Things Not Seen - Leland Zehr

Good morning. Greet you in the name of Jesus, and

I too want to welcome you, and we're glad that

you visitors are here this morning. You're welcome anytime helps

fill up the blank spots of those that are gone

from home. Thank you to those of you that have

contributed this morning in Sunday school and devotions in other ways.

Appreciate your effort this morning. A little brief introduction to

the topic that I want to talk on this morning.

Before I get into that, as a bit of an introduction,

I'd like to think a little bit about how God

made us humans with our five senses the sight, hearing, smelling, tasting,

and are feeling. Now Probably probably most, if not all

of you this morning already today have used all five

of those senses, if not probably within the last twenty

four hours. And these five senses that God made for

our earthly bodies, along with our brain and our nervous system,

help us experience and process life, to learn, to understand,

to help us develop what we believe. These senses bring

color and meaning to life. They've enrich our experience in

both a deeper joy and deeper pain. These five senses

are very important to us, and when they don't work correctly,

they start to fade. We generally will put effort and

time and money into whatever it is to aid and

bring back that sense as much as possible, whether it's glasses,

hearing aids, or whatever it might be. There's whole industries

that are created around trying to help people in these areas.

I know, over COVID, my mother and probably many of you,

lost her taste, but hers never came back, and so

she continues to eat without tasting food, and so that's doable.

You can live life that way, but it definitely makes

experience less meaningful and enjoy Now, out of all these

five senses, I think we would probably all agree that

the one that we would hate to see, the one

that we'd want to go last, is our eyesight. At

least that's how I would see it. And our ability

to see is so valuable we don't even think about

it because unless it's taken away and we intentionally think

about it, it's just natural. We get up every waking hour,

every waking minute, and second we are, depending upon our site,

what we see. It protects us from dangers and obstacles,

whether we're in our house from stairways, to post, to

toys on the floor, to a child that runs in

front of a car. As we go down the road,

and as we navigate life, it is we are constantly

using our sight to inform us. Our sight tells us

a lot about other people. We look into someone's eyes

and we can see love or we can see hate.

We can see pain, fear, joy, anger, Sometimes without any

words being said. Sight shapes are learning. It shapes the

simple facts of life is. It verifies to us what

is true and what is not true, both to ourselves

and in a court of law. It would be the

same way an eye witness would be one of the

highest levels of proof in a court of law, especially

if there are multiple eye withs and I and I'm

sure you can too, struggle with being a skeptic about things,

especially when there's an extra interesting bit of news or

someone says you hear a rum or whatever it might be.

I wonder, I wonder what the other side of the

story is. I wonder if it's really that way. But

there's something about when I see something, when I verify

that thing with my very own eyes, I generally don't

argue with myself anymore. It settles it. I believe like Thomas,

his closest friends told him they've seen Jesus, but he said,

I won't believe until I see, and in fact, until

I stick my fingers in the nail prints of his hands.

You know, hearing is something we rely on as well.

But I thought about that, even in the woods, when

you're hunting or whatever it might be, you hear something

in the woods, you can't see it. In elk budling,

the crunching of something. You are convinced you know what

it is, But until you lay eyes on that, you're

just not quite sure if it's actually what it is.

Maybe it's something else. So eyesight is what we use

to verify things. Now this morning, the things I want

to talk about, I want to talk about a few things,

and none of them, for the most part, we can

verify with our five senses. And these are things what

the Bible calls things not seen, things that most or

all of us have never seen. Now, there might be

an exception or two, but most likely none of us

have ever seen these things with our human eyes and

never will. But the Bible says that these things are

more real and more lasting than the things that we

do see that they're eternal things, and they are things

that will effect our eternity. So the title of the

message this morning is things not Seen. Now, i'd be

curious give you a little bit of a memory challenge.

Does that title ring any bells with any of you?

Things not seen? Have you heard of that recently? Well,

I've been thinking about this subject for a couple two

three weeks and a couple of days ago. All of

a sudden, I just kind of had this moment in

my mind that it was like, has that been talked about?

Has that? Was that something in my mind and my

subconscious I went back through the Halsey sermons in about

two months ago, Joel preached a sermon that says the

evidence of things not seen? And so I listened to

that sermon. I already had this one somewhat formulated, and

I think it's enough of a different direction, it's not

that much overlap. He was talking a lot about faith,

and this morning, that's not my primary subject, although that

would be an unspoken qualification, I guess, but that's not

my direct focus here. So I just wanted to clarify

that in case for some of you, it was a

very good message on faith out of the Book of Hebrews.

But where I'm wanting to look this morning is out

of two Corinthians, chapter four, and i'd invite you to

turn there if you care to. And the title comes

from a verse, the last verse of chapter four, and

I'll read that verse, but then I want to come

back and read I'm going to read chapter four and

some of five eventually. But this verse says two Corinthians four,

verse eighteen, while we look not at the things which

are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporal, but the

things which are not seen are eternal. Everything that we see,

and I've thought about this the last week or two,

and you can correct me if I'm missing something. But

everything that I've laid eyes on in the last day

and the last week, and as far as I know

in my lifetime, is temporal, is things of time and space.

And we're very conscious this morning of the holidays and

the calendar and and a new year dawning. And that's right.

We live in a world of physical and a world

of five senses, and in a world that is set

by a clock. But God is not restricted by time.

God is not restricted by space, and we don't understand

all that eternity passedy forward is mind boggling to the

human mind. All the things that we have seen, all

the things that we have worked for, have paid on,

our homes, our possessions, our farms, our lands, our businesses,

our bank accounts, our retirement iras, our hobbies, They're all

just temporal. They're all going to pass away. They're all

going to be gone at some point. I am amazed,

and I enjoy one of the things I enjoy. I

love living in the country, but I enjoy going to

the big cities once in a while. I'm just odd

with the skyscrapers and the buildings and the structures that

man has built. It's incredible if you get up close

to those things and look at what it took to

build these skyscraper there is in a city that functions

and works together, and some of these The dam, the

Hoover Dam is it is an impressive man made structure.

That thing has over like four point four million qb

yards of concrete. That's enough. That's enough concrete to pave

a road from San Francisco to New York City. And

that was Bill almost one hundred years ago. It's it's

it's amazing, it's it's man has as is impressive and

what they do. But again, these things that seems so solid,

you think of the US military and all that it is,

it's all just fleeting. It's all just going to pass.

And even the things that God created, the Grand Canyon,

Mount Everest, the oceans, the world that we live in,

the stars in the universe, the sun and the moon.

The Bible says, it's all temporal. It's all here for

a time. Even our earthly bodies maybe say, well, that's

the one thing we say, the only thing we can

keep is is our children. Or that's true to some degree.

But even as I look at you this morning, everything

that I see and that you see is temporal. These shells,

these bodies are going to die one day. They're going

to return to the earth in dust and decay and

be no more. But what he says here that there's

things that are not seen. The things that are seen

are temporal passing away. The things that are not seen

are eternal. And so this morning I want to think

a little bit about a few things that we cannot

see that are eternal, and help us to just remind us.

It's just a reminder because we are people that know

these things, but we tend to go about life and

get more and more caught up in the earthy things

of life, which are fine to some degree, but we

need to keep it before us always an eternal perspective.

And the reason for that, why should we think about

things not seen? Why don't we just let that work

out however it works out well. I think the Bible knows,

and God knew, and that's why he talked about these things,

and we need reminded of these things. Is the reason

that we need to think about things that we cannot

see and feel and smell and touch or hear, is

because they help us prioritize and relate and be stewards

of the things that we do see and feel and

touching here and interact with every day. It makes all

the difference in life how we view and if we

believe the things that are not seen, and how we

relate today in the present. So let's read tewod Corinthians

chapter four, verse one. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry

as we have received mercy, we faint not but have

renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness,

nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation

of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in

the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid,

it is hid to them that are lost in whom

the God of this world hath blinded the minds of

them which believe, not lest the light of the glorious

Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should

shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves but Christ,

Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants, for Jesus sake.

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,

hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of

the knowledge of the glory of God in the face

of Jesus Christ. We have this treasure in earth and vessel,

that excellency of the power may be of God and

not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet

not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted

but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, always bearing

about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,

that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest

in our body, For we which live are always delivered

unto death for jesus sake, that the life also of

Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So

then death worketh in us, but life in you. We

have the same spirit of faith. According as it is written,

I believe, and therefore have I spoken. We also believe

and therefore speak, knowing that he which raised up the

Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also by Jesus, and

shall present us with you. For all things are for

your sake, that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving

of many, read down to the glory of God, for

which cause we faint not. But though our outward man perish,

yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For

our light affliction is but for a moment, worketh for

us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

While we look not at the things which are seen,

but at the things which are not seen. For the

things which are seen are temporal, but the things which

are not seen are eternal. And I'll stop there for now.

Maybe read a little bit more in chapter five. After

a little bit so a few things that I would

like to just consider here, and I got about I

don't know, seven or eight, depending on how you count them.

I'm just going to try to hit them briefly. The

first one will probably be the longest one. But these

things we do well to remember and consider because they

influence the decisions and the way that we look at

life here now. And one thing I just want to say,

one important thing almost forgot to say here, is that

although the things that we see that I talked about

that are temporal, that are going to pass away, those

things are still very, very important. The Bible does not

say that they're not important, that just because they're temporal,

that we don't need to worry about it's going to

pass away. It's all gonna burn anyways. That's what some

people say when they're doing a shoddy job or something. Well,

it's all going to burn anyways, doesn't matter, but I

think it is. It is really more the opposite. I

think eternal, eternal perspective and a right view of some

of these things unseen will help us to be more careful,

more diligent with the things that are seen. And so

I want us to remember that, and I'll maybe get

back to that later on. So they are the things

that we see are are very important. Now the number one,

the first thing that I want to consider is God,

the first unseen thing. Have you ever seen God? How

do you know he's there? We serve an invisible God?

Is that accurate? That feels like a weak statement for

all that we put on it, the life that we lived.

I don't know if you believe that's true or not.

I believe that the Bible that it is true. We

serve an invisible God. Now, there are a lot of

evidences like in Joel's sermon that he talked about that

points to God and that we can help us believe

that God is there, But we do not see God

with our human eyes. And John one eighteen says no

man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son,

which is the Bosom of the Father, he hath declared

him and our God, our God, the God of the Bible,

the God of Heaven, is an invisible God. And that's

a problem for many people. It's the primary problem that

has people become atheists or agnostics. The fact that this

so called God is hidden, and if he's really there,

why can't he just reveal himself. They say it's just

a fairy tale, the whole idea of God. It's a

religion that has made up to scare people, to control people.

The Bible says, we heard this on Sunday School. The

fool has said in his heart there is no God.

I don't know if you've ever I don't know that

I've ever said I don't believe I've ever said there

is no God, but I probably have wondered, And I

don't know if I've said maybe became pretty close in

my heart that there is no God or where is God?

When something happens, many people mock and scoff those that

believe in an invisible God. We can look like a fool,

We can feel like a fool. People want proof, They say,

show me God, prove it. Not going to believe it

until I see it. But you know this isn't this

is nothing new. If you think back to the days

of Noah as he built that arc, there must have

been days he woke up in the morning and he

just felt completely foolish or tempted to be. Maybe he

had a strong enough faith he didn't. But dry and hot,

not a drip of water in sight, and as he

built that arc day after day, and the people mocked

him and asked him what he was doing, and he

continued to build the ark. It happened in the days

when the Angel came to Angels came to Sodom and Gomorrah,

and the people there. Some of BLAT's family just thought

they were foolish. For whatever they're saying, it's like they

were fools. And God said that it'll happen in the days.

In the last days as well. Scoffers will walk after

them and lefts, and they'll say, where is the promise

of his coming? Since the fathers fell asleep? All things

continue as they were from the beginning of creation. Now,

when it comes to whether we believe God or not,

the problem with the statement is that I will believe

it when I see it. Is that by the time

that we see it, it will be too late. Just

like in the days of Noah and in the days

of Lot, by the time the people could see that

it was actually true, it was too late. The time

had passed. I think about Moses. Moses is an incredible

man in so many ways. And the Bible says, young

men when it says when Moses came to the years,

became of age when he joined the youth group. He

had some choices to make. Now Moses was he had

the choice to continue living in Egypt, where he was

he was adopted into. He was the grandson, adopted grandson

of Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the land. He

was set in a position of success, of comfort. He

had probably the pleasures and comforts and good food at

his disposal, fun and pleasures of sin, the security and

protection of the king Pharaoh. But the Bible says, and

Hebrews that he chose to leave all that, and not

only to leave all that, not because there was a

better place than Egypt that he was going to go to.

But it says that he chose to suffer the affliction

with the people of God rather than that. And I'd

like to ask you why did he do that? Why

make an irrational judgment like that? Well, Hebrews also says,

listen to these words Hebrews eleven twenty six, And it

gives us a little glimpse as to why Moses did this,

as his esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than

the treasures of Egypt. For he had respect unto the

recompense of the reward. And these are big King James words,

welcome back to them Hebrews and verse twenty seven. By faith,

he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king,

for he endured and listened to this as seeing Him

who is invisible. And in that first verse where it

says that he had respect done too, it means that

he gave attention to the He looked beyond. He looked

at a goal. He looked at a reward that was

beyond the here and now that he was enjoying in Egypt.

He looked at a reward that was beyond this life

and seeing Him who is invisible. Moses belief in an

invisible God affect his decisions in the way that he'd

made choices in the life of the hero and now

in his temporal life. But another factor that comes into

those that have a fear and believe in God. It

says Moses was unafraid of the king, not fearing there

out of the king, the most powerful man in the land.

Why was he not afraid? Well, I think that that

is often the way that it works is is the

more we fear God and the more that we have

a respect for him the things of eternity, the less

impact and less shaken up, and the less fearful we

are of the people and the consequences and the temporal

things of life. And I believe that he learned this

from his parents. It's because it says in verse twenty

three in Hebrews, it says by faith, this is talking

about their parents. Now backing up Moses' parents by faith, Moses,

when he was born, was hid three months of his

parents because they saw he was a proper child, and

they were not afraid of the king's commands commandment. So

I believe Moses picked that up from his godly biological parents,

a faith in God. Even in the midst of slavery

and hardship, there was a sight beyond life of an

invisible God. And another thing about I thought about this,

was Moses really not afraid of the king Pharaoh. Because

when if you remember in Exodus three and four, when

he was called, the angel came on the burning bush

and God was speaking to Moses. Moses resisted that call.

He did not want to go, and he kind of

protests and gave excuses. But as I went back and

I read through that, and I read through the Ten Plagues.

Nowhere in there do I really pick up that Moses

was actually afraid of Pharaoh. But what he was apprehensive about,

especially at the beginning, was that his own people would

not believe him. That they would they would not believe

that he was sent from God. He wasn't so much

afraid of Pharaoh. He it seemed like even when Pharaoh,

in the face of the Ten Plagues, said I don't

want to see your face again, or I will kill you,

Moses said, okay, and Moses had And the reason that

Moses could do that is because he knew that there

was a God, even though he could not see him.

And I don't know if you can imagine that standing

before the some of the most powerful men of our country.

I suppose Donald J. Trump is considered the most powerful

man in the world at this point. If he was

if he demanded something of you and he had the

power to see it through and it violated the principles

of God in his word, would that make me and

you afraid? Would you be willing to say no, I

cannot do that. I think the only way that we

can do that is if we have a fear and

a belief that God is there, that there is a God.

Another verse in one Timothy one seventeen just says this

now into the King eternal, describing God now into the

King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor

and glory forever ever. And speaking of Jesus, we can

think of Jesus, well, what about Jesus. Well, yes, Jesus

came in the flesh. We and a generation of people

seeing Jesus. And it says again and cautions one a

few verses there describing Jesus, it says, who is the

image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creation.

For by him were all things created that are in

heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether

they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers, all

things were created by him and for him. So we

see that that Jesus came, and we know that he

lived in the flesh among men. But he left and

we do not see him anymore. But when he comes again,

the Bible says that every eye will see him when

he comes again. What about the Holy Spirit, I'm not

going to say much about that, but the Holy spirit

part of the Godhead. I don't understand this, but the

spirit means Numah, the wind, the breeze, the breath of God.

And there again, wind isn't something that we see, but

we see the effects of it and the results of it.

And that is very true in the lives of people.

When a person is hard hearted and a sinner and

wicked and selfish, and he gets converted and he follows

God and his spirit changes, and in the influence of

God's breath is upon his life. It affects all the

earthy things that we do, and what we look at,

what we don't look at in our five senses, and

how we use them. The second one I want to

think about, besides God is the God of this world.

And we see that in verse four it says whom

the God of this world has blinded the minds of

them that believe not? Who is the God of this world?

Have you ever seen the God of this world? There again,

I don't think that we have Satan, the devil. Satan

appears to have been a fallen angel who his best.

We can tell God did not create evil, so he

went and created the devil that way, But it seems

like God created angels, and he was an angel of light.

And there's some places in the Bible that talk about

when Satan rose up against God in pride and wanted

to be like the most High God. There was an

uprising in heaven and there was war and there was fighting,

and Satan was cast out of heaven with some of

the angels that rebeled as well. So that is who

the God of this world is. And he's the Prince

of darkness, the author of sin, the father of lies,

and the prince of the power of the air. He

is the one in competition with God. He's the arc

enemy of God, and he is walking to and fro

on the earth, seeking whom he may devour. And I

think that is something we need to remember here, is

that Satan's purpose and goal, his whole focus, seems to

be on the souls, destroying the souls of humanity. It

is his kind of his only way to compete and

to get back at God. He does this in many ways.

He's a deceiver. The Bible says in Second Corinthians eleven

fourteen that he can appear as an angel of light,

so he can deceive people. Other places. Another place that

says he comes as a roaring lion that would have

the concept of fear, just as a full force of evil,

and we can become fearful. He's the accuser and slander

of both God and the Brethren. I think we need

to remember that that we don't want to be a

tool of Satan when we slander and our accusers of

the Brethren. In here in two Corinthians, for It says

he blinds the minds of those that do not believe.

And I'd like to just point out that this whole

idea of seeing and blindness of God and Satan, seeing,

light and truth are kind of like a spiritual package

that Jesus talked about, and the Bible talks a lot

about that. You got to have light to see and

truth is a spiritual form of light to the human

and Satan operates in darkness and blindness and lying and deception.

It's the opposite. It's a package that he works with.

He's the father of lies, and so he works here.

The God of this world, it says, works to blind

the minds of them, especially that believe, not those that

don't believe. Satan is trying to confirm that, trying to

keep people shielded so that the glorious light of the

Gospel does not penetrate into their hearts. Satan isn't always

a big red eyed devil with horns. I think he

is satisfied with just a sleepy, lukewarm, lethargic spiritual life.

That's good enough for him. Just just fall asleep, just

don't just don't worry about these things that are eternal.

Just get busy with the things that are here. And now,

he's the god of this world, he's the god of

the five senses, and he uses all of these five

senses to distract us from things eternal. And we see

that a little bit. When Jesus was in the wilderness

being fasting. He came to Jesus and he tempted him,

and one of the first things was with food, with hunger,

taste sight. He held up a stone, and you know, imagine,

after days and days of just hunger, how you can

start to just even after a day of fasting, I

mean just that you think about the foods and you

just become obsessed about it. But think about weeks of

not eating. And the stone that Satan probably brought that

looked about like a loaf of bread, and he said,

you can just you're powerful. You can just turn this

thing into a loaf of bread. It could be warm

and you could eat it. There's nothing wrong with bread.

But Satan was trying to bring Jesus. Jesus was in

the wilderness, focusing on his eternal work, his purpose on

earth Jesus. Satan did not try to attack that head on.

He just tried to bring him away from that with

a warm loaf of bread. And he took him up

on a high place, and he showed him all the

earthly kingdoms, all the beautiful things, and he said, if

you'll just work worship me, you can have all of this.

Everything again was appealing to his senses. And to this

Satan is the god of this world. He is the

dominant one. He's the most powerful aside from God. And

if he can just just get our eyes and our minds,

it says, blind our minds from eternal things. We just

listen continuously to earthy music, earthy podcasts, whatever it might be.

They might not even be bad and immoral. But just

never have time for the Bible. Just listen to all

these interesting things of earth and logic and smart men.

But never quite have time to get into the Bible,

never have time to get down on your knees and pray.

That's good enough for Satan. He'll keep you blinded. You'll

just be kind of spiritual senses will be dull, things

of eternity will not seem real God of this world.

And this merges us into the next one could have

been under the same point, maybe a little bit. But

the third unseen thing is the spiritual warfare now is in.

This is a warfare between God and Satan that is

going on, and we don't understand all that. We we

get glimpses. We have the life of Job as an

example to see that God and Satan were competing for

the soul of Job. And Ephesians six twelve says we

for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,

against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,

against spiritual wickedness in high places. And then he goes

on to talk about putting on the armor of God.

And here again I just want to remind us that

our primary battle is not f rush and blood. It

is not the things around us and the people that

we see. It feels like that, sometimes feels like that

the battle is about flesh and blood. It's about other humans.

It's about our negative circumstances, our losses, our sicknesses, maybe

our mom and our dad, or church members or coworker,

maybe my spouse, and we can find ourselves wrestling with

flesh and blood, these irritations, these disagreements, these things that

might not even be right. We might be accurate in

saying my brother is wrong, but never forget that behind

all of this is a spiritual warfare, and a spiritual

battle that Satan would love to disrupt the unity of

believers or the unity of peace in the heart of

a person. And if he can just get a wedge

in there and within a home, a marriage, a church,

he's satisfied, get their focus on each other, get people

thinking about each other negatively, and get caught up in

some civil warfare. The Bible warns us and tells us

that we need to put on the armor of God

because it's a spiritual battle. There's things going on we

don't understand. And I don't think we should get all

looking for a demon behind every bush, but I think

we should think about it when we live life and

we go out in the day and we interact with

people and Satan. Nothing is off limits for Satan to

use to try to snare and to trap and to

take us down. Satan is more powerful than we are,

but not as powerful as God. That is why the

Bible says we need the armor of God to withstand

his attacks. And there again, to put on the armor

of God takes some intentional spiritual discipline. It takes a discipline.

It's not something we feel like doing. You don't feel

like getting up and reading your Bible and praying every day.

There's days that you don't. But if we have a

understanding of the reality of the spiritual warfare, then that

will help motivate us. Another one here unseen thing is angels.

And this is something that I was thinking about earlier on.

I can't remember what triggered it, but I was thinking

about angels. I think as in Hebrews one and two,

it talks a lot about angels and about comparing them

to Jesus, and maybe that's where I first was thinking

about that. An angel. Now this might be an exception

to the human eyes. I don't know. The reason I

say that is because Hebrew is thirteen to two says

be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have

entertained strangers unaware. And this would imply that angels can

appear like a normal human being that we don't even

know it. And we know in the Bible there's many stories,

many many stories where angels came and interacted or brought

a message to people and they seen them. So people

have seen angels, but I would say that it is

rare that we see an angel. Angels were created by God,

and there's for different purposes, and I'd like to just

mention a few of these here. Angels are higher or

more superior than man, and Jesus when he came Jesus

is higher than the angels. But when he came to man,

he became like man and became a little lower than

the angels. The Bible says, so angels are appeared to

be stronger, more powerful. There are many angels, and the

Bible doesn't give us the amount, but we have different

places in the Bible that it tells us about just

a vast amount of angels where they were seeing. Jesus

said he could have called more than twelve legions of angels,

and in Hebrews twelve refers to an innumerable company of angels,

and Revelation five twenty two says that they were around

the throne ten thousand times ten thousands and thousands of thousands.

So I don't know what that math equation looks like,

but there is many, many angels. One of the things

angels do is protect man. Psalm thirty four seven says

the angel the lord in camp around about them that

fear him and delivereth them. We know that an angel.

Just my little son told me this last night, and

it clicked with me because that's thinking about this. He

showed me on the back of a Bible story book.

There was an angel and Daniel in the lions den,

and God sent an angel to shut the lion's mouth

mouths so that they could not bite Daniel and eat him.

A couple of my maybe favorite angel verses are one

Jesus mentions in Matthew eighteen ten says, take heed that

you despise. He's talking about little ones and not offending

little people, little children. Take heed that you despise not

one of these little ones. For I say unto you

that in Heaven their angels do always behold the face

of my Father, which is in heaven. And this gives

a picture of God has guardian angels for children are

that are watching over them, that are looking after them,

that are protecting them. Between standing between God and these children,

and we say, well, why does it? Why do little

children die? Sometimes? I don't know. Maybe God wanted to

bring them home. We don't know. That. Another one that

I like here, This is another one of Jesus' words

in Luke fifteen tens is likewise, I say unto you,

there is joy in the presence of angels over excuse me,

there is joy in the presence of the angels of

God over one sinner that repenteth. That's an amazing thought

to think about, how that must be in heaven. Now.

I maybe it's a person for the first time that

is converted, or maybe it is one of us that

has fallen away, we fell into sin, into some kind

of wickedness, or we're proud, or we're just unforgiving of heart,

and we carry bitterness around in our heart for years.

And finally God and as conviction penetrates us, and we

get down on our knees and we give up and

we're sorry, and and the light of God comes in.

And the Bible says that angels rejoice in heaven when

that happens. That's amazing. And I had to wonder, well,

what is that? What must that sound like, or what

must that look like? And right now we're in college

football season, and some of the biggest college football stadiums,

I think they're one in Michigan holds like one hundred

and seven thousand people, and that thing is full. And

when the game is going and an athlete crosses the

finish line or the goal and scores a goal, it

is tremendous noise. The voice of one hundred over one

hundred thousand people. Well, there's way more angels than that

in heaven, and their voices are probably way more strong.

And to think about that scene, what heaven must sound

and look like over a sinnery penting, it's encouraging. It's

somebody's paying attention, somebody's watching what's going on. Angels are

ministering spirits. Hebrews one fourteen says sent forth to minister

for those who shall be errors of salvation. The Angel

came and ministered to Jesus, and Angel minister to Elijah

after he was discouraged. The Devil's aware of the angels.

Satan said this to Jesus in his convoluted temptation. He said,

for it is written, he shall give his angels charge

over thee to keep thee. The devil knows about the angels.

He was trying to get Jesus to do something, and

he was trying to affirm him, said, your angels will

take care of you. Satan is aware of that. Angels

carry the souls of the saints to paradise. And we

see that where Jesus was talking about the beggar that

died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom,

and the rich man also died and was buried. And

I don't know what that looks like. At the death

of a loved one, death of a saint, an angel

comes and he takes the soul of man to paradise

or wherever the souls go. Now I want to read

a little bit and in chapter five here before I

get to my next point, first few verses here to

verse eleven in second Corinthians. For we know that if

our earthly house, I'll just give you my second one,

I will make more sense. So my next unseen thing

is the souls of man. For we know that if

our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have

a building of God, a house not made with hands,

eternal in the heavens. For in this we grown earnestly,

desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is

from heaven. If so be that being clothed, we shall

not be found naked. For we that are in this

tabernacle do grown being burned, and not for what we

would be, would that we would be unclothed, but clothed

upon that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now

he that hath wrought us for the self same thing

as God, who also hath given unto us the earnest

of the spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that

while we are at home in the body, we are

absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not

by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing rather

to be absent from the body and to be present

with the Lord. Wherefore we labor that, whether present or absent,

we may be accepted of Him. For we must all

appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may

receive the things in his body according to what he

hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore

the terror of the Lord. We persuade men. But we

are made manifest unto God, and I trust also are

made manifest in your conscience. And I'll stop there. We

see here that we live in a tavern, a tent,

just a body vessels of clay that are going to

pass it. We also have a heavenly body that's eternal

in the heavens, it says in verse one. And we

know that this is the prize of God and Satan.

This is what the warfare is all about. But none

of them have permission to just take the souls of man.

It is up to each one of us where in

how in what camp we are going to go. Who's

going to be our God, Who's going to be our allegiance?

Need to keep moving. The next one is found in

verse ten of the of chapter five. Another unseen thing

is the judgment seat of God. Now this a little

bit about the historical context of this judgment. See I

think it's called Beama. It was a it was a

raised platform that could you could the judges could sit

up and look down on the athletes the games that

were going on, whether it was a race or something else.

And the judge's jobs was to make sure that the

contests could the contestants followed the rules, and then would

present the awards to the victors of the games or

the races. And so we have this picture, and we

get another more of that in Revelation and elsewhere where

there's a picture of a great white throne. And he

says here in other places that every one of us,

since single file, maybe stand before the judge, all by

ourself and give an account for how we ran the race.

And this is where I think the temporal things matter,

because he says, here we will give an account not

for how we thought about things of eternity, not how

our mental faith was or what our doctrine was. He says,

we will give an account for the things done in

his body, whether they were good or whether they were bad.

It's just pretty simple. In Revelation twenty we have this picture,

it says, the small and the great stand before God.

And another unseen thing that it mentions in Revelation is

a thing called the Book of Life. And this whole

book I don't know what it looks like. Maybe it's

a big book. Hopefully it's a big book. Is it

records the names of people, and we have a scene

there where it talks about all the people. It's the

names that are written in that book are the ones

that have been forgiven and that are right with God.

And they're the only names that are in there. And

if our name isn't in there, it means that something

was not taken care of. Revelation twenty fifteen says and

whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life

was cast into the lake of fire. And now it's

a terrorizing thought to think about standing before God. And

he gets the book and maybe it's in alphabetical order,

and he goes to the z's and he looks through

the za's and he's looking for a lelands are and

he looks and then he looks again, and he looks

up with a puzzled expression, and it's not there. Sometimes

we hear people say, and I've probably said this about

we shouldn't we shouldn't paint God to be too mean

or a man with a big stick, but a father.

I think that's true. There's that side of it. But

I think that if we are not living right, and

if there's reason to doubt that our name is in

the book of life, that we should have terror. We

should be afraid God will wish that God was just

a man with a big stick. At that point, it'll

be a lot worse than that. It says in the

next verse, it says, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord,

we persuade men. And I would just say this, I

don't know all the tactics in the right things. I'm

not for scaring people out of their sins. But on

the other hand, why not if they actually truly repent.

But it'll be a lot better for us to have

some terror now if we're living in sin and we

repent that if we be comfortable now and have terror

on judgment day. The last two things that I would

just mention here in us things not seen or there

are the two places heaven and Hell, and just a

few things these could be sermons in themselves. With Hell

we know as a place of torment. It's a lake

of fire. It's the place for the devil and his angels.

It's the place where the unrepentant go that reject the

glorious Gospel Matthew twenty four to fifty one says, it's

where the hypocrites go, and it's a place so terrible

that we don't like to even think about it. It's

besides it being a lake of fire. And in spite

of there being fire there, it says that there's outer darkness.

I don't know how you have fire and outer darkness

at the same time. But and it says, a continuous torment.

There's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, no rest,

no laying down, no sleeping in the presence of the

devil and his demons. Heaven the eternal home, where God is,

where Jesus is, where the angels are, where the children

of God are. It's an eternal home. It's a place

we all want to go. Jesus told us comforted as disciples,

when he was getting too ready to leave the earth,

he said, in my father's house or many mansions. If

it were not so, I would have told you I

go to prepare a place for you. And if I

go and prepare a place for you, I will come

again and receive you unto myself. That where I am

there ye may be also. It is a better country.

It's a place where there's no sorrow, no pain, no

more temptation, pleasures forevermore. It's the opposite of the darkness.

It's light. God himself is the light. There is no

darkness there, eternal security. The battle is over once and

for all. No more temptation, no more tricks, no more

wearing ourselves out, no more temptation to give up. A

place of purity and holiness, a place where Jesus welcomes us.

And there again, I wonder what it must be like

when another saint enters the gates, and all the angels

and Jesus erupt into celebration and joy. I heard a

great voice out of heaven, saying, behold, the Tabernacle of

God is with men. He will dwell with them, and

he shall be his people. And God himself shall be

with them and be their God. And God shall wipe

away all tears from their eyes. And there shall be

no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there

be any more pain. For the former things are passed away.

He that overcomes show inherital things, and I will be

his God, and he shall be my son. Things not seen.

Let's be like the people. In Hebrews, it says these

all died in faith, not having received the promise. They

didn't receive it, but having seen them afar off, and

were persuaded of them and embraced them and confess that

they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they say,

they that say such things declare that. They declare plainly

that they seek a country as we live life. Those

men and women, because they had an eternal perspective, because

they believed in the things that they could not see.

It affected the choices that they made and the way

that they live life with the senses and the body

that God created them Jesus' words. May we all hear

these words someday, he says in Matthew twenty five twenty three,

Well done, good and faithful servant, Enter thou into the

joy of the Lord. That is my goal, that is

my wish for each one of us here this morning,

God bless you. Let's have a song.