Those Angel Feathers Around the House Are Annoying

Gary: Dave and Tom resume their conversation on An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith next week. We hope you can tune in.

This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still to come, answers to your questions in “Contending for the Faith.” And in “Understanding the Scriptures,” Dave and Tom will continue their discussion of God’s salvation. And now, to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon.

Tom: The name The Berean Call is taken from the Book of Acts:17:10-11 [10] And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. [11] These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
See All..., where we find the Apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek city of Berea after he had just come from Thessalonica. To these Bereans, he preached that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah sent from God. They were commended for being noble, or “fair-minded,” not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically because they “searched the scriptures daily” to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word.

That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry. Our mission is to alert believers in Christ to unbiblical teachings and practices impacting the church. We want to exhort believers to give greater heed to biblical discernment and truth regarding what they are accepting as spiritual. We hope to supply those who profess to be biblical Christians with information and materials that will encourage the love of God’s truth. Hopefully, we can help mobilize believers in Christ to action in obedience to the scriptural command to “earnestly contend for the faith” found in Jude 3.

And finally, our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith authority and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior. Gary?

Gary: I’d like to remind you that in addition to this radio program, we publish a monthly newsletter, which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute a variety of materials, including books, video and audio tapes, and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, contact us at PO Box 7019, Bend, Oregon, 97708. Call us at 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. [No longer applicable] We’ll repeat this information at the end of the program.

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from The Birmingham News:

“Before the first feather appeared November 16^th, Pastor Sam said he had been preaching that his interdenominational congregation was on the verge of something big. ‘God’s fixing to do something that we’ve never seen,’ he told his flock. ‘And it’s gonna blow our mind!’ But even the pastor said he got uneasy when the unusual events began.

“While his church is openly Pentecostal, Sam said he has never veered into ‘wild, loony stuff. When you say you’re receiving manifestations of angels, people think you’re crazy,’ Sam said. ‘To the natural ear, it sounds foolish.’

“The pastor said he may have the feathers tested, but no matter what the findings, he’ll always believe they came from God. ‘I’ve had around 15 feathers appear before my eyes,’ he said. ‘The evidence is just overwhelming.’

“Sam said miracles shouldn’t seem out of the realm of possibility for a God-given credit for such things as parting the Red Sea, crumbling the walls of Jericho, and raising Jesus from the dead. ‘It’s just amazing how close we walk to the supernatural realm,’ he said. ‘The only thing hindering us from walking in it is our own faith.’”

Tom: Dave, feathers…we’ve had gold, we’ve had gold dust, we’ve had gold teeth, and feathers. That’s interesting.

Dave: Well, Tom, you’re trying to be kind. It’s…well, I shouldn’t use the word. It is a bit ludicrous. I don’t think angels have feathers on their wings. The Bible very clearly says He “maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire,” Hebrews 1. So the idea that angels would have physical form and that they would have physical feathers, I mean, you’re gonna fly to heaven with wings made out of feathers? It just…it doesn’t compute, Tom. It doesn’t make sense.

Tom: Well, Dave, years ago, Pastor Buck—remember Pastor Buck?

Dave: Sure.

Tom: Pastor Buck was taken up into the third heaven, and he was right there in the throne room of God. When asked how he knew this was the throne room of God, he said, “Well, there are feathers on the floor.” You know, and he was quoting—what is it?—Psalm 91: “He shall cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you shall take refuge, and his truth shall be your shield and buckler.”

Dave: Yeah, well, Tom, right there, just in the portion that you quoted, you have the refutation—the idea that God is some kind of a big bird with feathers. “His truth shall be your shield and buckler.” How do you make a shield out of…shield and buckler, that’s what it means, you know, the buckle that you hold onto that shield with. How do you make a shield out of truth?

And Paul writes, “Taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” Now, if demons are shooting fiery arrows at us, then I guess angels have wings with feathers. But that’s not what it’s talking about.

And one of the basic errors that man has fallen into is exchanging the spiritual for the physical. We’ve become earthly-minded. We’ve become materialistic. And we think something isn’t real unless it’s physical.

Tom: Right.

Dave: So it doesn’t make sense. And what is the point?

Tom: Dave, before you address the point, in the Old Testament we have angels described with feathers, whether it be the cherubim or seraphim, but it’s interesting…

Dave: Where does it say feathers?

Tom: I’m sorry…

Dave: It says they have wings.

Tom: Yeah, wings! I’m sorry. All right, wings, you’re right. But there they are with wings.

Dave: Mm-hmm.

Tom: Now, what’s interesting is that in the New Testament, with all of the manifestations of angels, you never hear about wings, you never hear about feathers, and we have many manifestations.

So now, what is the point of this? A man has a church, there are feathers flying down every which way…what does that mean?

Dave: Tom, as I said, we’re trying to have some physical evidence for a spiritual reality. That an angel would leave a feather, what does that mean? Is that gonna be the basis of my faith now?

And the man says even though an analysis may show these are chicken feathers, or whatever—he didn’t use those terms—but how are you going to find out whether it is really an angelic feather? Well, they will show that those feathers, I can guarantee you, belong to some fowl that lives on this earth.

The Bible says that He makes His angels spirits, flames of fire, ministering spirits to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. It tells us not even to try to look into who the angels are, what they may be doing, and so forth. That is not our job. Our trust is in God, and our faith isn’t in some feathers. Our faith is in the Word. That’s why we call this Search the Scriptures Daily. Our faith is in the Word of God, not in some physical manifestation.

When Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” is He a loaf of bread? You know, when He said, “I am the true vine, you are the branches,” is He a grapevine and we’re branches? No! So you have this sort of thing all through the Bible.

So when it says, “He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings shalt thou trust….” Jesus said, “How often would I have covered you, gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not?” Jesus doesn’t have wings! This is an allegorical statement.

Tom: Right, these are metaphors…

Dave: Right.

Tom: …that people could relate to and identify with.

Dave, the sad thing about this is that the very things that we’ve been talking about, evidence and faith, this man has, you know, wittingly, unwittingly, has just undermined.

Dave: This is not the kind of evidence the Bible gives us. This is not the evidence upon which I would hang my eternal destiny. And whether an angel appeared or not, what does that have to do with Jesus Christ being the Savior of sinners and man’s eternal destiny? So it is a way of sidetracking people from what is really important.