The Truth About Angels And Demons: Part 1 (With Greg Laurie)

the title of our message is angels and demons i heard the story of a time when god up in heaven was wondering how things were going down on earth so he dispatched an angel to check up the angel returned some time later and said lord things are not going so well man is really evil in fact we found that 95 of the people are bad and only five percent are good so the lord wanted a second opinion he sent even a higher ranking angel uh down to earth to check after a little time had passed that angel return and gave pretty much the same report lord it's not good 95 of the people are bad and only 5 are good so the lord decided that at least he wanted to encourage the 5 that were good and so he wanted to uh lift him up a little and let him know he was aware so he shot him off and emailed the five percent people who were good do you want to know what the email said you didn't get one either was a joke by the way kind of a dumb joke but it brings up the whole idea of what we're looking at together which is that there is indeed a god and a satan and there are angels in demons there is an invisible world it's hard for us to believe that because we live in the natural world we relate to what we can see with our eye what we can hear with our ear what we can reach out and touch but the bible teaches there is a supernatural world an invisible world and that is the realm of god and satan that is the realm of angels and demons and it is all around us right now if we could somehow pull back the veil if you will it would blow our minds to see what we would see to see the angels of god at work to see the demons of hell at work to see all the spiritual activity swirling around us at any given moment and the book of kings is the story of elisha the prophet he was with the servant gehezei and they fell asleep and when they woke up they were surrounded by enemy forces and gehazi began to panic and he woke up woke up the sleeping prophet saying what are we going to do and elisha probably wiping the sleep from his eyes said don't be afraid those that are with us are more than those that are with them and then elisha prayed lord i pray open his eyes that he may see and the bible says the lord opened his eyes and he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around elisha those were the angelic forces of god those that are with us are more than those that are with them so let's pray now and ask the lord to open our eyes as we take this look at the invisible world let's pray father open our eyes today to the reality of the spiritual world open our eyes today to the nearness of eternity and the relative shortness of life on earth open our eyes to know more about the work of the angels as well as the work of the forces of darkness open our eyes that we might see the plan you have for us open our eyes because we want to see jesus so speak to us from your word we pray in jesus name amen quick paul how many of you believe in angels today raised up your hand you believe in the existence of angels well you're not alone i would expect that kind of a response from you but a poll that was conducted by time magazine revealed that a whopping 69 of americans believe in the existence of angels that's almost 70 percent and 48 of americans believe they have their own guardian angel do we have guardian angels we'll look at that in a moment and 32 percent even said that they had felt some kind of angelic presence uh in their life at some point and then what i found also interesting was belief in angels among teenagers is even higher this survey revealed that three out of every four young americans believe in angels today now they have their teen angels of course not kidding but it's amazing to me how we believe in these angels not that we shouldn't but it just shows that we are a spiritual people in a broad sense we believe there is a supernatural world and i think one of the reasons we believe in angels is because we've all had those close brushes with death we've had that moment that that could have gone the wrong way where we just barely missed that car or we just barely got through that situation and we wondered was that an angel that delivered me was that an angel that intervened on my behalf now here's the problem with angels well let me restate that here's the problem we have in our understanding of angels uh we have gotten a lot of our information from hollywood you know hollywood has taken the topic of angels along with heaven and hell and they've sort of hijacked it and turned it around and given it back to us in a distorted way uh you know when we think of angels we may envision some of the movies we've seen like you know it's a wonderful life you know that one they show it every christmas starring jimmy stewart and he's going to commit suicide but clarence the angel comes and helps them because clarence is trying to earn his wings you know that's one version or there's that tv program that was on for years called touched by an angel and then there was uh the movie called the preacher's wife starring whitney houston and she is visited by an angel played by denzel washington or then there was another movie called city of angels starring nicholas cage who plays an angel that falls in love with meg ryan so he decides to give up his rights as an angel and become a human so the idea is that angels are exalted humans or angels have to earn their wings and all these funny little ideas that are passed around and then of course the latest movie out there is called angels and demons and so we may not really know what we believe about angels but as far as i am concerned there is only one authoritative source on the topic of god and satan angels and demons and that is the scripture so we're going to find out what the bible has to say about this let me begin by stating this the activity of angels especially in the lives of believers is constant we may not necessarily be aware of the presence of angels we can't necessarily predict how and when they will appear but the bible says they are there for we are told in psalm 34 7 the angel of the lord guards all who fear him and he rescues them there are examples uh everywhere in the scripture did you know that there are at least 300 references to angels in both the old and new testament we see angels at work a good example is when simon peter was arrested for preaching the gospel in the book of acts chapter 12 and the believers went to prayer what does the lord do in answer to their prayer he dispatches an angel to deliver peter peter is so deep in his sleep the angel has to practically punch him to wake him up and shake them and wake up peter and the door opened automatically and often when we offer our prayers to god it may be an angel that is actually being dispatched to help that answer come about uh angels are amazing creatures they straddle both heaven and earth it would appear that though they are created beings that they never die but we are told over in luke 20 36 jesus said of people who have gone on to heaven neither can they die anymore for they are equal unto the angels angels have a special work that they do in the life of the believer because hebrews 1 14 tells us are not angels ministering spirits sent to minister to those who will inherit salvation and as i said there are just there's story after story telling us of the work of angels one that uh comes to mind from a contemporary times is from a book written by billy grant called angels god secret agents and in this book he tells the story of john patton who is a missionary to the new hebrettes islands and one night a patton and his wife were in their home they're at the mission station and there were uh those that wanted to kill them and so a number of the people that were indigenous to that region were coming to destroy this man and so john and his wife began to pray and they were surprised that no attack ever came and the next morning the natives were gone and uh they wondered what happened and so a year later the chief of that tribe that wanted to kill the missionary came to christ and so john was sitting down with him having a conversation and he said i have to ask you what happened that night uh when you were coming to kill us why didn't you follow through on it and the tri and the chief said well what do you mean why didn't we go through with it who were all those men with you there and john patton said there were no men there and the chief said no we didn't attack because there were hundreds of big men in shining garments with drawn swords circling the mission statement a station and john thought those may have been angels actually so that could be a modern example i would even take it a step further and say it is entirely possible that you have personally met an angel because we are told in hebrews 13 2 do not forget to entertain strangers for in doing so some people have entertained angels without knowing it now if i knew i was entertaining an angel i would definitely take good care of him hi i'm an angel from god can you take me to lunch yes where would you like to go well what if the lord sent someone to me that was not the kind of a person i would necessarily want to hang around with maybe they were not an attractive person or maybe they were a difficult person i don't want to be around them i don't want to help them what if that was an opportunity to entertain an angel without knowing it angels sometimes take on human form as we see in scripture they would often appear as men and by the way there is no instance in the bible of an angel appearing as a woman there are no chick angels i'm sorry it's funny because we use that expression angel usually in a feminine sense we'll say oh she's as pretty as an angel we don't say he's as handsome as an angel or she sings like an angel so we think of it in the feminine and often in the religious art angels are female in the bible angels are always male so sometimes they take on human form but generally we don't know what they're doing and when they're doing it i think the subtitle of billy graham's book is accurate angels are god's secret agents they're sort of like the navy seals you know the elite fighting force they are dispatched on a mission they go in they take care of business and you never hear about it it's not publicized you don't know the names of the seals that did thus and so you may read about the success of the mission you may never know about the mission at all but that is what the navy seal does angels are like navy seals in that sense they're dispatched by god ministering spirits protecting delivering sometimes guiding and then going back you don't know it's them you don't need to engage them you don't need to try to communicate with them they are simply doing the work that god has called them to do i think if we could see how many angels are involved in our lives that would blow our minds sort of like putting on polarized sunglasses i prefer polarized glass in my frames now my wife she doesn't care about things like that she wants her glasses to look cool and sometimes i'll look at the glasses she's wearing i'll see let me look through these and they're all scratched up and i'll say why do you wear these because i like them i say try mine on and i'll take off my polarized glasses she puts them i say look at the water right now you can see all these hues and shades that you can't normally see through scratched up fashion glasses you know and if we could just sort of put on some polarized glasses and see into the spiritual world it's not that we're seeing things that are not there we're seeing more clearly the hues the subtlety the spirit beings at work or maybe i could compare it to putting on those 3d glasses you know you go to a movie and see it in 3d we went recently to see a film with um our daughter-in-law and our our granddaughters and it was 3d animated film and so we took stella in and stella put those 3d glasses on and saw things coming at her from the screen she started screaming she wouldn't watch the movie but the problem is two minutes in i was totally engrossed this is an animated film for children by the way i'm totally engrossed must see end of film what's going to happen so we were going there for the kids and uh grandma and the mom had to sit in the lobby taking care of the children while grandpa sat in there you know reaching for the 3d things that's what that's what that was what if we could put on 3d glasses or 40 glasses the next dimension you know and see all these angels that would be glorious see the demons that would be a little bit frightening but the fact is they're all at work behind the scenes in fact if an angel were to appear for us today on this stage we would be tempted to worship because it would be so glorious so magnificent they're such amazing creatures in fact when an angel of the lord appeared to john the apostle on the island of patmos that's exactly what he did he fell down to worship it and the angel said do not worship me i'm your fellow servant worship god and that's interesting because it shows that angels don't draw attention to themselves and that is why all this undue attention that is often given to the angels in my opinion is unwarranted and there are people that that have an obsession with angels there's so many books about them if you go to any given bookstore just book after book with strange titles i went out to amazon.com and typed in the key word angel and here's some of the titles i found how to hear your angels here's another the encyclopedia of angels even another healing with angels and then there's working with angels and then there's angel therapy healing messages for every area of your life and then there's cooking with angels i ordered that one no there isn't cookie with angels i made that up but why not you know how to make angel food cake i don't know you know what and then the fallen angel one devil's cake you know devil sweeping deviled eggs and but here's the thing is that you know people want to connect with these angels and hear from these angels and and i am afraid that they might end up hearing from the wrong kind of angel because as we'll discover in our next message there are not only the holy angels of god there are fallen angels or demons that do the work of satan and that is why the apostles said if i or an angel from heaven come bringing any other message and that which you have already heard let him be a curse why would an angel bring a message contrary to the gospel because he would be a fallen angel you see that's why lucifer satan the devil he's a fallen angel he used to be a magnificent powerful high-ranking angel who had access to the presence of god but he rebelled against the lord and we'll deal with that later but my point is the devil could come to us as an angel of light you know if the devil were to appear to us today god forbid i can tell you this much he would not have red skin and horns coming out of his head and pointed ears and hooves for feet and a pointed tail and a little pitchfork maybe you've seen me on the orange julius cup right you know that's a caricature the real devil lucifer also called the son of the morning he would be magnificent we'd be like wow look and here's my message let's look no no no even if an angel from heaven came bringing any other message and that which we've already heard the message of scripture let them be accursed so we must be careful these people opening themselves up to angels and angelic influence watch out he might be listening to the wrong angels how many angels are there out there lots more than we could probably even count in the book of daniel he talks about how there's thousands upon thousands ten thousands time ten thousands that would be a hundred million angels revelation 5 11 says that he heard the voice of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and of the living beings and of the elders not only are there a lot of angels but they're very powerful we're told over in psalm 103 verse 20 they excel in strength angels are not as powerful as god but they're more powerful than people and what it would appear that some angels are more powerful than other angels there are rankings among the angels in first peter 3 22 we read that jesus christ has gone into heaven and is at god's right hand with angels authorities and powers and submission to him so where here we have this ranking we have angels authorities and powers and by the way there is that same ranking in the fallen angels paul says we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and spiritual might in the supernatural realm they're organized the angels of god are organized under the command of the lord jesus christ the fallen angels are organized under the command of lucifer the fallen angel they have rankings not unlike the military now when we think of angels we have to understand that there are some outstanding angelic personalities we find in scripture there are two angels that we know for sure by name one is michael and the other is who gabriel that's right and we could include lucifer too if you wanted to he's fallen but he's an angel who has a name for us in scripture now michael he's sort of like angel numero uno he's like the man he is identified in scripture as the archangel now i don't know that that is saying there are no other archangels but it may be saying that because uh he is referred to as such and the term archangel occurs twice in the new testament and in both instances it is used in the singular and is preceded by the definite article the as in the archangel so there may only be one michael the archangel it's interesting that he will play a unique role in the rapture of the church which i believe is the next event on the prophetic calendar in which we're told in first thessalonians 4 the lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout with a loud command with a voice of the archangel and the trumpet of god and the dead in christ will rise first and after that we which are alive and remaining will be caught up to meet them in the air and so shall we ever be with the lord also we know that michael is called in when lower ranking angels need help there's a fascinating story in daniel chapter 10. don't turn there let me just sort of tell it to you then we're going to dig into daniel 6 in a moment but then daniel and you can turn there if you want to i'm just saying you're going to be turning there you know we're going to and i'll be done telling the story all right so you can look later if you like or look now if you want whatever you wanted this is america man it's whatever you want to do but on daniel 10 is the story of daniel praying and he was asking the lord for something and the lord dispatched an angel with an answer to his prayer the angel finally shows up and says daniel i have to tell you why there seems to be a delay in the answer to your prayer i was dispatched from heaven 21 days ago with an answer but i was opposed by a powerful fallen spirit identified as the prince of persia i couldn't handle them so they called in michael who came and overpowered that demon power and i was free to then come and bring you the answer to your prayer that's a great story i mean it shows there's ranking among angels for sure shows that some are more powerful than others it shows michael is very powerful but it also reminds us that when we pray a spiritual battle is raging and it may be that the so-called delay to your prayer is due to angelic battle going on behind the scenes listen when you're praying for the salvation of someone when you're praying for a prodigal son or daughter to repent don't give up you don't know what's happening and don't think well it wasn't answered as quickly as i would like god must be saying no yeah he might be saying no today but maybe he'll say yes tomorrow or maybe the day after you keep praying jesus said knock and the door shall be opened seek and ye shall find ask and it shall be given to you and in the original language that would be in the tense of keep asking keep knocking keep seeking listen god's delays are not necessarily his denials there may be a reason for it so we have to keep praying we also know that michael uh ultimately overcomes satan as revealed in revelation 12 there was a war in heaven and it's interesting because the angels are referred to early in revelation as the stars so it's star wars right michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back but he was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven and the great dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil or satan who leads the whole world astray he was hurled to the earth and his angels with him so ultimately michael the archangel overcomes lucifer the fallen angel okay now there is also gabriel now gabriel though maybe not an archangel is certainly a high-ranking one gabriel appears in the old and new testament he appears in the book of daniel revealing the future to the prophet he comes at the beginning of the new covenant and appears to zechariah and tells him he's going to be the father of the last of the old testament prophets the direct forerunner of the messiah zechariah will be the father of john the baptist and gabriel was given the privilege of appearing to a young girl named mary living in nazareth to tell her she would be the mother of the messiah can you imagine getting that mission if you're in a big room all the angels are there and the lord says all right i need an angel to go deliver the message to planet earth that the messiah will be born who wants the job me me me you know that's sorry that's my warped cartoonist mine at work there gabriel was dispatched with the message to tell mary that she would be the mother of the messiah then gabriel went also to joseph and revealed to him that she was carrying the messiah in her womb and then there are the cherubim and the seraphim now we don't know a lot about them but they too are angels we read about the seraphim in ezekiel uh 1 verse 5 chapter 14 uh chapter 28 uh interestingly god placed the cherubim in a position of keeping man out of the garden after he had eaten of the forbidden fruit a cherubim with a flaming sword now the seraphim appear to be a special angel if you will that worship god we read about them in isaiah 6 1 where it says in the year that king uzziah died i saw the lord sitting on his throne high and lifted up and the glory of his his glory filled the temple and above it stood seraphim each one he had six wings and with two he covered his face with two he covered his feet the two he flew and one cried to the other and said holy holy holy as the lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory angels amazing creatures now you know as you're sitting there you might be thinking well greg you know it's very interesting to learn about them what does this have to do with me actually a lot and i think whenever we study doctrine or theology if you will which is the study of god we learn things that will help us in life because there can be no theology without doxology and by that i mean we want to know how this applies to us all right here's a few takeaway truths about angels number one sometimes the angels reveal god's purposes sometimes they reveal god's purpose as you remember that angels were dispatched to abraham to reveal to him what was going to happen in sodom which was going to be judgment i already mentioned how an angel was dispatched to zechariah and tell him he would be the father of john the baptist and also to mary and so forth number two the angels have come to help bring us to salvation and sometimes give us guidance again the angels help us to come to salvation and sometimes give us guidance there's a fascinating story in the book of acts that we looked at in our series uh that where an angel came to cornelius a roman centurion who did not know the lord yet but he was open and an angel came and revealed to him that he needed to meet simon peter who would give to him the gospel now that story is fascinating to me because i read it and i wonder well why didn't the angel just tell him straight out hey here's what you need to do here's who jesus is here's what he said here's how to come into a relationship with him why because the primary mission of angels is not to preach the gospel that's our job they'll help us do it they might even guide us sometimes in our efforts to do it but god chooses to primarily reach people through people seems to me if i were god i don't think i would use people i certainly wouldn't use me i'd use angels i would send angels to churches can you imagine if an angel just kind of appeared right here in this room believe in jesus now we'd be like okay okay let's do it god has not primarily chosen to reach us that way he reaches people through people the angels work behind the scenes you see the angel was there to direct cornelius to go to peter so he could hear the gospel another angelic of uh another example of angelic direction is when an angel came to philip and said go to the desert and he went to the desert and there he found that man visiting from ethiopia searching for god who ultimately came to faith in christ and so angels help us come to salvation and also sometimes give us guidance now let's come to our text and look at one of the most well-known stories in the bible it's a story of daniel in the lion's den how did daniel end up in this situation well he was uh adviser to the king king darius daniel had been around for a few years at this point he was getting on and uh was blessed by god he was a man of integrity respected by the king himself and that and daniel had enemies because they were jealous of a success and you know whenever you're successful there'll be people who are jealous and they'll try to undermine you so they look for weaknesses in his life how can we bring this guy down what are his inconsistencies what are his weak spots what are his vulnerabilities and they couldn't find anything he hadn't taken any trips to argentina nothing if i have to explain that takes too long it's in the news that's all no this was a man of integrity without any weak spots and they thought if we're going to bring this guy down there's only one way to do it it has to be concerning him and his god because they knew that daniel had a wonderful habit of praying three times a day he would get down on his knees open up the shutters of his house and call on the lord he said let's get a law pass that says no one can pray to any god except the king and if you violate this law you're thrown into a den of lions you know daniel's going to pray so they went to the king hey king we have this idea let's pass this law king's like yeah that's a great law flattered him made him feel more important he signs it into uh into action not realizing he's dooming his friend so now daniel hears the message if you pray to any god you'll be fed the lions really that's interesting okay it's time to pray and he prays and they arrest him and he's sent now to be executed there's no way out of this situation apart from god that's where our story picks up daniel 6 so the king gave the command verse 16. and they brought daniel and cast him into the den of lions but the king spoke and said to daniel your god whom you serve continually he will deliver you easy for him to say he wasn't going to the lion's den then a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the sickness of his lords at the purpose concerning daniel might not be changed now the king went to his palace and spent the night of fasting and his musicians were brought before or rather no musicians were brought before him and asleep went from him then the king arose very early in the morning and went in haste to the den of lions and he cried out with a lamenting voice to daniel daniel servant of the living god has your god whom you serve continually been able to deliver you from the lions hoping he would not hear a large belch you know and then daniel said oh king live forever my god sent his angel and he shut the lion's mouth so that's the story of daniel the lion's dead you know it's an amazing story because the king couldn't sleep but daniel could the king and all the luxury and comfort of the palace could not sleep but daniel in a den of hungry lions could listen better to be in a lion's den than anywhere else without him i'd rather be in the valley of the shadow of death with christ walking next to me than in the finest home with all the money this world has to offer i'd rather be anywhere with the lord than anywhere else without him and maybe you're in a lion's den so to speak you're surrounded by hostile people maybe you're in a valley where you're going through great difficulties maybe you're going through a storm in life if the lord is with you don't despair daniel thought well you know what could happen if i die and i'm eaten by lions i go to heaven if i live i can continue to serve the lord so you know it's in god's hands and the lord sent his angel to shut the lion's mouth you know sometimes animals have more sense than people and those animals thought we're not messing with this angel reminds me of the story of balaam and his donkey i love that story it's the story of a man named balaam who was a prophet for hire and there was a man named balak that wanted balaam to curse the israelites and the lord spoke to balaam and said don't you dare curse those people they belong to me but balaam was determined to get the money and was on his way in the wrong direction to do the wrong thing riding his donkey as he's riding along an angel of the lord appears his donkey sees it he can't the angel of the lord in the path of the donkey causes the beast to stop the animal won't go banana was like let's go come on and he starts to beat the donkey still the donkey won't go they go a little bit further now they're between two walls and this time the angel of the lord appears again but he has a sword out like this he's like like and the donkey's like no way he stops in his tracks and he bumps up against the wall hurting balaam's leg now balaam is beating the donkey even harder and the bible says the lord opened the donkey's mouth you can find it all in numbers 22. the donkey says to balaam why are you hitting me that's amazing that's a miracle what's more amazing is without missing a beat balaam responds because you won't do what i tell you to do it's conversing with the beast you know then the donkey says haven't i been a good donkey haven't i always done what you told me to do why are you beating me because balaam responds you won't do what i want and meanwhile the angel's probably standing there with the sword going this guy is such an idiot and so the angel makes himself visible to balaam and he sees this powerful creature and the angel says you know i was actually thinking of killing you and sparing the donkey the animal had more sense than you had yes there are angels involved in our lives sometimes stopping us from doing the wrong thing sometimes guiding us to do the right thing watching over us do we have guardian angels well i don't know the answer to that we may uh we're told by jesus that we should not look down on the little ones meaning the children he said for i tell you their angels in heaven always see the face of my father in heaven their angels it says so it may be that at least children have guardian angels and i know our children need guardian angels especially those little ones always getting themselves into trouble they've probably worn out a few angels but what about when the mouth of the lion is not closed what about when you don't narrowly miss that brush with death what about when we die does that mean the angels missed their opportunity does that mean the angels were asleep on the job no it means that they have another mission now because an angel does not determine when i'm going to be born nor does he determine when i'm going to die that's up to god the role of the angel is to do what god wants him to do and it changes when death comes the role of the angel up to this point has been to guide to protect sometimes to stop but when the time has come for me to enter into eternity the role of the angel is to give me an escort into the presence of god remember the story of lazarus and the rich man there in luke 16 we looked at it recently in our study on hell and you recall that there was a man who was wealthy and was successful and powerful and then there was an impoverished man that lived outside of the gates of this other man's estate living off the bread the rich man wiped his hands on and death came and the rich man who had no place in his life for god went to hades or hell and was in torment and the poor man named lazarus who had faith in god the bible says was ushered by the angels into the presence of abraham and that is what happens when a believer dies they are taken straight into god's presence by the very angels of the lord and yes death knocks at every door it's no respecter of persons just this last week two american icons passed into eternity farrah fawcett and michael jackson farrah fawcett had a long doubt with cancer she was once regarded as one of the most beautiful women in the world many girls copied her hairstyle many boys had her poster on their wall and she was on the television program charlie's angels for a season and did a few movies and tv movies and so forth and then she got cancer a few years ago and had fought it uh and eventually uh she died and it was somewhat expected there was actually a tv special about her life and her struggle with cancer and inferred passed into eternity but on the same day unexpectedly pop superstar michael jackson also died age 50. now there are some that thought they had predicted the death of michael jackson because of problems he had had but the official cause was given his cardiac arrest i mean you think about the success this young man had in his life he had 13 grammys and he sold 750 million records worldwide and then boom just like that both of them enter into eternity i don't know where either one of them were at spiritually i just hope they had faith in jesus christ so now the king of rock elvis is dead the king of soul james brown is dead the king of grunge kurt cobain is dead and now the king of pop michael jackson is dead but the king of kings the lord jesus christ he's alive [Applause] and he waits with open arms for any who put their trust in him so when death comes and yes it comes he will welcome you with your angelic escort into his presence do you have that hope do you know for certain that you will go to heaven when you die you know we talk about deathbed conversions i just experienced that this last week prior to leaving on this trip to altoona pennsylvania i was called to visit a man who had terminal cancer i was told he may not make it to the week i actually thought about going to visit him after i got back from this trip which would have been saturday but i decided i better get out there before even though i didn't have a lot of time i just made some time and i went i felt very prompted by the lord to go to him on thursday and i went to see him and he was in bad shape but he was very alert and very aware and we talked at length and you know sometimes when you're called as a pastor to visit a person in a hospital who may be dying the family will say don't tell them they're dying we don't want them to hear that and put you in an awkward position because you feel like you want to talk to them about the reality of the eternity and make sure they're ready but in this particular instance he knew he didn't have long in fact he said i don't have much longer and so i talked to him about heaven and he had already believed in jesus up to this point but i wanted to be sure that he was ready so i told him about the reality of heaven what heaven will be like i talked to him about the promises of god and then i said you know if we're going to take a trip we have to prepare right and if we're going to go somewhere we have to book a hotel and we have to book a plane fair and we pack our bags in the same way you're going to take a trip into eternity and the only way to be sure you'll go to heaven is if you have your ticket and it was bought for you 2 000 years ago by jesus as he paid for it with his own blood you need to ask for his forgiveness and so i said would you like to pray with me right now and he said yes and we pray he prayed earnestly and with great passion and after we were done praying i comforted him with the promises of god i talked more about heaven read them some verses of a description of heaven by the apostle john and then i said i'll come back and see you saturday and then i got the call late friday night that he had died but the moment he took his last breath he was ushered by the heaven by the angels into the presence of god because because he put his faith in jesus christ and that is the hope of the christian but if you don't it's true it's glorious it's glorious that on a deathbed god would extend grace like that how easily he could say you know what you have not walked with me throughout your life you don't get to go but even on a deathbed if you'll turn from your sin he'll say i love you i long for fellowship with you i want you in heaven yes i forgive you he'll do that for you and i close by asking do you know that you will go to heaven when you die don't tell me you're a good person because you aren't well you don't know me yeah probably if i did i think you're even worse than you are look you may be good in a relative sense i understand what you mean when you say a good person i understand that some people are worse than others but no one is good enough to go to heaven heaven is not a place for good people it's a place for forgiven people only forgiven people get to heaven how am i forgiven by coming to jesus and saying i'm sorry for my sin i turned from it and i put my faith in you and you alone to save me have you done that yet if not would you like to today in both services i've extended an invitation for people to come to christ and many have responded and i think there are many of you that need to respond as well so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you will go to heaven when you die because friend you don't know when life is going to end but if you know the lord you don't have to worry about it you're ready heaven is a prepared place for prepared people are you prepared if not respond to this invitation i'll give you now as we close in prayer it's all bower heads if you would everyone praying father i pray for those here that may not yet know you who have not put their trust in you yet who are separated from you by their sin lord would you help them to see their need for you and come to you because you died for them on the cross you shed your blood for their sin help them to turn from that sin and believe in jesus so they can go to heaven we pray and while our heads are about and our eyes are closed and we're praying if you would like to know for certain that you will go to heaven when you die if you would like jesus christ to come into your life to be your savior and lord if you would like your guilt taken away if you're ready to say yes to jesus would you lift your hand wherever you're sitting and i'm going to pray for you just lift up your hand if you would and i'll pray for you today god bless you and god bless you there in the middle god bless you there in the side and the aisle over on the other side god bless god bless you over there how about up in the balcony you want god's forgiveness today god bless you in the middle of the balcony toward the back of the balcony anybody else let me pray for you today you're ready to say yes to jesus christ god bless you maybe you're out in the courtyard right now and the amphitheater and the sunshine and i can't see you but i want you to lift your hand as well you're just saying i want to know god just lift your hand up wherever you are in any of our overflow venues god bless all of you lord help now each one of these that have taken this little step to take the next one help them to be forgiven by you this day so they can know beyond the shadow of a doubt they will go to heaven when they die this we ask in jesus name amen you

Channel: Pastor Greg Laurie

Views: 88,116

Rating: 4.880825 out of 5

Keywords: harvest, Harvest Christian Fellowship, Greg Laurie Sermons, bible study for me, bible study, youtube sermons, Greg Laurie, Greg Laurie Live, harvest christian fellowship, greg laurie sermons, greg laurie, greg laurie live, angels are all around us, do we have guardian angels, do we turn into angels when we die, do we turn into angels, what jesus said about angels, what the bible says about angels, how to contact my angel

Id: vlqqB60tpdA

Length: 47min 10sec (2830 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021