The Reality of Angels

Today, I want to talk about one of the most beloved stories in the Bible. Raise your hand if you've read or heard of Daniel in the Lion's Den. Okay. Now, I could go a bunch of different directions, you know, about having courage or standing for what's right.

But I'm going to go a little different direction today. And I'm going to talk about a character, the most time you don't even hear about when you hear the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den. Let's give the background. Remember, we've been going through the book of Daniel last week, we started Daniel chapter six.

And remember, it's political season. It's the Medo-Persian Empire that is now controlling the world from Babylon. King Darius has elevated this Jewish captive, 87 years old. He's been in captivity for 70 years. His name is Daniel, and he is elevating him to the number two position in the entire land. And obviously, Daniel's political rivals don't like that. So they're going to try hard to find any bit of dirt they can on Daniel.

It's amazing how things have not changed in 2600 years, what they did in Babylon that's happening today in North Carolina. In fact, it's interesting. NPR contacted me last week.

In a couple weeks, they want to do a story on, I guess, our church and where we're standing on the whole political stuff going on in North Carolina. And I think I'll do it. But I got to practice to do it. I like to practice my NPR voice. You know, I'm gonna go, my name is Chad Harvey. I'm gonna go, my preferred pronouns are him, his, whatever.

But I totally do it. But they're interested in our take on what's happening in North Carolina. But things haven't changed in the last 2600 years. And what happens is, they can't find any dirt on Daniel. So here's what they did. They said he loves his God.

So we're going to make a law, we're going to have the king sign it that says, you can't pray to anybody for the next 30 days, except for the king. And they get them, because Daniel is not going to compromise on that. And so now that they've gotten Daniel painted into a corner, Daniel chapter six, verse 14. And let me say this, doing some reading this past week, and skeptics will say, there is no archaeological evidence that there was even a lion's den in Babylon.

How do you explain that? I would say it's been 2600 years. You don't know that that room right there was not a lion's den. They didn't put like the lion's den label over that.

2600 years. But look, human history, human beings have always done what they're wanting to do here. I was reading this past week about like the mafia. Not just one story, multiple stories about how this victim was killed by the mafia. And they fed that victim to the pigs, the pigs would eat the body and dispose of the evidence. And they said, in some cases, they would wound individuals, throw them to the pigs and the pigs would eat them alive. So we know throughout human history, this has happened. We know in the Roman Empire, they did that to Christians, they fed Christians to the lions. So I don't care what it happened.

Okay. Daniel six, verse 14. Then as soon as the king heard this word, he was greatly distressed within himself and set his mind on saving Daniel.

And even until sunset, he kept exerting himself to deliver him. Then the king said the word, and Daniel was brought in and cast into the lion's den. The king answered and said to Daniel, your God whom you constantly serve, will himself save you. And a stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den. And the king sealed it with his own signet ring and for the signet rings of his nobles, so that nothing will be changed in regard to Daniel.

Then the king went off to his palace and spent the night fasting and no entertainment was brought before him and his sleep fled from him. Then the king arose at dawn at the break of the day and hurriedly went to the lion's den. And when you come near the den to Daniel, he cried out with a troubled voice. The king answered and said to Daniel, Daniel, servant of a living God, has your God whom you constantly serve been able to save you from the lions? Then Daniel spoke to the king.

O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouths and they have not harmed me in as much as I was found innocent before him and also toward you, O king, I have done no harm. Then the king was greatly pleased and said for Daniel to be taken out of the den.

So Daniel was taken out of the den and no harm whatsoever was found on him because he had believed in his God. Isn't that great? I want you to know something.

I want you to notice. Do you notice Daniel's calmness? Like King Darius is panicked.

He acts like he's the one that's about to be thrown into the lion's den. I mean, look, if you would at the verse 14, it says the king was greatly distressed. Verse 18, the king couldn't sleep.

No entertainment was brought to him. Verse 20, the king cried out with a troubled voice. The king is the one that's panicking.

Daniel is the calm one. And that's something. I remember when I was a little kid, I saw this painting in a book. I love this painting.

Throw this thing out there if you would. It's Daniel in the lion's den. And I don't know why I've always liked this. Daniel, you can tell he's an old man, but I like how the lions, his problems, are behind him. And he's just looking up at God. Isn't that great? There's this calmness that overtakes Daniel.

Where did that come from? You know, God has given those of us who believe in him and serve him and love the Lord Jesus Christ, God has given us lots of resources to stay calm. We talked about one last week. We talked about prayer. Remember how we talk about how prayer brings calmness? When I'm going through my lion's den experience, I do Philippians 4. I pray.

I thank God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, guards my hearts, my mind, and Christ Jesus. He's given us prayer as a resource. He's given us the word of God as a resource. You ever been through a storm?

All hell's breaking loose against you. And you just start quoting Psalm 91. He who dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say he is my refuge and my fortress, my God and whom I trust. Or you quote Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd.

I'm not going to be in want. There's power in prayer in calming us down. There's power in the word in calming us down. Hey, there's power in the knowledge that God is in control. You believe God is, y'all believe God's in control.

You believe he's in control this whole election season. If you believe that, why you panicked, that that gives us calmness. So you got the word of God, you got prayer, you got the real realization that God is in control. Hey, you've got something that Daniel didn't have. If you're a born again believer, Jesus said, the moment you get saved, I'm going to put my Holy Spirit to live inside of you. You got Jesus's Holy Spirit in you.

Daniel didn't have that. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon people and leave, come upon people and leave. And Jesus said, now, those of you who believe in me, you'll be given the Holy Spirit and he will abide with you. Do you know how long?

Forever. We have something that Daniel doesn't have. But there's another resource that Daniel had, that we have, that a lot of times we neglect, and that's angelic beings around us.

I want you to look at verse 22. The king comes and says, Daniel, you still alive? Daniel says in verse 22, I'm alive because God sent his what? Angel, and that angel shut the lion's mouth. We're not quite sure what that angel looked like. We're not quite sure how that phenomenon took place, but Daniel in that lion's den, he saw something supernatural.

He saw some type of supernatural angelic being come into that place and shut the lion's mouth. And that is one of those resources that many times, because I think people have gone crazy in the angels thing, we tend to ignore. But angels are mentioned over 300 times in the Bible. In fact, angels are mentioned many, many times in Jesus's ministry.

And Jesus made it very clear, what I've done, what the father's done through me, I'm going to give you the ability to do as well. So if angels played a pivotal role in Jesus's ministry, I think they play a pivotal role in our ministry. An angel appeared to Mary and said, Mary, you're going to have a baby. An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Joseph, Mary, Mary, don't be afraid to marry her. An angel appears to shepherds in the fields. An angel tells Joseph to take baby Jesus to Egypt. When Jesus is in the desert being tempted for 40 days, an angel shows up and ministers to Jesus. An angel strengthened Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. You see what I'm saying?

Do you see what I'm saying? Over and over and over again, we see Jesus being ministered to by angels. I think as it was with Jesus, so it is with us. We have angelic beings.

So let's spend a few days, or not a few days, I don't want to keep it that long. Spend a few minutes talking about, about angels. I'm going to say something, I believe this all in my heart. There's another world, a supernatural world out there. I think that world is as real, if not more, real than this physical world that you can see right here.

In fact, I want you to do this picture. Here's a picture of the electromagnetic scale. You see, we brought visible light forward so you can see this, but on the scale, do you see visible light is only a very small part of the electromagnetic scale? Can you see what I'm saying on that? Here's what I've always wondered. If we could take off our physical eyes and put on some kind of spiritual eyes, what's going on outside of the visible light that we can see?

If we are to put on spiritual eyes, if we are going to be able to go beyond that visible, what would we see out there? I mean, there's a beautiful story. I don't know if you've read this before. It's in 2 Kings chapter 6. Elisha, the prophet, is there and his hostile army is coming in to kill him. So you've got Elisha here, his servants here, the hostile army comes, they're dead men, and this servant is panicking. Oh, what's going to happen?

We're going to die. And Elisha, have you read this before? Elisha just prays this prayer. He says, God, shut him up.

Open his eyes and let him see what's really going on out here. And for just a moment, I think God opened his eyes beyond that electromagnetic scale, and he can now see into the spirit realm. And that servant saw that surrounding this wicked army that was about to kill them, there's a mighty heavenly army of angels.

That's why Elisha was so calm, because he understood beyond the scene into the unseen, there are spiritual dynamics that are going to blow your mind. Hey, Paul says the same thing in 1 Corinthians 11, 10. Here's what Paul says.

This is kind of interesting. See, you woke up this morning, you ate breakfast, you came to church, you fought in the parking lot, tried to get in my parking space, came in here to kind of pay my dues and go to church on Sunday morning, because that's what you do. Do you know what Paul says? Paul says 1 Corinthians 11, there are angels in this worship service right now. Angelic beings are so into the people of God, worshiping God, they can't stay away from this place. If you could take off your physical eyes and put on your spiritual eyes, Paul seems to indicate you would see spiritual supernatural entities in this place right now. And so that's that spirit realm that we're talking about. Now, who are angels?

Jot this down. Angels very simply are supernatural beings who report to God, they don't report to you. They report to God, but they serve us. Hebrews 1 14 says, are they not all ministering spirits sent to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?

Do you see that? They're sent by God to minister to you. Where do they come from? Look, angels are not eternal beings, they are created beings. Colossians 1 16 says, for in him, in Jesus, all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.

So do you see this? Angels have not always existed, they are created beings created by the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, the book of Job says, that when earth was created, the angels started clapping their hands and rejoicing. So they were created before the earth was created.

But sometime in history past, they are created beings. Incidentally, the Bible seems to indicate that there's a, a, an organized hierarchy of angels. You know, God is first Corinthians 14 says, God is the God of order, there seems to be a hierarchy.

And when you look at places like Ephesians 1 20 through 21, Ephesians 3 10, Colossians 1 16, Paul uses multiple words to describe these supernatural powers. The implication seems to be you have higher angels, you have lower angels. Thomas Aquinas said, Aquinas said, I think there are nine levels of angels.

We don't know if that's certain, but there is an organizational structure. In fact, you hear this, when Jesus is on trial, he said, if I wanted to, I could call a legion of angels. Do you know what a legion is?

It's a Roman military unit. So just like you have organization and organizational structure in the military, Jesus seems to be saying there's an organizational structure when it comes to angelic beings. Here's an interesting question. What did Daniel see in that lion's den? When he said a supernatural entity showed up here and rescued me, what did he see? In other words, what do angels look like? Now, there isn't a, a uniform description of angels in the Bible.

It depends on their, their rank and their function. Some angels, like there's a, jot this down, look at that later on, second Kings, 1935, there was one angel sent by God one night and that angel slaughtered 185,000 Assyrians. One angel.

That's more than the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. One angel killed them. More often than not, when people see angels in the Bible, they freak out.

I mean, it just, it terrifies them so much. So when I say angels, some of y'all are thinking this. That's what pops into my mind. Angel, that's what you think of. Actually, if you want to be biblical, when you think of angel, you probably need to think of this. Cause that's, that's kind of what they, you know, they're these terrifying, big, major creature, whatever. So we don't know what they look like. A lot of times there are these warrior angels that freak people out.

Now, sometimes it's interesting. Many, many times the Bible connects angels with fire or light. Like, have you ever heard of this, this angel before? A seraphim.

Have you ever heard of that? You know, seraphim, that means the burning one, the fiery one. And so sometimes these angels are like fiery.

I could give you all kinds of passages that talk about that. Hey, sometimes they just look like regular human beings. Remember this story in Genesis 18, Abraham is sitting there and God shows up, but he looks like a regular man. That's a pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus. God shows up, looks just like a man.

And he's got two guests with him and they just look like men, just normal looking men. So these angels didn't look fiery. They didn't look scary.

They look like regular human beings. And remember what they do, they go down, the two angels go down to Sodom and Gomorrah. And remember this, the men of Sodom tried to rape those guys, those angels.

Remember that? Nothing says, I want to go to hell, like trying to rape a couple of God's angels here. And so, but they look like human beings. And that's why in the book of Hebrews, chapter 13, verse two, it says this, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.

Why? For by doing this, some have entertained angels and they didn't even know it. Sometimes it's a lot like regular human beings. Judith McNutt, she was related to, or she was married to a man named Father Francis McNutt. He was a Catholic priest and then he got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit during the charismatic movement.

So he left the Catholic church. They got married. She operated a ministry, may still do in Florida.

And she had a ministry associate named Edna. She said late one night, Edna was traveling interstate four from Daytona Beach to Orlando, late, late at night. And her tire blew. So she pulls over the side of the interstate and she's 70 something years old.

She doesn't know how to change a tire. These are the days before everybody had cell phones. You know, we forget at one time when you got stranded on the interstate, you were stranded.

We didn't have cell phones. So it's late at night. She's stranded. She don't know what to do. And so she just prayed. She said, Lord, send an angel.

Send an angel. She said a few seconds later, this old rusted out, beat up pickup truck. She said, it was so rusted out.

I can't believe it was still operational. It pulled up right behind her. And she said, this young guy in a t-shirt and old jeans gets out. He didn't say anything to her. He just smiled at her and he starts to jack up her car. She looked at him. She said, I know who you are.

Guy never said anything. He changed the tire, smiled at her, got back in the truck. And she said, he drove off and the truck kind of disappeared in the fog. See the headlights kind of go in the fog.

She said, the problem was there was no fog out there that night. And she said, I am convinced that that was an angel that God sent, but it looked like a regular human being. What do they do? As you look at the Bible, what do angels do? Well, number one, biblically, angels protect. And that's what we see the angel doing for Daniel. The angel sent by God protected Daniel. Psalm 91, 11 says he will give angels charge concerning you to guard you in all your ways. Um, we may actually have guardian angels. We, I would not base an entire theology on this.

And I could be wrong, but scripture seems to indicate we may actually have an angel assigned to each one of us. Jesus says something very interesting in Matthew 18, 10. He said, see to it that you do not despise one of these little kids. Why? For I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of my father who's in heaven.

It's interesting. Acts 12, 15. Peter's in prison.

You remember this? The church is praying, God, get him out, get him out, get him out of prison, get him out of prison. And God breaks him out of prison. So in the middle of the night, he comes to the door where the church is gathered and praying and he knocks on the door.

Let me in. And they're like, that sounds like Peter. God kind of looked at the door and said, it looks like Peter, but Peter's in prison. So it can't be Peter. It must be his angel. So the early church seemed to think that God had assigned angels to each individual person.

But these angels, number one, they protect. David Jeremiah, talking about protection, tells a story about a man named Walt Shepherd. Shepherd was depressed. He was suicidal, decided to end it all. So he's going down Interstate 10, north of New Orleans, suicidal, wanting to kill himself. And he sees an abandoned car on the side of the road. So at 120 miles an hour, he smashes into that car to kill himself. That car blew up.

His car blew up. He's unconscious and he's caught in that fire and he's slowly roasting. Hotel manager saw this whole thing happen, caused law enforcement. The highway patrol arrived, but the fire was so intense, the officers couldn't even get near the wreckage. So they're just standing there waiting for the fire truck to come.

The hotel manager standing there with him as well. And then suddenly, with amazement, they saw two people standing there with amazement. They saw two figures slowly approach the car as if there was no fire. They pulled Walt from the flames and then helped a rescue team load him in an ambulance. The ambulance sped away and the officers ran over to interview the two men who had pulled them out of the fire, but they were gone.

They had vanished into thin air. During his recovery, Walt wrestled with God. He'd been the child of a Presbyterian missionary, but had turned his back on his faith. He realized that Jesus had sent his angels to rescue him and he turned his life back over to Jesus Christ. Darla's grandfather was a missionary in West Africa and he talked about a little missions house, mission station that had been really winning a lot of people to Jesus there.

I don't know if they were winning people out of Islam or what, but some of the locals there were very, very hostile toward this group because they were so successful in sharing the gospel. So they decided they're going to come burn the house down and slaughter everybody and that night that group had nowhere to go. So they're in their house praying and asking God for protection and deliverance and they pray all night long. Nobody comes at night.

They're not slaughtered. The next day they asked the locals, they said, we were told that this wicked violent gang was coming to kill us all and burn the house down. They didn't come.

Do you know what happened? And the locals said, well, they came. They arrived.

But when they arrived to your place, they said there were men in white uniforms standing guard around your house, hundreds of them, and they left in terror. Sometimes God sends his angels to protect. Secondly, angels sometimes direct us. You see this in Acts chapter eight, verse 26. Philip is told by an angel, go over here and minister. So sometimes they protect. Sometimes they direct.

I love this. Number three, angels, watch this, when we die, angels escort us to heaven. I've talked to numerous families in this church that would have like a loved one who knew Jesus. They'll die at like two o'clock in the morning. And they was like, I'm so upset. I said, I understand you're upset that they died, but why are you so upset?

They're like, no, no. My dad who loved Jesus, he died and nobody was there. I should have been there. My mama, she's a great woman of God. She died at three o'clock in the morning and there was nobody there. I just hate that they died alone. That seems to weigh on the minds of people that individuals they love die alone.

And what I say to these individuals, if the person's a born again a believer, I say, well, stop. They didn't die alone. No, no, I wasn't there. No, but no, they didn't die alone. According to Luke, watch this, chapter 16, verse 22, angels of God were in that room and brought that in. They didn't die alone. God sent his angels in that room. I was listening to a hospice nurse that said, she said recently, I was ministering to a lady that didn't have days.

It was hours to live. She was sitting up in her bed and she kept looking over in the corner, smiling and waving. And I looked in the corner, there's nobody there. And she finally said, who are you smiling at?

She said, I'm smiling at that young man dressed in a beautiful white robe. Don't you see him over there? She's like, no, there's nobody there. I believe there was somebody there. I experienced that one time. We went to visit a great old man of God and the doctors told us the same thing.

We're not talking days, we're talking hours. We visited him in the hospital and I was talking to him. He'd be looking me in the eyes and all of a sudden he'd go, whoa, there's one right there. Did you see that angel go by? And we talked. He wasn't a medication, I don't think. He was in his mind. He kept talking about these angels that he's seeing.

What's happening? I believe it was those angels, according to Luke 16, being sent by God to prepare that man to come home with him. Does that give you comfort to know God had you taken care of from start to your very finish? He's got it all taken care of. Y'all know who you heard of his name? Jim Elliott is. You heard of Jim Elliott?

Y'all know who? Jim Elliott was an incredible missionary. As a young man, he and his friends, Nate Saint, Pete Fleming, Ed McColley, and Roger Udarian said, God has sent us to win the Alka Indians to Jesus Christ. We're going to go to them with the gospel. The Alka Indians were vicious. They were violent.

They were in modern day Ecuador, right there on the Amazon River. But they really said, God sent us to go share the gospel with them. And so they had been dropping bibles and they'd been dropping gifts or whatever, I guess, gifts. And they said, it's now time to go share the gospel. So these five young charismatic missionaries land their airplane right there on the Amazon River. They get out and the Alka Indians come at them. And as they're exiting the airplane, the Alka Indians speared every one of those young men to death and dumped their bodies in the river.

We'll make a very, very long story short. Later on, the gospel did penetrate that tribe and Alka Indians came to Jesus Christ in mass. And many of the men who had killed those missionaries got saved. And so several years later, Jim Elliot and these other guys and their family members are talking to these Alka Indians who killed their father, who killed their husband, and they're now brothers in Christ. And they said, we love you, we forgive you, but we want closure. What happened when my daddy died?

What happened when my husband died? And they told them what happened. And they said, but the amazing thing is, after we had killed them and dumped their bodies in the river, we saw something in the trees, in the heights of the trees, there were bright lights bouncing around in those trees. And we heard the most beautiful music we have ever heard in our lives. You know what I believe that was? I believe that was God's angels coming to take those young men back home.

So they protect, sometimes they direct, they're with us to take us home. And so I want you to understand, I'm not trying to freak you out. Some of y'all know this is really weird.

Can I say why it's weird? You're a westerner and you've been taught that reality consists of something that you can measure, quantify, put in a test tube, the supernatural realm, you can't do that. But this realm is real. And if that book you're holding is real and it is, then these angelic beings are real. Now let me give you a warning. They're good angels and they're bad angels.

Let me give you another warning. Do not get obsessed with angels. Remember in the 1990s, everybody got into the whole angels thing?

Somebody put it this way. Reason a lot of people get into angels, angels too easily provide a temptation for those who want a fix of spirituality without having to bother with God himself. And in Colossians 2 18, we're warned about having obsession with angels.

So be very careful with that. Angels, good godly angels, and they're bad angels, okay? Good angels don't draw attention to themselves.

They're sent from God. Good angels point you back to God. In fact, twice in the book of Revelation, an angel appears to John. John gets so freaked out, he falls down to worship the angel. The angel says, do not worship me.

I'm here to point you to God. That's what angels do. Like if it was my wife's birthday or anniversary, I said, well, I'm gonna surprise her. I'm gonna send her some flowers. So I called the flower delivery guy.

I spent a lot of money. I give him some flowers to go deliver that to my wife. Could you imagine if he came to the door?

Knock, knock, knock. Or I guess my wife opens the door and there he is with flowers, the flower delivery guy. And she said, oh, those are beautiful flowers. And she takes the flowers. And then she says to the delivery guy, I told you, you look like Brad Pitt. Well, you got a nice head of hair. My husband's all bald and whatever.

You gotta come inside and talk a little bit. That's not the, do you think I'd be happy with that? No, the job of the flower guy is to deliver, not to draw the attention to himself. Angels are sent by God to deliver something from God, not to draw attention to themselves. And there's been a lot of people in history get into a lot of problems because they got obsessed with angels. Did you know Islam started because an angel appeared to Muhammad and got this whole mess started. You know, Paul says in Galatians one, if me or even an angel comes and preaches another gospel, may he go to hell.

That's what he says. Joseph Smith started Mormonism because an angel visited him. I was reading about a Catholic Pope, Pope Leo XIII, who composed a prayer that you can pray to Michael the Archangel.

Do not do that. In fact, y'all know who Carlos Santana is? You know, the great guitarist. Rolling Stone had a thing about Carlos Santana. Santana, they asked him, where'd you get all your inspiration?

How are you able to play? He says, well, I have a personal angel named Metatron who shows up at night and I'll sit in front of the fireplace and I'll light some candles. And the angel Metatron gives me all these ideas. That creeps me out.

Anytime I hear that song smooth, you know, I get freaked out because I'm like, did this come from some kind of demonic angel? Here's my point. God blesses us with supernatural entities, but those entities point us back to the Lord Jesus Christ, not to themselves. Okay.

So let's wrap this thing up. How is Daniel so calm? Daniel was so calm because he knew whether he lived or died, God was in charge. God is in control. If God wants to bring him home, I'll bring him home. If God wants to protect him, I'll send an angel.

You need to have that same confidence. God is in control of your life from start to finish. In fact, I quoted David Jeremiah a second ago. David Jeremiah said, it used to be when I get on an airplane, I would freak out.

I was so afraid of flying an airplane and crashing. And he said, I really struggled with that until I got it. He's, I got a great quote from an old man. He said this quote, a man of God in the will of God is is immortal until his work on earth is done. Jeremiah said, what that meant to me was as long as I'm a man of God doing the will of God, nothing can touch me until God has done with me. And when he's done with me, I don't want to be around here anymore. Now that's not just for David Jeremiah.

That's for you. The man of God, the woman of God, you are bulletproof. You're untouchable until God says, I'm done with you.

It's time to come home. So why do we not walk with boldness and confidence and strength? The man of God, the woman of God, we're invincible till God says it's time to come on home. When you start to understand that I've got the Holy Spirit living in me, Jesus with me, the Father above me, angels surrounding me, that gives me boldness and confidence. In fact, Psalm 34 says this, the angel of the Lord sets up camp around those who fear God. Everywhere you go, the angel of the Lord goes with you.

I close with this. I think I've shared this with y'all before. Years ago, cross assembly, y'all have let me go around the world on different mission trips. Y'all sent me to Baghdad, Iraq during that whole war.

It was during a tough time in the church. A lot of y'all were tired of me being the pastor and you said, why don't you go to Baghdad? So I went to Baghdad. And it was interesting, the group I went with, they said, now look, there's still a lot of hostility there. In fact, the church I ministered at the week before, car bomb had gone off in front of that church and killed a couple of their members. I think ISIS was doing, it was just, it was a dangerous time. So here's what they said, they said, you're a Westerner.

They don't like Americans. Do not draw attention to yourself. Keep your head down, don't look anybody in the eye. So I did what I was told. And I remember going through the streets of Baghdad, just kind of keeping like this. Didn't look, didn't draw attention to myself, did what I was told. And I was a little bit nervous.

He kept hearing about bombs going, I was absolutely, I was doing this. And then as we were walking peripherally, I started seeing these guys walk by, big old guys, buzzed hair, body armor, machine guns. And I noticed this patch on their arm, the American flag. I said, those are my guys right there.

They weren't doing this. They had their chest out, walking around like this. And suddenly I looked at them, I said, wait a second, they're going to protect me, they got a machine gun. They'll shield me, they got the body armor.

My taxes pay their salaries. And suddenly I kind of lifted my head up and I started walking right alongside these guys as well. But instead of my head being down, I was up like this, that's kind of, I was swaggering a little bit. I even looked at a couple of these Iraqis and I went, you want some of this?

Come on. My whole attitude and demeanor changed because I had these strong, tough guys walking with me. The angel of the Lord encamps around those that fear him. When you go to bed tonight, the angel of the Lord will be standing around your house. When you get in your car tomorrow, you'll be escorted by an angel. When you're going down the interstate, angels will be around that car. When you get to the office, angels will be there. Everywhere you go, Jesus is in you. His spirit is with you. Angels are around you. Be bold, be strong.

Why? Because the Lord, you're God is with you. Can the people of God stand right now and let's praise God. We're being a God who takes care of his people. Father, why are we not? I'm asking this, Father.

I'm asking this for me. Why are we not the most bold, confident people in this world, Father? God, in a world of dairies, God, in a world of dairies, panicked and afraid, may we be Daniels and Danielle's. Make us bold and strong and confident.

Greater is he who is in us than he who's in this messed up world. Father, I pray that you'll take off our physical eyes and put on our spiritual eyes and may we see into the supernatural realm and see that we are protected from head to toe by you, oh Father. If I could pray for one thing for this church right now, it would be this.

Make us bold and strong in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, not because of who we are, but because of who you are. Lift your hands, church. Lift your voices and praise God right now.

Would you do this? Just praise the Lord. I see you taking ground.

I see you press ahead. Your power is dangerous to the enemy's care. You still do miracles. You will do what you say. For you're the same God now as you've always been.

Your spirit breaking out. Your kingdom moving in. Your victory claims the crown that the enemy had. You still do miracles.

You will do what you say. For you're the same God now as you've always been. That's the power of your name. Just a mention makes a way. Giants fart and strongholds break and there is healing. That's the power that I claim.

It's the same that rolled the grave. There's no power like the mighty name of Jesus. That's the power of your name.

Just a mention makes a way. Giants fart and strongholds break and there is healing. That's the power that I claim.

It's the same that rolled the grave. There's no power like the mighty name of Jesus. That puts a little bit of a different spin on Joshua 1, doesn't it? God says to Joshua, a man who's about to literally face demons, Nephilim, half giant weirdo creatures, violent armies coming against him, everything in the world is about to come against Joshua.

Raise your hand if you've had one of those days before. Everything is coming against you right now. You understand what Joshua's coming against?

And God looks at this man who's about to come up against the forces of hell and God says to Joshua, which is Hebrew for Joshua, cross assembly. Be bold. Be strong. Y'all don't be afraid and you don't be terrified of anything.

Why? Because the Lord your God is going to be with you everywhere you go. In the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, we pray, Amen and Amen. Man, go out there and change this world for Jesus Christ. God bless you.