Angel Power

Dear Father God, it's Memorial Day. We need Jesus, the captain of

the Lord's army. We need to understand what he went through. We need

Heaven's medics in our life, and we need to cooperate with them. So

help us to realize the value of angels. That these beings are in this

room. They're in our house. They watch our smiles or sneers or anything

else, and it matters. And they bring the light of the glory of

God from his throne to us to encourage us. Thank you Lord for our

medics today the angels in Jesus' name. Amen. Now this weekend is Memorial

Day weekend in which we remember our fallen soldiers. How many of you have

been in the military Here at Reaching Hearts and all right, we have some

vegts here. I'm very grateful for your service to our country, your service

to the cause of freedom and fighting for others. I have a son who's

in the military. Many of us have family members of the military, and

we remember those specifically who died in war to give us freedom, life and

the future. I mean that generation in World War Two that hit the beaches

of Normandy. If they had not succeeded, we would not be here in

a free world today. We have no idea what people do for the cause

of God's soldiers for freedom, and we would be in the wrong to fail

to recognize these brave soldiers alive today, as we have recognized here who fight

for our freedom, or who stand ready to fight for freedom, who suffer

for our dignity, who are willing to die for our future, and so

we honor you. Friday, I got a call from mister ward Coe.

Some of you know who he is. He's the attorney who fought for nearly

ten years for us to secure our freedom and courts so we could win the

right to build a church to worship God in this place. I am grateful

for mister ward Coo. Mister ward Colo left a message on my phone Friday

that he was reaching out to me as an old friend, and the word

old just didn't quite resonate as it should. But my friend was prominent.

So when we first met, I had small children at that time, and

we began the journey for the billity of the church. Mister Cole came into

my life from Gallagher of Vellius and Jones, Princeton graduate brilliant attorney. But

you always wonder if the attorney's a good person. And I imagine the attorney

always wonders if the pastor that he's representing is a good person too. And

in a way, none of us are. We need Jesus correct. But

we got to know each other in the mix of the fight to secure this

property, to get the zoning passed, and forget the abuses of the county

turned aside by a reversal in a court. We had to go to trial

to do this. We had lost everything in the state court system, all

the way up to the Supreme Court in the state of Maryland. They said

no, no, no, no, no no. And then we filed

a lawsuit for religious freedom the religious Land used Institutional Last Persons Act. We

filed it in Greenbelt Federal Court, appealing to the United States Constitution, the

equal protection Clause of the United States Constitution. And mister Coe was the one

who agreed to represent us. He scared me to death when I met him

because he was so different than me. Both of us have gotten a little

older over the years. Were grandfathers. Him more than me. He was

my senior. I'm sixty one, I'm not going to say how old he

is. He's older, and I know what most people do not know about

him in his sacred journey of ours as we became friends and a common freedom,

a common excuse me, a common journey to secure our freedom. I

know that mister Coe is a military veteran of the Vietnam War who risked his

life for his country. Maybe that is why he went into law to fight

for other people's freedom as their legal advocate. Mister Coe was a combat marine.

He once shared with me that he carried a machine gun. I didn't

ask any specifics. I don't think that's fair to vets to say, how

did you use it? I couldn't imagine him carrying one. He was relatively

short compared to me, but he had a lot of fight in him.

That's probably why he was a very good attorney. And he shared a little

more with me of how he weathered danger on the ground as a marine in

a far off land, in a hot and sweaty kind of place where people

die like flies and life is cheap. I did not press him for the

details. Mister Coe didn't talk very much about these details of who died and

who didn't, who came home and who fell and never returned. All that

mattered to mister Coe and our most unusual relationship together was winning the war against

the oppressive evil that was preventing us from having a church to help us win.

I mean, no one remembers a loser except they lost. No no

one respects the loser. It matters if you win in life. I told

mister Cole Friday yesterday on that phone call that I am grateful to God for

him in my life. This Memorial Day he was calling me, is if

I was a soldier. It was the strangest thing. I don't even have

to shoot straight. I can fish, but you know, shooting straight's hard

for me. I shared that I have two people from the military in my

life worthy of honor at this time, I said, mister Cole. The

first one's you, and the second one is my son, who's a medic.

And he shared with me, just kind of serendipitously, that those medics

are the best. He said, they risk everything for those in need who

have fallen on the field of battle. They go where no one else goes.

When a soldier falls, he says, a medic comes quickly to help

that fallen soldiers survive to fight another day, to go home to family,

loved ones, to live and love again. It's all because of the medics,

I said, mister co. I'm grateful to God for you, because

you've taught me a lot about Jesus over the years, our great advocate in

the future judgment day, I said, I've used you as an illustration a

number of sermons about what it means to be an advocate, to have someone

in court for us. You have model Jesus in my life. I said,

you right, and we begin to reminisce lits. You and I.

We come from different backgrounds. I'm a Seventh day Adventist Christian and you're a

Roman Catholic Christian. I respect you, mister Coe, I said, because

you weren't afraid to take up the cause of freedom for what appears to you

culturally to be weird Christians, because we do things do We baptize people,

We put them in the water. You know, we don't sprinkle them like

the Bible says. But it's not what He's used to. Culturally, we

don't have the mask going on, but we pray, I said, mister

co. I'm just very grateful you came to our church when we were at

Spencerville, and you came to this worship service that wouldn't make any sense to

you, and you bow your head and we dedicated you and your fight and

your life and your family to God in our church. And you didn't run

away from us. And I'm grateful you came to prayer me and do the

same. We talked a little bit about the seventh Avens World War Two medic

Desmond Dass. I don't even know who he is. Famous film Hacksaw Ridge

by Mel Gibson has for the most part giving you a picture of who he

is, but not adequately. Desmond Dass was far more amazing than that film

can portray the man who saves so many. The one line that has embedded

in American culture of this medic is him just struggling the night, struggling in

the fight without a gun in his hand, saying God, just let me

save one more. Seventy five people at least were lowered down the escarpment at

Hacksaw Ridge and the fiercest fight of Okinawa, and this man of God without

a gun was a medic on the ground to save the lives of many I

mean in the seventh da Abnist culture, if you're looking for someone who resembles

Hercules, it's Desmond Doss because of his faith in God. Our culture and

our religion are miles apart from what mister Coe is used to. And yet

we are friends because we fought the battle for freedom together. I said,

mister Coe, you took the risk to get to know me, to come

to our church at the worship service hour, and yet you and let us

pray for you in our church on that Sabbath day. You came to our

prayer meeting to pray for our cause when we have such different beliefs. We

reminisced about the time mister Coe spoke to me at that prayer meeting and he

turned to me. He says, Pastor Mike. He says, I figured

you out. You're not doing this so you can get rich. I said,

that's right. He says, you're doing it because you want to see

the church go up. He says, you're the real thing. I said,

mister Coe, it doesn't matter, it matters. Is Jesus the real

thing? And we bonded at prayer meeting church in another place before the church

was built, I thank mister Coe for cutting those legal costs down, hanging

in there patiently with us when it looked like we were going to lose the

case before it ever went to trial. I said, mister co you didn't

walk away from us in our need, and I'm grateful today that you are

one of the great people in my life. This Memorial Day weekend, I

talked about doctor John Butler, and we reminisced about doctor Butler and some of

these spiritual giants who came before us, who gave their lives to see this

church go up, never a complaining word in their mind or heart, but

a focused attitude for the saving of others. He remembered doctor John Butler.

He loved his testimony on the witness stand. They just couldn't put doctor Butler

into a corner. Doctor Butler. When he got done, they were done.

I think they lost the case because of doctor Butler's testimony. And I

shared with him that we built sandcastles in time, and none of us lived

for a I don't know how long I'll live, you'll live anybody else,

but we remember the good old days. I said, I'm grateful I've seen

Jesus in you, mister Coe, and in your love and protection for our

church, You're always a part of us. You know. When we had

our groundbreaking he was on vacation at the beach. He drove all the way

from there to here to be a part of the ceremony. When some prominent

church officials didn't show up, mister Coe showed up. I was so proud

of that. After talking about my family a bit and bringing me up to

speed about his, his grandchildren, the pool parties and the like, I

prayed for him and thanked God for him, and I said specific I said,

thank you God for bringing such a wonderful man of God into my life,

a warrior. We agreed to keep our friendship fresh, to not use

the word old friends anymore, and talk together so maybe I can write a

book about our faith struggle together, our common fight for freedom in this venture

that made us history change the law of the land. But for us it

was something quite personal. And I'll always be close to this man because we

were in the trenches together. One thing stuck in my mind that mister Co

shared with me yesterday. He shared with me that those medics are the best.

They risk everything for those in need who have fallen I mean, if

you go down, the medic goes for you. They don't let you stay

down. Angels are medics. Angels are medics. In the Great Controversy,

when God sent Jesus to save us, God sent the captain of the Lord's

army to save us. Christ was God and angel form, the Bible indicates

before he was ever God in human form, as Philippians Too says, And

because of this fact, Christ fought the battle for our souls in the Garden

of Gsemone as a mortal man, without angel power or use of divine power

that was rightfully his. He laid his angel powers and his powers of God

rightly by his natures, Paul says and Phlippians too, he laid them down.

He humbled himself. The divine being of the burning bush was Christ,

and he took a different kind of bush. He took a human, veiled

body to speak to us. He used none of his powers to save himself.

Think about that, if you could snap your fingers and dissolve your enemies,

wouldn't it be easy to take them out? Who needs guns? And

you can just make them dematerialize? And Luke twenty two. When Jesus came

to the garden of Casseimi just before the cross, Becauseimite in Hebrew means the

oil press, and there the Holy Spirit will be pressed out of him because

he will lose God the Spirit. He will lose God the Father, and

he will cry out on the cross, my God, my God, why

have you forsaken me? Awful how it finds this definition in the garden of

Disgussemite. For Jesus, look at verse thirty seven of Luke twenty two.

Open your bibles. Follow with me. We'll be landing here. In Luke

twenty two, Jesus said, for I say to you, that which is

written must still be accomplished to me. And he was numbered with the transgressors,

for the things concerning me have an end. Jesus was telling his disciples

that it was time for him to die. No time for them to die,

but time for him to die verse twenty eight. So they said,

Lord, look, here are two swords. So these disciples had weapons with

them, two swords. One of jesus converts was a member of the Sakari,

the men of the Dagger. He had converted this zealot to loving God,

but they still had their swords and so with those two swords, they

were there to protect Jesus. And he said to them in verse thirty eight,

it is enough. Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives,

and as he was accustomed, his disciples also followed him. When the

pre existent Christ met Joshua before the battle of Jericho. Now the name Joshua

and Hebrew is the name for Jesus in the Greek. And so the Jesus

has met the too. Joshua's met there on the battlefield of Jericho before Jericho

would fall. And Joshua walked right up to the pre existent Jesus that day,

who was the captain of the lord's host, and he fell down and

he worshiped him because he said, take off your shoes, for the place

you're standing is holy ground, exactly what God had told Moses at the burning

bush. Joshua and Hebrews, I said, means Jesus. The two jesus

Is met on the battlefield, and we learned something about how the divine Jesus

fights our battles. Both would lead their people to the promised land and fight

for the right in their own calling, and time one was human, the

one was not. Joshua asked the captain wi Lord's army that day, Who's

Christ? Are you for us or for our enemies? Do you remember that

in storyline? Are you for us or for our enemies? And he said

to Joshua in so many words, I'm for God. It says the captain

of the Lord's host, that I have come here. I fight for God.

Jesus doesn't fight battles for you or me or for our church, so

we can win. Friends, Christ fights for God. If you're in God's

army, guess who you're fighting for. You're fighting for God. Jesus fights

every battle for God. To be on the right side means to be on

God's side and not your side. Jesus disciples didn't know that that lesson Joshua

learned, so they carried their own swords to fight for themselves, to keep

Jesus from dying, to somehow make it happen to work for God. Two

swords in their hand, they said to Jesus, we have two swords.

He said to them, it's enough. Verse forty. When he came to

the place, he said to them, pray that you may not enter into

temptation. This is really an amazing statement of Jesus that we often ignore when

we are pressed or discouraged or vulnerable in our life struggle, we forget what

he told them. How many times in life do we want to fight for

our own battles with our own swords in hand? And then Jesus speaks to

us as Lord, with our two swords in hand, He says to us,

pray, pray. Prayer is not a cop out in facing the challenges

of life. Prayer is not a sign of weakness or cowardice and the struggle

for life. Prayer is an engagement with God in danger and the choice to

rely on God for his power to prevail in your life when you seek His

will in your life. Christs specific as to what we should pray for when

we feel like fighting for our own battles with our own swords, He says,

pray that you will not enter into temptation. I mean, how many

times you say, Lord, give me that money I need. Give me

the IRA High, make sure the insurance policy works, make sure I make

them up for money, I have a good job. Make sure that I'm

liked in the church, I get the position I want. That everything goes

well for me. We pray that kind of thing. It's one thing if

temptation comes for you, but when you go after temptation, you are certain

to fail and fall. So Jesus said, pray that you don't even go

there. I don't know about you. Temptation comes to me just when you

cut on the TV or you're there with the internet. Doesn't it come at

us in the culture we have, all right, comes at us. It's

just so hard. We live in a world where it's hard to walk right

with God. So we must pray. So pray you choose not to be

tempted, and pray that God will not lead you into temptation. Jesus here

repeats again a most important line from the Lord's prayer for his disciples. What's

the line that he's repeating here? Lead us not in to temptation, but

deliver us from evil. I mean he's telling them the Lord's prayer right there

as he's saying, pray, Remember I told you how to pray. Pray,

you don't go there. When we pray, we discover that God's ground

is not our ground, and the God's side is not our side. And

we discover that God's will is more important than our will and his purpose more

important than our prayer for our purpose in life, and so prayer surrenders to

the will of God. We seek by sincere prayer to be on God's side

and on our side, so God can win in us and through our prayers

for his glory and will for the good of others and our own goods.

And that is how we win the war on our knees. We win it

by praying to be on God's side. I can throw a stone about one

hundred yards at least. I used to be able. To anybody here can

throw a rock far. Raise your hand if you're in that group. Anybody

here can throw a rock far, you can't. I used to be able

to throw it a football field a rock, and I couldn't throw a football

that far. I could throw a rock that far. That's a stone's throw.

That is far enough to be far away from someone else's stone. If

you can throw a stone far, you can get away from people throwing rocks

at you. Notice Verse forty one. And he was withdrawn from them about

a stone's throw. And he knelt down and prayed, saying, Father,

if it is your will, take this cup away from me, nevertheles less,

not my will, but yours be done. You read that with me

as the captain of the Lord's army. Jesus was that night in prayer,

fighting for his life and the lives of the whole human race. The universe

was watching galactic television. Intergalactic television had zeroed in to the garden by synchronized

time irregardless of time space dilation in Einstein's theory of relativity. God worked it

out where the universe was looking. Not with angel power. Jesus prayed that

day, just a man of God on his knees, four thousand years after

Adam's failure in a garden, praying in a garden, on the same spot

where the Garden of Eden used to be. Most people don't realize this Christ

was in the very spot. When you really do the math, you pay

attention to scripture where the garden of Eden used to be. That's where the

Garden of Cassemite was. The Bible indicates in the Book of Zachariah that the

Lord's feet will touch what mountain when he comes at the end of the millennium,

will touch the mount of Olives. It'll split from north to south.

The only Christians knew that's where the Holy city would be. They said it

moved from the old Mariah to the east to the Mount of Olives. And

we know that when that holy city comes down the book Revelation, God's throne

will be in the middle of it. So where his feet touched is where

God's throne is. And dear heart, those only Christians knew until the time

of Diocletian that that's where Jesus died, at the summit of the Maul of

Allis. That's where Jesus prayed in the garden of Issemone. That's where Jesus

hung out. It was called the Hill of the Skull, the mount of

the Skull, because they knew what the ancient Jewish people knew that that's where

Adam's skull was buried by Sham who is Melkezedek. And so that tradition is

corroborated in Testament, and the Old SDA Bible commentary now being revised, has

that insight in it as a potential understanding of that. When you do the

evidence, you see that Jesus had come to the place where Adam fell in

a garden, and there he struggled for the future on his knees. There

in that garden Jesus took the cup. The holy City of God will descend

from he took it there, and there the new Eden will take the place

of the old, and the river of God will flow again. As in

Revelation twenty two, verse one, God is specific about where he fights his

battles. He returns to the ground where failure happened, and there he regains

the victory. Jesus is the second atom in the Gospel of Luke, where

Adam told God in rude terms by his faithless actions, not your will,

but mind, Jesus said in prayer again, not my will but yours be

done. What is the cup that Jesus had to drink that dark night before

he went to the cross to save us from our sins? What is that

cup? The Bible tells us plainly in Isaiah fifty three that Jesus received in

himself, and it says in the Hebrew God has caused to meet in him.

It's a positive haw ill verbal form has caused to meet in him.

All our sins, all our iniquity. Whatever you've done wrong was in his

head that day. Whatever we've done wrong, from Adam to the end,

was suddenly moving through the CPU of the human divine man at the human level

processing burning out the processor. The fan was not running fast enough to keep

the ceap you from frying. As he prayed for every person, as every

person from Adam to the end, every human beings, mental mess and moral

junk, with all our evil on the inside was poured into Jesus, into

his heart, his emotions, his mind. He became the sin offering for

the world. Jesus did more than just prove God loves us. Jesus became

us. He became us in the garden of his pain and our collective consciousness,

as Carl Jume calls it, our personal sins also became his heavy load,

his cup that he must bear. Now, I'm gonna tell you right

now, I don't come to church so I can feel good. There are

times I come to church I don't feel good. You have a day like

that, you don't feel good. This is a day I don't actually feel

good physically. I'm not sick. You know, I just had a a

tiring week. Give me an tiring week, so you have a down become

church cloning to church, doom my bus. You know, I'm moping around

and someone says, how are you doing the first thing? He says,

well, you don't look good pastor mine. He said, well, I

guess i'm not today, But they love you. You know, we have

days like this, but you know the Lord knows all of them. You

realize He's lived every day you've ever had in his head as a human being.

The Holy Spirit has a perfect memory. That's why it's the spirit of

wisdom, of insight, of knowledge. The Book of Hebrews tells us Hebrews

nine fourteen that Jesus was offered up in the eternal Spirit on the cross.

So where is the fire of the altar? It's God, the Holy Spirit.

The same fire that came down on Pentecost is the fire of the altar

at the Cross of Calvary in the garden of a semite. God the Father

lost his son. God the Son gave his life for ours. When Jesus

lost God the Father and God, the Spirit and God, the Eternal Spirit

and Book of Hebrews suffered in the flame that is God. You know,

in fact, you go to the Song of Solomon says the love is the

fire of Yahweh, God is Love. He was offered up in the eternal

spirit. Friends, Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away of the

sin of the world, because Jesus was made to be sin in whom there

was no sin. All that is God was suffering in that garden on the

cross. Don't believe anyone out, whatever your worst day has ever been,

consider the fact that Jesus felt them all for you because we were inside his

heart and head and mind in the garden and on the cross. That's pretty

close. Why would someone do that for us? Jesus' friend took every one

of us into himself, losers and others in those awful hours from just sending

of the cross. And we have a theological term for that. We call

it the atonement. The atonement it means that one minute, I mean,

you look at the word, but it also means to deal with our sin

legally, emotionally, so that we're not guilty anymore. To a tone,

what is hell? Have you ever asked yourself? I don't preach a lot

of sermons on hell. You know, some people I came from a Baptist

tradition, they love getting in the pullpit and preaching on hell. If you

don't repent today, you're going to burn forever and the fires of hell.

And I tell you, when you have an altar call with a sermon like

that, you get people who come forward. But they don't necessarily want to

be saved because God is love. They want to be saved because they want

to avoid hell. Am I right? Oh? Come on, I'm right

now. Look, I don't want to go to hell, but it does

exist. The Bible says God is a consuming fire. I realize that God

is hell. If you're out of sink with God, you don't love God.

You're in moral disarray with God. God's glory is fire, and guess

what, It's an eternal fire. This notion that the fire goes out is

nonsense. Isaiah thirty three says that sinners and zion are afraid. Fearfulness has

seized the godless. Who can live with the everlasting burnings? You know who

it is. It's those who can live with God. In Isaiah thirty three,

because God is the fire in the temple Mount Psalm seventy three. The

Psalma says, I went into the sanctuary where God's presence is that and there

I perceived there in God came down on Mount SINAI he was fire. So

we will be in a place called Heaven that has the fire that is Hell,

forever and ever. And like shadrack mishak and have been to go,

we will love it because our God is love. Love is a fire in

Song of Solomon, and the fire never goes out, and we will live

forever in the glory of God, and we will not be consumed. In

fact, Malachi says, will come out of the of the New Jerusalem City

as it floats. It's it's implying in context, the New Jerusalem City will

be the last arc that floats on the lake of Fire at the end of

the millennium. And when it all gets done and the world gets recreated,

just like they came out of the ark, we it says, will come

out like cabs leaping in the stall, and the wicked will be ashes under

our feet. But the fire, it says, the Son of Righteousness will

arise with healing his wings. The fire that is God will never go out,

but it won't hurt us. So the problem is not God, it's

us. So what is hell? I'll tell you what hell is based Hell

is based on the Gospel of Luke. For Jesus, I want to be

specific, Hell is what Jesus went through for you and me in the garden

and on the ground on the cross. That's hell. How many of you

concur with that. Whatever the way could go through at the end of the

millennium, it's nothing compared to what Jesus went through for everyone, all at

once in the garden and at the Cross. When the captain of the Lord's

Army became a baby in his mother's womb, he felt he left his heavenly

swords and staff fire behind. He clipped his angel wings and took his holy

armor off to fight the battle on the human playing without a sling in his

hand. Born naked, placed in a manger, he lived his life as

a man. He died for a brave soldier for his God. At the

Cross, the captain of the Lord's army. When Jesus when the stones throw

away to pray, he got shot in the back. Suddenly a sniper's bullet

hit him. The whole sins of the world were in the heavy load that

hid him. Satan and his devils, no longer angels for God, laughed

and jeered when Jesus fell to the ground, but holy angels on God's side

shuddered in the night as their captain went down in the fight. A sniper's

bullet hit him heart in the heart that night in prayer, and everyone's names,

yours and mine, from Adam to the end, were engraved on the

hot metal bullet that struck the hero's heart. No human being can survive the

middle agony that settled on jesus soul, that awful night of agony and fear.

And look, if I want a definition of hell, I go to

the guard of a semone. No mortal body can live long when Jesus kind

of trauma comes to you. No human being has ever had that happened to

them. Christ was suffering at that moment in time, with eternal speed,

frying the cpu of his mind and heart, a heat hotter than a thousand

hells, with the sinner's suffering, the sinner's fate, the sinner's guilt for

every human being as his, as if he was guilty for it all,

rejected by God alone in the night, It's horrible to die alone. It's

more horrible to die in battle alone. For the first time in his eternal

life, the captain of the Lord's army had fallen in the field of conflict.

The clock was ticking as time was running out when Jesus fell to the

earth, dying on the ground in his own blood. No Roman spirar drew

blood in the altar of the garden of Goseimone. No one took his blood.

The sins of the world forced it out of his veins. According to

Luke, Gabriel is the angel must closely associated with Jesus in the Bible.

I have no doubt who that angel was who showed up that day. He

appears earlier in the Gospel of Luke. His name means mighty Man of God.

We see Gabriel Daniel Light asking the pre existing Christ, how long does

the suffering need to go on until the Kingdom of God appears? In the

trampling of the host of God's people ends. That's Gabriel asking that question,

and Jesus answers it in his pre existent form when he says under two thousand

and three hundred days the sanctuary declaims the end of the oppressor comes twenty three

years later. The king of God will be established. In You're eighteen forty

four based on Daniel eight, that's a long time for help from Heaven to

stop the trampling of Satan of the Holy City. In the Middle Ages,

Gabriel strengthened Daniel when Daniel fell to the ground. You can read in the

Book of Daniel. Gabriel shared the prophecy of Daniel in Daniel nine that Jesus

would come as Messiah Prince at the end of the four to ninety years of

trouble for the city of Jerusalem. He said, desolations are decreed. In

Dale nine twenty six, Gabriel appealed to appeared to Zachariah John, the Baptist

father, announcing the coming of the Forerunner, the Baptizer whose head was cut

off before Jesus died. And Gabriel appeared to marry. Hen't me like the

story of Mary. Gabriel, big mighty angel looking down at this teenage little

girl who has to make a decision to help save the world. What a

contrast. And Gabriel appeared to marry so the Holy Spirit would overshadow her,

so she would make the choice not forced, so Jesus would be born and

to a little teenage virgin. The power of the Most High would overshadow.

So Jesus come to us as a human baby and fight the battle on human

ground, and thus the captain of the Lord's army became the second atom,

the protective of the human race. A baby crying in the night on the

hills of Bethlehem, and a manger somewhere near Bethlehem excuse me, outside the

city, most likely, but a cave. According an early tradition, angel

God and man met in Jesus, the captain of the Lord's Army, the

hero of the war with evil. Imagine how the Heaven's army felt that day

as Jesus fell to the ground, struck by a sniper's bullet that came from

the gun that is the whole human race we shot him. What happens when

you pray, and you are a god and is God, you can't use

your own power of God to save yourself. What a predicament you're in.

Is your divine nature any help to you at that point? Not for survival.

What happens when you can't get off the ground because you're crushed as a

man by the sins of the world that you seek to save at that moment,

in the field of conflict of medic ran to the battlefield to save the

fallen captain. Don't miss it. In your Bible, a mighty angel medic

appeared not to rescue Jesus, but to strengthen Jesus, so Jesus could go

all the way to the cross to get it done Verses forty three and forty

four. In your Bible, look at it. You'll notice in some modern

translations they're not in there. But the spirit of prophecy confirms that they belong

there, and they should have stayed. Just because someone knows Greek, just

because they have a knowledge of what are the oldest Greek manuscripts, does not

mean the oldest Greek manuscripts are the most faithful Greek tradition. And so God

had providentially put these into the Protestant Bible because they are true. This really

happened. They were most likely removed during the conflict with Gnostics, but they

found their way back in when the Reformation Bible was was printed. God gave

us the Bible for the Last Days with these two verses. Here, internal

literary structural analysis confirms that they should have never been taken out of our Bible.

By smart textual critics, you think that the oldest manuscripts are always the

best manuscripts. Satan would love to cut these verses out of your Bible so

you do not understand what Jesus went through for you, Because these verses show

us clearly that Jesus went through hell for us when he fell to the ground

and the heat of war in the garden. Look at them if I'm gonna

put them on the screen, because some of your modern translations won't have them

when you're reading from the New King James version. Then an angel appeared to

him from heaven. And what does it say on the screen? What was

he doing strengthening him? Verse forty four, And being in agony, he

prayed more earnestly than his sweat became like great drops of blood falling the ground.

You can't make this kind of thing up. That happened. What did

angel power you that night when Jesus fell to the ground in the heat of

the battle. Angel power did not save Jesus from the cross. Rather,

angel power helped him pray more earnestly so he could go to the cross.

Angel power strengthened him. Angel power assured him that he was not alone.

Angel power helped him get it done, to get up from the ground.

Gable showed up that day not as a warrior with a machine gun in his

hand, but as a medic treating his fallen captain who could not get off

the ground. There are times in life we were hit so hard we cannot

get off the ground. Have you ever had that happen to you? Right?

Has it ever happened to you? Yes? There are times we go

away to pray and evil comes right after us to mess up our prayer time

with God, to keep us from praying, so that we will fall down

with no one else's looking and no one else is near to help us.

Jesus fell to the ground about a stone's throwaway as Jesus was hit by a

missile of a sniper's bullet. Spiritually speaking, that should have killed him.

The keyword is away, away, stones throw away. The angel that day

was the medic on the ground seeking out the savior of the whole world in

the battlefield of his life. Jesus was alone, a fallen warrior. Christ

didn't ask for strength when he prayed in the garden. That's what we often

pray for when we're in trouble, Give me strength, but God gave it

to him Jesus instead begged God to do his will and not his own will.

That's what he was praying for. Christ wanted to survive, but God's

will for him. He just wanted to have the strength to get it done.

As desmondass said on Hacksaw Ridge, just one more, Lord, help

me save just one more. Jesus didn't pray to live that night. Jesus

prayed to beg God's will and die for us all At the right time,

the Angel found Jesus on the ground, and that holy Angel pumped all his

aims angel power into Jesus to strengthen him so he could pray. Angel power

fell from God to the angel Gabriel. I'm certain to the man in the

garden of prayer, Jesus human nature was suddenly invigorated with angel power. Christ

suffered for our sins and prayer and prayer. As how he got it done

for God that night with angel power. How many even want to pray and

leave angel power out? Don't raise your hand? How many want to pray

and have angel power? Raise your hand now? We need that. Two

concepts stand out in the text of Luke twenty two to forty four. The

first is agony. The second is prayer. Luke carefully records that Jesus sweated

great drops of blood that fell to the ground in agony and prayer, friends,

pray. Jesus prayed in agony. Pray. The Greek word for drops

is thromboss and we you medical people. Word comes from thrombos. Anybody here

thombosis, and it means blood clots. The pressure was so great that the

pains of the sins of the world forced Jesus' blood from his body and it

fell as blood clots to the ground. Now Luke is a physician. The

fact that the word thromboss is used here is another evidence that Luke wrote this.

That's a medical term and it lands right here. How do you survive

that kind of trauma? Jesus prayed, He prayed not to survive, to

shed his blood all the way to the Cross of Calvary, to get it

done, to do the will of God. You know, whatever sins I

struggle with in life, whatever sins you struggle with in life, it's Jesus

worth the victory is he is he worth full surrender in your life, surrenders

hard. The greatest battle ever fought is surrendering all to the will of God.

So this is the White says, But the soul must submit to be

renewed in holiness. If you're having a hard time submitting, and I've had

a hard time in my life at times submitting, go to the garden,

consider the cost, and submit to the will of God. Angel power came

to Jesus when he prayed. Does angel power really met in our lives?

I want to share a little statement from Early Writings, page thirty nine,

Sister White's early writings, when the Lord first met her to lead her to

share God given visions for the early advant people. I have seen the tender

love that God has for his people is very great. I saw angels over

the saints with their wings spread about them. Each saint had an attending angel.

If the saints wept through discouragement were in danger, the angels ever attend

them would fly quickly upward to carry the tidings, and the angels in the

city would cease to sing. Then angels would commission another angel to sin to

encourage, watch over and try to keep them from going out of the narrow

path. But if they did not take heed to the watchful care of these

angels, and wouldn't I be comforted by them, but continue to go astray,

the angels will look sad and weep. They would bear the tidings upward,

and all the angels in the city would weep, and then with a

loud voice say Amen. But if the saints fixed their eyes upon the prize

before them and glorify God by praising him, then angels would bear the glad

tidings to the city, and the angels in the city would touch their golden

harps and sing with a loud voice, aahlujah, and the heavenly arches would

ring with their lovely songs. How many do you want to help angels sing?

Are you in that crowd? Quit complaining about how hard your life is.

Stop saying, oh this person did that to me and all this.

Praise God. He sends angels to you so you can have the wits to

ask God to forgive you of your sins. Praise God. He sends power

into your life. When you pray and praise God. The tide has turned

and when you praise God. And that's what happens here. Does angel power

matter? Yes, it does. When God sends his own holy angels.

Because we pray, friend, God is sending Heaven's medics into your life.

They can change your feelings from sadness to joy. They can turn your discouragement

to faith and trust. They can turn your complaining into praise. They can

lift you from the ground of your fall so you can rise to bear what

God wills for you in life with a smile, with a thankful attitude to

God. And these unseen angel watchers are messengers of hope who never tire of

saving souls, of bringing Heaven's light, Heaven's optimism into your life. Angel

power didn't save Jesus from the cross. Angel power helped him pray. So

you get up from the ground and go on to die to perform the will

of God in his life purpose that saves us all. Our final verse looked

twenty five and forty six. When he rose from prayer, he came to

and King had come up, had come to his disciples. He found them

sleeping from sorrow. Then he said to them, why do you sleep?

Rise and pray lest you enter it into temptation. Let's pray. Father,

we're saved by confessing with our hands and heart and mouth that we belong to

Jesus. Does that mean we're perfect? No? Those disciples were praying that

night. They were not praying that night, excuse me, they were just

there sleeping. Jesus was praying that night, and he saved them. Thank

you for taking us where we're at as we learn and grow, and that

we're okay because we're sons and daughters of God. Bless everyone here out the

door with Jesus, and may they have a smile on their face a kick

in their feet, because when we reach out to Jesus we are forgiving people.

The Toament has given us acceptance right now as we struggle and grow,

and that's justification by faith, and made the saints not forget it by mournful,

depressing kinds of testimonies which do not glorifify God or anyone else. Thank

you, Thank you, Thank you for angel power that night, and for

Jesus his name. Amen.