel and the angel every
time says to John do not do this and Then what he does is equates
himself with the believer as being a servant of God, just
like the rest of the people of God, I am not one to bow down
to. I am not one to worship. I am
not one to be enamored with as if somehow angels are more special
than the presence of God. So here's what we would say.
There's a sense in which we do have angels, but we don't have
personal angels. There's a sense in which there
are occasions where God is going to protect us and he will dispatch
angels to serve our cause. But there is no sense that you
and I have a bachelor angel hanging out with us, following us everywhere
we go. This is true for you and me as
it was for Jesus. Jesus did not have angels going
about with him. He did not have angels protecting
him every second of the day as if he was so vulnerable and so
fragile in his walk with God that he had to have them around.
They have their job, they have their role. We can talk about
them for a long time. That is a complete theological
discipline in itself. But for the child of God to live
with a sense of confidence and hope, in an existential relationship
with angels versus an intrinsic relationship with God is for
us now to border on idolatry. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Greater is he that is in you
than he that's of the world. Greater is the God who created
the universe who dwells in you. Know you not that the Spirit
of God dwells in you? Now is not the Spirit of God
God himself? Can he not easily handle maniacal
demons and devils and everyone that would seek to thwart or
hinder his servants? And would it not therefore then
be more appropriate for the believer to depend upon the God who has
promised to be with you always, even until the end, as opposed
to us wanting to make sure we have angels around to help us.
What if the angel stopped off to get a cup of coffee? What
if he nodded off a little bit or what if he temporarily got
assigned to another? Assignment and got to get back
with you a little later and you're trapped. He'll he'll be there.
He's gonna get you He's gonna deliver you but he's actually
preoccupied with another assignment. I'm being facetious But my point
is if we were to go down that Avenue we would find ourselves
wrapped up in all of the pagan notions that our apostate church
and the culture is wrapped up in well so under this consideration
briefly a couple of things they serve God the angels that's what
he made them for the psalmist is very clear that angels are
ministering spirits They are ministering spirits that first
and foremost serve the true and the living God. They are at his
beckoning call. Their job is to facilitate the
will of God from the throne all the way down to the earth. And
wherever else God's sovereign power is to be exerted by way
of agency of angels, that's what they do. You and I have a vivid
description of this in the book of Daniel, where Daniel is in
the heart of conflict between the Babylonian system in the
Jerusalem system, and he has experienced having to pray and
ask God to manifest his will, which took time for it to occur
in terms of the angel showing up. Your prayers have been heard.
It's been 21 days. We are now here to do something
about it in terms of revealing to Daniel the will of God. You
guys remember that, right? Daniel chapter 10 Daniel chapter
11 21 days Daniel was in prayer. He was in fasting 21 days it
took 21 days for the angel to show up because he was in a Celestial
battle himself with Michael and Gabriel and the rest against
the spirits that were dominating the Persian region 21 days does
it take God 21 days to hear your prayers? My argument is this
that when we think about the role of angels, they are secondary
while important, secondary while important. God has put his seal
on every believer and that seal is God himself. It is therefore
the privilege of the believer to think in terms of the presence
of God as our ultimate protection. But we can enjoy the secondary
benefit of angels serving our cause. In fact, when I go yes
and no, that's what I mean. We do have them, but not personally.
We have them as part of our inheritance, and we have them according to
the will and purpose of God. When I have 20 times, if you
were to read your Bible in the book of Acts, you will see that
angels appear in one form or another 20 times in the book
of Acts. Just absolutely phenomenal. I mean, 20 times they're mentioned,
and seven times there's the appearance of them. So it's not that angels
aren't present. Hebrews chapter 1, as we have
in verse 13 and 14, tell us that they are ministering spirits,
right? Sent on the behalf of those who are heirs of salvation. Look at that with your own eyes,
so we can get a little bit of that doctrine under our belt
before we move back to our text, and consider what Peter learned
about the angel. Hebrews chapter 1, Verse 13 and
14. But to which of the angels said
he at any time, sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies
thy footstool. In other words, angels do not
have the same preeminence as Jesus Christ. Secondly, are they
not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who
shall be what? Heirs of salvation. So the saints
do have the angels in the sense that they serve to advance the
kingdom of God, open up doors, shut doors, as we're already
learning in the text, guide us in certain tangible ways to make
sure the will of God is done in our lives, but they don't
have to always be there at that moment. However, you do remember
in the opening of the book of Acts, there were angels that
appeared to the disciples and said, hey, he's risen. He's going
back to glory. Stop looking up, go to work,
right? So they instructed the disciples
to get about their business. You do also remember that there
was an angel that delivered Peter the first time he was in prison
in Acts chapter 5, right? So this is not the first trip
to prison for Peter. Acts chapter 5 has him in prison
and he's delivered by the angel. There is no description of how
that process worked out And by the way, in Acts chapter 5, when
Peter was in prison the first time, he was in what we call
the common court. that the high priest of Sanhedrin
had authority over. It was the common court, kind
of like county jail, downtown Oakland. Y'all don't know nothing
about that. County jail versus Santa Rita or versus Alcatraz
or some of your more serious prisons, Folsom and things like
that. So they were in the county jail that first time in Acts
chapter five and they were delivered. That was a mighty act that showed
the high priest the religious apostate beast that God is in
control. This time around, it's the secular
system that's going to see that God is in control of the gospel
and that even though you bind his servants, you can't stop
the gospel. And this is going to encourage
all of the believers. So yes, they serve God and they serve
us. I've read Hebrews 1, 13 and 14. You guys remember Daniel
chapter 6 verse 22. You don't have to go there. But
Daniel gets thrown into a lion's den for being an impeccable leader,
having the jealousy of the Persian and Babylonian leaders wanting
to kill him because he believed God. And he was in a den with
lions. And remember, Darius comes to
him and says, Daniel, are you OK? Daniel says, yes, I'm OK. The Lord sent his angel this
night and shut the mouth of the lions. So the Lord sent his angel
and shut the mouth of the lions. You believe that account, don't
you? Absolutely. And then we're looking at Luke
22, verse 43, where this here is a remarkable account with
regards to our master. Our master is at the precipice
and he's at the threshold. Of his sufferings and he is really
struggling as a human being with being separated from his father
That was the agony that he went through. He wasn't afraid to
die He wasn't afraid to to be crucified. That's a small moment
the agony that Christ endured at Gethsemane was the agony of
something he had never experienced in his life and that was separation
from his father and That was something that on a human level
was impossible for him to even conceive. That God the Father
would metaphorically turn his back on his son and pour out
his wrath on him and abject a horror so that the Son of God now becomes
a suffering servant for his people. That's what Christ struggled
through. And as a human being then he would be helped by the
angels because angels are ministering spirits to those who are what? Heirs of salvation. And Christ
is the quintessential what? Heir. Now, this ought to bring
you and me comfort because if in the midst of crisis, God sends
his angels to help the son of God, will he not also send him
to help those of us who are objects of his mercy and grace? But also
it's a lesson to teach you that in the midst of crisis, You and
I are in need of such deliverance that we don't have within us
the fortitude to make right decisions unless God comes along and assist
us. And in some way, the angels strengthened Jesus. In some way,
they strengthened Christ. And in some way, you and I are
strengthened by the angels, sometimes imperceptibly, to do the will
of God. And obviously, I have Acts chapter
1 verse 10 there as well. But the angels will appear again
in the book of Acts in certain ways. And one of the questions
that I had brought to me a couple weeks ago and I'll just share
this with you is it's important for you to be able to make the
distinction between those angels that are sent by the Lord and
the Lord Jesus Christ himself who is also called the angel
of the Lord and that is important that you don't always think that
whenever the phrase the angel of the Lord is used that that
angel of the Lord is Jesus Christ himself you have to know the
context of scripture so in our account here's what Peter said
in over in verse 11, as he discovered that what was happening to him
was not a dream, but a real divine intervention and deliverance.
He says in verse 11, and when Peter was come to himself, you
guys see that? It means he cleared up in his
mind. He said, now I know of a surety, watch this, that the
Lord has sent what? His angel. So now the Lord here
is Jesus Christ. And his angel are those of whom
we read about in Hebrews one who serve those who are heirs
of salvation. So here we have the primary source
and the secondary source being acknowledged here in verse 11.
And then when Peter is, uh, in the presence of his brothers
and sisters, which we'll get to shortly, we read over in verse
17 that Peter says how that the Lord had brought him out of prison. So sometimes when you are reading
the text and the person is speaking of the work of God, he may not
necessarily acknowledge the mechanism by which it's done, only that
God is the source of it. So there's no contradiction here.
Peter is not contradicting himself when he says to the brothers
and sisters at Mary's house, the Lord brought him out of prison.
The Lord did bring him out, but he brought him out through this
means, the angels. And then you and I have, over
the course of the last several three or four weeks, have seen
the gospel parallel. That being delivered out of prison
is a type of us being delivered out of bondage from sin. In that
context, the angel coming into the prison house, smiting Peter,
the chains falling off, light entering in, and Peter being
delivered out of the prison house, is what happens when the gospel
is preached in power by God's servants. They are then like
messengers, like angels, who come into the hearts of men through
the Word of God, shed light on the soul, and the soul experiences
deliverance. Is that true? Now, then what
we would often say is, you know, God saved me, God redeemed me,
God brought salvation into my life. Is that true? Absolutely. Now we're acknowledging first
causes, aren't we? But there's a secondary cause
to that. And that's the mechanism by which
God saved us. He saved me through preaching.
That's the instrumentality. But he saved me through someone
who preached that gospel. That's the person who's used
as an instrument by which the gospel is communicated, by which
we are delivered. So it's important for us to keep
those nuances there. Otherwise, while on the one hand,
we want to always acknowledge God as first cause, we never
want to deny the instrumentality by which he does it. It's very
important to know God and the hand that he uses to feed you. is very important to know that.
And so it is with the case that they serve God and they serve
us. Point number two, personal angels are a pagan idea. And one of the areas in which
this is underscored more fully, Matthew chapter 18. Some scriptures
are a challenge for people. And if you read into, go to Matthew
chapter 18 verse 10. If you read into those texts,
Assumptions that you cannot validate by the Word of God. You will
truly build a wrong conclusion. That will be more Alien to the
scriptures and therefore we would assert that they would be pagan
This this is all about interpretation of scripture as well. So remember
in Matthew chapter 18 Christ is speaking about the nature
of the kingdom of God verse 1 and At the same time came the disciples
unto Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
What's the subject? The kingdom of heaven. What is
the secondary topic? That is who is great in the kingdom. And then Jesus called a little
child unto him and set him in the midst and said, verily, verily,
I say unto you, except you be converted and become as a little
child, you shall not enter into the kingdom. What is he doing?
Using an object lesson. What is the object lesson? The
child serves as a model of the humble sinner who comes to Christ
right and therefore has access to the kingdom. The lesson is
that God resists the proud, gives grace to the humble. Do you see
the lesson? So now some people will fail to understand that
the child is serving as a model of the kingdom and conclude that
the child himself is a subject of the kingdom. Now that may
be true that children are subjects of the kingdom like everyone
else, but this context is not teaching that. This context is
teaching that like a little child, except you be converted and become
as little children, that little conjunction there is what we
call a parallel conjunction. Become like little children,
you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now that being
the context, Verse 4 says whosoever therefore shall humble himself
as This little child the same is greatest in the kingdom of
God and whosoever shall receive one such little child in my name
Receive it me and then he begins to build a connection between
Recognizing the humble believer who is like a little child See,
he's actually talking ministry here He's really not talking
about the appropriate love we should have for children. That's
appropriate. That's a done deal. You should
love children. You should receive children. In this context, he's
simply talking about receiving those who are already children
of God in the kingdom of God. And that when we receive them,
when we receive them, we receive Christ. If we abuse them, we
also abuse Christ. Do you guys see that? The logic
is clear, so follow it through. This also, if we were to pause
and work this through and to really extract from Matthew 18,
the lesson, although I'm just moving towards a verse of scripture
in verse 10 that addresses the false notion that we all have
angels that are personal to our assignment. This also actually,
by inference, teaches us what the character of every true believer
is before God. He's a child. He's a little child. And that's probably the appropriate
place for us all to be before God. That when we grow up or
become mature, or become, I don't know, knowledgeable, or become
confident, or become strong, or become unlike children, we
are in the most danger. When we think somehow that we
don't need to act towards God as if we are vulnerable, dependent,
gullible little children who are in absolute need of God in
every aspect, as does a little child, we are in the most danger. And more than that, I think that
what we are to extrapolate by this text is that We should not
be afraid to conduct ourselves before God as a little child,
and care nothing about what people think about why I am so abased
before God, why I am such a child before God, such an infant, such
a needy one, such a dependent one before God. I don't care
what anyone else thinks about me as I prostrate myself before
God as a little child, for that is also the way children are. They don't care nothing about
what people think around them. You know how we be wanting children
to grow up so fast? Yeah, straighten up. Why should
he straighten up? And parents do this around me
all the time. They'll bring the kids around and the kids will
be acting like kids. And now they're trying to get
the kids to act like adults. And I'm like, why are you trying
to get them to act like something other than they are? I know what
they are. They're three year old kids.
They're five year old kids. They're running. They're jumping.
They're destructive. They're nasty. They're messy.
You got to tell them over and over and over again to do this,
do that. Let them go. They're kids, right? Well, that's
how God is with us. that's how we are to be with
God we are not to pretend to be something that we're not lest
we lose the blessing of it that should be the nature of the kingdom
of God as well so the text goes on with Jesus warning about people
abusing his little children that's really what the text is about
about carnal minds and Assumptions on the part of people who are
self-sufficient and strong looking at the child of God in his or
her utter dependence upon God and viewing them as vulnerable
and weak and wanting to take advantage of them like What Jesus
says in the text is woe unto any of you who offend one of
these little ones and what he means by that is when you bring
false doctrine and false teaching and and you seek to deceive one
of my little ones who are trusting in me, who may be very well gullible
and naive and not knowledgeable about the deep things of your
false religion, woe unto you when you cause one of my little
ones to stumble. Or for saints in the camp, for
saints in the camp who forget that they are children too and
begin to mistreat other saints in the camp who may well be Less
informed than you less mature than you more Given over to behaviors
that you and I might think we have grown out of if we mistreat
God's children Then we are in danger of the discipline of the
Lord. That's what he's saying Be sure of it. Now this portion
here is for the false prophet because the language of a fin
does not mean that you You and I call somebody to be mad at
us because they disagree with us. If that was the case, wouldn't
no one be in church? Nobody would be in church if
the only people in church are people who get along with one
another without any kind of grievances and differences and offenses.
You do understand that. So the term offense here is not
the term of you hurt my feelings. That's not what this word means.
It does not mean you hurt. I hurt people's feelings in church
all the time. And I do it for a good reason. Now, there are times when I may
hurt you because of insensitivity, a lack of awareness, or just
being plain stupid that day. But every one of us do that.
That's not what God's talking about. God's not talking about
that. He's not talking about you walking on rice paper, being
afraid you're going to hell if you call somebody to cry. He's
not talking about that. You guys understand that? Some
folk need to cry. But but he's talking about when
you and I teach error and lead people down a wrong path that
sets them up for apostasy Woe to us when we say thus saith
the Lord and the Lord has not said thus Woe to us when we teach
something that lead people away from Jesus Does that make some
sense? That's what we're talking about.
That's what we're talking about And so he says, but whosoever
shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me. There
it is. That's the qualifying term. It's not a little baby.
It's those who believe in Jesus. which believe in me, it would
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and
that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. I love the Lord Jesus.
He just see that the freedom he gives me to tell the truth.
That would hurt folks in the 21st century. That line right
there. Oh no, I'm not having that kind of preacher hang a
loose around an anvil around my neck and throw me in the hell.
Well, that's what he's saying. That's what he's saying. He's
saying it'd be better for you to go to hell now and stop your
sinning right now Right just the moment we die. We're done sinning But every day we live sinning
we keep up more wrath against ourselves That's why he said
he'd be better for you to stop sitting now go ahead on and cut
it off and start your sentence Jonathan Edwards put it like
this one time. He said in hell. I Men will wish that they had
sinned just one day less. Just one day less. That's how
severe the judgment is. If they could have just sinned
one day less. That's how severe the judgment
is. And so there's a sense in which, and I've shared this too,
this is an aside, that, you know, men and women before the flood
lived 600, 700, 800 years. And we might think that that's
a wonderful thing. I don't think so. And then God
finally began to curtail it down to about 120 years. And then
finally, when we get to Moses 1500 years before Jesus, we're
down to 80 or 90, which is where we are now. Right? Well, the
folks who live to be 80 or 90 years old, if you die in your
sins, you are nowhere near as culpable as folks who live to
be 800 or 900 years. That's 800 years of rebelling
and sinning against God. You guys understand what I'm
getting at? So every day we sin against God, according to Romans
2, we heap judgment on ourselves. We treasure up wrath against
the day of revelation and the righteous judgment of God. So
it'd be better that we die sooner than later. And this is what
Jesus is meaning by hang a millstone around your neck and call it
a day. Because if you die in your sins, having this, this
is really for the false prophet. And you guys might as well take
the ethic here and understand the passion of Christ for his
people over against false prophets and false teachers, because they
will receive the greater condemnation in hell. Hell's lowest and hottest
place is reserved for false prophets and false teachers. Verse seven
and eight, so we can move to verse 10. Woe unto the world
because of offenses. For it must needs be that offenses
come. See what Jesus says here. You're not going to get away
from offenses. It's going to occur. And so this is where Christians
also in our dependence upon God as little children are to endure
suffering. The idea that somehow we can
change our world and make it a better place so that everybody's
loving one another. That is not Christian. This this
notion of if we can just vote in good politicians and we can
have good laws where we all love one another The people that talk
like that either don't read the Bible or don't believe it Because
the Bible never says that this world will ever be a place where
everyone walks in love In fact, it says the opposite evil men
will wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived that mankind
will wax greater and greater in his desperation for self autonomy
and self aggrandizement to the point that murders and violence
and hostilities of all kind will only increase till Jesus comes
to rescue us. And in fact, the rescue of Christ
for his people will not occur until the whole world is in that
state, because otherwise it is not a rescue. Rescue is when
you and I are in a dire strait and nothing can resolve this
dilemma, but a rescue so the redemption of our bodies are
the return of Christ is said to be a rescue and What what
the Word of God says about the return of Christ in that light
is there during that time and those conditions will be such
that the thought of Jesus coming to deliver us will be so satisfying
to our souls and because it will be the only hope we have, which
means right now we are not ready for his return because we don't
feel like nor act like we want him to come rescue us right now. Am I telling you the truth? See,
we got all kinds of options now. Hold on, Jesus, don't come back
yet. It's still cool. I got plans, goals, agendas,
purposes that I want to fulfill. Life ain't that bad. particularly
for Western Christians who live in the lap of luxury, you know,
as opposed to our brothers and sisters that are really suffering,
who are indeed right now crying out, come Lord Jesus, come Lord
Jesus. What I'm getting at is, is you
and I can pretend like we're ready for the Lord Jesus to come,
but we're not really suffering to that degree yet. Because when
we are suffering to that degree, the only comfort for us will
be his return. Woe unto the world, because of
offenses it must needs be that they will come. But woe to that
man by whom the offense cometh. Verse 8. As we make our way to
verse 10. All right, verse 8 of my Bible. Wherefore, if your hand or your
foot offend thee, cut them off and cast them from thee. It is
better for thee to enter into life, halt or maim, rather than
having two hands and two feet, and be cast into Gehenna, everlasting
fire. See how serious Jesus is about
false prophets and false teachers, seeking to deceive his babies?
And if your eye offend you, pluck it out and cast it from thee.
It'd be better for you to enter into life with one eye rather
than having two eyes to be cast into hellfire. Here it is, verse
10. Here it is. Take heed that you
do not despise one of these little ones. It's amazing. Because see,
what Jesus is teaching here again is true Christians are not like
the giants of Genesis 6. And there were giants in those
days. in the days when the sons of God married the daughters
of men. We're not talking physical giants. We're talking people
who were prominent, people who were powerful, people who had
the ability to move and shake and control environments. Giants
would be your people who are wealthy, powerful, prominent,
influential. That's what the word means. The
word is marauders, people who, because they have the ability,
they can actually affect whole cultures. And as someone has
said, why do wealthy people Oppress poor people. Here's the answer
because they can That's why Solomon said what he said in the book
of Ecclesiastes I see an evil under the Sun which is grievous
to me and that is those who have authority oppressing those who
don't and With both of them. He said they are both miserable
because neither one of them has a comforter. I which means the
only remedy to a problem that God's not going to change until
he comes is the Holy Ghost. Are you guys hearing me? The
Spirit of God is the only solution to a broken world system, not
a change of political agendas, because that's not going to happen.
Can you imagine the sweetness? And this gets back to my argument
that you and I don't even want to find our comfort in angels.
I want to find my comfort in the God who takes resident in
my heart and mind and is able to sustain me in the midst of
trouble. That's what I want to take comfort in, how he can get
down into the depths and crevices of my soul and speak to my deep,
deep, deep, true, authentic inner person and give me the comfort
that only God can give me. Angels don't enter into that
sphere and realm of your personhood. They are existential creatures.
They don't know your thoughts. They don't have a right to do
whatever. Do you know an angel can't come to talk to you unless
God lets him talk to you? He can't comfort you, he can't
help you, he doesn't have a free will. Angels are moral agents
like you and I are, but they better not do one thing without
the commandment of God. Therefore, as we're talking a
little bit about angels, understand this, you're not gonna get an
angel to cozy up to you to have a conversation with him. He's
not gonna lose his head over a knucklehead sinner redeemed
by God's grace He one thing he know is you get forgiveness of
sins for your rebellion. He's a goner if he gets deceived
by you Wanting you to come up and have a conversation with
him Gabriel, man I know you don't I know you ain't got I know you
don't have to come on up holler at me for Gabriel boy You crazy
us angels have no redemption if I rebel against my god, I'm
gone My point is is this is that don't seek to find personal comfort
in them Going back to our verses, verse 10 is the key verse. Take
heed that you do not despise one of these little ones. For
I say unto you that in heaven, their angels do always behold
the face of my father, which is in heaven. Do you see that?
So what people have assumed is that text means that each believer
has a personal angel, right? It's not what the text says.
The text doesn't say that. So It will only seem like it
says that to you if you read that in there. But if you let
the text speak, it's simple. There is an innumerable host
of angels at the beckoning call of God who stand in his presence
right now, who are for our good, for whom when God wants to, he
dispatches them on our behalf. Are you guys following that?
They're not that we have an individual angel. That's not even what the
Greek really says. It's just saying that the angels
who are ministering spirits on the behalf of us, they're identified
with us in that their role is to serve God and serve us whenever
God dispatches them. That's all. That's all. And he's
warning the false prophet that if they should, in fact, deceive
one of his little ones, that God will quickly dispatch angels
to defend his little ones against the camp of demonic forces that
are seeking to destroy us. In other words, God is a man
of war, and he'll send his angels when he wants to. One example
of that, then we'll move forward. Remember Jesus going to Calvary,
and Caiaphas and the high priest, the religious beast, not Caiaphas,
but his pilot, the political beast, threatening Jesus, don't
you know I have power to kill you? Don't you know I have power
to let you go all this powers in my hand Jesus. See you ain't
got no power boy You ain't got no power son Don't you know all
I gotta do is call on my daddy. Ah There it is See Jesus didn't
even assume that the angels were ready What he knew is that they
were before his father's face ready Are you hearing me? The angels weren't sitting there
saying, Lord Jesus, let us go. Let us go. No. And Jesus is being
a perfect model of every believer. See, he's the second Adam. He's
the last man. He has to operate in every aspect
in a fashion in which you and I are supposed to operate. He's
the last Adam. So he cannot use his prerogatives
as God. He has to now be an obedient
son. He has to model what it means
to trust his father. And what he's saying is if my
father wills he will send them at my request Here's the other
thing Jesus didn't do it. That's the other lesson you and
I need to hurry up and get Lord rain fire down from heaven on
him. I'm a child of God showed him who I am Sorry, this is not
about you See Jesus didn't do it And in
fact, Luke's gospel says Jesus told them, this is your hour
and the power of darkness. Here, take me. My God said he
would deliver me and I'm going to let him deliver me. And that's
the idea and mentality of those who say Abba Father. Abba Father
is the attitude that Christ had with his father, a deep, intimate
commitment and dependence upon God for everything. That's how
you and I should be as well, though. We have angels there
to serve us We may not presume upon them nor command them nor
tell them what to do The child of God must always remain in
her his or her place if we want the blessings of God so that
text here is not speaking in the sense of Either us having
an angel in another translation. It says in their spirits always
before God, the father, but what are angels, but ministering what
spirits. So in one gospel says spirit,
another gospel says angels. It's really that God has a host
of their call. The Lord of the angels are God's
army. This is why he's called the Lord
of host. the Lord of Sabaoth. He has an army that's there,
always ready to work on his behalf and for the good of his people.
It's a very comforting doctrine, really. The point that I wanted
to make as we go back to our text now, let's do that, is that
you and I, while we have the privilege of being heirs of salvation
and therefore have the right and prerogative to know that
whenever God wants to, he can send his angels, right? That
our greatest comfort is in God, not the angels. That's very important. That's the main point that I
want to get. So, personal angels are pagan ideas. Psalm 34, 7
speaks to the angels encamping about the saint. 2 Kings 6, 17
also I used that before. I talked about that before. You
don't have to go there. This is a beautiful account between
Elisha and his servant. And Elisha understanding the
protection of God in his ministry with the host of angels. who are dispatched when God says
so. So the young servant of Elijah
went out to get Elijah. I told you this story before,
right? A cup of latte. Y'all remember that, right? It
was early in the morning. He was fixing his breakfast.
He wanted a cup of coffee. So he went out, get him some
coffee. And as he comes back, he sees all these Syrian armies
around Elijah's house. He runs in, master, master, master,
man, do you understand what's going on? Having a tizzy. And
Elijah said, give me my coffee, man. He took his coffee, had
a sip. He said, Lord, open this boy's
eyes so he can see what I see. Greater is he that is in you
than he that is of the world. They that are with us are more
than they that are with them. The comfort of Elijah was not
that somehow that he had at his beckoning call the angels, but
that he was a child of God and that the angels serve God and
serve us. Do you understand that? Elijah
wasn't saying to his servant. I can call these angels anytime.
I want to he wasn't saying that he was saying that my heavenly
father could call them down anytime he wants to and So we see that
throughout the Old Testament as well as the new finally Christ
is our ultimate archangel. Is he not I? love Exodus 23 verse 23, which
makes a Jesus the forerunner of his people
in the wilderness Sojourn where God speaks concerning Christ
as the angel of the Lord in that text pull up Exodus 23 23 show
you something right there as we get ready to move forward
And then the last one we'll look at is Acts 27 23, which closes
out the book of Acts But Exodus 23 23 where God is dealing with
his people Start back at verse 21 20 20 something like that
I want to see if I can establish the context for you guys start
back at verse 21 See if this will work. Exodus 23, 21, if we can get there. Here we
go. Beware of him. This is what Jehovah
God says. This is what the father says
of Israel concerning his angel. In fact, I think I need to go
to verse 20. If you can back up one more verse, this will
help. This is the context, and I'll establish the context. God
has brought Israel out. It's been a couple, two or three
months now that they're walking through the wilderness. They
already know what God's doing. God's already told Moses tell the children
is there we're going to the promised land So they know where they're
going and then tell them I'll take care of you all the way
So they know that god will take care of them, but you know how
we do Right, you you know how we do The third month god gave
them the law. That was the covenant. It was
a it was a king servant covenant And they broke that law bad,
didn't he? They broke that law so bad, you know what God said?
All right, I can't go with you. Because you're too sinful. So
I'm gonna have to back on up out of here, because I will kill
every one of you and start all over with Moses again. This is
what he told Moses. You guys remember that? So God
said, these people way too sinful for me. So let me back on up
and get on way from over here. Moses, build me a tabernacle.
Build me a little house over in the corner because I'll kill
these people if I have to continue going in the midst of them. This
just goes to show you how sinful we are. And that's what he did.
And then he told Moses to tell the people, guess what? I'm going
to send my angel. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to
send my angel because I will wipe you out. The holiness of
God. That's the context. Behold, I
send an angel before thee. to keep you in the way. Isn't
that good? And to bring you into the place
which I have prepared. Did God do it? Verse 21. Watch
this. Beware of him and obey his voice. Do not provoke him, for he will
not pardon your transgressions. Woo. Watch this. For my name is in him. Who is
he referring to? Jesus. Jesus. You got that? Jesus. Now, why
does he say, for he will not pardon your transgressions? Interesting
statement. Why does he say that? He says
that because of this. And we're going to be actually
treating this subject a little bit in the Romans text because
we're in chapter six now. And what Paul is going to do
is help us understand the danger of not rightly comprehending
our justification. and making an assumption that
because we are free in Christ, we get to live like hell. He's
going to help us understand that the man or the woman that draws
the conclusion that they are free to do whatever they want
to do now that they have been justified by the grace of God
and the atoning work of Christ will find themselves in the worst
danger of all. And so when he says here, beware
of him and obey his voice, do not provoke him. That's all Israel
did was provoke the Lord over and over and over and over didn't
it over and over and over and over again Until from time to
time God had to destroy them, but in his mercy he saved the
what a remnant Didn't he so this is what he means is for he will
not pardon your transgressions In other words, you're not gonna
always get away with your sin the assumption that God's gonna
always forgive your sins for the man or the woman who does
not understand mercy and is for you to set yourself up to know
the wrath of God. See, watch this now. Pardon for
sin is not a right. It's a mercy. Pardon for sin
is not a right. If you and I ever construct a
notion that God must forgive me, now I have just turned pardon
into a reward of which somehow I merit it. I don't merit pardon. It's a mercy. And children of
God who think right, understand that God does not have to pardon
me. I don't get the right to reach into the doctrine of justification. Understand that the work is immutable,
unchangeable, undeniable, and for all eternity, and somehow
abuse that doctrine as if I'm cocksure that that's my privilege. Because if my thinking is wrong,
I'm deluded in thinking that the privilege of eternal redemption
by the merits of Christ are mine But rather if I understand the
gospel are right and I have like precious faith. I'm gonna be
like David And I'm gonna be like Peter I'm gonna be like every
other brother who rejoices in the imputation of Christ's righteousness
and the fact that God does not impute our trespasses to us but
on the grounds of mercy So Psalm 51, David pleads with God. Do
not take your spirit away from me. Blot out my transgressions. Have mercy against me. Against
you and you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight.
I'm wrong, O God. Have mercy on me. He's not presuming
upon the right for God to forgive him. That wouldn't be mercy.
Do you guys hear what I'm saying? So the gospel is to shape our
attitude to help us to understand that the whole of the premise
of our relationship with God is one of mercy and grace, not
merit. You don't just, you don't demand
God to do anything. Yeah, you hear these folks talking
about commanding angels and commanding God, you fool. You don't command
God to do anything. You don't command him. So these
are the things we'll work through too. And so when he says, for
he will not pardon your transgressions, it doesn't mean that there's
not pardon, but there's not pardon for the arrogant. There's not
pardon for the pompous. does not pardon for the self-righteous,
does not pardon for the presumptuous person. Am I making some sense?
Deuteronomy chapter 29 verse 19. Pull it up just so I can
anchor it with the children of God. I want you to see the fool
who was making his way through the wilderness seeing all of
God's mercy and God's judgment that concluded that he can live
like hell. This is Deuteronomy 29 19. Watch
this. This is god's judgments that he was warning israel about
he says now when it come to pass when this individual hears the
words of this curse That he blessed himself in his heart saying I
shall have peace You see that? Now all the judgments that god
is warning that he's gonna pour out against the rebel this person
who said i'm gonna have peace now watch this Though I walk
in the imagination of my heart to add drunkenness to thirst
Do you see this fool? in the presence of the Lord,
in the kingdom of God, in the church of the living God, hearing
God warn that there are those who presume that they have his
mercy, who if they presume continually without making their calling
and election sure, they will end up like this cat. Now, what
this is, as I'm going to be teaching over the next couple of weeks,
is a false grace mentality. Do you hear me? It's a false
grace mentality. Who here doesn't understand what
I'm saying right now? I've got a good class tonight. All I need is
one and I'll dig into this. You don't understand what I'm
talking about? Right. Here's what I'm talking about.
When a man or woman presumes that they have the grace of God,
they have the forgiveness of sins. They have the righteousness
of Christ. but live contrary to the characteristics
and attributes of those who are truly born again so that they
are not making their calling an election. Sure. But as it
were, uh, presuming upon God's mercy as if it's a right for
them, that individual is not demonstrating saving faith. They're
just demonstrating presumption of which I've told you before,
saving faith and presumption are two different things. Saving
faith is a humble disposition of depending upon God fully for
both his pardoning grace and his sustaining grace. The grace
to keep me from falling, to keep me from erring, to keep me from
sinning. as well as the grace of recovering
me from sin. That's a whole different attitude
disposition from the person that says, well, I'm going to live
like hell and I trust God's going to forgive me anyway. Now watch
this. This is where we have built a whole Catholic doctrine of
going and doing penance. After you live like hell all
week long, you go in and do your prater notters, your Hail Marys
and all that, and go to the priest knowing you can't wait to get
out of the confession booth to go do it again. This is called
confession without repentance. And if I were to dig deeper into
what I'm talking about, fundamentally what I am teaching is that the
man or the woman that has a false grace is not in a state of repentance. Because when you're born again,
you are in a state of repentance. Repentance for true believers
is a lifestyle. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Repentance is not something you do. In fact, you don't have
the power to repent. The notion that you can go out
and sin and then I'm going to stop tomorrow is a delusion. That's an absolute delusion that
you and I are able to live by God's grace, walking in the fear
of the Lord, humbly striving to honor God with our weak and
feeble confession of faith is the grace of God. These folks
that are running around pompously arrogantly living in open hostile
high-handed rebellion is what what the scripture calls it high-handed
This is the presumptuous sin of which psalm 19 david said
lord. Keep me back Keep me back from
presumptuous sin Sticking my fist in your face and saying
you got to forgive me because i'm a child of god You'll go
to hell so quick That's what he means by he will not pardon
you He will not pardon you if you have an arrogant pompous
assumption that he's got to forgive you because you know what God's
merciful He is merciful, but he does not have to show This
is the part of our theology in our present church age that men
do not like and that is that God is sovereign Do you understand
God's sovereign? That means that means God will
have mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he will
harden. I and he will be just on the
day of judgment when he throws Judas in the hell and allows
Peter to be the one to open the gate. Are you hearing me? And they
were both knuckleheads, were they not? But one presumed upon
God, the other one was humbly broken. This is a huge mystery
that we have to be able to grasp It come to pass that when it's
when he heard the words of this curse and rather than humbling
himself Like the disciples when jesus said one of you guys are
going to betray me And they all said not me lord Is that what
they said? No They said is it I so that's
a humble disposition. You know, what that means is
it could be me Lord, I could easily betray you There's not
the presumption that i'm not going to betray you that he blessed himself in his
heart saying, I shall have peace. That's wild. Though I walk in
the foolishness of my heart and add drunkenness to thirst. He
said, I'm going to give myself over to the vanities of my mind,
to the lust of the flesh. I'm going to be drunk, inebriated
in my dark vein, idolatrous practices, and God's still going to be good
to me. Not so. Not so. Let's go back to our
text. Let's go back to our text. Let's see. Point number eight
trying to close out on that one. Oh, no point number seven going
back to our seventh point Ultimately then Christ is our ultimate archangel
as we saw in verse 23 Did we make it to verse 23 in that account?
I think we know we didn't do we make it to verse 23. Okay.
Well, we got to do verse 23 Let's go back. Let's run all the way
back and make sure we get to verse 23. I Thought that was
verse 23 that we looked at Verse 19. All right, let's go back.
Verse 20. All right, let's see what we
can do here. All right. Behold, I send an
angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you in
the place which I have prepared for you. Verse 21. Beware of him and obey
his voice. See that first line? That's what
believers want to do. Isn't that right? Do not provoke
him. Can you see the New Testament
commentary to that? Ephesians chapter 5. When the
scripture says, do not grieve the Holy Ghost, for he will not
pardon your transgressions for my name is in him. That is God's
character, God's attributes, God's authority. The authority
of the father is in the son, is it not? Verse 22. But if you
shall indeed obey his voice and do all that I speak, then while
I watch this now, then I will be an enemy unto your enemies
and an adversary unto your adversaries. Do you, this is crazy. I'm going
to be talking to my guys about this tomorrow. This really is
just simply listen to me now. This is not some slavish demand
on the part of some despotic King who does not have the greatest
passion for his subjects. This is a father talking to his
son about how he wants to bless his son. If his son will simply
obey him as a father. Will you hear me? That's all
this is. This is the father-son paradigm. This is the, are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? And this text has its ultimate fulfillment
in Jesus. This is what I love about the
revelation of the second person, because he came as the son of
God in perfect obedience to his father. Perfect obedience to
his father. So Jesus is the model for us
of obeying dad. Is he not? Jesus is the model
of us for us of obeying that. Then I will be an enemy to your
enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. In our next verse,
our final verse, for my angel shall go before thee and bring
thee in unto the Amorites, the Hittites, Perizzites, and the
Canaanites, Hittites, and the Jebusites, and I will cut them
off. New Testament speaking, this here is God subduing all
of our enemies. This is God destroying all of our foes and bringing
us into the fullness of the eternal blessings of the kingdom of God
We're in one day. There will be no more opposition.
No more warfare. No more conflict No, no more
striving with the flesh No more conflict one day. We will have
the kingdom in a perfect state of righteousness Can you see
that and who will cut them off? God will cut them off tragically
That never got fulfilled in an earthly sense You know that right? That passage never got fulfilled
Israel never cut off all their enemies That's tragic Because
it was never meant to be fulfilled in the physical nation of Israel
only in the Lord Jesus Alright, let's go back down So my point
was Christ is our ultimate archangel the promises are fulfilled by
him who goes before us and Acts 27 23 is where the Apostle Paul
is Headed to Rome and he falls upon a storm and on a ship and
the storm is called you rock Ladon you guys know that and
The Lord Jesus met Paul that night while everyone was fasting
to let Paul know to let everybody else know It's gonna be alright.
It looks bad things and get all tow up But if you trust in Paul's
instructions, you're gonna make it to land you guys see that
That's a beautiful text Acts chapter 27 verse 23 for there
stood by me this night the angel of whom Now we know this is the
Lord Jesus Christ because the last line says whose I am and
whom I serve You see that we don't serve angels They serve
us But this angel we do and then he begins to explain that they
will be secure and safe Although the ship will be destroyed And
the ship in that context is a metaphor for the corporate church. The
corporate church going through the seas, picking up sinners,
but at a certain part where the church now becomes apostate and
sinful, God allows the waves to break in on the ship and the
ship gets divided. And everyone now is getting in
on boards and planks, barely making it to shore. And this
is how it is right now. There's no unity in the church.
Every individual church or every individual denomination is struggling
with faithfulness and commitment to Christ. And a handful of us
are able to kind of continue the journey on the topsy-turvy
sea of broken humanity on a board here and a board there. That's
how it feels because that's how it is. There is no unity, no
harmony, no congruency in the church. The church is all over
the map, is being broken up more and more by the waves of sin,
secularism, apostasy but God's elect will make it to shore does
that make some sense God's elect will make it to shore because
they listen to the voice of the angel and they don't allow the
circumstances of the world that's destroying the ship to get their
eyes off of Jesus see because the one who actually brought
us out of darkness is leading us to the kingdom of God now
that he's going to allow us to go through tribulation is what
he already said You're going to go through trouble, but I'm
going to be with you. Can you imagine how comforting
it was? And there were many days when
Paul was on that ship. I can't wait till we get there
to dig into that redemptively. Many days when they were on the
ship, they had to get rid of cargo. They had to get rid of
all kind of goods and stuff. They had to start fasting. There
was no sun for many days. Do you understand how harrowing
that must have been? How troubling to the soul that
must have been. And some of the sailors, Tried to sneak off the
ship. Remember that? They tried to,
as they were getting rid of the food, they tried to let down
some little safe lifeboats and get down and get out. Paul said,
hey, hey, hey, hey, you false prophets. Cause that's what they
signify. Running when the enemy comes.
See the false prophet runs when he sees the wolf coming. See
that fellow that, when, when that, when that cruise ship turned
over by France. And where was it? Yeah, I think
it was. Yeah, Italy, yeah, somewhere.
And they looked up and the captain of the ship had already jumped
off and made it to safety. Now, they want to put him in
jail for life, and rightly so. But his lawyer said, when the
boat tipped over, He fell out and ended up in a boat. See,
the lawyer get to go to hell too, because they love twisting
things. How are you going to fall out
of a boat into the lifeboat? He just inadvertently fell into
the lifeboat and made it to shore. No one else did but him. Human
beings are amazing. If we are not deceitful and desperately
wicked, I don't know who is. I tell people all the time you
want to get a good dose of how real depraved sinners are watch
48 hours Caught red-handed lying between your teeth You swear
you never did you got cameras all over the place and caught
you red-handed you smiling in the camera We got your DNA your
voice everything and you you will swear to the last minute
you didn't I mean Academy Award winning performances Right? I
mean, Academy Award winning performances. Because we're liars by nature.
We're liars by nature. Liars by nature. Let's go back.
Let's deal. We got 15 minutes. We'll see
if we can get into our second point. Point number eight, our
deliverance is designed to encourage. This is quite interesting. Yeah,
this is all we'll get a chance to do here in Acts chapter 12,
where Peter now has discovered that he is out. He says over
in verse 12, it says over in verse 12. And when he had considered
the thing, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John,
whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. And as Peter knocked at the door,
this is what we call sort of an imperfect verb form. He was
knocking for a long time. As Peter knocked at the door,
a damsel came to hearken named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter's
voice, she did not open the door for being too happy. Crazy. She was so happy though, she
wouldn't open the door. But ran in and told how Peter
stood before the gate. That's a sort of idiosyncrasy
that we have, a kind of idiosyncratic sort of quirk in us that we can
be so happy that we actually don't believe that the thing
is occurring. You can be so joyful at the prospect of a thing, but
in your mind, it's not plausible. Okay, it just cannot be it is
but it cannot be it's happening. But in your mind you send this
This is the way we put it as well too good to what be true
That's what wrote is so she ran back and she told the Saints
over in verse 15 and they said you're crazy That's literally
what the word means. You got to be mad But she constantly
affirmed that it was even so Then they said here it is. It
is his angel. I There you go. First of all,
they were as incredulous as she was. Secondly, they're making
a humanistic excuse that's based upon paganism that they that
wrote it is hearing his spirit. Because, you know, folks, you
know how you. Some of you folks from the country, my aunties
used to talk like this all the time. Oh, yeah, I saw your uncle
Joe the other night. Been dead 20, 30 years. I saw Uncle Joe.
Then people talk like that. I saw your Aunt Sally. I ain't
never seen Aunt Sally. I never saw Uncle Joe. But my
great aunts, they talk about it all the time. And so this
is how optical illusions and audible illusions can get you
when you're not grounded. And oh yeah, they would come
ring my neck. People would come ring my neck right now. I swear
I saw. Well, you saw what you wanted
to see. The other thing is you were predisposed to it because
the culture you grew up in believed that stuff. Thirdly, don't you
know there are demons all over planet earth that don't mind
manipulating and cohesion through again optical illusions and audible
illusions to perpetuate doctrines like that? So a lot of people
get caught up in those things. Here they are trying to give
some kind of plausible reason for a road of believing that
Peter's here. Now this is the sad reality about
what this implies or infers. We got 10 minutes. These folks
have been praying, praying that the Lord would deliver Peter.
Now that Peter's here, they don't want to believe the Lord. They've been praying Fervently
for the Lord's deliverance and now it's an angel. It's a spirit
Road is mad. It cannot be This is how this
is how fickle we can be When we don't believe what we say
we believe This is how fickle we can be This is where people
need to be very careful about the integrity of their assessment
of what they say they believe. I'll just touch on this as an
application to keep moving. Like, if you say you believe
God can do all things, but you don't pray, be very careful,
you probably don't believe that. You hear me? It's all right if
you don't really believe it, because you have to have actually
a measure of faith consistent with that belief to be able to
authentically or genuinely and sincerely know you actually believe
at that level. Everybody does not believe at
the same level. We don't all believe the same
things at the same. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
But we'll talk like we do. But our conduct would indicate
that we really don't. If you act in a way in your life
where you are marshalling your circumstances by which ultimately
you are in control of your life, when you look at virtually every
facet of your life and you got control of it, where it is not
undergirded by prayer and a real sincere dependence upon God,
where you really actually don't believe that God is in control
of your life. I'm going to teach this too as
we work through the idea of a false grace, true grace paradigm, because
what Paul is getting ready to deal with as he moves into Romans
6 and 7 and 8 is those folks who don't understand or don't
know what it's like to walk in the Spirit. Okay, which is really
the net consequent of the justifying work of Christ We'll get into
that later But you and I use a lot of religious terms and
a lot of religious phrases that don't have any basis in the way
we function on an everyday level Am I making some sense? We say
we believe God for this that and the other thing, but we actually
act contrary to it So what Paul said in Philippians chapter 3
was let every man walk on In that, whereunto they have attained. That's chapter 3. I'm not going
to go there. And what Paul was saying is, as we're going to
learn in Romans 12 is, let us all be sober minded. And don't
say more than that which is written about who we are as human beings.
Because God has all given us a measure of faith. Now, some
have weak faith, some have strong faith, faith of a different quality
and caliber in regards to God's purpose in your life and in regards
to your experiences and the troubles that he has delivered you through.
Everybody's faith is not at the same measure. So one person will
be speaking from a place of deep-seated confidence in God, rooted in
multiple times of God delivering them. Their confidence is not
rooted in an assumption or a theological conclusion based upon Bible study. It's rooted in both what the
Word of God says and how God has come through to confirm that
word over and over and over again. That's a concrete faith that's
rooted in the presence of God having come through and confirmed
that word. Am I making some sense? This is absolutely phenomenal.
I'm gonna use an analogy here carry it over for how many you
guys how many you ladies in my women's theology class Alright,
so y'all get y'all this one here. You get this one free. So you'll
have this information by next week the difference between Naomi
and Ruth and Their knowledge of Boaz is That Naomi only knew
about Boaz legally Ruth knew him experientially See the difference
What Naomi knew was legal. That's the Jews with regards
to what the Bible said about Jesus. The church knows him experientially
because of the grace poured out in her lap with the fullness
of the corn given to her by which she can say, I know him experientially. Naomi does not know him experientially. She only has the book that talks
about him, the law code that points to him. Ruth has experienced
His presence, His grace, His fullness. That's good, isn't
it? And that's the difference. That's
the difference. That's the difference here of
what I'm talking about when we are talking about these matters
that can be outside of the scope of our experience. And once we
show ourselves to be weak and flawed in those areas, it's only
demonstrating that we don't have that measure of faith consistent
with what we're saying. And the sooner we discover that,
the better. Let's see here. So then let's consider then our
first point under this, and that is our deliverance is designed
to encourage us, comfort the saints. So now mark what Peter
is doing. Peter, it says over in verse
12, and when he had considered the thing, what did he consider?
What had he considered? How that the angel of the Lord,
or the Lord has sent his angel and delivered him out of the
hand of Herod, one, That's verse 11. Are you there? And from all
the expectation of the people of the Jews, you know what he's
saying? All the Jewish people, along
with Herod, are looking forward to seeing me hanged. And God
has delivered me from both. Peter's conclusion is that this
is a full deliverance, like the whole of the Jewish people are
waiting to have Peter hanged. They've just had James hanged.
Herod has Peter in prison. They can't wait to get past Passover
so they can hang Peter. And what Peter has concluded
is because the angel of the Lord has come and got him, when he
was already settled with dying for Christ, he knows that he's
not going to die. He knows that he has been completely
delivered, not only from prison, but from the expectation of the
Jews and from the expectation of Herod. Peter is walking in
a sense of triumph. The revelation of the angel's
presence has given him such clarity on his calling as an apostle.
He is not afraid that he's about to die. He's going to live. Now
with that, you know what he has to do? He has to go to the people
who not only do not know what the Lord has done for him, But
they're assuming that he's on the brink of dying. Is this true? How do we know that? Well, we
actually started backwards. By the evidence of how they acted,
we wrote a came to the door and went back and told them, this
is Peter and they can't be Peter, Peter in prison, he going to
die tomorrow. You see my point, Peter? Peter's not going to be
the they killed James. We plan, but this prayer thing
don't work. You know, we go through these
motions of prayer. Girl, will you settle down? I
know you're hoping, but you ate something. Are you hearing me? This is the incredulity that
sets in when you really don't believe what you practice. This
is the incredulity. So the Lord has answered their
prayer. Peter is present. Rhoda is a
witness. She's preaching the gospel of
deliverance to her comrades. And they're saying, no, God doesn't
deliver. That's crazy. Isn't that crazy? God does deliver. And here's the thing. Peter could have decided not
to come to comfort the saints. That's my first point. Five minutes
we'll come back and deal with this a little bit more next week
But under our deliverance is designed to encourage you three
points the comfort of the Saints God is able to deliver and the
expectation of the wicked cut off Those are all good points
They're all good points to understand watches Comfort the Saints. What
does that mean when God delivers you and me? I? From a problem
from which you and I know that we could not deliver ourself
We better go tell somebody so they can be encouraged by our
deliverance that God still delivers Why because the saints are in
the same trouble as we are in one way or another and they need
to know that God still delivers Secondly in this context, I love
this because Peter is a shepherd You know what that means? He
has already preached the gospel and seen God save multitudes
of his Jewish brothers and sisters. And because they had already
been catechized that God answers prayer, he knew these people
were doing what? Praying. Woe unto the people
who call themselves the church of the living God. And in the
time of trouble, you can't find somebody you know who prays. Warned to the people who call
themselves the saints of the living God and in the time of
trouble You can't say I know a group of saints who pray consistently
for the needs of the people of God Warned to the individual
Christian who is out there adrift being assaulted by the enemy
and can't find one person They know that calls on God Warned
to us Warned to us and warned to the pastor who hasn't nurtured
a body of believers who prays when he's in trouble and God
delivers him. And he wanted to tell somebody
how God delivered him, but everybody has gone their own way doing
their own thing. What a sad party it is when you
the only one get to rejoice in what God has done for you because
you don't have a connection with people who pray. See what Peter
knows, and I can develop this with other scriptures, is that
he was delivered by the angel at the hand of God because of
their prayers. And what he's about to do is
answer the sowing of their prayers with the reaping of their joy
by him being the sheave that God brings in. You see how all
that works? You see how all that works? See,
Peter understood that he was a sheave, delivered from the
enemy. to be brought in to be a festive
joyful occasion for his brothers and sisters who had sown in tears
now ready to reap in joy now ready to reap in joy see and
so he's not selfish on this one now he could have ran because
you do understand he was only at the house for a minute you
do understand that we'll get there next week because he does
understand herod's hot on his tail He's only there for a minute,
but he's there to comfort the saints. I love the implications
of all this. Our deliverance is designed to
encourage. So comfort the saints. That's
1 Thessalonians 5, verse 11. You have to go there. We'll deal
with it next week. And what do you say when you
come to the saints that are struggling, but are trusting God and in prayer?
Here's what you say. God delivers. God delivers. See, you and I can't tell someone
God delivers if he hasn't delivered us. Am I making some sense? But because Peter has been delivered,
he can tell them God delivers. We'll develop that a little bit
more next week. And then the thing that he's going to do is
affirm that God has cut off the expectation of the wicked. Powerful. You know what that means? When he leaves Mary's house,
Cause this Mary is the mother of Mark. This is the little brother.
That's going to be running with them a little bit, right? Mary,
when he leaves their house and he's not going to be there before
a little while when he leaves, they're going to be so encouraged
to continue praying because of the present trouble. But they're
going to be so encouraged. Now think about this for a moment.
My time is up. Think about this for a moment. The text says,
Mary had the saints at her house. What kind of woman is that? Now
watch this now, and these are saints who were already under
persecution. This is not a Western prayer
service you have after you go to work on Wednesday and come
to the church. This is a prayer service of men
and women who are being thrown in jail, being persecuted, and
their leaders are being killed. Let's now transport ourselves
immediately to the Middle East. Are you hearing me? We're in
the Middle East now, where our brothers and sisters are being
killed. And the tactful nature of all governments is to do what?
Take the leaders. Because if you kill the leaders,
you destroy the confidence of the people. Are you guys following
me? This, therefore, tells me that
this sister Mary was no joke. Do you know why? Because the
average Christian, jacked up by a narcissistic, it's all about
me mentality, wouldn't have no saints at her house, scared to
death, the authorities would find out. Hallelujah. Look at Mary. She says, come
on over. Let's pray. Because we've got
a God who can deliver. And if he doesn't deliver us,
then we'll die praying. It's amazing. It's amazing. Father, thank you
for this time. Thank you for my brothers and
sisters. Thank you for this account. Thank you for drawing us in.
Thank you for taking us deeper than the black letters on the
white page. Thank you for not allowing us
to be bound by the superficiality of the one dimensional aspect
of it. To put shoe leather on it. Practicality
on it. Show us how we should be in these
days of ease but we see the storm a brewing. We truly do help us
to be those who have our loins girded and our lights burning
and our souls in a disposition of waiting for the Lord so that
we continue to call upon your name for our brothers and sisters
who are going through troubles around the world that they might
be delivered like Peter was delivered and that we might reciprocate
with them in the The comfort of how God delivers over and
over and over we we know it already. We know that you deliver Oh God,
that's why we call upon your name. We love you You're an awesome
God. You're an amazing God. You're
an amazing God the way you work keep us believing that you love
communing with your people and grant us the grace to continue
to commune with you because we love to hear the testimony of
how you deliver and will deliver, have delivered, shall deliver,
because you are the deliverer. Hallelujah. Thank you, oh God,
for being all that you are to us. Give my brothers and sisters
traveling mercies. Prepare us to worship you on
Sunday as you ought to be worshiped in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless
you guys.