4:13 Podcast: Can I Experience Angels in My Life? With Melissa Spoelstra

Melissa Spoelstra: Looking at angels from Genesis to Revelation is so beneficial because it does away with the anti-supernatural bias that I think all of us come by just living in the modern era.

If we look at church history, we see that there was a day when this wasn't the case. But the Enlightenment, the Reformation, some of these good things that happened in our history elevated logic and reason so far up that kind of the -- the mystical thought of angels and demons and this whole other realm just kind of got shoved to the side a little bit.

Jennifer Rothschild: Angels are everywhere in Scripture. They were present in the Garden, and all through the Bible they appear to people with messages, encouragement, and help. Angels ministered to Jesus himself after the temptation and before his crucifixion. And then guess what? They shared the good news of his resurrection.

But even though the Bible showcases who angels are, our impression of angels is often shaped by myths and misconceptions.

Well, that ends today, my friend. Author and Bible teacher Melissa Spoelstra is going to traverse the terrain of Scripture to show you who angels are, what they do, and what they have to do with you. Ooh, there is no reason, my friend, to fear or ignore what's happening in the supernatural, so let's dive in.

KC Wright: Welcome to the 4:13 Podcast, where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you up to live the "I Can" life, because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

Now, welcome your host, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hey, our friends. That was KC Wright, my Seeing Eye Guy. And it's just Jennifer and KC, two friends, one topic, zero stress. And our goal is to help you be and do more than you feel capable of as you're living this "I Can" life.

And I'm telling you, KC, it's going to be a good topic today. I mean, like, how often do you think about angels?

KC Wright: You know --

Jennifer Rothschild: Or do you? You may. You are my friend who is -- you're my charismatic.

KC Wright: I thank God for angels. I mean, this is going to be a really good podcast.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, to me it is too, because it's not something I think about often, I'll be honest.

KC Wright: Right, right.

Jennifer Rothschild: But I will tell you this. Okay. I was, gosh, six or seven years old, and we went to a Baptist church growing up. And every Sunday and Wednesday when we'd go to this Baptist church, we would pass a Catholic church. All right. This Catholic church was beautiful -- okay? -- compared to ours.

KC Wright: Right.

Jennifer Rothschild: I mean, it was ornate, it was lovely. I had a friend who went to that Catholic church, and she told me, you know, how the priest would bless them. And she even -- you know, she was a little girl too. She said, "You see all those rocks in the parking lot? Our priests blessed each of those rocks." You know what I mean.

KC Wright: Right, right, right.

Jennifer Rothschild: So it was, like, so woo-oo to me because it was so unfamiliar.

KC Wright: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right. Well -- so every Sunday we're driving by this, and I marvel at this Catholic church and I think it's so mystical and beautiful. And by the way, back then I could see. I didn't lose my sight till I was a teenager.

So there was this sign in the parking lot of the Catholic church, and it said -- I thought it said, "Angel Parking Only." Okay, because I couldn't spell. It actually said, "Angle Parking Only." But I was like, See? Oh my gosh, the Catholics have the market on the supernatural because they have angel parking. Like, that's where the angels would park when they would come to the church.

KC Wright: Whoa.

Jennifer Rothschild: Like we Baptist, we had deacons. That's all we got. You know, but they got angels. It actually said, "Angle Parking Only."

KC Wright: Wow.

Jennifer Rothschild: But I thought it was for the angels.

But here's the funny thing. Like, you know, KC, that was a little girl's just misunderstanding because of spelling.

KC Wright: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: But it is true.

KC Wright: It is true.

Jennifer Rothschild: Angels are there.

KC Wright: Angels are with us.

Jennifer Rothschild: All around us. That's why I literally -- I called up Melissa Spoelstra and I'm like, "We need to talk about this." She wrote a whole Bible study on angels.

KC Wright: Wow.

Jennifer Rothschild: For those of you who have done my Heaven Bible study, what a great follow-up, to deal with angels. Because I did not in my Heaven Bible study -- there was just too much, so I just -- I did not deal with angels. I'm so glad Melissa has.

So if she's new to you -- KC, why don't you introduce Melissa. Well, actually, before you do, she's been on before.

KC Wright: Really?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. So you are familiar. It's just been a while, y'all. I know you've slept since then. But she wrote a Bible study on the Gospel of John and we've talked about that. We'll link to that later. But anyway...

All right, introduce Melissa.

KC Wright: Melissa Spoelstra is a speaker, Bible teacher, and author who is passionate about studying God's Word and helping women of all ages to seek Christ and to know him more. Melissa has a degree in Bible theology and she enjoys the author of many Bible studies, including Angels, The Gospel of John, and Isaiah.

All right. This is going to be such a rich, deep conversation. Let's get the conversation going.

Jennifer Rothschild: Let's do it.

All right, Melissa, I'm really excited we get to talk about this. Because I told you off mic that I actually called -- I called my producer and I said, "Jackie, you've got to get Melissa on the podcast. I've got to know about this Angels Bible study." So I am so glad we get to talk about it.

And that leads me to my first question. Melissa, why did you decide to write about angels? And once you tell us, then I want to know, you know, like, what it is that you did in the study. But first of all we need to know who angels are. So first of all, why angels? Why'd you write a whole study on it? And then tell us who angels are based on a biblical understanding.

Melissa Spoelstra: So good. So for me, actually about three years ago I was at my father's memorial service, and someone made one of those well-meaning comments, you know, that God needed another angel. And I remember just having a little theological moment in my head going, wait, we don't really think that, do we? And thinking this is probably not the appropriate time to address that.

But then it was like everywhere I turned and looked, podcasts I was listening to or angels represented in shows or media. And what I really realized was that I didn't have a very strong angelology. I myself, you know, didn't know that much or really think about angels that much, and just began to ask the question is it worth having a strong angelology? Does it matter?

And I would just say I think there's a lot of good reasons that -- but the most important thing is that God is Yahweh Sabaoth. It's one of the names used for him in Scripture. Most often it's the Lord of Hosts, or some translations say the Lord of Heaven's Armies.

And so really the benefit in studying angels is to know God more, to know what it means that he is the Lord of Hosts. So I think there's a lot of really good reasons to study it. First of all, it just helps us find hope in realizing how big he is.

The second thing is that it helps us prepare for the future, as you know well in writing a study about Heaven --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Melissa Spoelstra: -- that heaven is going to be loaded with angels.

One of the podcasts that I like to listen to, a guy -- a theologian named Joel Muddamalle. He said God is the king of a two-household family, angels in the supernatural and humans in the natural. And that just kind of blew my mind because I don't think that way. I don't think, you know, that way.

And so as I began -- really the number one reason, then, for writing the study was that as I just was in my Bible after all of this, it was like angels were everywhere. I just kept seeing them in so many, you know, men coming to Abraham in Genesis. And then in the book of Zechariah there's all of these angelic encounters. And even just noticing the prayers in the psalms. And, of course, Revelation is the number one book loaded full of angel references, because angels have a huge part in our future.

So I think that looking at angels from Genesis to Revelation is so beneficial because it does away with the anti-supernatural bias that I think all of us come by just living in the modern era.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Melissa Spoelstra: If we look at church history, we see that there was a day when this wasn't the case. But the Enlightenment, the Reformation, some of these good things that happened in our history elevated logic and reason so far up that kind of the -- the mystical thought of angels and demons and this whole other realm just kind of got shoved to the side a little bit.

And so as I think about how I live on a daily basis, I often live by logic and reason. And I know there's God, and I know there's people, because I'm bumping up against them all the time, but I forget about this category, the excluded middle of angels. And there's so much going on in that realm.

Jennifer Rothschild: The unseen.

Melissa Spoelstra: The unseen realm. And I think that's -- that to rediscover that and to think about that will bring us hope, because it will point us to the God who reigns over heaven and earth.

So I'm an acronym girl, for those who know how I like to teach. It just gives me handlebars, it gives me help.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Melissa Spoelstra: So I just kind of went and did this deep dive looking at angels from Genesis to Revelation and then kind of said, okay, who are angels? What do they do? And what does that have to do with you and me?

And so I took the word "angels" and said, okay, angels adore God. That's the A. We often find them worshiping God. Certainly in Revelation, but even in Deuteronomy you see the angels worshiping God. Job speaks of the angels, you know, worshiping and singing at the creation --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Melissa Spoelstra: -- of the world.

But the number one thing is the N. Angels notify God's servants. I mean, their name means messenger, right? Malik is the Hebrew word, Angelos is the Greek word, and it means messenger. So often they're bringing a message. And I think we think of that often during the holidays. Easter, Christmas we see them in that role. But they're really doing that throughout Scripture. And the prophets. Angels are revealing things to Daniel. Certainly to Abraham. Just playing that role of giving God's messages to his people, intervening in his life.

But then -- so angels adore God, they notify God's servants. They guard God's boundaries. And we especially see this with cherubim and seraphim, which I -- you know, reading all of these different pages of commentaries, I kind of put them all together in the angelic category. Some would separate out cherubim and seraphim. They're the only angels with wings, right? None of the messenger angels in Scripture ever had wings. And their wings are covered with eyes, which always makes me chuckle because I've never seen any --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. It's kind of creepy.

Melissa Spoelstra: Yeah. I mean, a nativity play, never seen --

Jennifer Rothschild: No.

Melissa Spoelstra: -- eyes covering the wings and the little...

So the cherubim especially are known as throne guardians, and we see them in that role. Even that first mention in Genesis, right, what is the cherubim doing? He's guarding the way to the Tree of Life. And we also in the psalms see that God sends angels to guard his people. We see it in Egypt when the -- God's people are fleeing Egypt. There's lots of instances throughout Scripture where angels are in that guardian role. We can talk about guardian angels a little bit later if you want.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, I do. I want to circle back. But I want to know the rest of the acronym.

Melissa Spoelstra: Okay.

Jennifer Rothschild: Plus, I always misspell "angel" and spell "angle," so I'm about ready to hear how you're going to spell this.

Melissa Spoelstra: Oh, great, great. I love it. So they adore God, they notify God's servants, they guard God's boundaries. Then it's an E. They enact God's judgment.

Jennifer Rothschild: Enact God's judgment.

Melissa Spoelstra: They enact God's judgment.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay.

Melissa Spoelstra: And so we see that 185,000 Assyrian soldiers wiped out. How about the Passover story? The angel of death is passing over. And I think where that has to do with us the most in enacting God's judgment is I think about Jesus talking about how the angels will come at the end of the age to harvest the earth. They will separate the weed from the wheat. And to me, that should motivate us to share the Gospel to go, The harvesters are coming. The angels are coming to harvest the earth.

So they also -- the L is they lead God's people. We see this so many times. My favorite place in Scripture where angels lead God's people is with Elijah, because the angel says, "You need a nap and a snack, Elijah."

Jennifer Rothschild: I love that.

Melissa Spoelstra: So I'm like, God, if you want to send an angel to lead me, I would love the way of Elijah, the nap and the snack.

And then the S is that angels serve as God's agents. And I wanted to put that in there. It's kind of a catchall. I love -- Billy Graham has a great book called "Angels: God's Secret Agents," so I stole his terminology and agents.

But I think -- I wanted to be careful not to pigeonhole and say, okay, if angels aren't adoring, or they're not guarding, or they're not enacting judgment, or they're not leading, then it couldn't be an angel. Because you know what I do. Angels -- what I know. Angels can do anything that God tells them to do.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, yes, yes.

Melissa Spoelstra: They can stand in front of a donkey if God would want them to, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Melissa Spoelstra: And so they serve as God's agents. They can do anything that God asks them to do, except for probably one thing, which is to die for our sins. Only Jesus. Only Jesus could fill that role.

But those are kind of my angelology handlebars to say this is how God chooses to use angels in his people's lives through his Word.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, I love it too, Melissa. I love acronyms because, like, we can remember that now.

Melissa Spoelstra: Right.

Jennifer Rothschild: And so you just described who angels are in the Bible, and I love that. And so I want to circle back to the "in the Bible" part for us to talk about their activity today.

But before we do, just to continue to be very clear -- which you were with that acronym -- in your study you also mention that these modern images and uses and portrayals of angels, they kind of distort their true nature. So I want to know what some of the biggest misconceptions are, because sometimes we don't know that we're just accepting a lie as truth until it is exposed. So are there some misconceptions that you've tripped up on as you've studied angels?

Melissa Spoelstra: Well, certainly a lot in terms of appearance. I don't even know that I really knew that angels didn't have wings in the Bible except for the --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, me too.

Melissa Spoelstra: -- cherubim and seraphim. So there's that. Certainly the fat little babies with the wings on the clouds. I don't even really know where the whole idea of a cherub being a baby came from in church history.

I do want to mention the whole guardian angel things, especially from our friends that are from a more orthodox, you know, thing.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Melissa Spoelstra: I've talked to many women who were like, "I grew up praying to a guardian angel, and this is the guardian angel prayer that I memorized as a child." And I would just, you know, point people to really just to pray to the Lord. And we never are instructed to pray to angels, to worship angels in any way.

And the whole idea of guardian angels, angels do guard. Do you and I have a personal guardian angel? People would point to two passages in the Bible.

They would look at where Jesus is teaching in Matthew 18. And he's talking about greatness, and he's saying the greatest in the kingdom are these children. And he makes this side comment. He says beware because -- don't look down on these little ones because their angels are always before me in heaven. So there's that comment.

There's another one where Peter -- it's an angel story. Peter gets released from prison by an angel. And he kind of thinks he's seeing a vision and he's out on the street and he realizes, wait, I'm out on the street. And so he goes to where the church is gathered, he knocks on the door. And a servant named Rhoda comes and sees it's Peter, and she runs back to tell everyone Peter's out of jail. And they don't believe it, they say, oh, it must be his angel.

So those are both descriptive rather than prescriptive passages. And if we look at the heart of those teachings, I don't think that what the Lord was trying to do there was build a theology of guardian angels. I think those were kind of side notions and interesting things to think about.

But I think in a conversation about angels -- which I think is also true in a conversation about heaven -- is that much has often been built on little.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Melissa Spoelstra: And so we want to be so careful that we don't go any further than the text goes, and to be okay with an "I don't know."

And so is it possible that there are angels before -- and if there are angels going before God on our behalf, I think a better question is what are they saying?

Jennifer Rothschild: Ooh. Yeah.

Melissa Spoelstra: Melissa needs help with that distraction problem, Lord. You know, like, what are they saying, rather than praying a prayer to a guardian angel or spending a lot of time fixated on the created. Because in this conversation, we never want to trade what is primary for what is peripheral. And what is primary is God.

And knowing something about his angels I believe is important only because God has revealed it. Three hundred mentions in Scripture of angels.

And also to know something about the spiritual battles, the wars going on around.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, that's what I was going to ask you. I'm glad you brought that up, because I was going to ask you that. What about this war in the heavenlies?

Melissa Spoelstra: Yeah. I mean, we see in the Book of Daniel where, for one thing, that our prayers have such an impact in heaven. And I know I need that reminder just that our prayers are heard and that God acts upon our humble requests. Daniel is confessing his sin, he's praying.

Now, I do think it's interesting that never in Scripture do we see anyone pray and ask God to send an angel. Which that kind of bewildered me just a little bit to think, oh. Because I know when my kids were learning to drive, I was praying angels on the fender and the bumper and, you know, all the way around the car.

What I find in the prayers of the people in the Bible is that they seem less inclined to tell God how to do it. You know, Daniel presented his needs and God decided to send an angel. But as we think about kind of this supernatural battle, we think about passages like Ephesians 6 where we're reminded that our battle is not against flesh and blood enemies, but about -- but against principalities and powers and, you know, all of these evil forces.

And I have had some people be like, oh, I don't know if I want to study that because then I might get more attacked or have more trials. And my response to that is I don't know about you, but for me, welcome to life on a broken planet.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right?

Melissa Spoelstra: There's always attacks. And any time we want to know God better, the enemy would want to distract us.

I just heard N.T. Wright on a podcast. He was asked in our modern day what does he think Satan's biggest tactic is? And he didn't even blink an eye. He just said, "Distraction." It's one of the things he's using with all of us.

And I think for me -- I had a little trepidation going I'm going to spend two years looking through these -- you know, some spiritual warfare passages --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. That's scary.

Melissa Spoelstra: -- when it comes to angels. But you know what I came back to is greater is he that is in us --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Melissa Spoelstra: -- than he that is in the world. And I know this is something Jen Wilkins said in her Revelation study. She said, you know, this stuff is not meant to scare us, but to prepare us. That we are to be familiar with his schemes so that he will not outsmart us.

And I did want to read, if you don't mind, just from Colossians 2. I love -- I had never seen this passage in this conversation about spiritual warfare. It's where he says, "You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ and he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross."

And I just -- oh, that passage just reminds me -- and I hope it reminds all of us that when we're in the battle -- because we are. We are in a spiritual battle. If we could cut the knife away, a knife through the unseen realm, and see what's going on, there is spiritual activity that we can't see, but that we can trust God with these -- this Greek word for spiritual rulers and authorities, it's the same ones from Ephesians 6. And, yes, our battle is not against flesh and blood, it's against these. But they've been disarmed.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Melissa Spoelstra: And I want to live with that kind of faith, that I have nothing to fear, that the God of peace will soon crush Satan.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Melissa Spoelstra: And so my prayer is that by studying angels and demons, which are fallen angels, it will just bring women hope that their -- that our God, he does, he reigns over heaven and earth, and every problem we have today, and that the victory is ours because of the cross.

Jennifer Rothschild: Nailed to the cross and they have been put to shame. Hallelujah.

Melissa Spoelstra: Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right, Melissa, this is so good. Okay, so let's -- let's tick through a couple of biblical angel basics. So when we're looking in the Bible and we see "angel of the Lord," who's that? Secondly, what is the passage that says he will give his angels charge over you? Do we apply that to all of us? There's your two questions.

Melissa Spoelstra: I love that. The angel of the Lord is such a great conversation. And I had never looked at it so deeply as I did -- as I got to dive into this. So here's what I would say...

Scholars are divided over the identity of the angel of the Lord. But here's what we know. He is different than the other angels for two main reasons. For one, he accepts worship and he forgives sin. And there is an intimacy and an authority about the angel of the Lord unlike any other angel references.

And so there are kind of three quick camps in the identity of the angel of the Lord. Some think it is Yahweh himself taking on angel form. Others would say he is the preincarnate Christ, kind of taking that question to say was Christ more active in the Old Testament than we ever imagined? And others would say he's just a regular old angel that God empowered in that way.

And so I tend to take the second view. I'm a see Jesus everywhere kind of a person, which was kind of fun to look at. But within conservative scholarship, it's really about 50/50. So it's -- people on both sides of it, on all sides of it can be people who genuinely love Jesus and love Scripture and just see it differently.

But I think the bigger question for us is not who is it exactly, but to just see the messages the angel of the Lord gives. It's the angel of the Lord who met Hagar, who said, "I am the God who sees you." That was the angel of the Lord. And those pronouns go back and forth between the Lord and the angel of the Lord.

One of the reasons I would probably see it as Jesus is -- in the New Testament, you know how Jesus was God and was with God?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Melissa Spoelstra: That's kind of the same type of language we find in the Old Testament surrounding the angel of the Lord, where he seems to be God, but also distinct from God, and that seems very reminiscent to the language of the New Testament. So, yeah. So those are --

Jennifer Rothschild: That's good. That's good. Okay.

Melissa Spoelstra: -- those are my thoughts on the angel of the Lord.

Jennifer Rothschild: Now, he will give his angels charge over you. Who's he talking to?

Melissa Spoelstra: Well, we know that Satan -- that's the passage. That's what, Psalm 91, I believe? And that's the passage that Satan tried to rip out of context and throw at Jesus like, hey, jump off, because he will give his angels charge over you. I think that's a psalm, that's a prayer that we can pray. I believe that God can guard us with his angels any time he wants.

I think it's so fascinating that Satan would use an angel passage on Jesus. And we know right after that happened, who came and ministered to Jesus?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. It was angels.

Melissa Spoelstra: It was the angels. And I wonder how -- you know, what did that look like? Was it a Texas Roadhouse bread basket? Like, what -- how did the angels minister, you know, to Jesus?

So for me, I think that we can pray any of the psalms with confidence. And I think that if -- you know, that God wants to guide us and protect us, and he can use any variety of ways.

I've had a few people say, Well, do we need angels to guide us anymore, because we have the Holy Spirit, who lives within us. And where -- I had the same question, and I go to the New Testament, the Book of Acts. I love the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. And one of my favorite things about it is that it was an angel who told Philip to go to the desert.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, that's true. Yeah.

Melissa Spoelstra: And then it was the Holy Spirit that told him to run alongside the chariot. And then the Ethiopian is holding the Book of Isaiah, and then Philip gets into the chariot as a human messenger to explain the Word of God more fully. Here is one man. God used an angel, his Spirit, his Word, and a human messenger.

Jennifer Rothschild: Word. Oooh.

Melissa Spoelstra: And that tells me that if God wants to send an angel today, he can. If he wants to use his Spirit, he can. He often uses his Word in my life, and other people. And if he wants to do a quadruple whammy and use them all at once, he can do that too.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. Wow. Okay, I've never heard that, and I love that, Melissa. Thank you for putting that together. That is so powerful.

Okay. So what I'm hearing from you is the point is that we don't get angel obsessed --

Melissa Spoelstra: Right.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- but because we study angels, we get God obsessed because of what we're learning.

Melissa Spoelstra: I couldn't have said it better myself.

Jennifer Rothschild: And I love that.

Melissa Spoelstra: Exactly, yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay. So then kind of put it together for us. How does really understanding angels impact our knowledge of God's character? So it might help us maybe get to know God or love God more, but how does it reflect and help us to understand better his character?

Melissa Spoelstra: Well, I think just his power, his all -- like, just how much he is able to do. So many times I cut God down to human size -- right? -- to what logically makes sense to me. And this -- just looking at him in the context of angels just kind of blows who he is out of the water.

But really the two things that I -- were transformative in my life and that I would hope studying angels would be for other women is certainly to see God more clearly, but I think it will directly impact our faith. It will grow our faith to trust God more. But then it will also impact our prayer life. Because if we really believe that God hears our prayers in heaven and acts upon them, I think I would pray more if I really believed that. So, yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay. There's so many things I'm thinking of that I would like to ask you. Okay, so here's where I want to go with this. So I've listened to you. It's ignited my -- like, a biblical reminiscence of Scripture. Like, oh, yes, I've read that. Oh, yes, I've read that. I've never put it all together. So when you're putting it together, Melissa, like this as one beautiful theme, I'm seeing the sovereignty of God --

Melissa Spoelstra: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- right? -- in all these angel episodes and angel sightings. And so here's the thing, Sister. Everything you talked about, rightly so, is in the Bible. What about in Melissa's life? What about in Jennifer's life? We don't have a proof text that says, well, when I was eight, I was about to be hit by a car, but angels rescued me.

Melissa Spoelstra: Right.

Jennifer Rothschild: We don't know. We don't know.

Melissa Spoelstra: We don't know.

Jennifer Rothschild: So how do we apply these biblical truths about angels' activities and God's sovereignty and the hope that it brings us and all the things you've just discussed? This is going to be our last question. Kind of give us an idea, so therefore now how shall we live? Like, how does this impact us? What do we do? How do we exercise our faith differently? How do we engage angels, if we do, or how do we engage God and anticipate angels?

Melissa Spoelstra: Yeah. I wouldn't say that we engage angels in any way differently, but I think we -- we look at the lens of our circumstance and recognize that there's likely more at play than just what I can see. I think about Job and all of his story of suffering. And everyone has a story of suffering. But it can change our lens to say there are things happening that I don't know and that I can trust God with.

I also believe that it should move us to want to adore God. I mean, his holy angels are doing it. Are we going to let them do it without us or are we going to join them? Like the Revelation chorus speaks of how we will all together -- I mean, we're going to worship with them for all of eternity, so let's start now. So adoring him.

But then also I think it should give us an urgency about sharing the Gospel. That was certainly a takeaway for me as I looked at angels. Jesus says when he returns, he's coming back with all the angels. And we know from Revelation 5, it says there are millions of them. And what they're coming back to do is harvest the earth.

And I know I have loved ones that are far from God and that don't know Jesus. And he talks about the weeds and the wheat and the wheat pile and the weeds pile. And the truth is, the invitation of Jesus is extended to every person. No one needs to be in the weed pile. So we want to urgently share that message kindly and in a winsome way, not in a shove-it-down-people's-throat way.

But that was one of the big reminders for me in just looking at angels throughout the Bible. And I would say they're like the theme music in Star Wars, right? When the theme music comes on, you know something really cool is about to happen. And so as we read our Bibles, when angels enter the scene, it always points us to God is intervening in the lives of his people.

And so that is -- just to remember that you're not alone here. That your God hears your prayers, he's intervening in our lives day to day, and he's coming back and we want to be ready.

KC Wright: I absolutely loved it when she said that when angels appear, it's like the theme music in Star Wars begins.

Jennifer Rothschild: (Hums Star Wars theme.)

KC Wright: Something cool is about to happen.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right?

KC Wright: When angels appear, it points to God intervening in the lives of people.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. Seriously, I loved that. I loved everything about this conversation. So, our friends, let me just sum it up. Angels remind us you're not alone. Angels remind us that God hears and he intervenes. And it's a beautiful thought. He's coming back again with all those angels to take you home.

KC Wright: All right. This again was a really good one. I'm gonna listen to it again. But if you want to check out the transcript, remember, we always have those for you at 413podcast.com/400. And we'll also have links to Melissa's Bible study, plus the other episode on The 4:13 where she talked about the Gospel of John.

And one more thing. The story Jennifer told about angel parking, well, we have that book too on the Show Notes. It was your first, right, Jennifer?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, yeah. It was my first book called "Lessons I Learned in the Dark," which is Steps to Walking by Faith and Not by Sight. So, yeah, we'll have that there also.

All right, our people, this was wonderful and rich. So remember, whatever you're facing, whatever you're feeling like today, you can do it, Sisters and Brothers. You can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. I can.

KC Wright: I can.

Jennifer Rothschild: And you can.

KC Wright: The one thing that I always think about in referencing -- you know, talking -- speaking of angels is the Bible says that when one person says yes to Jesus, when there's one salvation, the angels rejoice. Right?

Jennifer Rothschild: I know. I can't imagine.

KC Wright: But just imagine what -- think about their everyday life, what they're seeing. They're seeing the majesty of heaven, the splendor of heaven, the city, God himself. But yet when one human says yes to Jesus, they celebrate. That's the most glorious thing to them.

Jennifer Rothschild: I think that's beautiful, KC. It just shows how much God loves us --

KC Wright: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- that that's what would make the angels break out in celebration.

KC Wright: Right.

Jennifer Rothschild: Beautiful.