At the first Christmas, God sent angelic beings with a song about the wonder of Jesus’ coming in the flesh. Pastor Lutzer recognizes that God sends you too. Where are you going with His message?
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Transcript: Welcome to “5 Minutes with Pastor Lutzer.” Well, of course, during this Christmas season we always think of the Christmas story and it’s not possible to tell the Christmas story without thinking of angels. Now, you can go into a bookstore today and you can find all kinds of books about angels—”the angel within you,” or how angels “guard us.” Virtually all of these books are fallacious, that is to say they are based on mythology and not scripture.
For example, they teach that all angels are good angels. They forget the fact that there’s another category of angels, if we can call them that, called demons, and once you enter into that spiritual world you’re not really qualified to tell the difference. That’s why there is so much deception. Another wrong view is that these angels are there to help everybody. Doesn’t matter what you believe, what religion you belong to, you can just be touched by an angel. It’s actually heresy. Something else that we must recognize is that people believe that angels are often more accessible than God. God seems so mysterious but angels are the path to God or at least the path to the metaphysical world. All that is wrong. When we turn to the Bible, by the way, we discover an interesting story—when Gabriel comes to Mary. Gabriel is actually mentioned by name four times in scripture. He occurs in the book of Daniel and now centuries later he comes to the virgin Mary and you know what? He does not look a bit older. Angels do not age. They will be like us someday. In eternity, time is going to be changed—at least our relationship to time and we will live forever. But here he comes and he delivers the message and then in chapter two of Luke we have the angels in the sky bringing their message to none other than the shepherds. There are three lessons I want us to see about angels today.
The first is simply this, that they went wherever they were sent. I love that. For example, Gabriel—He was sent by God and he was sent to the shepherds because they were very lowly. They were often times despised. If I might speak more plainly than I need to: They often times were quite smelly if you know anything about sheep. It didn’t matter to the angels. They were willing to go wherever God sent them and I trust that that’s true of us. No matter where God sends us, to big places, to little places, to places that are difficult—may we go wherever we are sent.
Secondly they gave the message that had been given to them by God. And there, of course, we think of Luke 2, where the Bible talks about the fact that an angel proclaims to the shepherds and then the whole heavens are filled with the heavenly host and they are giving a message and they are giving glory to God. “Peace on earth. Good will toward men and to those with whom God is well pleased.” I should pause and say that not everybody benefits from the coming of Jesus Christ. But there they are they are singing this song. Spurgeon, the great preacher, says, “The attributes of God are seen in a little child and God is glorified in every flower but sing, oh universe, until you can exhaust yourself. There is no song as sweet as the incarnation.” And they got to sing it.
Angels are beings that have been created independently by God; they serve Him. And for certain, I want you to listen to us next time and I’ll tell you why when I think of angels’ relationship to us and what they think of redemption—our redemption, I am so fascinated it takes my breath away.
So, today let us remember to go wherever God sends us, to give the message that He has given to us about the coming of Jesus Christ, and then like the angels in Luke 2, who returned to Heaven and reported to God that their mission had been accomplished, in the very same way, someday we will give an account to God. He will say, “Did you go where I sent you? Did you give them the message that I gave you and were you faithful to the end?” The angels can say that and I sure hope that we can say that too. Be sure to join me next time but as for today, you just go with God.