Things Angels Can't Do!

Do you want to live life successfully and I don't mean in regards to money or health? Though those would be nice, I'm talking about succeeding in the Spirit, always have Jesus in the forefront of your life! Put Jesus as the object of your affection.  Then everything in this life will come to pass according not to your will, not my will but a better will, God's will!

Acts 2:24-25 ~ But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him: "I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken."

We should all want to be more like David, whose relationship with God was that He was always before his face. That should be our goal in everything from voting to eating, driving, talking, ministering, having fun, going to the beach, working, paying bills, going to school, to see the Lord always before our face, should be our goal in life. Yet all of us desire to become more like Jesus, but one step at a time. We can find people in the Bible who are just like us and see how they rise above, people like David, Abraham, Esther, and others. David and Abraham had born again relationships with Jesus in the Old Testament, for example, Abraham was declared righteous by faith and so are you. We need to keep Jesus every before our face and keep moving forward in our race to finish this life well and give all the glory and honor, praise and worship to Him in the process.

Matthew 6:33 ~ "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

This should be the motto of every church and Christian. "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these (other) things will be given to you as well." You want wealth, you want health, you want power, you want position? Personally if that is what your "want" is I don't think you will get them, or if you do get them, it could be to your own destruction. Are those things evil? No! But we live in a fallen and broken world. But will God grant those things? Sure! All of them? Some of them? It's up to Him! What are we to do first? Seek first the kingdom of God. Is that our passion? As a Christian? As a church?

In John 14:2" In my Father's house are many rooms; if were not so, I would have told you so. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."

That should be our passion. Are you moving? Do you have your house up for sale? Are you moving somewhere? Do you understand it is only temporary? Think about that when you go to buy all the new furnishings for the new house. It's only temporary! It's all going to burn. It's just temporary what we live in. These bodies are just temporary and I am so glad of that. Is Jesus the object of your affection? 

Matthew 6:20-23 ~ "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, you whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then, the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness."

If Jesus is the object of our affection, we have an "eye" spiritually speaking focused on Him and He is our reason or we have an "eye" that is bound up in the world. It is not wrong to possess things of the world. As long as those possessions don't possess you! It's not a sin to be affluent. It's a sin to hoard it to yourself. Some of the most successful people I have read of or known, have been people who so give it away, that God winds up having to give it back to them, because they keep giving it away! It's tremendous to have that kind of passion for Jesus.

"For where your treasure.." treasure meaning "thesauros" in the Greek: a place of deposit, the set of wealth, a reserve or treasure of affections.

Wherever your affection is, that is where your heart is going to be. Where your deposit is, that is an interesting word, God is saying, "Where are you placing your deposits, in the things of the kingdom or things that would rob and steal? We live in a hostile world that is out to rob and steal. 

We need to be keeping the mark before our eyes at all times. A person in a race, has a mark. A Christian in this life, has a mark, and that mark is Jesus. Always Jesus. If you are in a worship situation, and Jesus is not the mark, God gave us the instruction on what to do about that. We are to take the dust from our feet and dust it off, get into a church that holds truly and without compromise or apology to the Bible.

2 Timothy 2:3-4 ~ "Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs - he wants to please his commanding officer."

Isn't that something? You see all these soldiers heading over to Iraq, or wherever else the battle of terrorism is being fought, can you imagine, they have all their gear and behind them they have a little rope, and they have their surfboard behind them, their golf clubs dragging behind them. Your commanding officer says advance, and you see this guy moving forward and wondering what is that sound? Pots and pans behind him clanging. Nobody entangles himself with the things of this life, when it comes to spiritual warfare! And yet we all battle that! We all have our thing that we fight against. But is Jesus Christ the object of our affection?

 Philippians 3:13-14 ~ "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

There will be no debris in heaven. Nothing that is worthless. Note what is important in heaven.

Revelation 5:8b ~ "Revelation 5:8-14 ~ " Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

John sees these harps and these bowls which are gold and full of incense which means, the incense is rising, but we don't have to guess what they are. They are the prayers of the saints. Two of the three things that affect eternity are right here. We are just little people, mere humans, and God loves us so but you and I have the power, granted by God to do something like this, whenever we pray, we leave this time zone, and in an instant, literally in real time, praying before the throne of God? Second thing, when you worship, you transcend this orb, this terrestrial world, when you worship, you immediately affect God who is in heaven. That should excite you! There are at least two things we send on ahead, two long term investments that will forever produce dividends in heaven. Worship and prayer. There is also a third, conversion. When a sinner repents and comes to know Jesus as Savior, they change their mind about Jesus, to know Him personally, what does the Bible say about that? Even if just one person in the whole world does that one thing today, what happens in heaven? Angels party in heaven it says. Martenellis' certainly, but they party!!!! They rejoice over one sinner who repents. Immediately when one person comes to Christ, it affects eternity in that moment.

Psalm 141:2 ~ "May my prayer be set before you like incense: (may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.)"

Matthew 6:21 ~ "For where you treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Where? There! In heaven. "Mark"  - the things of heaven in your sights. On your mark - "Worship" is our spiritual exercise. We need to get stretched out, we need to get ready. we need to get in tone for worship.

Revelation 5:9 ~ "And they sang a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."

Jesus redeems the earth back from its lost condition. He met all the standards and requirements, how? He redeemed us by His death and His blood. A new song, never able to be sung prior to... "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."

Only black people? Only white people? Only yellow people? What people? Out of every tribe, and language and people and nation. We are the most guilty of all people on the planet earth when it comes to  reducing God and salvation into some sort of geographical benefit. There are people who name the name of Christian, that can't even tell you what it means and they might attend church on Sunday, but they have no connection to Christ any rest of the days of the week. None whatsoever. Just because you were born in America means nothing. Just because it's a Christian nation at one time. You can't call it a Christian nation any longer. When Christ gets thrown out of schools, it's not a Christian nation anymore. When the ten Commandments get thrown out of a courthouse, it's not a Christian nation anymore. This nation has erred! This nation is wayward and has turned its back on God, and according to the Bible, God will turn His back on this nation. Unless one thing happens, its repent and seek his face. Then He will hear from heaven, and He will answer their prayer and heal their land. But God will not be impressed when you pop up before His throne and say, "Look, I've got my passport! I'm an American!" No way.

One day, there will be Russians in heaven! There will be Pakistani's in heaven! Afghan's in heaven! There will be Iraqi's in heaven! There will be people in Detroit in heaven! There will be people from all over the world in heaven! Some of them round eyes and slanted eyes, and some of them of various skin colors, have you thought about that? Will it be true for you? Only if Christ is the object of our affection!

This new song could have only been sung after the resurrection of Christ! It could have only been sung after He ascended back into heaven. It is only sung when the church is in heaven! Notice who is not singing here and who is not.

Revelation 5:8 ~ "And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayer of the saints. And they sang a new song:"

The question you should be asking yourself is who are "they"? You might think the obvious, that it is everybody mentioned in verse 8, the four living creatures and the twenty four elders. That is not the answer, because in this chapter, it goes on to tell you who the "they" are. No where in Scripture do we find the angels singing, except in a very small chapter of Job 38. No where do we see angels singing to God.

You might argue that the angels do sing. From Christmas remember, "Angels we have heard on high," or you might argue that the angels on the night of Jesus birth all sang. Read it again. In Luke 2, the angels gathered around, and they praised God saying. We are praising God when we talk about Him. Praise does not necessarily mean singing did you know that? No where does it say that angels sing since the fall of mankind!

In Job 38:7 ~ "while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy" 

But they have not sang since. They are always found since the fall of man, "saying." They say, "He is worthy." The church sings, "You are worthy." We sing, angels speak. They say. We sing. We worship, but angels look in and they want, I believe, to sing like we can sing. 

The cheribum are not singing, the angels are not singing, the seraphim are not singing. The "they" who are singing are all those who lived on this broken down earth who had been lost sinners and who could not save themselves from their lost condition. Angels do not and can not sing this new song. There is no redemption for fallen angels. They are lost and bound to hell forever. An angel has no knowledge what it is like to be forgiven of sin. The Lord has never asked an angel to call Him, Father, Abba, and Jesus never called angels "Friend."

Isn't that interesting as well that the Bible says that the Lord has created us a little lower than the angels. We can't fly around, we can't do what angels do now, but there is a day coming where the Bible says we are going to sit in judgment of the angels in eternity. What does that mean? It means we are going to be a lot smarter in heaven than we are right now! Jesus didn't die for angels. It appears they are unredeemable since there is no reference in Scripture that says they can be redeemed. They can't sing the songs and hymns we can sing. They can only look on. Angels desire to look in on the things that we can do. They are snooping and eavesdropping on those things. They lean in to listen and learn what we hear in church. They are His ministering Spirits.

All other faiths and religions will always come up short on what Jesus offers to those that believe in Him!