Now, I want to read from the Scriptures.
This is the fifth talk on the book
of Hebrews, and I take it that you
want to be a symmetrical Christian.
I take it that you do not want
to become one-sided in your Christianity, and
if we are going to be saved from
one-sided Christianity, we're going to have to
study all the Bible and read it all
from beginning to end, not once, but as
much as we can all the time, repeating
it year after year, and giving attention to
everything that God has revealed about himself.
If you want to know how one-sided
you are, go through your Bible and notice
the passages that you have marked, and the
ones that you have left unmarked.
Then look at your Bible and notice the
books of the Bible that are marked and
dog-eared and thumb-printed, and then notice
the books of the Bible that hardly have
any marks on them at all.
It just shows that we choose what we
like and neglect what we don't like.
I say this because we are to talk
about angels this morning, and nobody ever talked
about angels in my hearing.
I am the only man who has ever
preached on the subject, and I wouldn't preach
on it except I find it here before
me, staring out at me like a bright
neon sign, and the Holy Ghost wrote this
book and I can't possibly pass it over,
because angels are not popular in a Protestant
circle.
It's written here that that man, Jesus Christ
our Lord, who is the brightness of God's
glory and expressed image of his person, and
upholding all things by the word of his
power, when he had by himself purged our
sins, sat down on the right hand of
the Majesty on high, being made so much
better than the angels, as he hath by
inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
For unto which of the angels said he
at any time, thou art my son, this
day have I begotten thee.
And again, I will be to him a
father, and he shall be to me a
son.
Now he's quoting scripture here.
He's again and again, there was a scripture
passage, and again, when he bringeth in the
first begotten into the world, he saith, and
let all the angels of God worship him.
And of the angels, he saith, who makes
his angel spirits and his ministers a flame
of fire.
But unto the Son, he saith, thy throne,
O God, is forever and ever.
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of
thy kingdom.
Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity.
Therefore, God, even thy God, hath anointed thee
with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
Thou, O Lord, in the beginning hast laid
the foundation of the earth, and the heavens
are the works of thine hands.
They shall perish, but thou remainest.
They all shall wax old as doth a
garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold
them up, and they shall be changed.
But thou art the same, and thy years
shall not fail.
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?
Thus saith the Holy Spirit in the latter
verses of the first chapter of the book
of Hebrews.
Now, as I have attempted to make clear
in my effort at expounding this book, that
the preeminence or the eternal Son is the
theme of the book, the preeminence of the
one who is the brightness of God's glory
and the express image of his person, that
he above all other beings has preeminence.
He is shown to be preeminent above Abraham.
He is shown to be preeminent above Aaron.
He is shown to have preeminence above Moses,
as great as the man who built the
house has over the house.
He is shown to have preeminence above Joshua,
and above the priests of the Old Testament,
and even above the high priests of the
Old Testament.
And here he is shown to have preeminence
above the angels.
Now, because we're Protestants, we miss a few
things that we have carelessly, and I think
sometimes in a vexed spirit, thrown out.
If you cross over the tracks onto the
other great division of the Church, so-called
on earth, you'll find that some of our
friends make a great deal of angels.
You go through their hymn today, and they
have a good deal to say about angels.
And because they have a lot to say
about angels, we Protestants take revenge by not
saying anything at all about angels.
But the truth is that the Bible has
very much to say about angels.
Did you know that the word angel, or
angels, or angels possessive occurs more than 300
times by actual count in our King James
Bible, and references are made to the angels
where the word does not occur almost as
many times more?
So that it seems to me that anything
in the scriptures which gets 300 references by
name ought not to be neglected as much
as we neglect it.
We ought to know more about it than
we do.
And yet if I were to run up
to the average Christian and say to him,
what is an angel?
Why, he'd probably fall back on the old
poem, the beautiful creature with wings that sits
up in heaven and sings.
But there's nothing in the Bible that says
that angels have wings, and there's nothing in
the Bible that says that the angels sing.
Now that's a shocking thing, but it's true
nevertheless.
We'll give the angels a harp, or rather
a trumpet, and start them off, but they
don't, there's nothing, they may sing, and the
chances are very strong that they do.
But it's very odd the Bible doesn't say
that they do.
And the Bible doesn't say that they have
wings, though there are creatures in the scriptures
that have wings, the cherubim and the seraphim,
they're said to have wings.
Well anyway, the angels were very well known
in Hebrew religion, and remember that the man
who wrote the book of Hebrews was writing
and pleading the cause of Christ to people
with a Hebrew background.
And so he had to make a case
for the Son of God that would put
him higher than the highest thing that the
Hebrews recognized.
And next to God the Hebrews recognized angels,
or at least heavenly beings.
So the man of God does not hesitate
in writing to Hebrew Christians, he does not
hesitate to compare Jesus with the angels and
show from their own scriptures that Jesus our
Lord is infinitely superior to the highest angels
that inhabit the kingdom of God.
Now the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, along
with our New, but we're confining ourselves for
the moment to the Old because there was
no New when the book of Hebrews was
written.
The Hebrew religion was divinely given, and because
it was divinely given it reflects accurately the
two worlds as they are.
You and I, as I've said before, are
victims of the scientific age.
We're victims of the plastic age and the
space age and the atomic age.
We're a victim of the artificial age and
the mechanical age, and our minds have been
stained with this kind of thinking to a
point where we don't look out on God's
world as simply as we should.
We don't look out as children look and
see everything as a wonder.
We see it through the socks, strain it
through the socks and see it through the
glasses of some scientists and philosophers that have
lived.
But the Hebrew Bible gives us the world
as it is, and it reflects accurately the
world as they are, the world as they
are, the two worlds.
If you were to go to the Bible
and read it and meditate on it until
you became biblical in your psychology, you would
come nearer to being a true scientist than
the man who puts God out of his
mind and never read the Bible at all
and with his microscope and his other instruments
tries to determine what the world is.
Always remember that the world was made by
God Almighty and it bears the stamp of
deity upon it.
Just as if you were to go down
into the States and you would find, and
I suppose over Canada too, though I've not
seen them here, I've not traveled too much
in Canada, you would see the buildings, certain
buildings, and when you saw them you would
say instantly, I know who the architect was,
Frank Lloyd Wright.
Now my personal opinion is that he should
have been raking the lawn when he designed
a lot of his houses, but he did
design them and you would recognize it because
they have the man's personality on them.
You go into an art institute and you
will see pictures there and you will recognize
them.
If you're anything of a student of art,
you will know immediately, I know a few,
I think I would know Jean Corre, the
Frenchman, any place because he does something with
light and color that nobody else ever quite
managed to capture.
So the stamp of the man is all
over his pictures and so it is with
hymns.
I amuse myself sometimes by going through the
old-fashioned hymn books and singing and mumbling
and humming some of the hymns and there's
no name given and I say Wesley wrote
this and I flip back and found it's
Wesley or I say what this is his
and I go back and usually find it's
what because they have stamped what they have
written with their own personality.
So it is with the world in which
we live.
The world visible and the world invisible, the
two worlds I've called them though they're probably
only one.
The visible and the invisible together probably make
up the one world but you can look
out on that world and you will see
the stamp of God on it just as
you look at the Bible and you see
the stamp of God here on the scriptures
and if you think enough and and meditate
enough you will see a likeness between the
the Bible and the world itself.
There's a similarity between the two, enough similarity
so you recognize the same architect and the
same artist and when you hear the notes
blown out from the Bible and you hear
the sound of the trumpet in the storm
and the thunder you recognize the same trumpet
blast.
It's Jehovah watering his hills from his chambers,
it's God Almighty in the lightning and the
storm as it's God Almighty in the book
of Daniel and book of Revelation.
So you'll find a similarity there.
So I plead that we put out of
our minds our modern western mentality as far
as we can that we purge away from
it this artificial mentality and that we try
to think as God thinks and be Christ
-like in our mentality.
Now the Bible reveals a great deal about
angels and it assumes the existence of them
an order of transcendent beings which it calls
angels and they are shown to be holy,
the holy angels the scripture says and they're
shown to be sexless.
Jesus our Lord said that they that attain,
speaking of people, they that attain unto that
world will neither marry or be given in
marriage but will be in that way like
the angels.
Now they will not be angels, I want
you to get that straight.
I know that sometimes we think when we
die we become angels.
No, no more than when a horse dies
he becomes a buffalo.
You don't change by dying, you don't change
from one species to another and you don't
change from being human to being angelic just
because you die or because you rise again
from the dead.
Angels are one order of being and men
are another order of being and God made
man in his image and it's not said
of the angels that he made them in
his image.
It is said in the next chapter in
Hebrews that Christ did not take upon himself
the nature of angels but he took upon
himself the seed of Abraham, the nature of
a man.
So there are sexless creatures there, holy creatures
and they have great power.
They're said to excel in strength and they're
said to be multitudinous.
God likes lots of things.
I've often wondered why God wants so much
of everything but he seems to.
If I'd had it to do, I'd started
the whole job of birth control and reducing
the human race years ago.
Of course I'd want it to happen after
I was born naturally but I'd have said
there are too many people everywhere you go
that are talking about population explosions.
That's an awful word, population explosions and we're
having too many people in the world.
We are supposed to have close to three
billions of them now and I remember when
we were boasting we had two billions.
There are three and close to three billions
now, that's a thousand million being a billion.
And yet when God makes things he makes
lots of them because you see God being
infinite and having everything and all power and
all wisdom doesn't have to settle for two
or three or a half dozen or a
hundred.
So when God created the angels he created
a multitude of the heavenly host and an
innumerable company of angels and innumerable means that
they can't be counted.
And then they have a substance like fire.
I've heard sermons preached on Hebrews 1 telling
preachers that they ought to be fiery and
I believe in fiery preachers.
I don't believe in preachers that come numbly
to the pulpit and dully read something they've
thought up.
I believe that a preacher ought to have
fire on his soul and I know where
to go to get it.
But when the scripture says that the ministering
spirits are sent forth to minister to them
that shall be heirs of salvation, it doesn't
mean men.
It says he makes his ministers a flame
of fire and it doesn't mean men.
Minister is a word that we apply to
men and it's a good word to apply
but it also applies to angels.
And he's talking about angelic spirits here when
he says that they are made of fire.
You and I are not made of fire
except in the most poetic way.
I'm reading the letters of Samuel Rutherford and
if ever a man was a man of
fire it was Samuel Rutherford.
I love the poetry of Frederick Faber and
he was a man of fire.
And I have been reading the journals of
Whitfield and he was a man of fire.
But I'm using those terms only in their
figurative sense, not in their literal sense.
But the angels seem to have been composed
of fire and move up and down in
fire.
Now I notice the interest, I'm interested in
the activities of the angels.
What would they do?
What would they have to do, do you
suppose, all these angels?
Well I notice they're interested in the affairs
of earth and they're not human but they've
got one human quality and that is they're
inquisitive about things that they don't understand.
Peter says that the angels desired to look
into the mystery of the gospel and they
could not.
And Jesus our Lord said that the son
does not know neither the angels in heaven
but only the father certain prophetic events.
So these angels are obviously interested in us.
They're interested in people and they had some
function at the creation for we read that
the sons of God shouted for joy and
the sons of God there mean the angels
according to all the scholars.
And they had something to do with the
giving of the law.
You will remember that it's written that the
law was given by the ministry of angels.
One angel came to the Virgin Mary at
the hour of the annunciation and announced that
she would have a son and call his
name Jesus.
At the birth of Jesus there was an
angel that came and a multitude of the
heavenly hosts joined him very soon.
And when Christ was in Gethsemane that tender
passage tells us that when he had prayed
himself to exhaustion and angels came and ministered
unto him.
We read again that at Christ's resurrection angels
were everywhere about.
Sometimes it called them angels and sometimes it
called them people because angels not having any
physical body took on themselves visible forms sometimes
to be seen as men.
And then at the death of the righteous
we learn that there are angels.
You know I think there's an awful lot
of paganism yet in the church of Jesus
Christ our Lord.
I know nobody wants to die but for
a real saint who's lived right who's made
everything right and the blood of Jesus Christ
has cleansed him from sin and the Lord
pleading his cause before the Father and he's
lived well and done his work.
I don't think dying is the gloomy horrible
thing that it's made out to be and
I don't believe that we ought to surround
our loved Christian dead with all the marks
of death.
He's not dead he sleepeth said Jesus.
And when the poor fellow died that had
been begging at the rich man's gate he
was taken by the angels into Abraham's bosom.
Imagine it will you a ticker tape parade
to welcome him into the presence of Abraham
his father and the angels were leading the
parade.
Well then we also learn that the angels
keep the righteous.
We don't believe in guardian angels and we
are the protestant circles very much it's just
a poetic thing and something for artists to
draw pretty pictures about.
But nobody believes in it much but our
Lord did say that their angels do always
behold the face of our Father which is
in heaven.
And then in your reading your Bible did
you notice that angels appeared unto Moses and
old Mr. Balaam that greedy old pastor or
preacher that wanted to obey God so bad
but he wanted money worse and so he
obeyed he obeyed money rather than God and
died fighting against God.
But that man Balaam remember he was riding
his little donkey along a narrow path and
an angel of God blocked the way that
donkey saw the angel and the prophet didn't.
I wonder how many of us preachers wouldn't
see an angel if he came and stood
in the aisle.
Well Balaam didn't but donkey did.
And then there was Hagar when she had
put her little boy out to die an
angel came and spoke to her.
And you remember Jacob as he saw the
ladder raised he saw angels ascending and descending.
I said the last time I mentioned that
that the angels did not descend and ascend
they didn't come down and go back up.
They went up and came back down they'd
been down here all the time.
Only we didn't see them you see Jacob
didn't see them the fellow that had done
what Jacob did he couldn't see an angel.
You can put a film over your eyes
until you can't even appreciate a man talking
about an angel but rather he'd talk about
something more practical.
You will find in that great day that
among the most practical beings in the world
will be the angels of God.
And then there was Elijah.
I like to think how Elijah the prophet
of God was out and he was a
great courageous man but he was the kind
of man that as they say in baseball
he batted over his own head.
That is he did things bigger than he
could do.
And one of those times he did something
so big he killed 400 of the prophets
of Baal.
And Jezebel heard about it and sent word
to him she said I'll have your head
in the basket tomorrow.
Well Elijah lit out and he didn't wait
around to debate the matter with.
He didn't believe as they would say now
that the matter was negotiable.
So he was afraid that if he didn't
win he'd lose his head.
So he got out in a hurry.
I can understand him.
I can imagine Jezebel.
I think I'd have done the same thing.
And he ran a long time and he
got out there under the juniper tree and
he was frightened and miserable and it had
a letdown from the tension of that great
experience on Mount Carmel.
And the Lord sent an angel and tapped
him and woke him up out of his
gloomy sleep.
And he smelled something and said I'm back
home.
They looked no he said I'm not back
home at all I'm way out here in
the wilderness under this tree.
He looked around he said I thought I
smelled cake.
He said I do.
And who do you suppose had been baking
cakes?
It was none other than an angel baking
cakes for the prophet of God.
And you know the story of Samson the
mother and father and the angel that came
to see them.
And you know the story of Zechariah and
of Daniel and Joseph and Mary and Christ
himself and the beggar and Peter and Philip
and Lot and David and the shepherds and
Paul and John and Herod.
Every last one of them had experiences with
angels.
And you will say well what kind of
a visionary are you Mr. Tozer?
When have you seen the last angel?
The nearest thing to an angel I've ever
seen is a pretty little girl.
I'll admit that a girl about that high
is to my mind the prettiest thing God
ever made in this wide world.
The next best pretty thing is a little
boy.
But that's the nearest I ever came to
seeing an angel.
So I am not speaking out of my
experience or telling you that I have been
in contact with angels.
In the first place the scripture never says
that I should try to get in contact
with angels.
But it does say they're here.
And the Bible says it's here.
When I come to preach the Bible I'm
going to say it's here and I'm not
going to skip it.
You come to the book of Revelation the
Bible mentions angels 75 times.
Do you know I think there are periods
in the life of the church when even
angels won't permit themselves to know them.
But the coming of Christ the first time
they did and at their death and resurrection
of Christ they did.
And when the church was in her purity
in the book of Acts they did and
they will again when he returns in the
glory.
Whenever the church is revived they will.
So the drama of the last days 75
times in the book of Revelation the angels
are seen and I'm sure that in the
new heaven and the new earth and in
the world to come they'll be around everywhere.
Now generally assumed that we the Protestants that
we evangelicals for I am an evangelical that
we evangelicals are that we are synonymous with
the religion of the Bible.
But I have noticed the Bible says an
awful lot about angels and evangelicals don't say
anything at all.
And so there's one point in place where
we do not correspond.
Now when we come to the intention and
purpose of the writer in bringing the matter
of angels in.
He did it in order to show that
the highest creatures that the Hebrews knew the
most exalted and lofty beings that they recognized
were beneath the man Christ Jesus.
So he goes to work quoting their own
scriptures here.
And he said there's a contrast between the
eternal son and even your angels.
He said you have a great deal to
say about angels and you believe in them
high and lifted up and powerful and mighty
and wise rushing to the help of God's
people.
Very good.
But this one I preach unto you is
mightier than the angels.
He has a name that is greater than
theirs.
So he shows in Psalm 27 thou art
my son.
God said this day have I begotten thee.
Now he never said that to an angel.
Thou art my begotten son.
The angels were the created sons of God.
You know the difference between Adam and us.
The difference is this.
By us I mean Christians.
The difference is Adam was the created work
of God and Christians are the begotten work
of God.
A Christian is not born again in the
likeness of Adam who was made of clay.
He is born again in the likeness of
Christ who was begotten of God.
There is the difference.
God's created man fell but God's begotten man
did not fall but remains eternally and forever
the mighty Christ unfallen separate from sinners higher
than the highest heavens.
And then in Psalm 89 26 I will
be to him a father and he shall
be to me a son.
Now this was never said never could be
said about anyone except Jesus Christ our Lord.
And in Psalms 97 7 he quotes and
let all the angels of God worship him.
Now you and for my part you wouldn't
have had to quote any other passage than
this one.
Jesus Christ is pointed out to and pointed
out and they said look at him and
behold him and all you angels of God
get on your knees before him and worship
this one.
Now God never reversed that and said oh
you son worship the angels but he said
oh angels worship the son.
The point he's making here in every quotation
is that Jesus Christ stands preeminent above all
other beings and he uses the angels as
the highest beings that there are.
The angels are on their faces and our
Lord is on his throne and that's where
they should be forever.
In Psalm 45 6 and 7 thy throne
oh God is forever and ever.
You know I have been reading some of
you want to chase me out of town
for this but I read everything.
I've even read part at least of the
communist manifesto.
I read everything though I reject what I
don't like.
But and of course you know my opinion
of communists it couldn't be any lower if
it was a cutworms instep.
I think so little of the whole business
and I'm waiting for God Almighty to reverse
the order of things and drive the evil
we call communism out of the world.
And yet I have in my earlier times
read their literature because I wanted to know
what they believed the same as I have
read atheism and all the other isms because
I wanted to know what they taught.
Well thy throne oh God is forever and
ever in the book that I've been reading
called the New English Bible.
Now somebody wants to know what I think
of it.
I'm not able to tell you whether it's
safe or not.
Some of my brethren say it isn't safe
and so I'm not recommending it.
But I've been telling you that I've been
reading it and in Psalm 45 it's stronger
than the King James Version.
Thy throne oh God thy throne.
God puts the word twice and addresses Jesus
as God twice in the same verse that
the King James only calls him God once.
So at least in that instance it is
stronger than the King James in telling us
that Jesus Christ is very God or very
God.
Now that you introduce any other being into
that category will you?
Put any other being in that sentence.
Thy throne oh angel.
No you couldn't say that, nor seraphim nor
cherubim.
You couldn't put Moses there nor Aaron there
nor David there nor Daniel there.
Only Jesus Christ our Lord can have it
said of him thy throne oh God is
forever and ever.
And in 34th Isaiah 34 they shall perish
but thou remainest.
In Psalms 110 one sit thou on my
right hand.
Who's speaking there?
It's Jehovah who is speaking.
Sit thou on my right hand.
Now there are those that tell us that
the Jehovah of that the Jesus of the
New Testament is the Jehovah of the old.
Don't believe it my brother.
He is the God and he is co
-equal with Jehovah and he is co-eternal
with Jehovah and he is of one substance
with Jehovah.
But Jehovah is the name of the Father
not the name of the Son.
The Father said Jehovah the Father said to
the Son sit thou on my right hand.
So how could Jehovah if Jesus were Jehovah
how could the Father Jehovah say sit thou
on my right hand when he was talking
to his Son?
No no.
Jesus is God and he is very God
of very God's begotten not created and he
is the image of the invisible God the
firstborn of every creature.
He is the word made flesh to dwell
among us and he is deity in every
sense of the word but he is the
second person of the Trinity.
He's not the first person of the Trinity.
They who teach the scriptures ought to remember
the cautious and careful explanation and warning given
by the old creed that tells us that
we should not confound a person nor attempt
to divide the substance.
It was not the Father that died on
the cross it was the Son that died
on the cross.
Neither did the Spirit die on the cross
it was the Son who died on the
cross.
Jehovah Lord God sent his Son who was
named Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ the
second person of the divine Godhead by the
Spirit offered himself without spot back to Jehovah
again.
That's the correct theological position and we ought
to be careful that we don't confuse it.
Jehovah said unto Jesus sit thou on my
right hand until I make thine enemies thy
footstool and only to an equal could the
great God Almighty say that.
He never said it to an angel or
to a seraphim.
Indeed the seraphims and the cherubim move about
his throne spread their broad wings do the
cherubim and run straight forward and lift up
their wings to do the will of God
but they don't sit on God's throne.
Only the eternal Son can sit on the
throne of the eternal God.
Well angels exist but you wouldn't think so
in the average church they do.
This is a populated world I'd like to
have you know that it's a populated world.
There are other creatures in the world beside
you.
They're here I don't mean animals I mean
these creatures of God sent to be ministers
to them who shall be heirs of salvation.
You can see plainly how valuable you are
as a Christian in the sight of God
when God takes the very angels from the
throne and sends them to be your ministers.
He doesn't tell you to communicate with them
nor to try to communicate with them.
He doesn't tell you to talk to them
or to try to get in touch with
them.
He only tells you to recognize that the
father who loved you doesn't leave you alone
in this dark world.
I suppose that the most the most difficult
thing to bear if you were thrown up
into space if you went up into space
as Major Gagarin was said to do I've
yet to be convinced.
But I suppose that the the toughest and
hardest thing would be to be so alone.
Ah brother to be up there all by
yourself now.
So far from the little old world the
old earth where people are you get too
much of people you know and you like
to take a walk somewhere where nobody is.
But you like to come back to them
again don't you.
We're people and God made us gregarious creatures
that is we we live for one another
and we we love each other.
Just to walk downtown when you don't know
a soul not a soul.
It's better than to be up there in
space I had enjoyed more.
Who was that that said I am the
master of all I survey my right there
are none to dispute but there he was
all by himself.
Selkirk wrote it but it was Robinson Crusoe
supposed to be saying it.
There he was all alone by himself nobody
was there but he.
That'd be a lonely thing and to be
in this world and think there's nobody in
the world to me that would be unutterable
anguish unbearable anguish.
Just the sight of a human face regardless
of the color which way his eyes ran
just the sight of a human face would
be wonderful.
I suppose you heard about the Russian rocket
that was whirling around up there and it
was overtaken by an American rocket and they
ran together neck and neck for a while
and they got in conversation.
And one of them said why do we
not have a little talk while we're here.
The other one said yes why not.
He said after all we both speak German.
You know both the Americans and the Germans
learned learned their trade from and the Russians
earned their trade from the Germans.
But anyhow to be up there where you
couldn't talk to anybody all the loneliness of
it.
And when Jesus Christ our Lord was alone
in the garden angels came and ministered to
him.
And when he was alone in the desert
angels came and ministered to him.
And when Peter was in prison an angel
came forthright and direct slapped Peter on the
side and said wake up Peter.
Peter woke said come on took him out.
It's good to know that you're not alone
in the world.
Our heavenly father has his beings here.
I've never seen one and I'm not going
to try to hunt one but I believe
they're around about me.
I believe they're here.
The angels keep their wanted place wanted places
turn but a stone and start a wing
to you to your estranged faces that miss
the many splendid things.
I believe if we the children of God
were to begin to see the earth and
the world and the things that are there
in as God sees them and we begin
to get divine mentality and we began to
have a mind that was colored and touched
and tinted by the scriptures instead of by
science and philosophy and advertising it'll be a
lot happier people.
We wouldn't be as lonely as we are.
We'd know that he's with us always all
the time with us and in us.
We would know that he has these creatures
which we know so little but of which
we could know more if we took the
trouble who are ministering spirits sent forth to
minister for them who shall be heirs of
salvation.
What they do I don't know but I
sometimes think let me tell you this little
tiny story in closing happened to me.
I was a Christian young Christian attending a
certain church where it was pretty easy to
backslide because there wasn't much there to keep
you from it.
And I had no help of any sort
neither at home or anywhere else.
One Sunday morning I woke up in a
bad mood and I said I'm not going
to church today.
I was for the moment in my heart
backslidden.
I said I am not going to any
church today.
I'm going out in the country.
So I went out in the country.
People do that now you know play golf
but think they're doing God's service but I
knew I wasn't.
I knew I was backsliding.
So I went for a walk out in
the country and I went across a field
and as I walked across that field I
saw something red.
And I picked it up and it was
a red bound book and it had been
rained on and the sun had shone and
dried and it rained on again.
And there it was way out there in
the middle of a grassy field far from
everybody and everything waiting for a boy who
was too gloomy and blue that day to
go to church to find it.
And I picked it up.
I forget the name of it is one
of those 4890 questions answered you know for
busy Bible students.
But anyhow the Lord had it there for
me and I opened it up began to
read and every page told me that I
ought to be back in that church.
Well I threw that book back where it
belonged but I wonder who put that there.
Now I don't know that an angel did
but somebody did.
Maybe some angel dropped that there for me
who should be an air of salvation.
And I was a young fellow also.
I was riding the rods.
If you know I suppose you don't know
what riding you cultivated and cultured people don't
know what riding the rods is.
Riding the rods means riding freight cars instead
of passenger cars.
I didn't have any money so I rode
the rods.
I was bumming around.
It was Sunday and I was a Christian
too.
I shouldn't have been there.
But then if you knew what I had
to feed on you wonder why I wasn't
somewhere worse than that in that church.
But anyhow there I was away from my
people and away from home and away from
the church and away from everything that was
right.
And the train ground to a stop and
the church bells began to play.
I never heard church bells so loud and
insistent in all of my life.
And I have heard preachers preach and lay
it on thick but I never heard any
preacher that did any better job of bringing
conviction on a backslidden boy than those church
bells did that day.
I don't know what they were.
Now it could have been Anglican or Presbyterian
or whatever they were.
They were up there telling me that I
shouldn't be riding freight trains.
I should be back where I belong.
I soon went back and straightened out all
right as you know.
But anyhow now who did all that?
I don't know who did all that.
I know the man up in front would
have laughed if I had said to him
the engineer are you an angel.
He just smiled and sped his tobacco juice
over the cab window and said not that
I know of.
So I don't suppose that he was an
angel but I do think that when he
put on the brakes he put them on
by the providence of God to stop me
right in front of that church.
So those little things saved me.
Those little providential things saved me.
Now don't say I told you an angel
stopped a train or dropped a book but
I have a notion that the providences of
God arranged it to save me.
Brother if you only knew how many times
you thought you thought it out.
God had been out there ahead of you
all the time thinking it out.
You thought it was your plan and all
it was you ran into God's plan.
You thought the idea was yours but God
put the idea in your mind.
You thought that fellow that came to you
and said this and this and changed the
course of your life.
You thought you went to him.
God sent him to you.
So we're living in a populated world.
We're living in a world full of the
friends of God.
Sinners are not certainly.
God has his angels and God has his
people that he can talk to.
The providential circumstances are out there and we
ought to recognize them and we ought to
thank God every day.
One of the old saints said if you
thank God for your providences you will never
lack a providence to thank God for.
And if you will recognize the providences of
God working for you behind the scene and
out ahead of you and all around you
are known to you and unseen by you
and you will remember and thank him for
them you will always have something to thank
him for.
Well now that's my little word for you
this morning about scriptures and the angels and
the eternal son who is infinitely above all
the angels world without end.
Amen.