Unseen: Angels All Around - Week 1: The World We Can't See

All right, I've been waiting all year to get to this moment right here because the Lord put a series on my heart that I'm starting today and I'm gonna take this whole month to teach on this particular series.

And the title is called Unseen.

And the tagline is Angels All Around.

I'm gonna get to in a moment the reason why I believe it's it's really important for me to teach you on this subject.

But I want to start off over here in the book of Hebrews, chapter one.

And before I dive into the message, let me give you a little context.

The writer of the book of Hebrews is talking to a primarily Jewish audience.

And the Jewish audience he's writing to have a really, really high esteem for angels.

I mean, they're almost right on the verge of angel worship.

And he, I believe he's trying to make sure that they distinguish and understand that Jesus is not just some kind of exalted angel.

And so he's going through in chapter one and he's distinguishing between how God dealt with Jesus and how God deals with angels.

And I believe he's trying to make a point for us and them to understand the life, authority, and the person of Jesus as compared to the position, the purpose, and the operation of angels.

Let's pick up at Hebrews chapter one, verse five.

He says, For to which of the angels did he ever say, You are my son, and today I have begotten you?

And again, to which one of them did he say, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.

But when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he said, Let all the angels of God worship him.

And of the angels, he said, Who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire?

But speaking to the Son, he said, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

Accepture of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom.

Skip down to Hebrews chapter 1, verse 13.

Hebrews 1:13

He says, But to which of the angels has he ever said, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool?

Are they, talking about the angels, not all ministering spirits?

Everybody say ministering spirits.

Say it like you mean it.

Say ministering spirits.

Come on, say it with your chest.

Say ministering spirits.

Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?

Now I just read to you Hebrews 1, verses 13 and 14, but I'm going to keep reading right on into chapter 2 because many times we stop because we just assume it's a totally different subject coming up.

Hebrews 1:13

But the reality is when you see chapters and verses in your Bible, the chapters and verses are not necessarily anointed.

I'm not saying they're bad, but the chapters and verses were added by the translator, so we'd be able to point out a place where we want you to go.

And sometimes they get it right, and sometimes they break up a thought right in the middle of what the author is saying.

This one of those moments where the author is still talking about the same thing, angels.

So we're gonna roll right over into chapter two, verse one.

Verse one of chapter two says, therefore.

How many know you don't start off a conversation with therefore?

I mean, if I walked up to you and I said, therefore, you think something wrong.

If somebody says, therefore, anytime you see therefore, you gotta always slow down and find out what it's there for.

So when he says, therefore, what he's really saying is based on everything I just told you about angels.

Therefore, we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away.

Now, I like the King James translation of this phrase right here, because it says, we need to give the more earnest heed to the things we've been taught, lest we allow them to slip.

And essentially what he's saying is the things we've been taught concerning faith, things we've been taught concerning healing, things we've been taught concerning angels in this context, we need to make sure we go back and keep rehearsing it so we don't let that revelation slip out of our hands.

So the reason why, the big why I think that God has stirred me up, the why I've been looking all year, looking forward to this moment to start teaching you this series, is because I believe with all of my heart that God is in the middle of restoring some things back into the body of Christ.

The Bible makes it very clear when Jesus comes back, he's not coming back for a weak church.

Come on, he's not coming back for an impotent church, he's not coming back for a church that's scared of the devil and running from demons.

The Bible says he's coming back for a glorious church.

Come on, that means a powerful church.

Come on, somebody.

That means a church that is walking in authority.

Come on, that means a church that believes in the power of the most high God.

He's coming back for a glorious church, and I believe God has been systematically restoring back to the church revelation that we have sometimes let slip.

When you go back and look at the church in the book of Acts, the church in the book of Acts does not look like the church today for the most part.

Church in the book of Acts, the apostles, not just the apostles, but regular people, deacons, people like Philip, folks were walking around and God was using them to perform miracles.

Somewhere along the line, as we got from Jesus being physically here and the apostles who walked with him being physically here, and the message being passed down, it started to get diluted, which is one of the reasons why God caused the canon of scripture to be formed, where they determined which books we would have that are the Old Testament and which books we'd have that are now a part of the New Testament, that we should live our lives based on those books.

But the problem is when those books were formed and they were compiled into what we now know as a Bible, most people didn't have a Bible.

Because we didn't have a printing press at that time, the only way you actually would get a Bible, you had to have a person who would handwrite the entire thing.

And the only people that typically had Bibles were the extremely rich.

Now let me tell you what happens when people don't actually have a Bible themselves.

Whether it's because you don't have a printing press or it's because people just don't bring them with them or don't read them and just trust the word of the preacher.

What happens is when people don't actually read the Bible for themselves, they become ignorant.

I didn't say stupid.

Stupid is you can't learn.

Ignorant is you just don't know.

And so we had a whole group of Christians that were coming to churches and just listening to the priests, listening to the father, listening to the leaders of the church teach without being able to look at it for themselves.

And the end result is we had a whole lot of corruption.

You had a whole lot of doctrines that had nothing to do with what Jesus actually taught.

And the church we now call the Catholic Church, which the word Catholic just means universal.

The Catholic Church today is the stem that all Christian churches you know have sprung out of.

That's why don't badmouth the Catholic Church.

They may have some ways that may or may not line up with the word of God, but that is where all of us come from.

Give me a good amen, somebody.

And when the universal church, the Catholic Church, got to a place where doctrines were being taught that people were not able to actually look up in the Bible for themselves, Christians start getting off track and start believing things that weren't actually in Scripture.

But then God came along with the invention of the printing press.

And when the printing press came along, now the everyday average ordinary believer could actually have a Bible.

Can I give you something you ought to be shouting about more than a paycheck?

You ought to shout about the fact that you get a chance to actually have a Bible in your possession.

Come on, I don't think you heard what I said.

I said you ought to take a moment to, come on, you ought to take a moment to thank God that you got a chance to have a Bible, whether it's a paper Bible or a digital Bible.

You know, there are people in other parts of the world that would lose their life if they are found with one of the pages of this Bible.

They're underground churches, man, where people they don't have a whole Bible.

They got three pages that somebody smuggled in.

And in the middle of the night, they they spend their night not sleeping but with a candle.

Just reading the three or four pages that they have, hoping that they can get some more of it.

And here you are, have a whole big old Bible.

Come on, from Genesis all the way through the revelations.

You ought to take another moment to thank God for his holy word, man.

But here's what happened when people start being able to read the word for themselves, people start realizing some of what we're being taught is not what the book says.

And a man by the name of Martin Luther, he was a monk who had been studying the Bible.

He realized a lot of what we're being taught is not the same as what the scripture says.

One day he got fed up and he went and nailed his 95 theses, 95 points, that he was refuting what the church was teaching.

He nailed them to the castle door at Whittenburg.

That's that's how you would start a debate.

I want to debate somebody with these 95 points.

And in those 95 points, he was watching, he was protesting what the church was teaching.

And all those who followed him and believed what he said were known as Protestants.

And from that one movement, every denomination you now know today sprung out of that one movement.

As everybody started trying to interpret the scriptures for themselves, out of that came the Baptists, out of that came a group called the Anabaptists, out of that came the Methodists, out of that came the Presbyterians, out of that came the Church of God in Christ.

Out of that came the church of God in Christ by fire.

Out of that came the church of God in Christ by fire with signs and wonders.

Out of that came the church of God by Christ with signs and wonders and miracles and everything you know.

Sprung out of that, and God, hear me out.

God systematically started restoring back to the church the revelation we lost from the book of Acts.

Are you still with me?

Back in 1906, he started restoring back to the church the power of God.

There was a little one-eyed uh black man, a little one-eyed preacher by the name of William Seymour.

Right in California, started having revival meetings with eight-year-olds and 13-year-olds and 17-year-olds, and they began praying and seeking God, and the power of God hit this little barn they were in so heavily to where the fire truck starts showing up at the place because the people in the neighborhood thought that there was a fire happening.

But there was no physical fire, it was just the power of the living God rising up in that place.

And God restored, right?

Watch this, God used that movement to restore the glossolia, what we call speaking in tongues.

It's not of the devil, it was God putting it back into the body of Christ in the same way it was in the book of Acts.

Then throughout the 40s and the 50s and the 60s, God used people that had a lot of imperfections, but he used them in a powerful way.

People like Catherine Kuhlman, Jack Cole, and others who were, or Roberts, who were healing evangelists.

And guess what?

He was restoring to the body of Christ, the revelation.

I wish somebody would give me an amen, man.

I'm trying to tell you that he was putting back into the body of Christ.

He didn't want you thinking that healing went away with the last apostle.

So he used those men and women to restore healing ministry to the body of Christ.

In the 70s and 80s, God was getting people away from just being emotional and letting people scream at you all day long.

So he restored to the body of Christ, teaching ministry like Jesus taught.

So you had imperfect vessels again.

Folks like Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland and Charles Capps and Dr.

Frederick KC Price who did something that you didn't see normally.

They stood and just taught from the Bible, line upon line, and educated God's people why God was restoring teaching ministry.

Can I get an amen, somebody?

Then on the heels of that, God started restoring an understanding of what real praise and worship is all about.

And so he, you know, I know some of the young people think praise and worship started with Bethel music and elevation music.

But there were groups like Hosanna Integrity that God began using to start recording praise and worship music.

Not just hymns, thank God for him.

They were recording praise and work worship music that has evolved to the beautiful songs we have today because God was trying to put that back into the body of Christ.

He was even restoring something we call prosperity and an understanding that God didn't want his people to be broke.

I wish somebody would give me an amen.

Now, don't get me wrong, some of the prosperity teachers got off track.

Some of them started emphasizing the wrong things, some got more concerned about their jets and mansions.

But make no mistake about it, it was God that was trying to help his people understand that my Jews were not broke in the Old Testament.

Why would my blood-bought people be broke in the New Testament?

Then he started restoring this revelation that we are we're getting our hands on the day, and that is there's only one body of Christ.

Some of our churches may have Baptists on it, some may have non-denomination on it, some may have Christian church on it, some may have church of God on it, but at the end of the day, there's only one Jesus and we're all on the same team.

Come on, that's why hear me out.

We're not in competition with any other church.

Every other church that is preaching the name of Jesus Christ, we're in the same family.

Come on, we're going after the same unsaved people, and when they win, we win too.

Then he started using organizations like the Ark Association-related churches and other groups like that to restore into the body of Christ an understanding that God didn't want us to have this big separation between the leaders and the people they serve.

He started restoring relational ministry where you didn't have these big eyes and little U's.

Where you could come to church, you didn't have to be all super dressed up in a five-piece suit.

You could actually come to church dressed down and still experience the presence of God.

Are you still with me?

Right in that same vein, I believe he's also restoring the revelation of angelic power.

I'll walk you through all that so you understand.

This is not something new.

He's been gradually dropping back into the body of Christ.

Revelation that we allow to slip out of our hands.

See, I believe there's a revelation concerning angels that we have missed or let slip.

And everything in God's kingdom works by faith, which means if I'm going to have faith for angels to do all God intended for them to do, I've got to, number one, have knowledge of them.

And then that knowledge has got to stir up an expectation.

Hebrews 13, 2 says this don't forget to be kind to strangers.

Why, God?

Because some of you who have been kind to strangers have entertained angels without even realizing it.

Look at your neighbor and say, Hello, friend.

You're sitting in the right seat today.

So you better be nice to me, because I might be an angel.

I hear some of you saying, girl, that's just Keisha.

Ain't no angel.

Saquon, I know you.

But now, watch, the Bible's making it very clear that we need to make sure we have our antennas up.

Now let me give some clarity because I want to make sure I clarify.

The goal of me teaching you this is not to turn on your spooky meter eight weeks before Halloween.

So don't walk out of here being spooky.

The goal though, however, watch this, is for us to not have an obsession with angels, but to also, watch this, not be skeptical of angels.

April and I, if you know, we've we've been married for 33 years and we met in college.

I was 19, she was 18.

We met at Michigan State.

And we came home back to Detroit for the summer.

You know, we made our rounds.

She came and met my family members.

I went and met her family members.

And I remember meeting both of her grandmothers.

And one of her grandmothers on her dad's side, she called her grandmother Grammy.

And uh I remember meeting her, a beautiful lady, and uh just a beautiful spirit.

And a couple years after we started dating, her grandmother got ill.

She got ill and went to the hospital and they couldn't figure out exactly what was going on.

You know, they did all the tests and everything.

And she got to a place where she would not eat, just would not eat for anything.

And she wasn't eating, but you know, she was still healthy and still still well.

But they got to the place to where they were ready to send her home.

They said, but we got to get her to eat before we can send her home.

And so her April's dad came in, was talking to his mom, and said, Mom, they're trying to get you to eat because, you know, I got your house already.

I've been at home painting your house and getting some stuff ready.

I'm ready to take you home.

She said, Home?

What home are you talking about?

He said, you know, back home on Calvert.

She said, Oh, I ain't going to that home.

I'm going home, but I ain't going to that home.

And so they were trying to get her to take a feeding tube.

She wouldn't at first.

She finally said yes, because they said, if you don't take this, she didn't take this feeding tube.

We don't know if she's going to make it even through the night.

She finally agreed to take the feeding tube.

They gave her the feeding tube, and she still passed away that same night.

Now, I mean, it's not a sad occasion because we we knew exactly where she was.

If anybody was going to ever be with Jesus, it was her Grammy.

But I'm telling you that to tell you this, after she passed away, back then, you don't see it as much today because a lot of the rooms are private rooms now.

But back in the day, it would typically be two people in the hospital room.

And they'd have a little curtain between them.

And after she passed away, the nurse who took care of her was talking to her suite mate, her roommate.

And her roommate was asking the nurse, who was that man that was coming in here every night to feed her?

And the nurse was like, There was nobody coming in here to feed her.

She looked back over the logs.

There was no nurse coming in, there was no doctor coming in, no dietitian coming in.

And her roommate said, Oh, yes, there was.

Every night, about two or three o'clock in the morning, there was a man who would come over there, they would talk for hours at a time.

He would feed her every night.

And the roommate said, and she was speaking in a language that sounded like an Indian dialect.

Now I can't tell you for sure because I wasn't there, but I believe with all my heart that God sent an angel to give her the substance that she needed, but also in the process gave her a glimpse of what it looked like on the other side, and she made up her mind, I'm going to that home, not back to that home.

So let me spend a little time today just giving you an understanding about the world that we cannot see.

Because before I can take you to angels, I gotta help you understand that there's more to this world than what we're looking at right now.

Listen to this.

Always remember there's more happening around you than what you can see.

Let me say it again.

Always remember there's more happening around you than what you can actually see.

Let me give you chapter and verse.

I'm never gonna throw something out without taking you to the book.

Colossians chapter 1, verse 16.

Colossians 1:16

Christ Himself is the Creator who made everything in heaven and earth.

He made the things we can see and the things what?

The things we cannot see.

The spirit world with its kings and its kingdoms, its rulers, its authorities, all of them were made by Christ for his own use and for his glory.

So right off the bat, the scripture is establishing that if we believe and trust the Bible, then we've got to accept that there is an unseen realm.

Somebody say, unseen realm.

Come on, say like you mean say unseen realm.

Let me give you another verse over here in 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

We'll prove the same thing.

It says, Paul said, For we fix our attention not on the things that are seen, but we fix our attention on the things that are what?

Come on, on the things that are what?

Come on, on the things that are what?

Unseen.

What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever.

Here it is again.

He's making it real clear.

There's a seen world, there's an unseen world.

And it sounds like Paul is trying to tell us that the unseen world actually has more power than the seen world.

I'll give you another one.

You can study this one later when you get home.

2 Kings chapter 6, there's a story of a prophet by the name of Elisha.

2 Kings 6 · chapter mention

He's the protege of Elijah.

Elisha comes on the scene, and God uses him in such a powerful way that when the Syrian army and the Israeli army are doing battle, God gives him wisdom to know what the Syrian army's strategy is.

So he tells the Israeli army, and every time the Syrian army gets ready to attack, Israel is always one step ahead.

The king of the Syrian army gets so angry that he sends his Syrian army to find Elisha, and they show up at his house one day and they surround his house with all their armies.

His servant, Elisha's servant, comes out one day, he goes, Whoa! He looks up, sees all these military men surrounding their house.

He gets terrified.

He goes back in to tell his masters, Oh my god, what are we gonna do?

This is this is my interpretation.

Elijah comes out like Denzel.

He looks around, he said, Don't worry about it.

He said, There's more with us than there are with them.

Now I gotta imagine his, I mean, you're clapping because you know the end of the story.

But I gotta imagine his servant thought that the man had gone senile.

He looked around, he said, No, there's Uno and Dos.

But I look out there, there's three, it's quatro, cinco, and he's looking at realizing, no, no, no.

I I see a lot of them and just two of us.

And then Elisha prays this.

He says, God Father, he says, Open his eyes.

Are you still with me?

Now, what do you mean, open his eyes?

His eyes are wide open.

That's that's how that's why he's scared.

Clearly, his eyes can see all these armies that are out here.

That's the reason why he's terrified.

So he's not talking about open his pupils so he can look with his physical eyes.

What he's saying is open his spiritual eyes so he can see into the unseen realm.

What he's saying is there's more going on right here than what it looks like.

What he's asking God to do is what the Bible calls giving him the gift of discernment for that moment.

It's called discerning of spirits.

It's one of the spiritual gifts.

And a lot of people mistakenly think they think it's called, you know, I you know, I can you know I got, girl, you know, I got the gift of discernment.

That's what people do, you know, I do like this, they get real.

Girl, I got the gift of discernment.

I can tell when people are not right.

That's not a gift of discernment, that's just nosy.

Come on, you don't even have to be saved to have a nosy spirit.

No, the gift of discernment, the word discern literally means to see.

So discerning of spirits, watch this means to see into the realm of the spirit.

Every now and then God will give a glimpse behind this curtain and allow a person to see what the unseen realm looks like, even while we're still here in the scene.

And that's what happened to the servant.

God opened up his eyes and he looked and he could see cherry.

Chariots and horses scattered throughout the mountains.

And all of a sudden he realized there really are more with us than there are with them.

Can I give you a reason to shout for about 30 seconds?

Come on, every room you walk into, you ought to walk in with your head up.

Come on, you ought to walk in with your chest out.

You ought to walk in with boldness and confidence.

You ought to walk in.

Come on, don't walk into the room talking about who don't like you and all the racism and the Republicans and the Democrats and all that other stuff.

You ought to walk in understanding whoever doesn't like me, that's your problem.

Because there are more that are with me than they're on the other side.

That's why you don't have to walk around being afraid.

Come on, say amen, somebody.

That's why you don't have to walk around terrified.

You can fly on a plane, you can get on a train, you can get on a boat.

Why?

Because you got angelic protection everywhere you go, man.

Amen.

I said amen.

Listen to this.

We live in a world that has trained us to trust our five senses.

If we can see it, touch it, hear it, smell it, or taste it, then and only then do we trust that it's actually real.

One of the foundational truths of the Bible is this reality is bigger than what your senses can detect.

Our senses don't determine whether something exists or not.

I mean, right here in this room.

There's things, there's there's stuff happening in this room that you you can't naturally detect.

There are Wi-Fi signals happening here.

There are radio frequencies in this room right now.

There's Bluetooth signals in this room right now.

There's weave next to some of you in this room right now.

And you can't automatically detect what's weave and what's not weave.

That Indian hair looks like it's natural.

In fact, look around.

Look at the person next to you, see.

Now don't look, don't look at just the ladies.

Like you just look at the ladies.

You gotta look at the men too nowadays.

Because they got them hair units where they slap it on there and cut it up, fade that thing up.

What am I saying?

There's stuff happening around you that you can't automatically detect.

But watch this if you if you get the right device.

This device will allow you to tap into the Wi-Fi, tap into the Bluetooth, and now you're aware of the signals that are happening, but the device didn't make them happen.

It just allowed you to finally detect it.

Amen.

I said, Amen.

Among the beings that occupy the unseen realm are a group of beings that the scripture refers to as angels.

We're gonna spend our time for these next few weeks talking about these angels, but I just want to spend about 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and I want to introduce them to you.

I'm not gonna go too deep, just want to introduce a few things I want you to know.

Number one is this angels are actually real.

I mean, I of course they're no, no, no, angels are actually real.

Before we can talk about what they do, we gotta establish that angels are not religious mythology.

We gotta establish that angels are not Christian folklore, they are not merely symbolic representations of good.

The Bible presents angels as real, personal, intelligent, spiritual beings.

And angels appear throughout the entire Bible.

I read this and it blew my mind.

Angels are mentioned in 35 of the 66 books of the Bible.

Over half the books in the Bible mention or talk about angels in some kind of way.

35 of the 66 books.

So the question is not whether the Bible teaches about angels.

Here's the question.

The question is why do we talk so little about angels when the Bible has so much to say?

You still with me?

Here's the question.

And don't be offended when I say this.

The question is, why are some of you at 45, 55, 65, whatever your age is, learning about angels for the first time when some of you have been going to church your whole life?

The question is, why have we been okay going to church and we keep hearing about Shadrach, Meshach, and that bad Negro?

But nobody's ever taught us about a subject that is in 35 of the 66 books.

Let me tell you why, because the Bible teaches us that my people are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge.

And we should never be content with just letting somebody tell us what the Bible says.

We should never be content.

Hear me out.

We should never be content with being in a church atmosphere and all we're getting is a bunch of emotion.

Nothing wrong with shouting.

I believe in shouting, but you know what?

You gotta know what you're shouting about.

Because you can't get up on Monday morning and shout the devil away.

You better have some word in your heart.

Know what your covenant actually says.

And we need to be a people that will not be content unless you show up to teach me what the word of God actually says.

Give me an amen, somebody.

I say, give me an amen, somebody.

So here, watch this.

So we got to get to the place where we get back to the revelation of what the word said.

You know, I'm gonna get ahead of myself a little bit, but there's a story over in the book of Acts when the apostle Peter has been arrested and he's getting ready to be killed the next morning.

He is so confident God's gonna either deliver him or just take him on to heaven that the night before he's getting ready to be killed, he's in the jail cell of sleep.

While he's asleep in the jail cell, there's a group of Christians at this other house and they are praying fervently for him.

They're having an all-night prayer meeting and they're praying that God would save Peter.

When I, in the middle of their time of praying, an angel shows up to Peter's cell, has to hit him in the side to wake him up, takes his chains off of him, opens up the prison door, takes him to the outside of the city, opens up the gate that leads into the city.

Peter walks out, makes his way to the house where all these Christians are praying.

He goes up and knocks on the door.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

You would think they run to the door and fall down.

Oh my god, Peter, our prayers have been answered.

This girl named Rhoda comes to the door.

She says, Who is it?

He says, Pete.

And she didn't even believe it's him.

She turns around and goes back inside.

They're still praying.

Father, deliver Peter.

Father, send your power to let Peter go.

She said, Hang on a second, guys.

Peter's at the door.

This is what they say.

That ain't Peter.

Wait a minute, aren't you praying for Peter to show up at the door?

Doesn't that sound like us sometimes?

We're praying for something, but don't really, really, really, really believe it's happening.

They're praying and they say, Peter's at the door.

They say this, it's that's not Peter.

Watch this.

They say it's not Peter.

They say it might be his angel.

Come on, tell me what, tell me what life must have been like for them.

Where it was easier for them to believe that Peter's angel was at the door than to believe it was actually Peter himself.

I'm trying to tell you, we've let something slip, man.

They had such angelic interference, angelic intervention, that it was easier for them to believe Peter's angel was standing at the door because they just expected.

In the middle of a situation where I need somebody to show up, my angel could show up at any given moment.

Amen.

Angels are real.

Second thing I need you to know is that angels are created beings.

That means that angels are not little gods.

Angels should never be worshipped.

In fact, in the book of Revelation, when John is having this great vision, he sees an angel.

He's so blown away, he goes and gets down on his knees.

He's getting ready to worship the angel.

The angel says, No, no, no, no, no, don't worship me.

Worship God.

Why?

Angels are indeed supernatural beings, but they are created supernatural beings.

Psalm 148, verse 2 says, Praise him, all you angels.

Psalms 148:2

Praise him, all you armies of heaven.

Let them praise the Lord, because they were what?

Come on, say it like you mean.

They were what?

Created by his command.

See, God is the creator, and angels are part of his creation.

And what that means to us is this angels are not omnipotent.

Only God is omnipotent.

It means angels do have extraordinary power, but they are not all powerful.

Angels are also not omniscient.

They possess knowledge.

In fact, knowledge beyond our knowledge because they're spiritual beings, but they don't know everything.

Angels are omnipresent.

They can move supernaturally, but they are not everywhere at the same time.

Here's the third thing I need you to know about angels.

It's a big one.

People do not become angels.

You still with me?

Oh, you've heard it.

You know, you've heard it.

I've heard it too, man.

God needed an angel, so he's reached down and grabbed grandma.

Well, this one you hear.

I know you've heard this one.

I just saw this on social media this week.

As I'm preparing this message, somebody's loved one or co-worker, somebody had passed where I'm not trying to make fun.

But they said this Sarah or whatever the lady's name is, said, Sarah gained her wings.

Oh, you know you've heard that.

Well, I watched this.

That again, I'm not trying to make fun of it.

That may be comforting, but it is theologically incorrect.

There's nothing in the Bible that says when a believer dies, we get wings.

If you ain't have wings when you're down here, you ain't getting none when you get to heaven.

There might be some chicken wings when you get to heaven.

I'm hoping there's some chicken wings.

But we don't gain wings when when we watch this, listen to this, listen to this.

Grab hold us when a believer dies, they don't become an angel.

Humans remain human, angels remain angels, and we ought to thank God for that.

Watch this, because humans are in a higher category than an angel.

It would be a step down for grandmama to become an angel when she passed away.

Why?

Humans, God, we're in such a category that God has created a pathway of redemption for us.

He sent his only son to die for us.

He didn't send his son to die for angels.

When an angel misses the mark, makes a mistake, rebels against God, they don't have a chance to come back and say, I'm sorry.

But every single day of our lives, we wake up to brand new mercies every morning.

Come on, you better give God some praise.

No, you don't turn into an angel.

You stay a human being that is loved by God.

And watch this, the love that He has for us is so amazing that David, when he's sitting writing the Psalms, he's trying to write a song and he's blown away when he starts thinking about how much God loves us.

And he ends up saying this in Psalm 8.

He says, What is man?

That you are mindful of him.

What is this creature, mankind?

That you're always thinking about us, you're always helping us, you're always fixing us.

Come on, you're always saving us.

He says, What is the son of man that you visit him?

The word visit means you give attention to him and you care for him.

Verse 5.

He says, For you made him a little lower than the angels.

Wait a minute.

Pastor, I thought you said we're in a higher category than angels.

But didn't David just say he made man a little lower than the angels?

Well, no, that's what the translator said.

Because in this case, the translators, that's why you gotta go back and check the original text.

Translators wimped out a little bit.

They got to the word that David actually said in his life, whoa, he couldn't have meant that.

Because the word that David actually put here, he said, God, you made what is man that you're always thinking about him?

What is man that you're always showing up for him?

You made man, watch this, a little lower than this word he used, a little lower than Elohim.

Yeah, you're saying Elohim, you saying, because you know what Elohim means, right?

Elohim means God.

Let me tell you the other times you see the word Elohim.

Genesis chapter 1, verse 1.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning, Elohim made the heavens and the earth.

So when David is saying you made him a little lower than Elohim, what he's really saying is, you're God in the category all by yourself, but you made mankind in a category just below yourself.

That's one reason why I think the angels in heaven are sitting around trying to figure out what is wrong with you.

Why are you sitting around afraid of everything?

Sitting around terrified.

Why are you sitting around letting folks boss you around and make you feel bad and your self-esteem is being pulled down because they walked away from you?

Don't you know who you are?

Don't you know that you've been placed in a category where God's love is all over you?

I think the angels in heaven are trying to figure out what's really going on with you, man.

The Bible says this in Psalm 103, and we'll get to it in the next couple weeks.

It says that the angels of God hearken to the voice of God's word.

The word hearken means they get in a hurry to obey.

They get in a hurry to obey what?

The sound of God's word.

Watch this, it doesn't have to be the sound just coming out of God's mouth.

When God's word comes out of your mouth, his angels get in a hurry to obey it.

That's why some of your angels are sitting around right now, man, they're just so weak.

Because they ain't got nothing to do.

Muscles start to atrophy, because when you sitting around, all you're talking about is the gas price, and uh every time I take one step forward, I take two back.

Angels like, I can't do nothing with that.

What you want me to do with that?

Seems like everybody out to get me, I can't do nothing with that.

What you want to do with me that?

But then when you finally get a revelation like you just did on this Sunday morning, and you walk out of here and you start opening up your mouth, and you start declaring, My God shall supply all of my need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus, your angel's like, I can do something with that.

Let me get in a hurry to bring that to pass.

When you start walking out and declaring, not one single weapon that is formed against me is gonna prosper.

When you start declaring, Great shall be the peace of my children.

When you walk out of here and you start declaring, a thousand may fall at my side, ten thousand may fall at my right hand, but it will not come near me.

Your angels get on assignment like whatever I gotta do to keep that hurt hard.

When you start declaring the blood of Jesus covers me, covers my children, covers my vehicle, covers my house, covers my job.

Now your angels become warriors because you've given them something to act on.

Amen.

I said, Amen.

Let me give you one more that'll confirm for you that we are in a category higher than the angels.

1 Corinthians 6 3 says, Do you not know that we're the ones that are gonna judge angels?

He didn't create us lower than angels if we're gonna judge angels.

Here's the last thing I want you to know.

Here's a question: What does an angel actually look like?

Man of Hollywood has given us their pictures.

The reason why I'm taking my time to walk you through what the Bible says so we can get rid of all of the fantasy.

What does an angel actually look like?

Because if you were to ask the average person to draw an angel, they probably look something like these pictures.

The little cupid baby in the top left corner.

Could you see that as an angel many times?

The little toilet paper, that's a little baby right there from the angel soft.

Some of you know what I'm talking about now.

Oh, yeah, that's my dude right there.

Sometimes the angels represent as a nice little gentle woman with wings.

Many times you see the angel represented as a big strong man with the robe and the giant wings.

And sometimes when you're trying to really keep it real, you're gonna see the angel looking like Mandingo with the halo over his head.

But what does the Bible actually say?

See the Hebrew word malach and the Greek word angelos, both of those words that are translated angel in the Old Testament and New Testament, fundamentally fundamentally carry the idea of messenger.

When the Bible talks about angels, it refers most times to their function more than their physical appearance.

But there are four different references to angels I want to quickly tell you about.

Number one is a word called cherubim.

In Genesis 3.24, you see the word cherubim.

When God expels Adam and Eve from the garden, he sets two angels at the garden to cherubim to protect the garden so nobody gets back in there.

They're associated repeatedly with God's presence and God's holiness.

In Ezekiel, he has visions describing extraordinary beings that are associated with God's throne.

Even the Bible describes Lucifer, who eventually became Satan after he disobeyed God.

The Bible describes him before he falls as an anointed cherub.

So he was in that category of angels.

There's another category of angels the Bible describes, which is Seraphim.

You'll find those in Isaiah chapter 6 and other places.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

These are beings that the scripture does explicitly say has six wings.

Two wings they use to cover their face, two wings they use to cover their feet, and with two wings they fly past the throne of God all day long, crying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

So do some angels have wings?

Yes, but the Bible does not tell us that all the angels have wings.

There's another category, and this might be a separate category from the seraphim and the cherubim, or just may be a higher ranking class.

These are what the Bible refers to as archangels.

It's a category of high-ranking and high-ranking angels.

Among them are Michael and Gabriel.

Gabriel, who came to announce to Mary that she's going to be with child.

Michael, who came in in Daniel chapter 10, when Daniel is believing God for a word from heaven.

Daniel 10 · chapter mention

And from the first day he started praying, the Bible says that the answer was sent, but the answer was delayed because demonic spirits were holding back the angels from getting that message to Daniel.

Finally, because Daniel didn't stop praying, heaven released the archangel, Michael.

Michael came and did battle and brought the answer to Daniel.

Can I tell you, if you have been standing for something and it just feels like it hasn't happened, as long as you know that what you're believing God for is in line with the word of God, don't you dare quit.

Come on, don't you dare give up.

Because I promise you, there's something powerful that happens when you lift your voice in praise, and something powerful that happens when you keep confessing the word, something powerful that happens when you count it joy, even when it doesn't feel like joy.

I believe you charge the angels that are working for you to keep doing battle until they get every answer into your hands.

And here's the last category of angels that you see in scripture it's angels that actually appear like regular men.

Remember in Solomon and Gomorrah, these two men showed up and they clearly look like regular men.

They didn't seem to have wings or be extraordinary in some way.

Many angelic appearances in scripture are surprisingly ordinary.

They walk, they talk, they eat food, people see them.

And remember, Hebrews told us that many of us have had encounters with angels, and we didn't even realize it.

One of our ministers on our staff here, Minister Gina Halliburton.

I trust her explicitly, man.

I've literally known her for 33 years, the entire time I've been in ministry.

I started full-time ministry in Detroit at 23.

She was over our hearing impaired, our sign language department.

And the first department that I was placed over was her department.

So we've literally been connected all that time.

Well, when so, and I said this, you know, I trust this lady that she done make up stuff.

When she heard last week that I was gonna be teaching on angels, she sent me a message.

She said, You can use this if it helps you.

She said, When my daughter Mikhail was younger, she was like six or eight, she and her brother were in the back seat and we were driving through Detroit.

It was winter time.

And we hit a pocket of ice and the car started skidding, and the car ended up going into a snow embankment.

And the wheel, the back wheels are up in the air, the car was stuck in the snow.

And she said, Gina said, I started to panic.

Lord, what are we gonna do?

How are we gonna get out of this?

Her daughter in the back said, Mommy, don't worry about it.

God will send us an angel.

Gina says, I said, Well, God, out of the mouth of babes, I'll I trust you're gonna do what you can do.

She said, No sooner did she get those words out of her mouth, a little skinny man, she said, looked like a homeless man, showed up behind their vehicle, by himself, lifted the vehicle up, sat the vehicle flat on the ground, walked past the side window of her car, looked at her, winked at her, and then disappeared.

He said, Well, I don't believe that.

Don't nobody care what you believe or not.

I'm trying to stir you up to understand.

I believe with all my heart, there's no reason for the lie.

And what I'm saying to you is that you probably have had some encounters you didn't even realize.

Some of those car accidents that didn't take you out.

Come on, somebody.

Some of those near misses where you can't even understand how that car did not take you out.

I believe some of those encounters have been God's angels on special assignments.

So here's a question we I know some of you asking, so what are we supposed to do with this, Pastor?

What do you want us to do?

I know some of you like, I was going to lunch, but you done messed my head up.

I'm going home, now I'm going to sleep.

What do you want us to do, Pastor?

I just want you to do one thing.

I want you to pray the same prayer that Elisha prayed for his servant.

Lord, open my eyes.

Come back in the following week because you know I'm gonna I'm gonna line it up, line upon line, scripture upon scripture.

Right now, all I want you to do is ask God to open up my eyes, Lord.

Lift one hand towards heaven.

I want you to pray this.

Say it out loud.

Say, Lord, open my eyes to the reality of your kingdom, to your protection, your activity, and to the supernatural resources you have placed around your people.

Forgive me for the times I have judged your presence only by what I could see, feel, or understand.

When I have wondered, God, where are you?

Remind.

Me that your answer is never I'm coming, but your answer is always I'm already here.

Help me to trust that even when I can't see what you are doing, you are still working.

Even when I can't see the help you have sent, help is still here.

Give me spiritual awareness without fear, supernatural expectation without obsession, and confidence that I am never outside of your care.

Leave me today.

Let me leave today, knowing that the unseen realm is real, your kingdom is active, your hand is upon me, and your angels are all around me, carrying out your purposes in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Come on, give God the biggest shot you can give.

Come on, if you're stirred up, come on and praise.

Come on, if you have expectations, lift your voice and give him some praise.

Come on, lift your voice.

Come on, lift your voice.

Come on and lift your voice.

Come on, we bless you.

Come on, we bless you in, we bless you in.

Hit everybody try.

Everybody tried.

Lift your hands and wash your life.

Hey And everybody shouts And everybody cries And your glory fills Your glory fills Say it again everybody shout everybody cries Now if you're in this place today look up here at me for just a moment There's some amazing people in this room philanthropists, really good people that do really good things.

Can I just tell you this?

Good deeds will never be enough to earn us a relationship with a holy God.

No matter how many good deeds we've done, all it takes is one bad thought, one bad decision.

That would be enough to send us to hell for the rest of our days because God can have no dealings with anything that's tainted.

But God so loved the world that he sent his son Jesus to come to the earth, live his life, never sin, never make a mistake, yet be crucified like he was a sinner.

In other words, God let him take our place.

Then he raised him from the dead three days later.

And when we choose to put our trust in him, not just believing that he's alive, that's part one.

The second part is we give total devotion for the rest of our lives to Jesus.

The good news is he doesn't ask you to be perfect, he doesn't even ask you to write out a list of the stuff you promised to stop doing.

What he asks you to do is make one commitment.

I will surrender the rest of my life to Jesus for the rest of my days.

If you're willing to do that, God will take you right where you are, change you on the inside, and then help you transform your life from the inside out.

To the lots of you in this room, some of you on the overflow, some of you online.

If you're here then you are ready to surrender your life to Jesus, this is the best day of your entire life.

And I want to ask you to do something for me.

I'm not gonna embarrass you.

I'm not gonna ask you to stand up and come up here to the front of the church.

I'm not gonna send you out to another room with anybody.

But in a moment, I'm gonna have everybody to be seated.

When we sit down, I'm gonna ask everybody to close their eyes.

When we do, there's a card in the seat back pocket in front of you that just says say yes to Jesus.

When we're seated, I want you to reach out and grab that card, just hold on to it.

Because I'm gonna count the three when I get to three.

This is what I want you to do.

I want you to lift that card up as high as you can.

I'm gonna ask you to do it quickly because the devil's gonna try everything he can to talk you out of this moment.

But if you're sitting out there right now, standing out there saying something on the inside is telling me this is my moment.

That's the Holy Spirit.

All I can ask you to do is just obey what you sense on the inside.

Go ahead and be seated, please, all over the room.

I'm gonna ask you, please don't leave out just yet unless it's an emergency.

We'll only be here a few more minutes.

This is the most important thing we've done all day.

Bow your heads, please, close your eyes.

If you're ready to surrender to Jesus, would you reach out and grab that card?

I'm gonna count to three in just a moment.

When I do, would you lift that card up as high as you can, as quickly as you can?

God's getting ready to do something amazing in your heart, amazing in your life, but he needs your cooperation.

Needs you to say yes by lifting up that card, lifting up your hand.

Here we go.

One, two, three.

Lift it up real high, real high, real high.

Thank you.

All over the room.

Beautiful, beautiful.

Come on, see can't cards all over the room.

All over the room.

Thank you.

By lifting your hand, you're simply saying, Yes, I'm ready to surrender to Jesus.

I'm not perfect, but if you'll take me like I am, I'm ready to surrender.

Anyone else before we pray?

Beautiful.

Alright, keep that card up in the air.

Every one of you that lifted that card, I want you to just whisper this prayer right there at your seat.

Say, dear God in heaven, thank you for Jesus.

Thank you for sending him to die in my place.

But thank you for raising him from the dead.

I believe with all of my heart that he's alive right now.

So, Jesus, come into my heart, save me, forgive me, make me brand new.

I surrender my life to you for the rest of my days, and according to the Bible, I am right now born again.

Amen.

Come on, put your hands together, Impact Church.

Did you just make a decision for Jesus?

Welcome to the family.

We're so excited.

Trust me, we're clapping for you, and we believe that you've made an important decision today.

We'd like to help you on your journey.

So if you'll follow the directions that are on screen, there is a free book you can download.

It's gonna take you five to ten minutes of your day for the next seven days.

But our pastors have put together some amazing resources that we believe will help you on the journey ahead.

If you don't want it, nobody's going to email you, text you, bother you, anything like that.

We just want to make sure you are successful in your walk with Jesus.

Now, let me tell you, one of the things you should consider is baptism.

And if you're in the Jacksonville area, we do baptism after our first weekend service every month, and you can just scan the QR code that's on the screen.

Sign up for that.

I'd love to be a part of that journey with you, um, or any of our ministers would.

If you don't live in town, we do believe you should find a Bible-teaching church and at least go get baptized, even if you're still gonna watch our service.

But download that book, it's free.

We're excited for your journey ahead, and we can't wait to be a part of that.

Now, this is a part of the service where we also demonstrate our generosity.

If you're just checking us out today, you don't feel any pressure to give.

But for those of you, this is your church, you know that we are generous is one of our core values, and so you can give online or you can give through our app, which I really like.

You have the Apple Pay option right on our app.

Just go to your Google store or your Apple store, download the We Are Impact app.

It's also a great way to study notes that um come from the sermons that you watch on here, and there's a lot of events on there as well.

But you can give through that app, it's super easy, and we're just grateful that you partner with us week after week.

Well, we're so excited you joined us today.

Hope you have an amazing weekend, and we'll see you next time.