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This morning, I'm preaching on the subject of angels, and the title of my sermon this morning is, Angels That Are Human. Angels That Are Human. Now, let me explain that title, because the subject of angels in the Bible is one that comes up a lot, several hundred mentions, just over and over again. We're hearing about angels, all the way from Genesis to Revelation. But there's some confusion on this subject, because what we need to realize is that there are angels that are human, and angels that are not human. Now why is that? That is because the word angel simply means messenger. That's what it means. And so because the word angel simply means messenger, sometimes this is just referring to a human being who is acting as God's messenger, whereas other times it's referring to some other type of non-human being that is a messenger of the Lord. For example, there are times in the Bible when we see angels that have wings, and they're flying. Well, that's clearly not human, especially because when we see the cherubims and the seraphims and these type of angels, they're called living creatures. Sometimes they're even called beasts. So these are clearly not human if they're being called a beast, a living creature, if they have wings. Some of them have four wings, six wings. So there are definitely non-human beings that are called angels by the Bible. But this morning, I don't want to focus on those. I'm not talking about the cherubims and the seraphims and these type of flying angels with wings and so forth. I'm talking about what the Bible says about angels that are human. You say, well, Pastor Anderson, are you sure that there are any angels that are human? Well, if you just look down in your Bible where we just read in Revelation chapter 22 verse 6, the Bible reads, And he said unto me, These things are faithful and true. And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book. And I, John, saw these things and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, watch this, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. And sayeth unto me, See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book, worship God. And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. So this man that is showing him these things who the Bible calls the angel that shows him these things, John is so blown away by this guy that he actually falls down to worship before him. And he corrects John right away and says, See thou do it not, I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets. What's he saying? I'm like you. You're a preacher. I'm a preacher. You're a prophet. I'm a prophet. You are my brother. Now obviously they're both human beings. They're both preachers. And so this angel is a human being that is just a preacher. Now what this is, is this is a preacher or a prophet who had lived before. And now that he has died and gone to heaven, now he is acting as one of God's angels or God's messengers. Now we have a word in English. It occurs three times in the King James Bible. And that word is evangelist, right? We've all heard that word. And what that simply means is one who preaches the gospel, one who evangelizes. We talk about evangelism. In fact, many Christians call themselves evangelical. And what they mean by that is that they're interested in preaching the gospel. They want to bring the gospel. So we're considered evangelical because we're out knocking people's doors and telling them how to be saved. Well, notice the root word of evangelical. What's that middle root there? Angel, right? The ev at the beginning means good. And then angel has to do with being a messenger. So evangelist simply means good messenger or the one who brings the good message or the good news. And what's gospel mean? Good news, glad tidings. So the evangelist is one who brings the glad tidings. So the angel is just the messenger, okay? So this messenger in Revelation 22 is human. Now we can back up and see who this guy is a little more. Go back to Revelation 21, verse 9. Revelation chapter 21, verse 9. And this gets interesting because if you actually read Revelation 21 and 22 together, you will see that the angel of chapter 21 is the same guy from chapter 22. It's just one unbroken narrative where this angel is showing things to John. Well, let's find out who that guy was. It says in verse 9, and there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues and talked with me saying, come hither, I will show thee the bride, the lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God. So now we learn that this angel from Revelation 22 that actually was a man, that actually was human. He was just a prophet. He actually was one of the seven angels that had the seven vials. And then it says in verse 15, and he that talked with me, same guy, had a golden reed to measure the city and the gates thereof and the wall thereof, and the city lithe four square and the length is as large as the breadth. And he measured the city with the reed, 12,000 furlongs, the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, 144 cubits according to the measure of a man that is of the angel. So a cubit is the measure from the tip of a man's finger to his elbow. It's approximately a foot and a half or 18 inches. So when it says here, according to the cubit of a man, it's specifically saying, if you want to know exactly what cubit, it was the guy who was showing me these things. It was his cubit, meaning it was the measure from his finger to his elbow. So again, we can see clearly that this is a human being. Flip back to Revelation 19. That sounds like a pretty cool job, doesn't it? Maybe I'll get to dump out some wrath somewhere at some point. Wouldn't that be something to aspire to in your life? You know, try to be the best possible preacher you can. Try to be the best possible soul winner you can. Try to serve God the best you can. And maybe someday you can. All right. The third vial. There you go. What a cool job. All right. Revelation. Or I mean, you know what would be the even cooler job would be to be the guy that get to be the guy that shows John these things, taking John and showing him these things, you know? So if you want that job, you've got to memorize the Bible so you'll know your lines. You know, you'll know what to say when the time comes. But anyway, Revelation chapter 19 verse nine, it says, and he saith unto me, write, blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the lamb. And he saith unto me, these are the true sayings of God. And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, see thou do it not. I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus, worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And again, if we were to back up to Revelation 17 verse one, we would see that this guy is again one of the seven angels that had the seven vials. Just like we saw before, it says in verse one, there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials. That's the guy we just heard from in chapter 19 as well. Now go back to Revelation two and three. So what's the sermon about this morning? Well, we're talking about angels, right? And we've established first of all that there are angels, what we think of angels, which is usually the angels that are not human. You know, the cherubims, the seraphims, these exotic creatures that are flying and they have four wings, six wings, whatever. And we'll talk about those another time. But today we're focusing on angels that are human beings that are just God's messengers. God is using them in the capacity of an angel. Well, what's interesting is that in Revelation chapters two and three, there are seven letters that are addressed to the seven churches. He says, send these messages to the seven churches that are in Asia. But when he actually gets into the specific message itself, he doesn't say that the message is to the church, but rather he says in verse number one, for example, of chapter two, unto the angel of the church of Ephesus. And not only that, but when you're reading Revelation two and three, you'll see that he goes back and forth between using the singular form, the thou, and using the plural form, ye, you, your. Why? Sometimes he's talking to the entire church. Sometimes he's talking to an individual within the church. And sometimes he's talking to the angel of the church. Who is the angel of the church of Ephesus? You know, is this just some guardian angel over that church? I don't believe so because of the fact that when he's talking to the angel, he often has stern words and his rebuke. He's clearly a human being. Why? Because he's the one who brings the message to that church. He is the messenger of the church of Ephesus. He's basically talking to the pastor or the preacher or the one who brings the word of God, the one who's doing the teaching at the church. Why? Because as goes the pastor, so goes the church in most cases. Why? Everything rises and falls on leadership. You know, you get a bad king in Israel, it's all going to go downhill. You get a bad king of Judah, people start worshiping other gods. And if you get a bad pastor in a church, that church is going to go bad. Even if it's a great church, when you get a bad pastor behind the pulpit, it's going to go downhill fast. Now you could take a church that has a lot of problems and that has a lot of negatives and you get a good pastor up there, he could turn around. Why? Because he's preaching, he's bringing the message. And so if these churches have problems, the pastor needs to get up and be helping fix these problems. And so there's a message specifically for him. God doesn't just speak to the pastor, does he? Like, okay, I'm your go-between, I'm your mediator, wrong. There's one mediator between God and men and that's the man Christ Jesus. So the pastor does not stand between us and the Lord. That's why in this passage, even though some of the stuff is directed at the pastor, it's not given privately to the pastor. The letter is given to the whole church. So everybody hears what God is saying to the pastor and everybody hears what God is saying to the church and we all need to hear God's message. So this is consistent in Revelation 2, verse 1, under the angel of the church of Ephesus. Verse 8, under the angel of the church in Smyrna. And on and on, we could look at all seven of them. It always says to the angel of the church in Sardis, to the angel of the church in Philadelphia, et cetera. All right, let's go back to the book of Hebrews chapter 13, Hebrews chapter 13. We're going to work our way back into the Old Testament as well. Hebrews chapter 13. And while you're turning, I'm going to give you another example in the book of Haggai. Little tiny book at the end of the Old Testament, the minor prophet Haggai is referred to as God's messenger. Why? Because he is preaching the word of God. So he is a messenger in that sense. Haggai 1.13 says, then spake Haggai, the Lord's messenger, in the Lord's message unto the people saying, I am with you, saith the Lord. So he's using his messenger, Haggai, who is a preacher, who's a human being that we can read about in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, a literal, real person, that spoke the word of God. He's called the Lord's messenger or his angel. Hebrews 13, verse 1, the Bible reads, let brotherly love continue, verse 2, be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. What's he saying there? He's saying be careful how you treat people, especially strangers, people who just kind of come up out of nowhere and they show up out of the blue because thereby some, not all, this isn't something that's just constantly happening all the time, some have entertained angels unawares. And we see stories of that in the Old Testament, don't we? Where some stranger shows up and probably the most famous example that would pop into our minds would be Genesis chapter 18, where Genesis is at the tent, right? And three men come walking toward him in the heat of the day. He runs out to meet them. He shows them hospitality and it ends up actually being the Lord himself in bodily form with who? Two angels. He has two angels at his sides. Other times, men show up, they're given hospitality and it turns out it was an angel. That was an angel that spake with him. What about when Jesus Christ rose from the dead and they go to that garden where the sepulcher was and they see a man in white apparel, but who was it really? It was the angel. And they see Jesus himself, they thought he was the gardener, right? But we see in scripture that sometimes people are confronted with an angel of the Lord, a messenger of the Lord, who is human, who is a man, and they're unaware of that. So the Bible is telling us in the New Testament that that could happen to us. Think about this. If that could never happen, if in the New Testament in 2018 it were impossible for an angel to come to you unawares, would this verse really make sense? Because he says, be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. He's saying, hey, be careful because you could be in that situation at some point. Now you say, Pastor Anderson, have you ever been in that situation? Now I believe that I have, but I'm not 100% sure. It would be impossible to be 100% on these things, of course, but I'm just going to tell you a story of what I think could be an example of this from my own life. And whether it is or isn't, you know, God knoweth. But when I was a 17-year-old boy, I'd spent five years in the kind of new evangelical type of rock and roll type churches, the NIB, dead churches, nobody's being saved, there's no soul winning, nobody's being baptized. And I was frustrated with it because my soul yearned for something more. And I started reading the Bible cover to cover when I was 16, I finished when I was 17. So I was reading through the Bible, and what I was seeing in the Bible was just not matching up with what I saw in church. And I just, I wanted something else. I was looking for something more, and I wanted to win souls to Christ, but I had no idea how. I didn't know what I was doing. So I had a great zeal, but it was not according to knowledge. And so at this time in my life, when I was seeking the truth, I walked into a used bookstore in Roseville, California, and I've always loved books and learning, and so I was getting a bunch of books and foreign language books and stuff like that. And I walk out of the bookstore, and a guy comes up to me on a bicycle and says, hey kid, you want to go to church? And he hands me a little invite to church, and it said right on the front of it, it was folded in such a way where this was actually on the front, it said, do you know for sure if you died today, you'd go to heaven? And I just looked at that. All he said to me was just, hey kid, do you want to go to church? You know, I'm 17, my hair was bleached blonde, punked out. I was dressed in, you know, my own way of my teenage self. And hey kid, you want to go to church? He gives me this invite, I look at it, and the first thing I honed in on was that question in bold. And I said, yes, I do know for sure. He didn't ask me, he just handed me, I said, yes, I do know for sure. And I said, and I'm also Baptist, because it said on the inside, Regency Baptist Church. And I said, yes, I do know for sure, and I'm a Baptist also. I go to a Baptist church too. And he said to me, well, does your church go out and knock doors and tell people how to get saved? And I said, no, but we should. And he just said, amen, and he just wrote off. And it was weird, because I wanted to talk to him. I mean, this was exactly, and look, that was the one question that I wanted to hear more than any other question. Like, if there was one thing that was going to get my attention, if he was going to say one thing to me about Regency Baptist Church, that was the thing I longed for deep down, was I wanted to get people saved, I wanted to win souls to Christ. And so he asked me that question, and I said, no, but we should. And then he just took off. He just said, amen, and he just wrote off on the bike. And I'm sitting there, and so I start looking at it, and look at it more, and I was like, wow, this looks great. So I brought it home to my parents, and I handed it to my dad, I said, this is where we should be going to church. And he looked at it and said, yeah, it looks great, let's try it. Now what do you think was the first thing I did when I went to church? I looked for that guy, right? I get there, I'm looking for him, and he wasn't there. And I never saw that guy, and I have no idea to this day who that guy was. Now was that an angel unawares who saw a young man who's seeking the truth, and he wants to do more for God, and he's, you know, I've been saved since I was six years old. But I had done virtually nothing for God in that time, in those 11 years. But I wanted to. And so, you know, either one of two things, the way I can figure it. Either that was an angel unawares, or it just happened to be a human being that was passing through, well, either way it was a human being, you know. But either it was an angel unawares, you know, that which is supernatural, or it was just an ordinary guy who happened to be passing through. Some people suggested that it was maybe like a missionary that was passing through, because sometimes missionaries or evangelists will grab some tracts of the local church. I know when I used to work in other towns, I'd grab tracts of the local church so that I could do soul winning or hand them out or whatever. But I don't know. The idea of a missionary actually doing soul winning in the United States, that's more unrealistic than a supernatural, you know, visit from an angel. So I think if we take the more realistic view, it's probably an angel. Whether it was or wasn't, either way, God got me where I needed to go. Because if you seek, you shall find. That's what the Bible says. I was seeking and I found. And God either sent someone by natural means or he sent someone by supernatural means. Now my only other story where I had the feeling, and that's my best story on an angel unawares. Now I'm going to give you my weaker story on an angel unawares. This was a time when I thought like, man, was this guy an angel unawares. One time I was out at work and I was out in the snow and it was snowing and it was freezing and my fingers were hurting. You know how your fingers get when it's really cold. And I was just, I was struggling to install these fire extinguishers onto these metal poles outside at this gas station. And I was just having a hard time. My tools weren't working right. I didn't have the right stuff. And this guy just walked up to me out of the blue, just walked up to me out of nowhere. I don't even know why the guy was even there. I was just out at this gas station in the middle of nowhere doing this. And this guy just pulls up in a vehicle, walks up and he just says, don't you just want to get out of here? And he just opened his hand and had the exact bolts that I needed to do the job quickly and easily. I was like, wow, thank you. And I took those bolts and I was out of there in like 10 minutes back in the car with the heater on. So I don't know. That one's a little more of a stretch, but I was like, man, this guy was an angel on the word. So I mean, this guy really bailed me out. He really helped me out. So if you would flip over to Matthew chapter 22, Matthew 22, Matthew chapter 22, whether you think that my stories are examples of that or not, it is possible. It definitely could happen and I'm sure it does happen from time to time. Look at both of my stories were male. Well, in the Bible, all the examples are male, but I, you know, yeah, I can't really point to any female angels in the Bible. But in Matthew chapter 22, but I've only had two experiences myself. Matthew chapter 22 verse 29 says, Jesus answered and said to them, you do err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God for in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God saying, I'm the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of living. And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine. So the Bible is telling us there that in the resurrection, we will be like the angels of God. We will neither marry nor will we be given in marriage. And the angels are the same way. Now both kinds of angels, you know, are the same way. If we're talking about people who've already died physically, right, and gone on to serve as messengers of the Lord, or whether we're talking about, uh, non-human entities, cherry bims, seraphim, they do not marry nor are they given in marriage as well. Now go back to Exodus. Let's go back to Old Testament now. The book of Exodus chapter three, and I want to change gears in my sermon now and talk about a different subject because so far the sermon has been about angels that are human beings. And if we were to go to all the examples of this in the Old Testament, it would take hours. We don't even have time. I mean, just to show all the angels who show up and they look exactly like what? Human beings. They look just like men and their describes men and the people that are interacting with them are unaware of them. And again, I'm not going to just spend the whole morning looking at all those examples. I think you get the idea from what I've already preached thus far. But now I want to switch gears to another angel that is human and that is Jesus Christ who is called the angel of the Lord. Now sometimes in the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as the angel of the Lord. Now what does that mean? He is the Lord's messenger. Now don't get me wrong. Not every time it says the angel of the Lord. I've heard some people just kind of sloppily preach this where they get up and say, hey, whenever you see that the angel of the Lord, that's Jesus. Well that can be proven to be false. If you look up all the instances of the angel, it's pretty clear many times that it's certainly not Jesus. But many times the angel of the Lord is referring to Jesus. You got to go by the context. You say, well, show me an example. Look at Exodus chapter 3 verse 2. This is a pretty famous story about Moses and the burning bush. We're all pretty familiar with this. Look at Exodus chapter 3 verse 2 and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, that's Moses, in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush and he looked and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. So here we see that it's the angel of the Lord appearing to Moses in the burning bush. And what does he say in verse 6, 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. Later on he feels differently about that. But at this point he's faced with the angel of the Lord in the burning bush and the angel of the Lord says what? I'm God. I'm the God of Abraham. I'm the God of Isaac. I'm the God of Jacob. So this is clearly not just an ordinary angel. It's clearly not just a messenger sent by God, but it is a messenger who is God. Look if you would at Exodus 23 verse 20. I'll show you more evidence of this. Exodus chapter 23 verse 20. This is God speaking to Moses, behold I send an angel before thee to keep thee in the way and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. So he's sending them into Canaan, he's sending them into the promised land. They've come out of Egypt and he says, I'm going to send an angel before you to keep thee in the way and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him and obey his voice. Woke him not for he will not pardon your transgressions for my name is in him. Now go to Joshua chapter five. Let's see that same person, that angel, because remember God says, I'm going to send an angel before you into the promised land. Well, when we get to Joshua, that's when they're actually going into the promised land, right? So we should expect for that angel to show up, right? To lead them in to the promised land. It says in Joshua chapter number five verse 13, and it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted up his eyes and looked and behold there stood a man over against him. So again, this is what? A man, a human being. There stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand and Joshua went unto him and said unto him, art thou for us or for our adversaries? He says, look, whose side are you on? Are you on our side or are you on the enemy side? And he answered, no. Isn't that funny? So he's like, are you on our side or are you on the other side? No. That wasn't the yes or no question, but he said, nay, but as the captain of the host of the Lord, am I now come? He said, it's not that I'm on your side, it's that I'm the leader. You're on my side. I'm the boss, right? He says, no, but as the captain of the host of the Lord, am I now come? And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship and said unto him, what sayeth my Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, loose thy shoe from off thy foot. Sound familiar? For the place whereon thou standest is holy and Joshua did so. So what do we see here? We see that this angel of the Lord accepts worship. Now what happened when John tried to worship the angel that was a human being that was just one of the prophets in Revelation? He was told, whoa, don't do that. Worship God, right? But in this story, he says, hey, I'm the captain of the Lord's host. This is the angel sent before to lead them into the promised land. He says the same thing that the angel said from the burning bush, put off thy shoes from off thy feet. The place whereon thou standest is holy ground. He said, I'm the captain of the Lord's host. And of course, Jesus in the New Testament, Hebrews chapter two, verse 10 is called what? The captain of our salvation. Hebrews 2 10 says, for became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things and bringing many sons into glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Flip over to Judges chapter 13, Judges chapter 13, Judges chapter 13. And by the way, Acts chapter 7, while you're turning to Judges, Acts chapter 7 is a recap of a lot of these Old Testament events. It says in verse 37 of Acts 7, this is that Moses which said unto the children of Israel, a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me, him shall you hear. And that prophet is clearly, when we read the New Testament, equated with the Messiah, the prophet that he's going to raise up, and I'm not going to go through all the scriptures to prove that to you, but there are many places where they quote that scripture from Deuteronomy and apply it to Jesus and apply it to the Messiah. That's why they asked John the Baptist, art thou that prophet, you know, because they're talking about the Messiah, that prophet that was going to be raised up. It says, this is that Moses which said unto the children of Israel, a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me, him shall you hear. This is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the Mount of Sinai, and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give unto us. And then of course it talks about him speaking to them. And then it talks about, well, I don't want to spend too much time on that, but let's go to Judges 13. Let's see another example of this. I do want to say one thing, okay? There's this false preacher out there named Bill Grady, and he's this hardcore Zionist guy, you know, just worshiping Israel and the Jews and all that kind of stuff. And they held this conference last week or this week, you know, preaching against me. They mentioned me like 85 times by name or something, something like that. They just kept preaching sermons against me and everything like that because, you know, I don't worship the Jews like they do. They seem marching to Zion and, you know, to expose their false doctrine. What's funny is that this guy wrote a book called Holy Ground, and he's making a big deal about it in this sermon that he's preaching against me about how, you know, you know what the first thing that God ever called holy in the Bible, it's dirt, the holy ground, you know, dirt. And he's got this little potted plant called the Wandering Jew, and he's pulling dirt out and saying that there's three brides. I mean, you can't even make up how weird this preaching is. He's like, well, God, the Father marries Israel. Jesus marries the church. But then the individual Jews in the long run, in the eternal state, they're going to marry the literal dirt, the ground, the earth. They're marrying the land. They're marrying the dirt. He's like, it's that ground over there is holy. That land's holy. In fact, he wrote a whole book. He claimed he spent 18,000 hours working on this book. Yeah, that's my reaction too. And he said, it's called Holy Ground, all about the land, Israel. Can somebody explain to him that the burning bush and the holy ground was in Arabia? It's like you're going to write a whole book called the Holy Ground. Oh, it's the land, that special land of Israel. Hello, Mount Sinai's in Arabia. So I guess Saudi Arabia is the holy land, folks. Let's all head to Mecca and go bow down to that GameCube, right? But look, you know why the ground was holy at Mount Sinai in Arabia? The reason why is because of the fact that God was there. That's what made it holy. And that's why when they're walking into a completely different location in Canaan, it's again holy ground. Why? Because God said, he's not saying, hey, for the next thousand some odd years, you guys are all going to have to go barefoot because you're on holy ground. I mean, I guess if we take a trip to Israel, we're going to have to take off our shoes and go through the scanner and just leave our shoes off for the whole trip because we're on holy ground. I mean, isn't that the logic? Look, it's Arabia. I don't think that he thinks Saudi Arabia is holy. These guys, they don't like Muslims or Arabs or anything like that. And look, I hate Islam, but I love Muslims, amen. I hate Islam, but you know what? I love lost sinners that are duped by it and I want to get them saved, amen. Okay, judges, that was a little kind of side note there about the holy ground, but look at Judges 13. Let's get back on course here. Let's not get distracted again. Okay, so we're talking about angels that are human and specifically we're talking about the angel of the Lord who is the man, Christ Jesus. What have we seen so far? Quick review on Jesus being the angel of the Lord. Well, we saw that the angel of the Lord showed up at the burning bush and said, I'm God, right? We saw that the captain of the Lord's host showed up which was called the angel that would lead them into the promised land and he accepts worship and says the exact same thing that God said at the burning bush, take off your shoes, you're on holy ground. Judges 13 verse 17, we're going to see another example of Christ in the Old Testament as the angel of the Lord and Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord. Now this one, by the way, this one is not maybe 100% for sure. You could have a different interpretation of this passage. The other scriptures I showed you are for sure. This one you might have a different interpretation, but look at Judges 13, 17 and Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, what is thy name that when thy sayings come to pass, we may do the honor and the angel of the Lord said unto him, why askest thou thus after my name seeing it is secret? That's interesting that the name of the angel of the Lord is secret. So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord and the angel did wondrously and Manoah and his wife looked on for it came to pass that when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar and Manoah and his wife looked on it and fell on their faces to the ground, but the angel of the Lord did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. And Manoah knew that he was an angel of the Lord and Manoah said unto his wife, we shall surely die because we have seen God. So at least that was their interpretation of it. They felt that they had seen God when they looked upon this angel of the Lord, but his wife said unto him, if the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands. Neither would he have showed us all these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these. What were the things they were told? Oh, you're going to have a son. Well, they're not going to be able to have a son if they're dead. So he's saying, you know, she's saying, don't worry, we're not going to die because we have to have this son that we just were told that we're going to have. Okay. Go back to Genesis chapter 32, Genesis chapter 32. And I'm going to tie this in with another because you say, well, I don't know, Pastor Anderson, just because Manoah, you know, thought that it was the Lord. He had some kind of dumb ideas there. His wife had to kind of school him a little bit there. So can we really trust Manoah? Well, the reason why I think it's very possible that this was the angel of the Lord as in an Old Testament appearance of Christ is when we compare it with another scripture in Genesis 32. When we compare the two, that's where we get the stronger evidence. It says in verse 24 of Genesis 32, and Jacob was left alone and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, let me go for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And he said unto him, what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince has thou power with God and with men and has prevailed. And Jacob asked him and said, tell me I pray thee thy name. And he said, wherefore is it that thou didst ask after my name? And he blessed him there. So there's a similarity there of not wanting to give the name, right? This man that Jacob wrestles with. And he said, wherefore is it that thou didst ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved. And that word Peniel has to do with the face of God. So he said, I've seen God, verse 30, right? That's what he's saying. That's his interpretation. I've seen God face to face and my life is preserved. Now flip over to the book of Hosea. Hosea is toward the end of the Old Testament, one of the minor prophets. Shortly after the book of Daniel, go to Hosea chapter 12, Hosea. And again, this is a major theme in the Old Testament. It's a major paradox of the Old Testament that is understood in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, it's paradoxical. It's confusing. It doesn't make sense. You're scratching your head. But when you get to the New Testament, oh, now I get it. And what is that? It is the fact that God tells Moses, no man shall see my face and live. No one can see my face and live. Because Moses wants to see it and he's told no. God then puts Moses in the cleft of a rock, puts his hand over him to cover him, passes by and then removes his hand just so that Moses can catch a glimpse of the rear parts of God as he is departing. And when Moses sees that amazing sight, not his face though, because he said, no man shall see my face and live, he sees him from the back at a distance being protected in the cleft of a rock. And when he came down from the mount, his face shone. His face glowed to the point where, you know, they couldn't even look on his face. They had to put a veil over his face. But then in other scriptures, you have what? People talking to the angel of the Lord face to face and saying, I've seen God face to face. Or in Genesis 18, where the Lord talks with Abraham. And it's clear that when the two angels head towards Sodom, Abraham's left alone talking to Jehovah, the Lord, all caps right there. How? How can Abraham talk face to face with Jehovah and not die? How could these other people talk with God and not die? I'll tell you why. Because Jesus is God. That's why. Okay. But it's God the Father whose face cannot be seen. It's Jesus Christ whose face can be seen. So the Old Testament, it's like a contradiction because you're looking at it like, well, can we see God's face or not? I mean, you're telling Moses that he can't see it, but then other people are seeing God face to face. Well, here's why. Because they're seeing Jesus Christ, they're seeing the Son of God, and that's why they're not dying. That's why it says in the New Testament, no man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. So they've seen the Son, but they've not seen the Father. So if you believe in the Trinity, it makes perfect sense. If you reject the Trinity, it makes no sense. Because if you believe that Jesus is not God, well, that doesn't work, right? Because they say, I've seen God. And the angel of the Lord said, I am the God of Abraham. Okay. But if you believe in oneness or modalism where you believe that Jesus and God the Father are the same person, it's just God the Father in another form, well, then people have seen God the Father then because he walked up and talked with him. But what we believe is that no one's ever seen the face of God the Father, but we have seen the face of God the Son, Jesus Christ. So then it makes perfect sense. Look at Hosea chapter 12 verse 3. It says, he took his brother by the heel in the womb, this is Jacob, and by his strength he had power with God, yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed. Because you say, where did that call in an angel? Well, in Genesis 32, it just said they wrestled a man with him. Here in Hosea, it says he had power over the angel and prevailed. He wept and made supplication unto him. He found him in Bethel. Now Bethel is the word that means the house of God. That's where Jacob spent the night and had a stone for a pillow and then he saw the ladder ascending up to heaven, the proverbial Jacob's ladder. And it says there, he made supplication unto him, who's the him? The angel, right? He prevailed, he had power over the angel. I want you to read this carefully folks, pay attention, this is an important verse. It says he had power over the angel and prevailed. He wept and made supplication unto him. He found him in Bethel, who's the him? The angel, right? So the same man that he wrestled with is the same one that he found in Bethel, right? The him, we're talking about the same person here. And there he spake with us. So who's the us? The same us that said let us make man in our image after our likeness. That's the us. And it says he spake unto us, he spake with us, and then he explains it. Isn't the Lord God of hosts? The Lord is his memorial. So how can the Lord be an us? I'll tell you how the Lord can be an us, because the Lord is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. These three are one, one God, three persons, Father, Son, Holy Ghost. That's why he's referred to as us. Now of course Jews will scoff at the us there or the we and say well, that's just like royalty calling themselves us. That's like the queen of England saying we are not amused. But here's the problem with that. That didn't exist until England. You can go back through history and you won't find any examples of the king and queen of any of these ancient nations or ancient peoples of the Middle East or Canaan or Mesopotamia or Egypt. You'll never find any of them referring to themselves as us. You have to fast forward thousands and thousands of years to England to have a king or a queen be stupid enough to call themselves we or us. And don't you get me started on the vanity and stupidity of the royal wedding. But anyway, that's another story. But the point is that, you know, I thought we threw those people out a few hundred years ago. Amen? But anyway, no king but Jesus. So basically that explanation falls apart, but the Jews are kind of grasping at straws because they're hard core. You know, God is one, right? They don't want to accept that God is three, that God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And you know what? You don't have to read far in the Bible because it's Genesis Chapter one. Let us make man in our image. But then I love how he follows it up in Chapter three because it's even clearer in Chapter three when man eats of the forbidden fruit. What does God say? Behold, the man has become like unto, not us, he said, like unto one of us. I mean, come on, one of us? You know what that means? That there's more than one of us, right? If he say, hey, the man has become like unto one of us. Hey, that's Father, Son and Holy Ghost. That's the us. Okay. And what we see here in this scripture is that Jacob spake with us. Who's the us? Even the Lord God of hosts. That's who the us is. Okay. Now here's the thing. Who did he wrestle with? Did he wrestle with us? No. He wrestled with one person, right? Because he didn't wrestle with God, the Father. He wrestled with Jesus Christ, the angel of the Lord, the Son of God. But there he spake, let me find my place here. There he spake with us, even the Lord of hosts. Now pronouns like I, me, we, you, your, pronouns have to have what's called antecedent, right? And antecedent is that noun which comes before and tells us what the pronoun is referring to. Ante means before, right? And seed means go. Antecedent is that which goes before. So when we tell a story, we don't just start out by saying, he did this. Because what's your question if we say he? Who? Oh, she did that. Who's she? Who are we talking about? Well, we, our, us, those are pronouns. So in Genesis chapter 1, the pronoun let us make man in our image must have an antecedent. What is the antecedent? God. God said, let us make man in our image. Oh, he's talking to the angels. Well, there's no antecedent like that. There's no mention of angels in Genesis chapter 1. No antecedent. Not to mention the fact that those angels that would have existed at that time before man was created are not in the image of God because they have a totally different appearance. And again, that's another sermon with the wings and everything else. That's another sermon. All right. Let me wrap this thing up here. Flip over if you would to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. While you're turning there, I'll give you a couple of just little bonus points in passing. Genesis chapter 48, Jacob talks about the, the angel which redeemed him from all evil. Again, referring to the Lord, Jesus Christ, that, that is Old Testament appearance of Christ. Also I want to point out that Malachi chapter 3 calls Jesus the messenger, the messenger. Malachi chapter 3, because, and let me explain this, Malachi chapter 3 verse 1 says, Behold, I will send my messenger, now that's a reference to John the Baptist, right? Because when we see John the Baptist in the New Testament, this is quoted about him. Behold, I will send my messenger, who's that? John the Baptist. And he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom he seek shall suddenly come to his temple. Now who's the Lord who suddenly comes into his temple? That's when Jesus goes in the temple and starts cracking heads in John chapter 2, right? So it says, the Lord shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom he delighted. So not only is John the Baptist called my messenger, but Jesus Christ is called the messenger of the covenant, the messenger of the covenant. Whom he delighted, behold he shall come, sayeth the Lord of hosts, but who may abide in the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth, for he's like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and by the way, the word Malachi, the name Malachi means my messenger or my angel. And then that's the key verse, Malachi 3, 1, I will send my messenger, John the Baptist. Who will prepare the way for who? The messenger of the covenant, which is Jesus. Look if you would at 2 Corinthians chapter 5, here's the conclusion, you say, what's the moral of the story? Well the first moral of the story is, be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. You don't want to make one of these angels mad, right? Do the wrong thing, you know, you want to treat them right, you know, in the unlikely event that that happens. But I would say the biggest takeaway from this is that even after we die, God is going to have work for us to do. You know, going to heaven isn't just going up there and just sitting around, playing a harp, sitting on a cloud, whatever, you know, that sometimes is portrayed as in culture, but rather we will continue to work, even past the millennium, even into the eternal state, it says, his servants shall serve him. So we will continue to work and serve. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, 8, we are confident I say and willing, rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord, he's saying we'd rather be absent from the body and present with the Lord, wherefore we labor, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. So what's he saying? You know, when we're present in the body, we work. We want God to find us acceptable in his sight. We want God to approve of us. We want God to be pleased with us. So we work while we're present in the body, but you know what? When we're absent from the body, we work and we want to be approved. We want to be acceptable in his sight as well. We're going to continue to serve him even when we're absent from the body. Now, not everybody's going to get that cool job because there's only seven vials to go around, but you know, you got, there's other functions that you'll perform and other things that you can do. And so, you know, that's a pretty, it's a pretty tough cut to make that cut, you know, so I don't know. I don't know if it's going to happen to any of us or anybody that we know, but it's still pretty cool to think about the fact that we're going to get to do other jobs possibly. I mean, who, you know, who knows what God has for us. I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them to love. God uses human beings even after they've died and gone on to be with the Lord. He uses them in this capacity as a messenger. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and what an amazing book you've given us, Lord, and what amazing truths in your word. Help us to study your word, show ourselves approved, to love you, to believe sound doctrine, Lord, to come to church and hear the word of God taught so that we can know doctrine and then to go home and search the scriptures ourselves, whether these things be so and read our Bibles, Lord, and Lord, thank you so much for the angels that you've given us as ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto us, Lord, and also for these human angels that have come across the paths of so many biblical characters and that someday may even cross our own paths, Lord. We thank you for Jesus Christ and for salvation, and it's in his name we pray, amen.