I’ve mentioned my collection of books on pastoring and preaching; pastoral theology and homiletics. Nearly all of those books say something like: “Pastor, never preach your doubts.” If the preacher can’t be sure of his theme, then he needs to study it more and preach something else in the mean time.
Tonight we come to one of the many borderline subjects in my mind. I was tempted to skip over this thought, and move on to something else, but I didn’t feel lead to do that. And besides, it’s not that I’m preaching my doubts tonight, it’s just that there are so many things that I don’t know, it might just appear that I have doubts.
Let’s spend a few minutes thinking about this ANGEL OF THE LORD.
There are a great many things about this angel and this verse which WE DO NOT, and cannot, KNOW.
And yet there is enough that we do know that we can still bring glory to the Lord. And that is my intention and desire.
One of the things that we don’t know is who this angel is. Quite often, but not always, in the Old Testament, the words “the angel of the Lord” are speaking about the pre-incarnate Son of God “The angel of the Lord” is sometimes just pointing out that this was an holy angel; not a fallen angel. And here in Acts 8 there doesn’t seem to be any reason at all to assume that this is the Lord Jesus. Besides, in the Greek text, there is no definite article pointing a finger at THE angel of God.
The Bible teaches that there are millions of angels – myriads upon myriads of angels. Revelation 5:11 – “And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” When someone says that they believe in personal guardian angels, I can’t prove them wrong. There are certainly enough for every living saint of God. Paul once wrote: “But to which of the angels said he at any time, sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” There could be – there could be – a ministering spirit assigned to watch over every child of God. In fact there may be an angel watching over every elect soul, even before they are saved. This room may be filled with more angels than people here tonight, intently listening to whatever blunder I might utter about angels.
Turn to Matthew 18:1: – “At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Verse 10 – “Take heed that ye despise not 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. For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.”
Might not the Lord Jesus be saying that each of the children He had there that day had their own angel? And who can say that the angel of the Lord who rescued Peter from prison in Acts 5 or Acts 12 wasn’t the angel assigned to minister to him on a regular basis? And when Paul said, “there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,” who is to say that that angel of God wasn’t his protecting angel – his guardian angel? I think that there is reason to praise the Lord because He appears to have assigned personal, spiritual, care-givers to each of his chosen people.
But the Bible teaches that some of God’s angels are assigned to larger subjects than mere saints. The Bible speaks several times about “principalities and powers.” Romans 8:38 – “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come; Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Ephesians 6:12 – “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Colossians 1:16 – “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.”
It is generally believed by conservative scholars that these principalities and powers are ranks or ORDERS of angelic creatures. Some of these angels are holy and righteous servants of the Lord, but some of them are fallen angels, and demonic servants of the Devil.
Turn to Daniel 10:10 – “And, behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands. And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling. Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days.”
From my study of the scripture, I believe that there are angels that serve God by personally dealing with insignificant saints like you and me. But there are more important angels who watched over people like the Apostles, and prophets like Daniel, and people like Mary and Joseph of Nazareth. And there are EVEN MORE important angels, whose responsibilities include whole nations. And eventually we come to angels of the rank of Lucifer, Michael and Gabriel. We don’t know how many arch-angels there are, but it appears to be at least a couple.
But getting back to Acts 8, who was this particular angel? It’s foolish to give him a name and declare him to be the angel who visited Mary and Joseph. He might be the angel whose responsibility was to protect and assist Philip. Or he might have been the angel of this Ethiopian eunuch. He might even have been the angel assigned to the entire nation of Ethiopia.
But still, isn’t it wonderful to realize that the Lord has sent these special creatures to bless us?
Now, let’s think about what we know that HE DIDN’T DO.
For some reason this angel didn’t personally bring the gospel to the Ethiopian as he traveled south. Notice that I said, “for some reason.”
I have heard a couple dozen different men declare that no angel ever preached a gospel sermon to a sinner. And I can’t argue with that statement. But when I read about the angel who visited Daniel, or of the angels who spoke to the Apostle John; And when I read the message that the angel of the Lord gave to Zechariah, I have to question the statement that angels never preach or teach. There was an angel who stood in the way of Balaam when he was off trying to do evil. Not only did Balaam’s ass see the angel and trying to hide from it. Eventually that angel spoke to Balaam and explained what was going on. Was Balaam a child of God, or was he a child of his lying father, the Devil? Angels do teach men, but it appears that its only to the saints of the Lord, and they don’t preach gospel.
So WHY don’t angels ever preach the gospel? We might say that it’s because they are not recipients of salvation, so they know nothing of the subject. But we might also argue that the preacher shouldn’t preach about adultery since he isn’t an adulterer. Is their lack of personal experience the reason that they aren’t evangelists?
Peter might reveal something about this subject when he was talking about the prophets of old. “Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.”
Maybe the angels, who are so much smarter than we are, feel themselves to be unqualified to preach about the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Why don’t angels preach the gospel? Is it because they would put undue pressure on their hearers? If a superstitious sinner knew that it was an angel of the Lord telling him to repent, would that give him more incentive to repent, even though he wouldn’t want to repent under ordinary circumstances? It might be argued that would be the case, but then again: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead,” or if the preacher came from the very throne of God to preach.
Perhaps, this is really a question with a pretty simple answer: The Lord just doesn’t want them to evangelize the world. For whatever reason, the Lord is the Lord, and issues edicts without ever having to explain anything to sinners like us.
What do we know that this ANGEL DID ACTUALLY DO?
“And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.” He spake and said. Somehow this angel of God spoke to Philip in the language of a human being. It wasn’t in some Heavenly or angelic language. It is believed by some Charismatics that tongues-speaking, “glossolalia,” is some angelic dialect. But as far as we know, no angel ever spoke to a man in any language that wasn’t human.
Other than that, we have no more information about HOW that conversation took place. Was Philip awake or asleep? Did that angel walk up to the preacher on the street and talk to him eye to eye? Or did he come in some invisible fashion and Philip only heard the voice but saw no man or angel? Any guesses about this would be completely inappropriate. But we DO know that he spoke.
And we know that this angel, in obedience to the Lord, gave God’s directions to the evangelist Philip. Remember that second on the list of angelic responsibilities is to minister to the saints. For example, there was Joseph, engaged to a woman who had just confessed that she was with child; What was the poor man to do? “But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, Saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.”
And a few months later, when his wife’s son was in grave danger, “Behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, And be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.”
When Peter and John were imprisoned by the priests, “The angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.”
And later when Peter was being held by Herod, who was prepared to kill him the next morning, “Behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: And he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel.”
Yes, indeed these are ministering angels, exhorting angels and enabling angels. Why the Lord chooses to use angels, when other methods are available, I have no idea. But there it is.
What we see in these angels, and this angel, is complete obedience to the will of the Lord. These creatures, who know the Lord better than any earth-bound human being, love to obey. They know that the Lord doesn’t tolerate partial obedience or anything less than heart-felt obedience. And we know that they obey the Lord, even when they don’t fully understand the command given them. As Alfred Lord Tennyson said of “The Charge of the Light Brigade: Their’s not to make reply, their’s not to reason why, their’s but to do and die.”
We know that the angel who spoke to Philip did was he was told to do.
And now let me guess what the ANGEL PROBABLY DID.
As I suggested this morning, for Philip to bump into the man God intended required some powerful providence.
How much angelic influence was there in that providential meeting? How much control was there over this situation? Did this angel induce the charioteer to drive a little slower than he normally would? Did he cause something which delayed the commencement of the trip home? At the Lord’s bidding was someone in the party, have a touch of travel sickness which slowed them? Did they take a wrong turn at Bethlehem so that they had to retrace their tracks? Did an angel set up a road block or a detour to delay them?
And did he reveal to Philip some of the short-cuts and how to avoid the detours to get south fast? And then when Philip did actually catch up to the man, did the angel somehow tell him that THIS was the man he was sent to intercept, or was that obvious by scripture that he was hearing? Despite the lack of details, I think that it is very likely that this angelic servant of God was somehow helping to direct traffic for the glory of the Lord.
And with that I conclude this evening, wondering how much angelic input there has been in our lives throughout the years? Was there an angel involved in the process that brought the gospel to you? Was there a ministering spirit at some point to keep you from a terrible traffic accident? Did an angel have anything to do with introducing your best friend to you?
I’m not sure that we’ll ever know the answers to questions like these. But I feel confident in saying that from the tone of the scriptures, it is very likely we have been personally blessed by some of the angels of God.
I’ve mentioned my collection of books on pastoring and preaching; pastoral theology and homiletics. Nearly all of those books say something like: “Pastor, never preach your doubts.” If the preacher can’t be sure of his theme, then he needs to study it more and preach something else in the mean time.
Tonight we come to one of the many borderline subjects in my mind. I was tempted to skip over this thought, and move on to something else, but I didn’t feel lead to do that. And besides, it’s not that I’m preaching my doubts tonight, it’s just that there are so many things that I don’t know, it might just appear that I have doubts.
Let’s spend a few minutes thinking about this ANGEL OF THE LORD.
There are a great many things about this angel and this verse which WE DO NOT, and cannot, KNOW.
And yet there is enough that we do know that we can still bring glory to the Lord. And that is my intention and desire.
One of the things that we don’t know is who this angel is. Quite often, but not always, in the Old Testament, the words “the angel of the Lord” are speaking about the pre-incarnate Son of God “The angel of the Lord” is sometimes just pointing out that this was an holy angel; not a fallen angel. And here in Acts 8 there doesn’t seem to be any reason at all to assume that this is the Lord Jesus. Besides, in the Greek text, there is no definite article pointing a finger at THE angel of God.
The Bible teaches that there are millions of angels – myriads upon myriads of angels. Revelation 5:11 – “And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” When someone says that they believe in personal guardian angels, I can’t prove them wrong. There are certainly enough for every living saint of God. Paul once wrote: “But to which of the angels said he at any time, sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” There could be – there could be – a ministering spirit assigned to watch over every child of God. In fact there may be an angel watching over every elect soul, even before they are saved. This room may be filled with more angels than people here tonight, intently listening to whatever blunder I might utter about angels.
Turn to Matthew 18:1: – “At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Verse 10 – “Take heed that ye despise not 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. For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.”
Might not the Lord Jesus be saying that each of the children He had there that day had their own angel? And who can say that the angel of the Lord who rescued Peter from prison in Acts 5 or Acts 12 wasn’t the angel assigned to minister to him on a regular basis? And when Paul said, “there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,” who is to say that that angel of God wasn’t his protecting angel – his guardian angel? I think that there is reason to praise the Lord because He appears to have assigned personal, spiritual, care-givers to each of his chosen people.
But the Bible teaches that some of God’s angels are assigned to larger subjects than mere saints. The Bible speaks several times about “principalities and powers.” Romans 8:38 – “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come; Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Ephesians 6:12 – “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Colossians 1:16 – “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.”
It is generally believed by conservative scholars that these principalities and powers are ranks or ORDERS of angelic creatures. Some of these angels are holy and righteous servants of the Lord, but some of them are fallen angels, and demonic servants of the Devil.
Turn to Daniel 10:10 – “And, behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands. And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling. Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days.”
From my study of the scripture, I believe that there are angels that serve God by personally dealing with insignificant saints like you and me. But there are more important angels who watched over people like the Apostles, and prophets like Daniel, and people like Mary and Joseph of Nazareth. And there are EVEN MORE important angels, whose responsibilities include whole nations. And eventually we come to angels of the rank of Lucifer, Michael and Gabriel. We don’t know how many arch-angels there are, but it appears to be at least a couple.
But getting back to Acts 8, who was this particular angel? It’s foolish to give him a name and declare him to be the angel who visited Mary and Joseph. He might be the angel whose responsibility was to protect and assist Philip. Or he might have been the angel of this Ethiopian eunuch. He might even have been the angel assigned to the entire nation of Ethiopia.
But still, isn’t it wonderful to realize that the Lord has sent these special creatures to bless us?
Now, let’s think about what we know that HE DIDN’T DO.
For some reason this angel didn’t personally bring the gospel to the Ethiopian as he traveled south. Notice that I said, “for some reason.”
I have heard a couple dozen different men declare that no angel ever preached a gospel sermon to a sinner. And I can’t argue with that statement. But when I read about the angel who visited Daniel, or of the angels who spoke to the Apostle John; And when I read the message that the angel of the Lord gave to Zechariah, I have to question the statement that angels never preach or teach. There was an angel who stood in the way of Balaam when he was off trying to do evil. Not only did Balaam’s ass see the angel and trying to hide from it. Eventually that angel spoke to Balaam and explained what was going on. Was Balaam a child of God, or was he a child of his lying father, the Devil? Angels do teach men, but it appears that its only to the saints of the Lord, and they don’t preach gospel.
So WHY don’t angels ever preach the gospel? We might say that it’s because they are not recipients of salvation, so they know nothing of the subject. But we might also argue that the preacher shouldn’t preach about adultery since he isn’t an adulterer. Is their lack of personal experience the reason that they aren’t evangelists?
Peter might reveal something about this subject when he was talking about the prophets of old. “Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.”
Maybe the angels, who are so much smarter than we are, feel themselves to be unqualified to preach about the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Why don’t angels preach the gospel? Is it because they would put undue pressure on their hearers? If a superstitious sinner knew that it was an angel of the Lord telling him to repent, would that give him more incentive to repent, even though he wouldn’t want to repent under ordinary circumstances? It might be argued that would be the case, but then again: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead,” or if the preacher came from the very throne of God to preach.
Perhaps, this is really a question with a pretty simple answer: The Lord just doesn’t want them to evangelize the world. For whatever reason, the Lord is the Lord, and issues edicts without ever having to explain anything to sinners like us.
What do we know that this ANGEL DID ACTUALLY DO?
“And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.” He spake and said. Somehow this angel of God spoke to Philip in the language of a human being. It wasn’t in some Heavenly or angelic language. It is believed by some Charismatics that tongues-speaking, “glossolalia,” is some angelic dialect. But as far as we know, no angel ever spoke to a man in any language that wasn’t human.
Other than that, we have no more information about HOW that conversation took place. Was Philip awake or asleep? Did that angel walk up to the preacher on the street and talk to him eye to eye? Or did he come in some invisible fashion and Philip only heard the voice but saw no man or angel? Any guesses about this would be completely inappropriate. But we DO know that he spoke.
And we know that this angel, in obedience to the Lord, gave God’s directions to the evangelist Philip. Remember that second on the list of angelic responsibilities is to minister to the saints. For example, there was Joseph, engaged to a woman who had just confessed that she was with child; What was the poor man to do? “But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, Saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.”
And a few months later, when his wife’s son was in grave danger, “Behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, And be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.”
When Peter and John were imprisoned by the priests, “The angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.”
And later when Peter was being held by Herod, who was prepared to kill him the next morning, “Behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: And he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel.”
Yes, indeed these are ministering angels, exhorting angels and enabling angels. Why the Lord chooses to use angels, when other methods are available, I have no idea. But there it is.
What we see in these angels, and this angel, is complete obedience to the will of the Lord. These creatures, who know the Lord better than any earth-bound human being, love to obey. They know that the Lord doesn’t tolerate partial obedience or anything less than heart-felt obedience. And we know that they obey the Lord, even when they don’t fully understand the command given them. As Alfred Lord Tennyson said of “The Charge of the Light Brigade: Their’s not to make reply, their’s not to reason why, their’s but to do and die.”
We know that the angel who spoke to Philip did was he was told to do.
And now let me guess what the ANGEL PROBABLY DID.
As I suggested this morning, for Philip to bump into the man God intended required some powerful providence.
How much angelic influence was there in that providential meeting? How much control was there over this situation? Did this angel induce the charioteer to drive a little slower than he normally would? Did he cause something which delayed the commencement of the trip home? At the Lord’s bidding was someone in the party, have a touch of travel sickness which slowed them? Did they take a wrong turn at Bethlehem so that they had to retrace their tracks? Did an angel set up a road block or a detour to delay them?
And did he reveal to Philip some of the short-cuts and how to avoid the detours to get south fast? And then when Philip did actually catch up to the man, did the angel somehow tell him that THIS was the man he was sent to intercept, or was that obvious by scripture that he was hearing? Despite the lack of details, I think that it is very likely that this angelic servant of God was somehow helping to direct traffic for the glory of the Lord.
And with that I conclude this evening, wondering how much angelic input there has been in our lives throughout the years? Was there an angel involved in the process that brought the gospel to you? Was there a ministering spirit at some point to keep you from a terrible traffic accident? Did an angel have anything to do with introducing your best friend to you?
I’m not sure that we’ll ever know the answers to questions like these. But I feel confident in saying that from the tone of the scriptures, it is very likely we have been personally blessed by some of the angels of God.