So the Bible is telling us in the New Testament that that could happen to us.
Think about this.
If that could never happen, if in the New Testament in 2018 it were impossible for an
angel to come to you unawares, would this verse really make sense?
Because he says, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained
angels unawares."
He's saying, "Hey, be careful because you could be in that situation at some point."
Now you say, "Pastor Anderson, have you ever been in that situation?"
Now I believe that I have, but I'm not 100% sure.
It would be impossible to be 100% on these things, of course, but I'm just going to tell
you a story of what I think could be an example of this from my own life.
And whether it is or isn't, you know, God knoweth.
But when I was a 17-year-old boy, I'd spent five years in the kind of New Evangelical
type of rock and roll type churches, the NIV dead churches, nobody's being saved, there's
no soul winning, nobody's being baptized.
And I was frustrated with it because my soul yearned for something more.
And I started reading the Bible cover to cover when I was 16, I finished when I was 17.
So I was reading through the Bible and what I was seeing in the Bible was just not matching
up with what I saw in church.
And I just, I wanted something else.
I was looking for something more and I wanted to win souls to Christ, but I had no idea
how.
I didn't know what I was doing.
So I had a great zeal, but it was not according to knowledge.
And so at this time in my life, when I was seeking the truth, I walked into a used bookstore
in Roseville, California.
And I've always loved books and learning.
And so I was getting a bunch of books and foreign language books and stuff like that.
And I walk out of the bookstore and a guy comes up to me on a bicycle and says, "Hey
kid, you want to go to church?"
And he hands me a little invite to church.
And it said right on the front of it, it was folded in such a way where this was actually
on the front, it said, "Do you know for sure if you died today, you'd go to heaven?"
And I just looked at that.
All he said to me was just, "Hey kid, do you want to go to church?"
You know, I'm 17, my hair was bleach blonde, punked out, I was dressed in, you know, my
own way of my teenage self.
And he said, "Hey kid, do you want to go to church?"
He gives me this invite.
I look at it and the first thing I homed in on was that question in bold.
And I said, "Yes, I do know for sure."
He didn't ask me, he just handed me that.
I said, "Yes, I do know for sure."
And I said, "And I'm also Baptist."
Because it said on the inside, Regency Baptist Church.
And I said, "Yes, I do know for sure, and I'm a Baptist also.
I go to a Baptist church too."
And he said to me, "Well, does your church go out and knock doors and tell people how
to get saved?"
And I said, "No, but we should."
And he just said, "Amen."
And he just wrote off.
And it was weird because I wanted to talk to him.
I mean, this was exact, and look, that was the one question that I wanted to hear more
than any other question.
Like if there was one thing that was going to get my attention, if he was going to say
one thing to me about Regency Baptist Church, that was the thing I longed for deep down,
was I wanted to get people saved.
I wanted to win souls to Christ.
And so he asked me that question, and I said, "No, but we should."
And then he just took off.
He just said, "Amen," and he just rode off on a bike.
And I'm sitting there, and so I start looking at it, and looking at it more, and I was like,
"Wow, this looks great."
So I brought it home to my parents, and I handed it to my dad, I said, "This is where
we should be going to church."
And he looked at it and said, "Yeah, it looks great.
Let's try it."
Now what do you think was the first thing I did when I went to church?
I looked for that guy, right?
I get there, I'm looking for him, and he wasn't there.
And I never saw that guy, and I have no idea to this day who that guy was.
Now was that an angel on the wares who saw a young man who's seeking the truth and he
wants to do more for God?
I've been saved since I was six years old, but I had done virtually nothing for God in
that time, in those 11 years, but I wanted to.
And so either one of two things, the way I can figure it, either that was an angel on
the wares, or it just happened to be a human being that was passing through, well either
way it was a human being.
But either it was an angel on the wares, that which is supernatural, or it was just an ordinary
guy who happened to be passing through.
Some people have suggested that it was maybe like a missionary that was passing through,
because sometimes missionaries or evangelists will grab some tracts of the local church.
I know when I used to work in other towns, I'd grab tracts of the local church so that
I could do soul-winning or hand them out or whatever, but I don't know.
The idea of a missionary actually doing soul-winning in the United States, that's more unrealistic
than a supernatural visit from an angel.
So I think we take the more realistic view, probably an angel.
But whether it was or wasn't, either way, God got me where I needed to go, because if
you seek, you shall find.
That's what the Bible says.
I was seeking and I found, and God either sent someone by natural means or He sent someone
by supernatural means.
Now my only other story where I had the feeling, and that's my best story on Angel Unawares.
Now I'm going to give you my weaker story on Angel Unawares.
This was a time when I thought, "Man, was this guy an Angel Unawares."
One time I was out at work and I was out in the snow and it was snowing and it was freezing
and my fingers were hurting, you know, your fingers get when it's really cold.
And I was just, I was struggling to install these fire extinguishers onto these metal poles
outside at this gas station and I was just having a hard time.
My tools weren't working right, I didn't have the right stuff.
And this guy just walked up to me out of the blue, just walked up to me out of nowhere.
I don't even know why the guy was even there.
I was just out at this gas station in the middle of nowhere doing this.
And this guy just pulls up in a vehicle, walks up and he just says, "Don't you just want
to get out of here?"
And he just opened his hand and had the exact bolts that I needed to do the job quickly
and easily.
I was like, "Wow, thank you."
And I took those bolts and I was out of there in like 10 minutes, back in the car with the
heater on.
You know, so I don't know.
That one's a little more of a stretch, but I was like, "Man, this guy was an angel on
the words."
I mean, this guy really bailed me out.
He really helped me out.