Dr. Michael Heiser | Demons | Calvary Conversations

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] So, welcome to Calvary Conversations. My name is Mariah, and I'm here with Pastor Craig Roters. Our guest is a biblical Old Testament scholar and Christian author. He was a scholar in residence at Faith Life Logos Bible Software for 15 years. He also has his PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages and holds a Master's in Ancient History and Hebrew Studies. He is currently the Executive Director of The Awakening School of Theology and Ministry in Jacksonville, Florida. He runs his own podcast and is the amazing author of *The Unseen Realm*, *Angels*, and the book we'll be discussing today, *Demons*. It's my honor and privilege to welcome Dr. Mike Heiser. Dr. Michael Heiser, thank you so much for joining us today.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

So, can you tell our listeners who you are and what you do?

All right. Right now, my my lofty title is the Executive Director of The Awakening School of Theology and Ministry in Jacksonville, Florida. We we moved here in January. Specifically, what that translates into was, "Come to Jacksonville, and we're going to offer a two-year certificate program that really features in the first year my my content, which is, you know, mostly known from *Unseen Realm*." And then the second year, they just said, "Just teach whatever you care about." That's awesome. So that that sounded good. Uh, but it's just basically two years of biblical theology, um, you know, for really the layperson. We're not going to pursue accreditation. We don't really care about that. It's just, you know, take it online, and then we have we have a physical class as well. But, you know, teach your content and anything else that you really think people need to hear. So for me, the second year is going to be what I call "Post-Modern Apologetics," which is basically crazy stuff about the Bible that you hear on the internet, but that it winds up influencing a lot of people, uh, things that they say about scripture and about Jesus and whatnot. So that's what I do now. Uh, the other, you know, the other thing would be write books. Uh, for the 14 years prior to that, I was at Logos Bible Software. I was the Scholar in Residence, which again is another lofty, made-up title that basically really, it literally was. I mean, yeah, what should we call you? You know, I came in as Academic Editor, but I never edited anything because that's pretty cool, you know? It's just like, we have a, yeah, we have a, we have a Bible geek now at the software company. So what should we call you? Um, but, you know, it was, that was a great place to be. You know, I supervised lots of data projects. For the first three years, I, I really, I herded cats with PhDs, is really what I did. We had, we had data projects with scholars all over the world. So I was the guy that was supposed to keep these people on track and make them turn in their work. There you go. Which, you know, cats with PhDs are still cats, you know, it's still hurting cats. So, but then I, I got to write a lot of reference content. I was one of the founders of Mobile Ed. We did, learn to use Greek and Hebrew, you know, that video course that sort of, you know, was the springboard for it. Um, just had a, how to handle lots of things, the magazine, you know, whatnot. So a lot of writing, a lot of content creation. And, you know, more from one thing to the next, which I don't mind. Some people, you know, are irritated by that, but I, I kind of like, "Okay, we did that. Let's do something else, you know? Let's try it. We can always never do it again." But it was a good environment. So, but now I'm in Jacksonville and and enjoying the the sunshine. My wife says she feels like, I was going to say, she feels like she's on vacation every day because there's sun here to dry out. So, I know you're, I feel you're paid for being in Seattle, that's for sure. You got it.

So, what was your interest? What got you interested in the supernatural? Because we know, like, *The Unseen Realm*, and then *Angels*, and we'll talk about today, your new book, *Demons*.

Yeah, it's actually a good question because this is not an exaggeration. Um, I'm, I'm, this is the literal truth of it. In, I went, if you count Bible college, seminary, and graduate school, it took me about 15 years to get through all that because I, I was one of these people that I had to work full-time going to school and didn't have, you know, money and all that kind of stuff. But in those 15 years, I got one clock hour, not credit hour, clock hour, less than 60 minutes of instruction on anything we would call angels and demons, angelology. One 60-minute period in 15 years. So I had no interest at all in in any of this stuff because when when you go through that experience, you, you just sort of, you're given the impression that none of this matters. Like if it, they would spend more time on it, so who cares? And it really, it really wasn't until it was my second year at Wisconsin in the PhD program. And by that time, I had taught, I had taught, you know, biblical studies for five years. I had two Master's degrees. I mean, I'm in a doctoral program in Hebrew Bible. And a few minutes before church, I relate this in the *Unseen Realm* book, you know, there was a guy, you know, they were going to church where we were, and he happened to have his Hebrew Bible with him. And I don't know what we were talking about, so I don't know what the conversation was about, but I'll never forget the way it ended. He literally just handed me his Hebrew Bible and said, "You need to read Psalm 82 in Hebrew." And, and I, so I did. It was, you know, it wasn't difficult. You know, Psalm 82:1 is "Elohim," you know, that's a common, you know, term for God. "Elohim," you know, Elohim, God, capital G, because "nitsav" is a singular participle, so singular Elohim takes his stand in the divine council. And then the second line is was is the kicker. It says, "Elohim," or in the midst of the Elohim, "he," the first one, "passes judgment." Like, in the midst of the gods, the first God is judging them. And I, I mean, I was kind of stunned. And I thought, "How in the world could I get this far and never have run into that before?" It was shocking because it sounded like a pantheon. And I don't remember the sermon, I don't remember anything else that happened that day, but it's just, I, I couldn't, I couldn't get rid of it, you know, I couldn't shake it. It's like, "I have to have an answer for this." And, and that just set me on a path to, you know, what I refer to now as divine council worldview. Fortunately, providentially, you know, after my, after my, "that looks like a pantheon" thought, I had thought, "Well, I bet Jesus knew that verse. I bet Paul knew it. But the New Testament writers knew it. So how is it that the theology they give us with such clarity and force, how does it fit with that? There's got to be a way that this works." And so I, that's, that just sucked me in. I was, I just got sucked into the vortex. And I went to the evangelical sources like commentaries that they either said nothing, or they said, "Right, they said some, they said stupid stuff like, 'Oh, these the gods here are just people.'" Well, really? Like, I flip over a few pages and get to Psalm 89, or the same council with the same, you know, language, entity language is in the skies and the clouds. Like, I don't know, we're Jewish elders in the clouds now? I mean, it just didn't make any sense. And the critical side, you know, the, the non-confessional or unbelieving, you know, scholar, they love Psalm 82 because it allows them to argue that the biblical writers, just like everybody else, not only in Canaan, but everybody else in antiquity, were they started out as polytheists and they evolved to monotheism, had this glorious breakthrough to monotheism. You know, and I thought, "Okay, you know, there's, again, there's, there's got to be something else." That didn't make any sense either because I knew, unfortunately, I knew at that point that there's a lot of references to Elohim and, you know, this, the whole experience forced me to go back and look at some things, you know. And you keep running into plural Elohim and other texts that are late. They're they're later than the end of the Bible, like Dead Sea Scrolls. And some of those, I discovered, you know, were in divine council contexts. And I thought, "Well, if this was the memo that you don't use this naughty, pre-exilic polytheistic language anymore because now we're monotheists, they didn't get the memo." Yeah, nobody got the memo, you know, at Qumran. And so I, I was just sort of plopped in the middle of this. And once you get in, you hit Deuteronomy 32:8-9 because you're not allowed to read the text in English anymore. And you find out about the distribution of the nations among the sons of God. You know, you run into all sorts of passages. And so this became an obsession, you know, for good or bad. In my case, it was good, providential. Oh, so that's how I got interested. I was provoked.

Can you, and my wife, my daughter, raise her head with it, gets mad at me because I talk too much. But, question, when I heard this, it first say this, it kind of freaked me out because, like you said, all the commentators said it's just natural judges, the judges. So, can you kind of unpack that in a simple way so people, because there's some of our listeners going, "What are you talking about? Divine council?" Can you kind of explain how it was, you know, we were all taught, right? You were taught that it was human judges, but really, you're saying it's a divine council. And because when you first said, I'm going, "How can Jesus, because he's saying he, you have no problem with these being called gods?" But can you kind of unpack John 10 and that a little bit?

Sure. Yeah, for people who are interested, you know, I did a whole podcast episode on John 10, John 10:34 and 35, and which quotes Psalm 82:6, and Jesus, you know, his use of the scripture there. So people go to the Naked Bible Podcast, or just Google Naked Bible Podcast, Psalm 82, Jesus, John 10, you're going to find it. And on that page, you're also going to find an audio of me with a slide presentation going through the same material. There's a, there's an academic paper on it. So I've spent a lot of time on it because this is a very obvious question. So when I jumped into it, again, the the human judges' view just imploded, like literally a few psalms later. But, you know, I discovered that that was the default position, especially among evangelicals, because it just sort of freaked them out to consider the other side. And, and I understood that because the, the real problem is that we, as you know, Christians, as really as Westerners, we are taught when we see the letters G-O-D on a screen or on a piece of paper, our brain immediately looks at G-O-D and and front-loads that term with a and all these, all this is important, a specific set of unique attributes. D means attributes. And that's why you put an S on it because there can only be one who's omniscient and one who's omnipotent and one things. So we're taught to associate this word G-O-D with a unique set of attributes. The problem is, is that is not how biblical writers use the word Elohim. And we know that because they use Elohim of basically half a dozen different things that are not the God of Israel. So if Elohim meant a specific set of unique attributes, why in the world would a biblical writer use it of the disembodied dead Samuel in 1 Samuel 28:13? Why would he use it of the shedim, which is a territorial entity in Deuteronomy 32:17? Why would why would he call Chemosh or Ashtoreth an Elohim, you know, in 1 Kings 11? It, it can't mean a unique set of attributes. It just doesn't work. And what it really means is you would use the word Elohim of, you know, an entity if you wanted to identify it as a being who by nature is an occupant or member of the spiritual world. That's all it means. Now, in the spiritual world, that, what that means is there's lots of Elohim. There's lots of spiritual beings. And the biblical worldview, this is the most obvious thing for most Christians. This is where they sort of can enter the conversation. Do we have a spiritual world or not? According to the Bible? Well, of course. Is the spiritual world empty or does it have some, some things in it? You know, well, you know, they're thinking angels, name of course it has some, you know, it's occupied. You know, at that point, you know, we can have the discussion. Well, in that spiritual world, one of the terms the Bible uses just generally like a spirit being is Elohim. So you have lots of Elohim in that world, but only one of them, only one of them is Yahweh. This is why I like to say, Yahweh is an Elohim, but no other Elohim is Yahweh. He alone is distinguished by virtue of this list of attributes that we're very familiar with. But you don't get that theology from the term Elohim. You get that theology from how this Elohim is described in lots of passages. And the flip side of that coin is the biblical writers will deny those attributes to other Elohim. That's where the theology comes from. It doesn't come from the word. It comes from, you know, the full description. So once I, and that took me a long time, you know, to noodle, you know, to figure out, but once, once it was clear, it's like, "Okay, okay, like this makes sense now." The God of the Bible, who is, you know, he's the creator of all things visible and invisible, okay, everything in heaven under, you know, he, of course, is Lord over all of their Elohim. When the Bible says, when, when God says in the evening of the Passover, "This is not a victory over the gods of Egypt," he actually means that. When the Bible says in a dozen places that Yahweh is the God of all gods, it doesn't mean that, "Well, he's the God of these beings that don't really exist but just pretend they do, so he gets glorified out of that." No, it actually means what it says. You know, that the biblical worldview is that, is that Yahweh of Israel, the God of the Bible, is species unique among the Elohim. There is none like him. Dr. Heiser, there is none before him. There will not be one.

Why do you think the theologians of, you know, early, later theologians skirted around that and just said they were human judges? Do you have any id, do you have any opinion on that?

I don't. I, I think largely because there are a number of things. This is not to say that, uh, especially like if you're in the, oh boy, post-Reformation, post-Reformation theologians, people trained in theology, they did take Hebrew, okay? But from for centuries, nobody knew Hebrew in Christianity, Christian circles. Augustine didn't know it. He even confessed hate in Greek, you know, he was, he was, he knew it, but he was a Latinist, okay? He was from the western part of the church. But Hebrew was lost as a, not only in the gentile, of the Christian community, but generally among the, you know, the rabbis. It was only in the Renaissance that Hebrew was discovered again and brought back to Europe and actually made part of curricula, uh, in in the humanities. So post-Reformation, you had ministerial training, okay? So we can forgive the guys that are before because they're operating without Hebrew. They're centuries removed from the context of a lot of the biblical language. Divine council, what is that? You know, like, you know, you know, well, and nowadays, we can look at the same phrase that occurs in other ancient Near Eastern texts and it refers to an assembly of the gods who make decisions. I mean, we have all this comparative material. Oh, well, okay, I know what the term means now. They didn't have any of that either. Now, more recently, I think the problem is that we've just come up with interpretations for difficult or maybe potentially scary passages, and they're just handed off, and no one thinks about them anymore. Yeah, I think you said, "Why do I care?" Right? But why would I care? To drill, we know who God is. I mean, why, you know, why should I care? You know, what difference does it make? So I think there's a lot of that going on. It's a safe position. Who's going to challenge it? You know, and a lot of, a lot of Christians are very scared of the supernatural realm. I mean, we just talked to someone you would know very well, and they basically said, "We kind of got into, you know, demonic, you know, spiritual warfare, we got attacked, and we don't want to deal with it anymore." I mean, that was a guy you would know has been in ministry for 50 years. And it's like, you know, that's kind of the thought is like, "Just, hey, I'll leave the devil alone, devil leaves me alone." You know, kind of a scared. You're really afraid of it. And even with that, that's what, like, we were wanting to ask you is like, we know there's two extremes. Either people take it too seriously, and like everything is the devil or the demons or whatever, or they don't take it serious enough. And so that's what we want to ask you with *The Unseen Realm*, with that book, that's why I think I heard you talk about, that's why you then wrote *Angels* and *Demons* to give more detail into that book, *The Unseen Realm*.

Yeah, there there's actually, it may not appear like it is, but there's actually some logic to the books. Um, you know, *Unseen Realm* is the one that, you know, most people know, um, because it's the one that that's sold the most and has all the reviews on Amazon and all that. But that is a book with footnotes, okay? That's an academic book, but it's very readable because I had a good editor. I mean, people can just, I mean, go read the reviews on Amazon, you know, most of the people who put put reviews on Amazon, they're not scholars. I mean, the book's been reviewed by scholars and journals and all that kind of stuff favorably. But most of these people are just laypeople or pastors, anybody who cares, you know. So if you can handle a book with footnotes, good. Read *Unseen Realm*. But if if that isn't your cup of tea, there's a little book, *Supernatural*, that is a distillation of *Unseen Realm*. It has no footnotes in it. It's just the core ideas. So *Supernatural* would prepare somebody for *Unseen Realm*.

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Even a step back from *Supernatural*, there's a little book called *What Does God Want?* Okay? That's for new believers. Okay? It's it's a little discipleship book. But I, I answer the question by by telling the sort of the the story of Genesis to Revelation of what God wants. God wants a family. Let's talk about the families of God and all. So I seed that book with things that people will encounter if they graduate to *Supernatural*, and then I hope they graduate to *Unseen Realm*. When you're at the *Unseen Realm* level, yes, you're correct. *Angels* and *Demons* add detail. Those are drill-down books into topics that are really sort of opened up in *Unseen Realm*. So you have both a stair-step thing and then, "Okay, here's let's widen the pool a little bit or make it deeper." So I'm trying to do a little bit of both, um, to get people in. Some of the, I wrote *The Stranger Things* book because you never know where people's entry point is going to be into biblical material, especially if it's the supernatural stuff. So I write fiction. I write *The Stranger Things* book because there are a lot of people out there who would never read a book about Bible doctrine or by biblical theology. They're not going to touch that. But they might read a novel. They might read about *The Stranger Things* book because they love the show, you know, something like that. So we're just trying to get into the same subject material at different levels, from different entry points.

And then we also wanted to ask you, just to explain the different vocabulary. We know that there's the "powers of darkness," which that's, I think, the subtitle of your book, um, and saying how what the Bible really says about the powers of darkness. But also how not all powers of darkness are like demons, which you also, in *Angels*, not all right, angels are heavenly hosts. And you explain that. But talking about your book, *Demons*, we want to know, what is the difference between, which some people would be confused with, okay, there was the fallen angels, right? A third of the angels fell. And then we hear in Genesis 6 with the Nephilim. And then where demons came. So could you explain and unpack that first difference between a demon and an angel? A fallen angel?

Yeah, you know, it's a good question because it simultaneously allows me to sort of sketch out what's different about this book and also be a little provocative in terms of of what we think we know about these things may or may not be the case biblically. So in terms of what I'm trying to do in the in the *Demons* book, you know, we'll just, we'll go with that since that was your your question focus. If you, I like to jump into it this way. If you ask the average Christian, "Hey, why is the world such a mess? Why, where does depravity come from? Like, how in the world did we get from Eden to now, all this depravity? Where does evil come from? All these supernatural, you know, bad guys? And like, what happened here?" Typically, the answer you would get is, "Well, dummy, that's the Fall. You know, Genesis 3. Haven't you read your Bible?" You know, and, and my response to that is, "Well, I hope you you realize that if you ask the same question to an Israelite, you know, a literate Israelite, somebody who could read, and a first-century Jew, that is not the answer you would get." The answer you would get is that, "Well, there's actually three reasons why the world is such a mess. The first one is the Fall. It's where everything gets started. That's where we have an initial, you know, human rebellion. We have a supernatural rebellion, a supernatural rebel there, corrupting humanity. But then we have these, these two other things. We have what happens in Genesis 6:1-5. We have what happens at Babel, Genesis 11, really Deuteronomy 32:8-9." So what I'm trying to lay out, I'm trying to provoke the reader is, "Let's try to think like an Israelite. Let's try to think like a Jew. Where do they think evil and depravity, both human and supernatural, what, how do we get that?" And their answer is, "We've had through, we had three things happen before the time of Abraham that resulted in human corruption and rebellion in the heavenly world and on earth as well." And those two things are inextricably connected. God has rivals. They hate humans. Okay? And it's just these things. Okay? So we have it, we have a, we have a three-stage rebellion. We have, you know, three different rebellions that that really form the basis of cosmic and human evil. This is the framework in which the rest of the Bible needs to be understood in terms of spiritual warfare, in terms of the role of the Messiah. How does, because if this is your worldview, you expect the Messiah to reverse or just all through those things. And we have with all they have to lose, immortal, and they're estranged from God. Those are problems. The rebel is cast down to the "arabs" in Hebrew, to the earth. But "eretz" is also a word for the underworld. And the underworld in Israelite cosmology is is pictured as being inside the earth anyway. So they have this one rebel who wanted to be like the Most High, cast down. We now have death. And now we have an underworld. This is his domain. This is where he sent. He is cosmologically beneath all the created things that he wanted to rule over. So he's been judged. But the fact is that he pretty much owns everything now because everything dies. There is no more Eden. Instead of eternal life, we have secured certain death for everything. And so Genesis 6 comes along. We have the sons of God with the daughters of men. We like to fixate on the weird Nephilim stuff, okay? But the real problem is verse 5. "God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every thought of the imagination of his heart was only evil continually." And if you read that, you have, you should ask yourself the question, "Well, how do you get to verse five from the first four verses with sons of God, Nephilim? Like, like, how do we go from those four verses to the next verse?" It doesn't make any sense. It does make sense if you know the backstory. And I spent a lot of time in the *Demons* on that, how Genesis 6:1 through 5 is a response to a Mesopotamian theology about the Abkallu, every point, sons of God, giants, the whole bit, is is in that Mesopotamian story. It's not a coincidence, okay? I mean, the odds of that happening are pretty, pretty astronomical, okay? So the biblical writers responding to something. And what they're responding to is what the Babylonians thought that the gods, to preserve their their knowledge and preserve, you know, human civilization, this was the the Abkallu are wonderful. They saved human civilization from the flood. And the biblical writers going, "The Abkallu stink," okay? Because because what they taught people was idolatry. It was, you know, strong, you know, astrology. It was, you know, drugs. It was, you know, sexual, you know, promiscuity. All these things that destroy people and destroy relationships and turn people away from the true God. You know, you know, the God that can reverse the first rebellion. Now, we got more of that, okay? So we've made the problem worse. And then by the time you get to Babel, which you would think that humans would would obey God after the flood, but no, no. And then Genesis 11 says, "Let's build us a tower, lest we disperse like we were told to do." You know, I mean, it's, they're not idiots. I understand that. But it reads like they're idiots. Like, "How can you guys do this?" And, and so God's fed up. He's fed up. So we've got death. We've got depravity. God divorces the nations. He gets rid of Israel. He severs the relationship between him and humanity. "I've had it with you people." This is why I refer to it as the Romans 1 event of the Old Testament. "You don't want me to be your God. You want to do your own thing. You want some other God. Oh, let's see how that works." You know, and so he disperses them, confuses the languages. We get the nations that, you know, come out of that. And he assigns them. This is Deuteronomy 32:8. And again, I was, I was a PhD student before I ran into Deuteronomy 32:8 as the Dead Sea Scrolls read, because I wasn't reading Dead Sea Scrolls. I was reading my English. And it's like, "Holy cow!" You know, when God did this, he assigns, he allots the nations to these other gods. And, and he, it's kind of his intent is, "Okay, because he turns around and calls Abraham, 'I'm going to start over with a new humanity now.'" And Sarah is perfect because she can't have kids. This is awesome, you know, because no one's going to doubt the supernatural origin of of Israel. So he does this. And he make, he says, "Now, it's through you guys that I'm going to bring all these nations back into relationship with me. But right now, they're under judgment. It's quiet time." Okay? You know, you know, you're off in the corner somewhere, and we'll get back to you. But instead of being good placeholders, instead of being, you know, directing people to the true God, or ruling them according to to God's character, his justice, that we see later in the law, this is what they're condemned for in Psalm 82. They do the opposite. They sow chaos among the nations. They enslave their populations. They, they accept worship when they shouldn't. They turn hearts away from Yahweh to themselves. It just, it just blows up the whole thing. Blows up. So you have these three things. Well, if this is your worldview, if this is why the rest of the Bible is Yahweh against the gods, and Israel against the nations, and this is where Daniel gets his theology about princes, you know, supernatural princes over nations. And if this is your view, when you think about the Messiah, you would naturally be thinking, "Well, when the Messiah shows up, whatever he does, ought to address that stuff." And so what I, what I'm trying to to show people, both in the *Demons* book and especially in *Unseen Realm*, is, "Yeah, he does." Okay? There are things about where Jesus goes, what he says, what he does there, that that play back into all these things. There are reasons why Jesus, you know, has a confrontation when he's in Gentile territory. There's a reason why this demon refers to him this way, and the other one doesn't. There's a reason. There's a backstory of, you know, the, the "gates of hell" passage is in the region of Bashan, which is giant territory. And that means something. Because when you killed a giant, okay, the disembodied spirit, that's what became known as a demon, okay? There, there were just reasons for all this stuff.

Now, is there a distinction? Can you make the, explain to us the distinction between, like, a fallen angel and a demon, so people can get clarity, maybe read the book?

Yeah, "fallen angel" is a common term, but it's a bit of a misnomer. Because on the one hand, "angel" is a job description. It describes a function. This is why in the *Angels* book, you know, the subtitle is important, you know, "What the Bible Really Says About God's Members of God's Heavenly Host," or something like that. Because not all the members of the heavenly host are angels. Angel is a specific job. Um, now, we have spiritual beings that rebel. They're fallen in that sense, certainly. That theology is very clear. But what you have on the on the dark side is you have in the first rebellion, you have an initial rebel, which becomes later known as Satan, okay, Lord of the dead, because he's in the underworld and all that stuff. In the middle, you've got the sons of God, okay, with who transgress with human women. Both the Bible, especially Peter and Jude, and all the other traditions say that the original offending sons of God are, you know, bound. They're, you know, chained in gloomy darkness, okay? And Peter and Jude, that's their language. Their their spawn is the Nephilim, okay? Which you get other Nephilim descent lines, you get Rephaim and the Anakim, and, you know, that Moses and Joshua encountered. Numbers 13:32 is very explicit in verse 33 that the Anakim are from the Nephilim, and all that stuff. It's just point blank right there. And that's important because one of the terms of the giant clans, Rephaim, you actually see that. You actually see disembodied Rephaim in the underworld, in the realm of the dead, in hell, as it were, in Ezekiel 32 and Isaiah 14. You get these passages and you say, "Well, what, what, what does that mean?" It means that when one of these died, their disembodied spirit became a remnant of the bad place. This is why in Jewish theology, these these beings became referred to as demons. So demons are actually the disembodied spirits of dead, you know, giant clans. That's that's their point of origin. So those are different. Those guys are different than the original offending sons of God because they're bound in the underworld. But the demons are not. They harass people. They seek re-embodiment, okay? And that's why they want to turn people into sock puppets.

Is that why the desire is cast? I think that's part.

I think that's part of it. I also think that in, in because it's pigs, you're on Gentile territory too. There's some other some territorial stuff going on there too. But yeah, yeah, I think I think that is certainly part of it. You know, it's a consistent pattern. Even when when they're spoken about in parables, it's the strong man who's seeking, you know, residents in a house and things like that. So you get this re-embodiment theme. The other, the other, here's another strand of it, and I talk about this in *Demons in the Gospels*. These guys are called "unclean spirits." Which is a term that we just sort of read right over. Well, "unclean," that means icky. You know, no. There's there's something more going on there because the concept of uncleanness and Torah, fundamental to that is forbidden mixture. Well, that's what they are. That's where they came from. It's forbidden mixture. It's the Genesis 6 thing. I mean, there are whole dissertations written on on that. And I, the other thing I try to do in my books is I try to introduce people to scholarship, you know, the stuff that never trickles down to the church. But, you know, there's a lot of high scholarship written on very specific things like the impurities of unclean spirits. And this is where the term comes from. It, it's why in the Dead Sea Scrolls, they're referred to as "bastard spirits" because that's what they are. Yeah. This is why they get called these things. But again, those guys are different than their forefathers who are in prison. You know, the Book of Enoch and other Second Temple texts refer to them as "Watchers." That's that's sort of the stock label. "Those who don't sleep," you know, that kind of thing. But the third group of rebels, they're, they're, they're not sons of God. They don't have the cohabitation problem. They're not imprisoned in Sheol or the underworld. They're described in different ways. They are assigned to the nations, you know, essentially or initially by God. And then they become corrupt. They abuse that, you know, that gift of authority. And this, they become, um, you know, the reference point for what Daniel is talking about when Daniel's talking about geopolitical empire. Where does he get this theology that over an empire, you have a supernatural prince, a ruler? Where does he get that? I mean, he's not sitting there at his desk and writing Daniel 10 thinking, "Gosh, I got to finish chapter 10, or I'm going to get a bad grade." You know, like, what? No. I mean, he's getting his theology somewhere. And he gets it from the Deuteronomy 32 worldview. And that becomes the gist for Paul's theology, you know, Paul gets his theology from the Old Testament. What if, what a novel concept. And but if you read Paul, Paul uses the word "demon" very infrequently. He only uses it a couple of times. And interestingly, what he does, okay, in 1 Corinthians 10:21-22, what is he quoting? He's quoting Deuteronomy 32, okay, when he does that about the meat sacrificed to idols. But usually, Paul doesn't use the word "demon." He uses "principalities," "powers," "rulers," "thrones," "dominions." What do all those terms have in common? They're terms of geographical dominion, okay? And these guys are higher up on the pecking order.

Would that be? They're tender. Those would tend to be the more that are not. There is a rebellion, right? Right. They're, you know, in the *Demons* book, in the second chapter, I talk about when when we have a transition from the Hebrew Bible into the Hellenistic period, when the Old Testament gets translated into Greek, a lot of the translators start to funnel the terminology. You, you lose some of the nuancing. So you'll have demons referred to, you'll have "daimon" referred to entities that that in Hebrew are distinguished, but they they just sort of lump everything in, you know, which which is fine. I mean, we know they're bad guys, okay? We know what side they're on. But it becomes sort of a stock, you know, way of describing them in the translation. So since the New Testament is also written in Greek, we, we kind of inherit the less nuanced terminology that we would find if we were looking at the Old Testament in Hebrew. The theology is intact, but the terminology gets a little, a little jumbled because of the translation. But there, you, you have just in that, in this little discussion, you've got kind of a universe, not like, not quite the Marvel universe, but but you, you've got kind of a universe here of three different rebellions. You got a single rebel, then you got different groups here. You got really two groups, there's a group and a subgroup, and then you got another group over here. And they're not all the same thing. They don't have all the same ambition. They don't have all the same rank and power and authority. But this is, this is the, again, the, the bad guy spiritual world of the biblical writers. We've got a number of problems here, not just one. And so when the Messiah comes, of course, you know, we know that he takes care of Genesis 3. He gives the believer everlasting life that overcomes the death problem. The Lord of the dead has no claim on a member of the kingdom of God because, okay, they might physically die, but they're going to be resurrected. They're going to be raised the last day and live forever. So what do you got, you know, like, what, you know, you have nothing here, Satan, okay? And then in the in the middle, what, the depravity is the real issue. Well, when, when Jesus dies and he rises, then he ascends to the right hand of God. Who comes in his place? Why do we have to have an ascension? Yeah, it's because the Spirit of God comes and the Spirit of God takes up residence in the believer. Why? One of his roles is to impede depravity. And why in the third one, you know, do we get, you know, the, the, it's Pauline theology for the most part because he's the Apostle to the Gentiles. But it's because of what Jesus does that, you know, Paul looks at the resurrection and he equates it for some crazy reason with the delegitimization, the nullification of the power of the rulers, the principalities, you know, the dominions of thrones. And, well, why does he do that? It's because the Most High has become a man and died for you, Gentile, okay? And he rose again. And so now the Most High, this is the Most High telling you that you, it's okay for your back the gun and the sign don't tie basically set up this whole thing as a punishment has now rolled it back and reversed it. And not only are you allowed to come home, but he insists on it. You know, I mean, this is, this is Paul's conversation with, like, in the *Demons* book, I have a passage from Plato that lays out the Deuteronomy 32 worldview. This is Plato. And Paul knows that that Gentiles understand this worldview because they think, "Well, we worship the gods we do because the bigger gods say we have to, or, you know, we were given to them, and they were given." And Paul's like, "I get it. I get it. But what you're missing, Gentile, is the Most High did this for you so that you could directly come back and be part of his family. You don't have to be a Jew anymore, okay? You don't have to be in Israel. And frankly, if you believe, you are heirs according to the same promises." Yeah. You know, so, so, I mean, this color is the whole way that Paul presents the gospel and how he thought about his own ministry. You know, I, I love the Tarshish thing, you know, with with Rome, you know, like, "I'm going to go to Rome, but I got to get, I got to get this to Spain." Like twice Paul says this in Romans. Like, why? Because it's Tarshish. It's the last nation in the table of nations that was disinherited. Geographically, the gospel's been everywhere else. And so Paul, I, I can't prove it, but I think that Paul believed he wouldn't die until he got to Tarshish, till he got to Spain, because that was the last place that has to be covered to reverse what's going on in the third rebellion. I, I don't think it's just like, "I like the food." I think he's, he knows, you know, what he knows what it means to have to, to be the Apostle to the Gentiles and to take it to every place that was disinherited. Amen. I think he's just got it in his head and it's like, "I know I'm gonna get there." Exactly. No, I'm gonna get there. Why else would God assign me? I know I'm gonna. Exactly.

And then we also wanted to ask you, because we know that as a Christian, you can't be possessed, just like what you talked about, because we have Christ in us. But, um, we believe that Christians can be oppressed. Where we kind of like visualize it and explain it to people who don't understand is kind of like a monkey on your back, just like oppressing you and tormenting you. Like, how they torment you. And we know like Luke 10:19 says, "He's given us all authority to trample upon snakes and scorpions, now all power over the enemy." And Matthew 10:28 is that we should not fear those who can kill the body but can kill the soul, and can kill the soul, but rather who can destroy both soul and body and send into hell. Which I think the issue is, and we would like you to talk about this, is that people, I feel like sometimes fear too much, "The devil made me do it," and the demonic realm, instead of fearing God and obeying His commands and not living in willful sin, which I think can give a foothold. Or do you agree with that?

Yeah, I, I think I agree with that. I think that this is a place where a lack of knowing how the work of Jesus addresses all of the supernatural rebellion, all the garbage in the Old Testament, really hurts. Because somehow, we don't grasp that as believers, you're right. If you are, this is the whole point of Luke chapter 10. You know, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." Well, if Satan was judged, you know, what, back of deed, what's Jesus talking about? And he was cast down, then what, what, what? He's saying it's not a point to miss. It's not a coincidence that when Jesus says that, it is connected to the inauguration of the kingdom, which by the way, includes sending out 70, which is the number of the table, you know, the nations that were just inherited. I mean, what a surprise. Um, but it's, it's the launching of the kingdom. And the messaging is, "Look, now that the kingdom of God has started, has begun, if you're a member of that kingdom, he has no claim on you." Exactly. He, his his argument before the judge of heaven has been thrown out, and him with it, essentially. I mean, God didn't want to hear it, you know, it's like, it's like you're a prosecutor without a case, you know, like, "What are you doing here?" You know? So it's important, I think, because that that helps us understand this whole possession issue. Because if you're talking about possession in terms of ownership, a Christian cannot be owned. Sealed by the Spirit, okay? Right. A Christian can be harassed. There's lots of commands about, "Don't give place to the devil," and, you know, all this kind of stuff that there's, but, but really, he only has power, and any other entity only has power because because of the resurrection. The depravity thing has been dealt with. Because of the presence of the Spirit, the, the gods of the nations no longer have claim on their occupants. The only way that that that people are are still enslaved is they don't believe the gospel. They still believe, or they believe something else. They're, they're like voluntary servitude. Or in case, if they haven't heard the gospel, they just don't know yet that they can be free. There's no supernatural legal cosmic claim on anybody. But the thing is, is, we don't really get that. We don't know it. And so we excuse our own behavior as though we're prisoners to say. Sometimes people think, right, right. It, it is, it's like a.

Cosmic victim complex. It's like, no, no, you, we are perfectly, all of us are perfectly capable of screwing up our lives just fine without, without looking for a demon to blame. They, they have no authority. Just out of the gate, the only authority that they, they could ever wield over you is what you give it, okay? What you give them, what you allow them to have.

And this is why, I mean, I've never, you know, I, I don't, I know people who do. I don't know if I should call it deliverance ministry because some of them don't like that, that title for, for this or that reason. But, but they, they do get involved with instances of what you would call a possession or, or again, people just, just uh, not taking ownership of their own sin, you know, really. Or the, or, or trauma that was done to them. And they're innocent of that, but, but they become victims of the trauma because of the way they've essentially been brainwashed, you know, by evil.

And, and their advice is always the same. Look, no matter what it is, the solution to this is not shouting at a demon or doing a long incantation prayer. Oh, I missed a comma. Now it's not going to work, you know? No. The, the, the solution is speak truth to lies, okay? And, and sometimes that means speaking it to yourself. That, that's the transformation of, of the mind. How you think, in other words. Get, get correct theology in your head and drum it into your own head. Speak truth to lies outside. Speak truth to lies inside. Because at some point, again, that the spirit of God is going to use that. And you'll realize, you know, my life is a mess because of something done to me. And, and I'm not guilty. God's not holding it against me. This is something that was done to me. God loves me, you know? And, you know, he's brought me full circle to realize this and escape from this. Or it might be, okay, I need to stop doing this. This is my fault, you know? I messed this up. I, you know, I don't have to blame something else. They've got nothing, nothing on me, man.

And, and I mean, just for some people, just taking that step of either ownership or, again, realizing that, you know, this was evil done to you and God, and God understands that, okay? Yeah, you're not the one that's guilty here. Um, sometimes that, that initial step, you know, can just start the ball rolling, you know, for, for people. Uh, but it's always the same thing. You, you have to, you have to speak truth to lies. And sometimes you're telling yourself. And sometimes you have to speak it to something external as well. But they know the power is a supernatural darkness. They know what the truth is. Yeah. And when they saw Jesus, they're terrified. I know what the truth is. They, they get it. They've got plenty of hindsight now. They know what the truth is. But, but the issue is, do they know that? You know? That's good. Yeah.

And that's what, if you've done deliverance, you know, that when I first did deliverance, I remember this spirit manifesto. This guy was possessed and he said, you don't, you know, who you're nothing. You're not. And I actually talked back. I did. I was only 21 years old. And the guy literally attacked me because I kind of gave, like, I believe I kind of said, you're right. And I was trying to say, you're right, I'm nothing but Jesus. And I couldn't get out. I said, you're right. And I agree with it. And this guy literally attacked me. And I kind of, I heard someone who does deliverance says, don't talk to demons. You command demons in the name of Jesus. You don't come, you don't, you don't dialogue unless you're maybe asking what they're, why they're there. And so, uh, but yeah, I learned by less of the hard way. It was like the son of, sons of Sceva. I got, I didn't get stripped naked, so that was good. That's what Jesus did, right? When Satan was giving him, he gave scripture. And so, like what you were saying, because how I look at deliverance from things is because we've had people, like, I've gone through deliverance just with different things of at first feeling like, oh, this happened to me, like victim. And then just realizing that, no, you're not a victim. My dad's always told me, you're victorious in Christ. But also, I feel like I was just more aware of the demonic. Where when I was getting attacked, I wasn't, I wasn't just like, oh, that was weird. That was just like a weird feeling. I was just like, I understand that these dark, the darkness, like they want me to fall. And so, I, how I look at deliverance is just being more aware. Not be like, oh, looking behind every bush, like thinking, oh, that was Satan. But just being more aware.

And you're not looking for a confrontation. No, exactly. I mean, so to some, I mean, without mentioning names, I mean, sometimes you run into people where they turn this into Ghostbusters, okay? Like, like, why don't you just put the pack on? You know? Yeah. You're not looking for a confrontation, but you're equipped, you know, with, with what you need if, if the need arises.

Can I ask you? I want to ask you a weird question. My daughter always gets mad. Would ask weird questions. But, um, you know, I kind of, because, you know, the heavenly court, you were talking about, right? The sons of God. And we still know through Job, right? That Satan goes before the throne of God and accuses it, right? And makes requests, right? I mean, I mean, some people, I don't know what your theology is, but that will end in, in Revelation, you know, he'll finally be kicked out completely. But, you know, when it says that, what I always thought was interesting, and this is my opinion, and you can spank me if I'm wrong, but is where it says that Jesus said that Satan's desire to sift you like wheat, right? And now, if someone asked to sift one of my kids, I'd say no. But somehow Jesus allowed that, right? And he said, once you get through this, strengthen your brother. But what I feel, and because, you know, Satan, when he goes before, he didn't just say Job's a poo-poo head. He actually said, he only serves you because you give him everything. So he's kind of making somewhat of a reasonable case. And he says, touches, you know, stuff, and he'll curse you, right? And all that, you know, that. But what I'm saying is, I think with Peter, my opinion is that because Peter would say, I'm not like these other losers, I'll die with you, I'll do this. And so it's maybe, you know, Satan met before the heavenly court said, he kind of sounds like me. You know? And so there's sometimes I think when we kind of talk like the enemy, or kind of the pride, or like it says in, you know, James 4:7, submit therefore to God, resist the devil, he will flee from you. Draw near to God, right? That when we're not, when we're kind of walking in blatant sin, right? That we know clearly no is wrong, that we can give the devil place or will he'll cut. Where I might say, and I've heard, have you heard of Tom White? Remember Tom White? Guide spiritual warfare? No. Oh, he was a guy. He had a best-selling book. But anyway, he's the guy that delivered me. But he would talk about giving the devil place or claiming, right? And so I was wondering, is do you think there could have been anything like that in the heavenly realm with Peter?

I, I think, I think that, I think that with Peter, there is, um, I think, I think it's right to say that there, there's a humility issue, uh, that, because that's, it's evident from, you know, just, just sort of who Peter is, you know, in the Gospels. So I think, yeah, I think that that could be certainly on the table. Um, I, I don't think that the, the Satan, Satan, I know, I realize it's, it's capital S Satan in English Bibles, of Job one and two, I don't think that's the devil. But I do think that that passage is related to the New Testament language about the accuser. I, I know that sounds a little bit convoluted. For me, the, the ability, I shouldn't say the, the authority, the right, the rightness, the legitimacy of accusing people of their sins ends with Luke 10. Okay? Because I think it's tied to entrance into the kingdom of God. And the way I parse that is, if you are a member of the kingdom of God, you're in Christ, you're in the body of Christ, you've been forgiven, there's, there is no accusation that can come. Now, later, you know, Peter does warn, you know, believers about the accuser of the brethren who seeks to devour. That doesn't mean he's got a legitimate thing to accuse him. He says he's like, he's not saying he is a roaring lion, right? Right. Don't, don't fall into this. I think Peter's point is, look, he's got nothing on you. Don't, don't let him accuse you. Because if you're a believer, again, what is he supposed to accuse you of? I think he, he's, he's warning people again to sort of, again, get the right theology in their heads. That, that you are forgiven, you're in Christ, you know, you're, you're, you're part of the, of the body of Christ. So this accusation is meaningless.

Now, what would you, okay, it's going to, it's going to fall on deaf ears. What would you do with like, can you kind of unpack it? Because I hear what you're saying, but unpack like to get, bring the balance of Ephesians 4:27, when you give into anger, you give the devil a foothold. How does, how does that play with what you're saying?

Yeah, I, I think, I think, you know, passages like that, you know, when, when we sin, okay? I, I think that the point is that that does give Satan or, or whoever, you know, Satan in this case, fodder to make you think badly, okay? To make you think that now there's something between, you know, you and God, really. Even in maybe in a salvation sense, that, that somehow now, now that that salvation you thought you had, well, that, that just flew out the window because you did this, got angry, like used to in the world, right? Right. You know? So, I, I think it, it does, it is useful fodder to basically get the believer to think poorly.

So it's really, so it's not like I was raised. It's not really like a legal court case like Job. It's more of, you believe a lie, which gives the devil a place in your mind, okay? Yes. My position is that, is that you're being manipulated to believe a lie, which gives power around you. Believe a lie. In God's sight, your standing hasn't changed at all. I mean, let's look at what first John says. If we say we have no sin, you know, we're, you know, the truth is not in it. Well, I mean, we're all going to sin. But, but John is speaking to believers. And he refers to them as believers. They're still believers, okay? The relationship between you, your union with Christ hasn't changed at all. You have not reverted because you've sinned back to a status of being outside of Christ, you know, or being alienated from God. You know, it really, the sinister thing about it is the way it taps into the urge that we all have to feel that we merit salvation, or we merit God's love. It's very easy to, to give somebody the gospel and they believe the gospel, they get it, you know, okay, you know, I can't save myself, it's, it's all what Jesus did. They believed that. And then, you know, a month or a week or a day later, they're back to think to wondering, I wonder, you know, I, I committed this sin, and, you know, does God really like me as much today as he did yesterday or a week ago? Yeah, you know? And, and we take something as free as the grace of God and we make it, we make it a burden. We, well, we cheapen it. But, but we actually, we actually twist it into, it's now performance oriented. It's, it's exactly the opposite of what it is, you know? And it's like, look, I got news for you. You know, pro tip here, Romans 5:8. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So before you ever had a thought, I was thinking, before you ever had a thought about about caring what God thought about what you're doing at all, when you were that person, God loved you. So why after you've understood the gospel, why would you ever think that God might not be as positively predisposed toward you today? It's totally irrational. It's theologically irrational. But that is exactly what, you know, darkness wants you to bless. That's where darkness wants your mind to be. And that, that brings to my mind, second Corinthians 10, of holding every thought captive. Bring it right. That's the battleground. Then? Yes. Yes. And, and, you know, the whole, you know, we war not against flesh and blood, you know, again, the, you know, captivity, cap, you know, all the, the captive phrases, I think really are important because they are about thinking. They are about, you know, again, not believing lies. You know, a lot of this is really rooted in, in our identity. I mean, believers really need to, to grasp their identity. And they need to grasp simple things like, you know, again, why, why would God love me less today than five years ago when I hated God? Like, it doesn't, I mean, but we don't, we don't stop and think, you know, we, we sort of react emotionally. Or again, since I do believe in the spirit world, I think when we do sin, when we do sort of, you know, drift into, into something we did before, I, I think, I think that's just a pounceable moment, okay? Where, where, you know, you, you've got a supernatural intelligence waiting for that line to be crossed because they're going to be on it like a fly on, you know what I mean? They're just going to be on it. Yeah, because that is so crucial. If they can get you to think that way, you're a prisoner. And you're not, you're not only a prisoner in terms of your own unhappiness, the worst thing of all is you're a prisoner in the believing community. You've actually taken the solution to sin and and made it a set of chains. I mean, you're like in the worst possible way you were before Christ. The most right. Exactly.

And, and I know people, you know, who this is their story, you know, they're just wonderful people, but they were the kind of preaching, you know, they were under. Just, and it was never overt like, like, you know, God hates you now, even though you're believing. It's nothing like that. It's just, it becomes so, because of the preaching, the impression is created that that God will, is only really happy with you when you're performing at a certain level. And, and before, before God, before you, you know, cared about any of this, you know, at the beginning of your spiritual journey, I mean, this isn't what it was about to begin with. Yeah. I was taught, like you said, Dr. uh, Heiser, I was taught by the deliverance guy, and he wrote the number one bestselling book back in the '80s, guy Tom White. And he's with like, see Peter Wagner and Fuller and all that. He taught with, but, you know, and they got kind of weird. He, stay, they kind of, you know, anyway. But he taught me that you can give Satan legal ground or place by walking in willful sin as a Christian. So I, you know, now that you're saying that, I'm saying, wow, because I believe that. So now, of course, I have opened myself up to oppression because I deserve it because I walk to blatant sin. Yeah. Right.

It, it, you know, our behavior can certainly give intelligent beings ammunition to manipulate us. And it's, it's really a battle for the mind. You, you know, God's disposition toward you doesn't change, but how you believe he feels about you can affect. Exactly. Exactly. You believe God hates you, and Satan says, yeah, he does. And then he jumps on you. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

And again, you know, and I know that deliverance ministry is a spectrum, you know, and you guys obviously know this. But I, I have, I have run into people that, um, the deliverance minister, the deliverance ministry sort of strategy actually reinforced this negatively. That, okay, you, you do these things, and then you'll, you'll be delivered. And then when some, when it doesn't happen, then it, it, it becomes, I'm the problem. I made a mistake. I didn't mean it enough. I, you know, I joked and said, I missed a comma, you know, in the long deliverance prayer. But I mean, you see what I'm, what I'm saying? It, when there's failure there, it's very normal for the person to think, well, I, I did that, what they told me to do, and, and I trust them. So the problem must be me. So it becomes a performance issue again, okay? And it's just, uh, it's just such a trap, you know? It, it's such a trap. And, and it's very hard to get, to get people to, it's going to sound goofy, but it's really hard to get people to the place where they, they don't question the fact that God loves them, no matter what. You know, that's just hard.

Yeah. There's no free lunches, right? We have to do something. Yeah. Right. Space, right? Yeah. It's, it's really difficult. But so if, if you can't sort of ever get to that point, you know, or at least where you, you flirt with it, you know, if you're, it's really going to be a struggle. And, and again, the most sinister thing is it takes the solution to all this and and turns it into a burden. It says perfect peace for those whose eyes are fixed on these. So if our eyes are fixed on God, that he loves us, he is for us, we're reading the scripture, we're getting encouraged by that, but also getting convicted because, right, if you love me, you will obey my commands. We're not just going to throw it all out because, oh, I'm saved, so I can do whatever I want. We want to be continually abiding still, right? That's like, we don't do good works to be saved. We already are saved. We do good works because we are saved. And we're just like, we're so thankful. This is why, like, an unseen realm, I, I encapsulate what you just said into the phrase believing loyalty. That salvation is about believing loyalty. And, and I first came up with that because it was important for, for me to come up with a way to, to talk about salvation being consistent across both testaments. But the, but the more I thought about it, it's like, you know, this is really helpful because salvation isn't about loyalty, okay? That's the works side. It's believing. I mean, in other words, you, you can't, you can't break the bond between these two things. And, and if you believe, well, why wouldn't you be loyal? You know? You know what I mean? It's just, it's this sort of balance between, you know, you can't, you can't rely on the works. You, there's no sense of merit. Yeah, I like to use the word merit because I think that clarifies for people, you know, when you get into these faith and works discussions, okay? So, you know, if you just throw merit into this, in other words, you, you deserve that. Yeah, I think it helps people to sort it out.

What would you say? Because we deal, I'm a pastor, so we deal with a lot of people. We're dealing with someone who, you know, involved in cocaine, been a Christian probably five years, still struggles with cocaine, pornography, and being immoral. What, what would you say to, and yet he professes Christ, he's been on this show saying how he loves Jesus, he's never going back. And then now he's pretty much fallen away and said, I can't, I can't do the G, I mean, I got to kind of be a liberal Christian where I can do my cocaine every once, well, I can do my, uh, pornography and my womanizing. What would, how would, what would you say in the demonic realm? Like, what, how would you, what would you say to him that he needs to do or stop doing?

I would say, it sounds to me like you've switched sides. Yeah. Okay? No, no, I'm serious about that. Because the last part of your, your comment, I mean, I, I, I like to use David as an example. David was a screw-up. I mean, it, I mean, David did just about everything that he's seen Morrison's. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, you would, you want your kids to do the stuff David? Devil certainly not. You know? I mean, I mean, he's this guy, he, he is, he's weak, he's conniving, he's, he's just all this stuff. Murderer, everything, adultery. I mean, David is just a mess. But the one thing David is not, the one thing he never does is he never worships another god. Okay? So at the end of the day, yes, you're a mess, David, but have you switched allegiance? Have you, have you put your faith in another god or no god at all? You know, have you abandoned your loyalty or switched it? So, yep, you're a mess. But, but where are you still at? Because if, if, if you're still, you know, looking at Jesus as the only means of salvation, you're depending on that. That, that shows me what, what you believe. And it shows me where your heart's really at, as as much of a mess as you are. But if you're looking for a way, if you're looking for a way to not have those disloyalty pangs present, I think you've switched sides. That's good.

Now, now I don't, I don't think that when it comes to salvation, that that which cannot be obtained by moral perfection cannot be lost by moral imperfection. I think that's an important thing to realize. It has nothing to do with works or performance.

Do you believe you can walk away though? Like the first Timothy. Do you believe a Christian can win?

I think salvation can, I think salvation can only be rejected. Yeah. That's why I think you don't lose it, you walk away. Now, right? Yeah, right. You, in other words, for, for Christians to whom this is familiar or unfamiliar, I, I always use this illustration. So Abraham, Abraham believes and God counts it to him as righteousness. All right? Now, now we're taught to think that that this is like a status now, that that's irrevocable. All right? So in other words, after that moment, Abraham could have had his next conversation with God, could have gone something like this. You know, Lord, I really appreciate, you know, that that offer of, you know, covenant and salvation, but Dale's a good dude, you know? So I think I'm going to worship Baal now. But, but since I believed and you counted it to me for righteousness, I'm still good, right? Yeah. Yeah. In other words, we don't, we don't have Baal worshipers in heaven. We have no other gods before. This is, this is the one thing that God insists on. Yeah. He will, he will not share this status with any other. So, you know, you, you can, you can reject his offer. God isn't going to coerce you to believe, you know, it's up to you. This is the only thing he asked. I have provided everything. You merit nothing. Salvation has nothing to do with your performance, okay? You, I'll never, I'm not, never in your debt. I don't owe you anything. I'm just giving you the opportunity to be a member, a member of my family. I will forgive your sins, but I want to be the faith chief Elohim. And Jesus, Jesus, because because that lone object becomes a man and dies on a cross. And, you know, it's the same deity. It's the same God. Okay? So this is, this is how I, I, I think we need to talk about this, this sort of thing. Because you can't send your salvation away. You didn't get it by not sinning, you know, that doesn't make any sense. But you can reject it. And this is why the, the writer of Hebrews is concerned. The writer of Hebrews isn't concerned that, you know, you know, you're sitting 11 times in 12, 12 is going to kick you out, you know, it's not like that. What he's consistently concerned about, and, and the illustrations he uses, is that you come to the place where you don't believe. And you go back to the old legal system of learning, right? Unbelief. Yep. Yep. You, and that becomes your god. Your own performance becomes your god. Or it's some different deity or no god at all. You know? And, and people throw in like election. I, I love when people do this because the Old Testament is the best argument against this. So I, you know, I'll ask somebody, okay, do you believe Israel was elect? Well, the, you know, Deuteronomy 7, you know, all these places where it talks about electing. Okay? So now you're thinking election guarantees salvation. You're equating the term election with salvation. Well, we have this thing in the Old Testament called the exile. That's like a huge event. Why were they exiled again? Because they worshipped other gods. So in other words, what you're telling me is, is that because you're an Israelite, because you're an elect, you could go worship any deity you want and I'll see that guy in heaven? Yeah. And then God rejected that. Now, I always love to use with reform hardcore Calvinists, as I like to use, uh, Romans 11, where it says, if you, they were cut off because they didn't continue in faith. And you too will be cut off if you don't continue to believe. You know? So it's like, kind of saying, hey, if you don't, if you don't continue to walk and believe that you're justified by faith, then, you know, hey, you know, I mean, so it's like, let's see, look at what the common denominator in both of those is. It, it's believe. I mean, in other words, you're, you're believing loyalty is fixed. Yes. You are a mess. That's why I love it. End of the day, David, you're a mess. But, but he never, he never even entertains the thought of worshiping any other. Yeah. That's why I think God is merciful. I think it was A.W. Tozer, and it's kind of what you're saying. He said, the man of God needs to keep falling forward. You know, as long as you, you know, we're going to fall, right? Stumbles, but as long as we keep falling towards God, we're good. Humble yourself. Yeah. You know, I, I, I just think that again, it's really unfortunate that people will take like this discussion and they'll want to treat it as though it's permission to just live an awful life, okay? Again, that that totally misses the point. Because they don't realize that what we're rejecting is, is any concept of merit, okay? That's the point. You, we, we trust totally in this. And honestly, if we really do, if we really do, we're going to want to show that both to the, to the, to the, to the God that we serve, that we're allegiant to. And we want other people around us to know. But, but, but he, I mean, he's not shocked. He knows that we're dust. He knows that we're human. And all this kind of stuff. But again, to just, to realize that that God does know that I'm struggling here, but at the end of the day, you know, Lord, I might fall, I'm, I'm just an idiot, you know, whatever. But, but I'm, there's only one, one way of salvation. And I'm, I'm not going to give this up, you know, help me. I mean, it changes the conversation a little bit. Um, and I think in some important ways, again, just to help, help us process again, God's disposition toward us, you know, it, it didn't start with the brownie point contest. So why, why were we in a brownie contest now? You know, it didn't start that way. So I think it just helps us, you know, helps orient us in that way. Yeah. And, and maybe get people to ask, well, you know, why is the pastor telling me this? Why, why do I have this internal conflict? He's not telling me this that to do, do or not do this thing so that God is happy with me, you know, God already loves me. And, and goodness, why, why am I doing this to somebody that loves me? Yeah, you know? Like, why am I doing that?

I love what I love what Henry Blackaby said when people said, you know, it's so hard for me to obey God. It's so hard for me to follow his word. And he says, it's really not an obedience issue, is it? Is a love issue. Because if you really realize what he's done for you, amazing grace, unmerited and undeserved, under favor, of course, how could you not love God like that? Yeah. Right. And I have this, I have this gap in my life, you know, whether it be like a relationship or something like that. Well, do you believe God loves you? And if that's the case, well, God, why wouldn't God meet that need at some point? I mean, it really comes down to what do you believe? Yeah. What do you believe about God? I mean, honestly, this is what it comes down to. Knowing, you know, it's hard to process it, you know, but so I think we need good, good people to remind us, you know, what in our struggle, remind us of these things, you know, just, you know, so that we, we train our minds, you know, again, speak truth to lies. It's just, it, it covers so much, you know, it's, it's easy to say and it covers a lot, you know.

Amen. And that's why we're so thankful for you. We know we took up blessings. Yeah. We went 20 minutes. We're thankful. And we want you to, um, share where they can find your resources, your podcast, and get your books with your website. I think.

Yep. The, the best place to get the books is Amazon. So amazon.com. By the, the nerve center of my online life is Dr. M.S.H. Those are my initials. So drmsh.com. And if you land there, you'll, you'll find the podcast. I have Naked Bible Podcast. I'm the host of that. We're 330 some episodes in, so we've been doing it for a while. So Naked Bible Podcast. I have a YouTube channel that's called Fringe Pop 321, where we try to, in a, in a gentle and, and an occasional funny way, address weird stuff people believe. Is that what the background? Yeah. I mean, again, it's why I write fiction and do the Stranger Things book, you know, it's just another place that maybe someone will find this searching for ancient aliens and they'll watch this video and realize, you know, this is really garbage, you know, maybe I should think better about it. Yeah. About the tablets here. Or, and the Bible is an ancient source too. My whole goal, let's just think better, you know, about, you know, a whole host of things. And, and the Bible's one of those things, you know? So, yeah, we have that. But if you go to drmsh.com, you, you can find any of that stuff that I'm into, books, podcasts, websites, all that stuff.

Awesome. Dr. Heiser, I want to, I just heard someone say this. Is there any question we didn't ask you that you would like to say? Before you leave, is there anything you would like to bring up before you go that we didn't ask you?

I think we've asked you pretty much everything. Yeah. Do I need to be serious? Ask, ask me what the, the best dog breed in the world is.

All right, let's see. What's the best dog breed in the world?

Pugs. Pugs. And they were aliens in, uh, right? And my, my fawn pug, which is the, the beige colored one, looks a lot, I mean, almost the spitting image of Frank.

Has he ever removed his face? No, he hasn't. He has not done that yet, but we're still waiting.

Uh, well, thank you so much, Dr. Heiser. We sure appreciate all your time. And we hope to do this again sometime, Lord willing. And, uh, just thanks for, I really love that you are not like you said, not a deductive Bible student, but inductive and let the scripture take you where it wants to go. And that's really cool. And how you were willing to step out when so many other commentaries said, nope, it's just human judges. And so I really appreciate your ministry for being positive. It can be uncomfortable. It can be uncomfortable, but I am unrepentant. And you hardly made our heads, you know, you said you a lot of times do the, yeah.

[Music]

For common men like me. Bless you, sir. And have a great day.

Yep. Thanks. Fun. Bye-bye.

Thank you so much for joining us on Calvary Conversations. If you haven't already, please make sure to like, subscribe, and share this video. If you would like to listen to us wherever you get your podcast, just type in Calvary Conversations. Also, to see any behind the scenes of our podcast, you can go to Instagram at CalvaryConversations. Again, thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you next week. God bless you.