“Do angels have wings and harps?”

Steve Brown:
Do angels have wings and harps? The answer to that question on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life, dedicated to the message that the only people who get any better are those who know that if they don’t get any better God will still love them anyway. That teaching raises a lot of questions, so here’s author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeTruth with answers from the Bible that will make you free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing really good because I’ve got angels

Pete Alwinson:
I know

Steve Brown:
protecting me.

Pete Alwinson:
Can’t wait to see what you say on that.

Steve Brown:
I really believe that, by the way.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
I believe in angels and their connection to God’s people. And because they don’t care whether they get the credit. In fact, want God to get the credit. Sometimes, we don’t know. And sometimes they’re angels unaware. I don’t want to blow this before we get to the question.

Pete Alwinson:
We’ve got a lot to talk about, don’t we?

Steve Brown:
Yeah, we really do. That’s Pete Alwinson. And if you haven’t read Like Father Like Son. And if he ever will just sit down at his keyboard and finish his book, I’ll tell you about his new book. How are you doing with that?

Pete Alwinson:
I’m working on it. I’m working on it every day.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Well, you’re not making much progress.

Pete Alwinson:
I know, I know, I know.

Steve Brown:
It’s been a long time.

Pete Alwinson:
I know. Hey, I’ve got this day job too.

Steve Brown:
Pete’s book, Like Father Like Son. What’s the name of the new book? The working title.

Pete Alwinson:
The working title is Forged for Greatness. And it really talks about the five marks of manhood is, which is what we do. And I’ve talked about it a lot, but we’re fine tuning a lot of things.

Steve Brown:
It will be a great book. You want to check out a Forge. It’s an amazing ministry. Go to ForgeTruth.com and if you’re not listening, you’ll love the podcast that is weekly and you can find it there at ForgeTruth.com Pete comes in, as you know, every Friday and he’s done it for years. I first had him here so I could share the guilt and then it kind of got set in concrete and we’ve been doing it forever and love doing it. We love your questions. You can ask your question, 24 7, by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE. And by the way, don’t preach. We’re the preachers. If you’ve got a question, ask it. If you want to make a comment, that’s okay. But don’t do the sermons, okay? Because then our producer has to listen to a sermon, and I’m not even sure he’s saved. I mean, he doesn’t like to just sit around listening to sermons all day. So, state your question. He’s laughing. I’m glad if he weren’t laughing, I wouldn’t have said something like that. But you can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE follow instructions and ask your question. Or you can send your question to

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Or you can send your question to Steve@keylife.org and if you can help us financially, please do. I promise that we’ll be as faithful with your gift as you were in giving it. If you can’t help us financially, we get that too. Or if you don’t feel led to do it, we get that too. But do think about us and pray for us on occasion. We would appreciate that. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right, let’s pray together. Father, we come to you right now and just pause for a minute just to thank you for your goodness, your mercy, your power, your truth and all that you are and all that you have done in our lives. And we thank you today for this week, for your presence, for the people you brought across our path. We thank you for the progress we’ve made in our work, the good times we had with our family. But Lord, we also for the difficult things and the trials and how you have used them to make us pray and turn our hearts toward you and toward other people. And so Lord, we ask that you just continue the good work that you began in us. We ask that you would be honored and glorified in our lives and that even as we think this week-end of worship, we ask for a divine encounter that we would come into your presence and hear things about you that maybe we never heard before in, in your truth, where you are infinite and that we would take away something into our lives that we have never begun to work on before. And so, we thank you for your grace and how it continues to shape us and set us free. And we ask for your glory and your presence. And even now, in this time of Q&A we commit it to you. For we pray in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
My question is, do angels have wings, other than seraphim and cherubim, which we know have wings? Do angels have wings?

Steve Brown:
You know, at the beginning of the broadcast, I said wings and harps. They don’t have harps, you should know that. Or that we know about. We may get to heaven and find out they do. Angels are not what people think they are, necessarily.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. Right.

Steve Brown:
And by the way, a really cool thing happened on this. I don’t know if you paid attention to the gentleman who asked the question. But he had his radio on when he called and in the background, it’s kind of weird. You can hear Key Life playing while he’s asking the question. I don’t know if that’s ever happened before.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, it’s always time for a first thing. I mean, you’re, he’s listening to you and he’s talking to you.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, that’s true. It’s kind of a like a Kafka novel. Okay. Let’s talk.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. So, he’s right. Cherubim and Seraphim have wings. By the way, when we think of cherubs, in popular culture, that’s where they’ve done the harps and the little pink, puffy cherub. Oh, she’s a little cherub. No.

Steve Brown:
If she were a cherub, you’d be scared spitless.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. And just remember that they were meant to glorify God and that they’re powerful beings, but they’re scarier than we can ever imagine. Now, most of the angels, we really don’t see with wings. In fact, it probably could be said that angels don’t have wings. We see them taking human form interestingly.

Steve Brown:
In fact, I hear stories all the time from Christians and, you know, credible Christians who for instance, will be in an automobile accident, somebody will help them, and when they turn around to look, there’s nobody there. And the Book of Hebrews says.

That sometimes we entertain angels unaware.

Pete Alwinson:
Yep, like Abraham in the Old Testament.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
So, yeah, they appear in human form. What is an angel?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, an angel is a spirit being made part of, you know, as you go back, the Elohim of God, what is it? Psalm 68 talking about the gods. So God has an eternal counsel made up of spirit beings.

Steve Brown:
And they glorify him and they’re messengers.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
That’s a part of, and protection.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
I believe we have Guardian Angels, by the way.

Pete Alwinson:
There’s evidence in that in Scripture.

Steve Brown:
I know. Let me recommend, you might, the person who asked the question, and maybe our listeners would be interested in that. One of the best books I’ve ever read on angels was written by Billy Graham. And it’s a very simple Bible study, but pretty thorough in terms of dealing with what the Scripture says about angels. And it’s a very comforting book too, as he talks about angels.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. And one other book would be The Unseen Realm is a good book on this whole thing.

Steve Brown:
That is, too. Pete, By the way, really interesting, with the Graham organization. They used to kid around, you know, Mr. Graham always landed on his feet. No matter where he went, no matter what he did, he was protected. I mean, and God gave him great favor.

Pete Alwinson:
Yes.

Steve Brown:
And so, they used to kid that his book on angels was the thank you note.

Pete Alwinson:
Ah, that’s great. I love it. I love it.

Steve Brown:
Can you explain the Trinity? No, let’s go to this next question.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, you know, it’s interesting in that it is a latent doctrine that is in the Bible. For instance, it’s just there.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And then

The Spirit of God is moving over the surface of the waters.

So, we see that. We see three people, three personages, that are supernatural, given supernatural, divine titles, and worshipped. And so, the church had to come up with a name to describe what that reality is about God.

Steve Brown:
One God.

Pete Alwinson:
One God, in three persons, Blessed Trinity.

Steve Brown:
And it’s an amazing and wonderful doctrine, by the way, you know, we kid around, and there’s a lot of heresy surrounding it and a lot of fighting in the church over the centuries, over that particular orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. But it’s settled.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And it is a measurement of what it means to be a Christian if you believe the verities of the Christian faith. And there’s an interesting thing here, too, about the Trinity. And that is, by the way, have we explained it?

Pete Alwinson:
We haven’t explained it, except to describe one God in three persons.

Steve Brown:
That’s about all you can do, anyway. Well, at any rate, the interesting thing is that when we become Christians, we’re invited into a fellowship. A fellowship of love and relationship, such love and relationship that it’s one. And other religions who believe are monotheistic religions don’t have that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And the reason the God of the Bible is so incredibly loving in both the Old Testament and the New Testament with His people is that that’s been going on from the beginning.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And that was His intent in creation. He did not create us because He was lonely. He was tri unity. He was three in one forever. He wasn’t lonely. But he created us to be a part of that fellowship, which is amazing, like the fellowship of the ring. You know, this whole idea.

Steve Brown:
That’s right. And it’s so good. And I know that’s not your favorite book, but I like The Shack. But there is there a smell of what is Biblical about the Trinity, the relationship is one, the way they get on with each other and love each other is a good thing. It’s a great doctrine, by the way, and it’s a very important doctrine because it has to do with our salvation. and our relationship with God. Guys, we’re out of time. We’ve got to go. Thanks for joining us. And one other thing, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.