Angels, demons, and the unseen realm: with Dr. Michael Heiser

hey everybody this Joshua Lewis with the remnant radio got a very exciting episode for you today we've got Michael Heizer on the line we'll be talking on angels we're gonna be talking about demons we're gonna talk about Book of Enoch we're be all over the place talking about the fun stuff it's the x-files episode of a ruminant radio you guys stay tuned it's gonna be a great episode [Music] so if you guys are new to the program you can check out all of our past videos at the remnant radio calm you can go on there you can watch all of our videos you can leave comments on our videos there and you can donate if you feel so led Jeff how's your week been man my week we got three weeks to catch up on our row you've been trying to buy a house you know he doesn't talk about this couch it's just totally change it's good God's good everything's cool it's just if you've ever done this before it is wild or not that you have like they just want they want every I think was this time last year you missed a couple shows because you were renovating the house that you're now buying right guys about six months ago but yeah it's just yeah doing really well man yeah we've just been getting some as you know some awesome breakthrough at church and that's I'm kind of reeling from yesterday still it's good Sunday oh yeah so those of you who are maybe new to the program we had a church step in and give us I want to say 250,000 dollars we had some some savings and then the church itself our our local congregation gave like a hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars something to that effect so we and we talking how many people though oh yeah like 150 it was it was pretty supernatural College oh my gosh that's messed up um but the point is is we were trying to buy this building and all that money came in in three weeks and we have till the 1st of December to purchase this building so just man sovereignty God did a lot of amazing stuff yeah so praise God for that but not to digress any further today we have an exciting guest I remember emailing him in January of the beginning of this year and I said hey I'd love to have you on the show and he said that unfortunately I'm booked up all the way into 2019 and I said lucky for you we don't have anything bugged until 2019 we don't have anything booked in 2019 so I've been looking forward to this interview for a long time I read his books I've listened to his podcast dr. Michael Heizer tell us a little bit about yourself and how people can follow you yeah my homepage is DRM Sh currently my I have the lofty title of scholar and residents at faith Life Corporation the makers of Lagos Bible Software I've been here for 14 years before that I I taught on the undergrad level Green Campus and distance ed I talked distance at the seminary level biblical studies have a few graduate degrees I guess the most important is PhD and Hebrew Bible and Semitic languages and you know I dabble in all sorts of things but I am primarily trained as a biblical scholar and if I have sort of a bent it is trying to take peer-reviewed biblical scholarship and make it decipherable to not specialists okay you don't have to be a specialist you don't have to get degrees I I'm sort of an academia translator yeah I never would have read the the article and head coverings had it not been for you trying to read the whole article with my my a might not even undergrad education we talked about this one so me and John bonded yes women's head coverings yeah yeah it was super weird great podcast like their conversation I don't know about the article is weird yeah it's not our world but people have this misguided notion especially Christians that you know they treat the Bible as though it was written by people just like us sort of you know emerging from our own time period or something that's familiar like the Reformation you know our Roman Catholicism or evangelicalism or you know fill in the blank and and by definition that is to interpret scripture to read scripture out of its own context so again what I want to do is try to get people you know back into the world of the Bible and that's more than hey look here they used lamps and pots and pans you know yeah that's usually where archaeology talks about context I'm talking about worldview right and the biblical writers do not have our worldview and we don't have their and so you know my argument is not that oh you you thought the gospel was a and mike says it's B okay that is not it at all what the argument is is that yeah you can you can still understand you know the the claims of the gospel you can understand that just fine but if you want to understand the Bible if you have this this sort of intuitive sense that there's got to be more to it than familiar sunday-school stories and the story of Jesus ie the gospel you're correct there is a lot more to it and it's it's interconnectedness is kind of it's both fascinating and mind-blowing at the same time but you'll never see that stuff if you're filtering the Bible through a context that's foreign to its own writers and their immediate audience the people who they were writing to would you say at the same time would you say the worldview issue is more of a Western worldview or I mean are there worldviews maybe in like third world countries or if we're talking about the jungles of somewhere that maybe they couldn't process this in a better way than we would or yeah with that's true in one specific element and that is the modern West is predisposed to not embrace the supernatural world view I was trying to get to in the third world again or you know in other contexts like the third world there's much more openness to that and so in that respect yeah there are other modern contexts that get a little closer to moving back into the biblical mindset than ours yeah okay so like break apart what you're pretty well I would say I mean you can correct me if I'm wrong that you're pretty well known for is is the unseen realm some angelology some of that break apart what I feel has been one of the most neglected topics I got on Facebook I want to say two years ago and just asked the question like what does God need angels for like he uses the Holy Spirit he's got us on the planet what's the point of angels and everyone jumped on there and was like well he's there messengers can't the holy spirit to live in a message like doesn't God live in us like like what's that what's the point like we have a Bible right yeah when I started when I started getting some of your content man it the whole idea of angels just made sense now there is this danger that when people teach on angels you get we're a part of the Pentecostal charismatic movement in the sense that we're continuous but in saying that our movement has has got some crazy thoughts about the supernatural give us some understanding of of okay this is why understanding the unseen realm this is why understanding angelology is important and why it's not spooky and scary you know I would say you know generally speaking again in the broadest terms and you said what I'm most known for it depends what so in solid scholarship crash if you're talking about the realm of scholarship if you're talking about local studies yeah it's true but I you know I'm in the academic realm I'm in the the church realm I'm in what I call middle-earth yeah break that down all that you have to I mean I can if you want to get into it but to break down you know you're the quiet the answer to your question in broadest terms what we think of as angelology which is kind of a misnomer as well because not all supernatural beings are angels angel is a job description it's a term that describes what a a spiritual being does not what it is okay and there there are lots of different ways to you know to parse do we have a term here of ontology what a thing is do we have a term of rank you know where it is in the pecking order or do we have a term that's a job description the very few Christians ever even bother to think about the vocabulary we just smashed it all together and call the good guys angels or the bad guys fallen angels and we're done with that so that that that's a problem but in in broadest terms you know what we think of as angelology and demonology relates to us because how God thinks of his heavenly family and I'm using the word family deliberately how he thinks of his heavenly host as his children and the loss of his children through rebellion and his desire to make his children partners with him in other words they're not just passive bystanders it's a partnership arrangement mm-hmm the way he he thinks of them and works with them those are templates to how the Bible articulates how God views us as well and those two worlds get tied together from the very beginning of the biblical story Eden is God's home it's the place of you know where God lives where God lives his his heavenly hosts lives his entourage so to speak you know the divine counsel that sort of thing that you have the plurality language in Genesis 1 let us create humankind in our image or as our image that from the very beginning you see this relationship this sort of tandem relationship set up and then we have a series of rebellions and then God basically the rest of the biblical story is God trying to restore his family because what he wanted was he wanted a human family to live with him along with his supernatural family and heaven would come to earth we would do this on earth because it has to happen on earth because humans can't go to that realm that realm has to go to our realm so you know the realm of embodiment you know from the very beginning that God wants this blended thing this blended family as it were and that's lost and so once you get out of the rebellions once this sort of the you know the thing just blows up you know we'd like to say goes to hell in a handbasket you know once that happens the rest of the Bible is about God's effort not to go to plan B or to abandon his original desires but God working with freewill beings both in the supernatural world and the human world to get what he wants he doesn't have to pre dust and everything an unseen realm I go through some passages that show partnership that argue against the idea that foreknowledge necessitates predestiny yeah the the ephod story with David I thought it's a classic that gets really overlooked neglected or for frankly people get directed away from seeing it you know so so this is what scriptures about it's about God getting what he wants through freewill beings to restore his family to make us again equal partners you know in this case with Jesus this is why Jesus quotes messianic Psalms in revelation about Christians mm-hmm that's why Paul says don't you know that you're gonna rule over angels there's a whole host of passages that build from or dip into or connect to a supernatural istic worldview that unfortunately the church has lost because the church filters the content through its own traditions it distills the content into little bite-sized morsels and calls that the whole Council of God and that's just it you know and then Jesus becomes a cosmic life coach on the side and Sunday school becomes eternal yeah you know that that's what goes on in most churches and again it's not sinister and evil I mean you can get the gospel you know what you're supposed to be doing as Christians but you miss a lot of the a lot of the framework for why right so a lot of the framework for you know what in the world has got up you know what's what's this Bible thing really about why is there so much of it I mean to riff off of your comment I mean he could have just done this in like two pages you know what's a yeah it's a it's an amazing lengthy epic it's an epic story that unfortunately we just get cut off from yeah I think it's interesting because our culture we we love the supernatural Harry Potter that stuff blew up you know we love when it's on our TVs and things like that but to actually believe in it they're like oh that's ridiculous you know it's fascinating how the church wants to become more rational you know we want to have Christianity become more fundamentally but still skeptical supernatural things the outside world is craving this kind stuff that's it's a huge disconnect yeah and I understand you know that there are reasons for that you know abuses you know certain ideas of scripture get abused they they get thrown away and then something you know that somebody wants to believe gets substituted I get that but the answer to that isn't just wiping it all off the board pretending it isn't there okay so we we have the the the account of the angels we have in Genesis chapter 1 the Satan comes the serpent comes in deceives Adam and Eve we have the Genesis 6 account we have the Tower of Babel could you lead us quickly up into the Tower of Babel and then kind of explain the dispersion in Deuteronomy 32 I think I like to approach this this way if you ask the average Christian why is the world the mess that it is the answer you're gonna get is the fall if you ask the average Israelite and the the literate Israelite who'd read scripture or the first century Jew who of course had the whole Old Testament that's not the answer you would get the answer you would get is well there's actually three reasons why the world is the mess that it is now the fall is the first one that's really important and it's the first you know rebellion both in terms of a supernatural being supernatural child of God rebels against his father and so do the humans rebel against their father and the result of that is were estranged from God and death is now reigning over all things okay but then you move from that to the Genesis 6 episode and the real you pardoned upon the real fallout of the Genesis 6 episode is not the Nephilim even though that's part of the story what what really concerns you know second temple Judaism you know that as they're thinking about what's going on in the Old Testament really what the original context of Genesis 6 1 through 4 is concerned with and then the New Testament is there that the story informs us that there are cosmic intelligences who did things that result in the proliferation and acceleration of our own depravity our own self-destruction our own hurtling toward idolatry that's the big deal and then the third rebellion is the Tower of Babel incident so you know in that episode you've got it's after the flood so you'd think we would have taken care of this rebellion problem but we haven't you know they God repeats to the descendants of Noah the original Adamic covenant you know be fruitful multiply fill the earth you know all that because the idea was to originally to make the whole world like this wonderful Eden place where God lived and met with us and we were part of his family and we could enjoy creation and partner with him to maintain it and understand it well all that goes away and God's looking at the same situation again he's like okay thought we'd fix this but I guess not so what I'm gonna do now instead of you spreading over the earth you congregate you build this tower I mean everybody in biblical scholarship agrees that the tower is a ziggurat a ziggurat was part of a temple complex why do you build a temple complex why do you build a Sigrid to locate the deity in other words to make the deity come to you on your terms so you can barter with it and have a relationship with it that is not the plan okay Yahweh the God of Israel will not be tamed he doesn't ask you what he should do all right it's it's a total reversal so what God says fine you don't want me to be your God apparently I'm going to assign you and a lot you to lesser supernatural beings members of my heavenly hosts they're gonna be placeholders I want them to treat you well because I made you I mean I'm still concerned about humanity but as far as a relationship we're done for a while for a really long while but you say where do you get that from Genesis 11 Mike I don't get it from Genesis 11 I go I get it from Deuteronomy 32 8 9 which references the Tower of Babel event this is the verse that nobody ever hears in church okay when the Most High divided up the nation's when he assigned you know when he fixed their boundaries so again we know who the Most High is it's not a brainteaser you know we know about the splitting up the nations and fixing their boundaries that's the Tower of Babel event when he did he assigned the nation's you know he did all this according to the number of the sons of God but Israel verse nine is Yahweh's portion Jacob is his allotted inheritance you get the same language in Deuteronomy 4:19 and 20 we find out that the hosts of heaven are allotted to the nations as a punishment as a judgment and Israel's not supposed to worship them the hosts of heaven are called gods in Deuteronomy 17 1 through 3 in Deuteronomy 29 23 through 26 Deuteronomy 32 you get up to it verses eight nine you read a little further you get verse 17 Israel falls into idolatry by worshiping the shading which most English translations have as demons it's actually a term that means a geographical Guardian kind of a cosmic entity sort of thing attached to geography which makes perfect sense if the nations are assigned to lesser sons of God lesser you know spiritual beings and Israel falls into idolatry so that frames the entire rest of the Old Testament God abandons the nations he forsakes them he doesn't forget about them entirely because what he says is now okay watch I'm done with you but now I'm gonna go to or I'm gonna call this guy named Abram and his wife Sarah they're both old in fact she can't have kids anymore which means she's perfect okay because I'm going to take her and enable her supernaturally to start you know to kick-start a new human family here in other words God is still at work to get his way he wants a human family and he's not gonna let their sin disrupt it so I'm gonna raise up another human family from these two again everybody's gonna know it was supernatural they're gonna be Israel and I'm gonna make a covenant with them that through them and their seed all these other nations that I just disinherited will ultimately be blessed they will come back into the family and so you have this this sense where from that point on it's Israel against the nation's it's Yahweh against the other gods now we're not we're not told when and these sons of God who are a lot of divination and the nations allotted to them we're not told when they become corrupt but we are told they are and that Psalm 82 so how many - is it is a meaning of the heavenly host you know I'll use the biblical terminology the divine assembly mm-hmm Psalm 82 1 Elohim that Sabadell God takes a stand in his in the divine council and then but care of Elohim in the midst of the gods he holds judgment and then verses 2 through 5 he excoriates them for their corruption their abuse of their populations theirs their injustice you know he just he just goes off on them and then it you get to verse 6 and God says again speaking to the same group I said you are gods all of you your Elohim all of you but you're gonna die like men you're gonna fall like any prince does and then the psalm ends with the psalmist crying out you know God rise up and take the nation's you reclaim the nation's you know it's it's this picture of the corruption of the Deuteronomy 32 the Tower of Babel situation that that creates an adversarial relationship between Israel and all the other nations all the other nations are under Dominion of hostile divine powers this is where the princes Prince of Persia Prince of Greece idea comes from in Daniel 10 it's where Paul's idea of principalities rulers Thrones dominions powers authorities all those terms that Paul uses are the powers of darkness they all have one thing in common they're terms of geographical dominion so these are not accidents these are not coincidences it's a worldview that the Bible is articulating and really plays off of post Babel all the way through so we've got we've got these divine imagers these Elohim at deuteronomy 32 let's break down just those who aren't familiar with the conversation and i'd really encourage you guys if you if you haven't ever checked out the naked bible bot broadcast or his website go download the book read the book go listen to the podcast really really fascinating stuff but when you refer to the Angels as Elohim many of the listeners who have listened to us in the past would think Elohim is a title for God this isn't a title for God this is a position kind of break that down for us a little bit it is but it isn't depending on the context okay you know what that the problem is is one of terminology we have a disconnect here we tend to think when we see the letters G o and D on a screen or on a piece of paper our brains just reflexively assign and all these words are important our brains reflexively assign a unique set of attributes to the letters G o and D and so because we see Gio and D and we our brain does this because it's taught to do that Oh Geo D god that's a unique set of attributes there can only be one of those so it creeps us out we put an s on the end of Geo D it's because of the way we're taught to think about geo and D well biblical writers did not think that way about the biblical hebrew term Elohim well how do we know that Mike just because you say so because you have a PhD no you learn that if you if you'd actually look up all the references because Elohim is used of five or six different things other than the God of the Bible that alone tells you that Elohim is not about a unique set of attributes because if it was they wouldn't be doing this they wouldn't be calling the deceased human dead in 1st Samuel 28 13 Elohim they wouldn't be calling the gods of the nations Elohim they wouldn't be calling the members of God's heavenly hosts Elohim they wouldn't be calling the shady man deuteronomy 32:17 Elohim those things are not the God of the Bible there's there's supernatural beings that are lesser and so what Elohim actually means has nothing to do with a set of attributes that are unique to one being what Elohim actually means is it's a term you would use to describe something that by its nature is disembodied in a member of the spiritual world that's all it is no that world there is rank there is hierarchy there is differentiation and attributes Yahweh the God of the Bible the God of Israel is an Elohim that he's in the spiritual realm there are lots of Elohim over there he's in that realm but none of the other Elohim is him he is distinguished in very specific in the Bible he's the creator he's the sovereign he's omniscient he's omnipotent okay all the things that we which are traditionally taught in Christian theology but none of those things are taught by the word Elohim they're taught by the way the biblical writers talk about this particular Elohim and the way they never talk about any of the other ones right so if you say it morality does not mean polytheism so you could say that like we're talking about spiritual beings and in the sense of in the in the same way of like we have spirit all these spirits but we have the holy spirit who is God and then there's other spirits and that's a good term to use as an analogy because one of the ontological terms for the members of God's heavenly host is recoat spirits hmm and you're right hey there's lots of spirits but only one spirit has ever talked about in such a way that he becomes indistinguishable from God himself okay that's not just something that that every spirit can say only one of them so we were better off you know looking at what scripture actually says about God about the Holy Spirit rather than trying to to suck our theology out of one term but that's the way we're taught to think so it's unfortunate because it doesn't jive with what you actually run into give me give me some understanding on you had made a statement but before the Elohim but I just wanted to make sure that got established before the you know the comments section started blowing up too much the this the disinherited that phrase that these are disinherited nations which makes perfect sense I think the idea that the nations are Christ's inheritance does not make sense unless they have been disinherited I could begin with so so that his people yeah it's miraculous so so as as we're talking about these angelic beings their roles you know we have this Prince of Persia I think that's a great example that he has a geographical region by which he's reigning over you know Psalm 82 is not necessarily directly to him but certainly could be applicable to him in the sense that the picture yeah he's part of the picture he's ruled unjustly and and God is bringing that judgment you know you say that you know we say that you are gods but you'll die like men it sounds as if there's a calling to repentance in Psalm 82 like you guys are doing bad stop doing bad is that an option is that a thing because that's that's something as I'm reading through your book that I'm kind of fascinated with like my entire life and I would I would still hold this position that angels don't come back to repentance there's not this open door of repentance to fallen angels he goes from the excoriation to yeah all of your gods but you're gonna die okay so though it's already a judgment at this point picture yeah kind of oriented in our discussion here to the unseen realm mm-hmm and again the way I would for the sake of your audience if you have a decent Bible background and you're not put off by reading a book with footnotes in it unseen realm is for you it's an academic book but you just go check it out on Amazon I've got over 800 reviews and I'm still at 5 stars I had a really good editor it's readable don't be intimidated by all the footnotes and all that kind of stuff that's for you if you're not if you're kind of new to scripture and you're not used to reading books like that supernatural is a distillation of unseen realm it has only the core ideas from a book in geology for dummies I just came out with angels which is a drill-down an unseen realm sort of takes you from Genesis to Revelation the full spectrum of biblical theology with a specific eye to how this how the supernatural world intersects with the human world as the story of salvation history is told from Genesis to Revelation the newest book angels is a drill-down on one specific topic angels and it would be talking about the Seraphim or the cherubim it would be talking about the messengers yeah well see the subtitle is deliberate Lucas called angels what the Bible really says about God's heavenly hosts okay there yeah so it's any it's any being in the heavenly host regardless of what job they have that is still loyal you know to God now I mentioned in the book of course you have to that there's rebellion and stuff like that but I'm leaving that to to another book and that the other books already done I just don't know when they're gonna put it out so I wanted the good guys to have some sometime spotlight demands yeah you know toward toward the dark side but when you you know when you look at them they they actually do lots of things and and what they do again back to this template thought you know really you know sort of mirrors you know what what's going on now in the in the the subsequent book and I've also put this on my website I've blogged it about angelic redemption and all that stuff not only does Psalm 82 not leave that door open but I think the idea is specifically denied when you get to Hebrews - hmm because God's plan of salvation is specifically linked to the Incarnation in other words the fact that Jesus became a man you know Telegraph's very clearly and I think it's explicit in Hebrews 2 that the plan of redemption is aimed at humanity not anybody Ellen says well to which of the Angels did God do this or say that yeah and again they're there they're not in the picture you know you have you have more sweeping statements like Colossians 1 about all things being reconciled to God again people can read the book the angels book where I discuss this in detail but basically the language there is is that the the atonement the work of the cross ultimately is like a reset button everything is set back to not the original conditions with the original actors and they're all redeemed now but all the disorder is set back into order you don't have any more rebellion because they're about the rebels are gone okay we've taking care of these problems we've corrected course and gone back to the way things were originally intended to be it's not like it never happened it's just we've we've reset course in again an everlasting sort of way so I again I think Hebrews 2 is probably the strongest argument because it links incarnation to to redemption and that just doesn't include the Angels and they're actually singled out in Hebrews - okay so Jeff you got you got a question I've got lightning around for him yeah I'm I get curious about the the the dynamic of the spiritual beings the whatever names we can call them that how do they if they're not physical how do they interact with the the physical realm but how does that I mean there seems like like you saying like God wants to bring heaven and earth wants to bring the spirit realm that in the physical room together but they're already interacting with us so whereas the access point is it within is it us that's the access point is there some portal in the middle of the desert somewhere that we don't know about is like fortnight's going on here here's some thoughts in maybe going off of these I've always believed in Todd that they are though they are spiritual it does not mean that they are not they aren't composed of space time and matter right like there they are they are finite in that sense those are their spiritual their finite they travel from point A to point B we see that with the Prince of Persia you know Gabriel Michael are with with health they're prevented from traveling we have them eating with Abraham we have them so that they they seem to have material like properties but they are spiritual beings can you maybe delineate that is that is that kind of yeah I mean on one level this is this is precisely the kind of question that a modern Westerner would ask because they're thinking in terms of where must be some link to science right and on the one hand it that's apparent but because we aren't told very much the linkages to specific things we know about science are not secure here's what I mean let me try to unpack that a little bit here's what we know we're dealing with you know spiritual beings who by nature are not embodied and yet they can assume some sort of embodiment their indiscernible from people their vis they're visible they're there their corporeal you know we have tactile experiences with them we also know that they have greater attributes than we do even in their embodiment but of course they must by definition be lesser than God we know that there is only by definition one uncreated being therefore they must be created and therefore made of something mm-hmm and you know now we're kind of nearing the end of the road here you know like so what can we do with those data points and the answer is I like how educated people say I don't know and all the other educated people go I have an answer and you guys who you know y'all read books and stuff y'all go not so clear you can only pretend to have precise answers when you pretend to have more data than you have oh yeah and I'm not gonna I'm content not pretend that yeah so I'm I'm prone to just say okay here's what we know here's how we might think about what we know but we always have to you know remind ourselves and the people listening to us that you know these conclusions might be reasonable and they might be completely wrong so this this tails into the next class something else this tells into the next question we talked about the Ugaritic texts before we go to that you know most Christians in the church make some assumptions you know not only do we do we have things we know but we also have to knives that there are things that we don't know our false illustration we we sort of assume certain things about the members of the heavenly host that they can't create their own and body that's what that was my question at the right dog has to do it for them verse four that yeah there is no verse for that you know we assume that they're their free will sort of is taken away or were like cemented and frozen after these three rebellions where's the verse for that again we have we actually have verses in that case the opposite of it times God says he doesn't trust his Holy Ones he assigns you know you know flaws and errors to them deliver words God knows what he's getting it doesn't mean that they're all just waiting to sin it just means that they're not him and God knows it yeah they can make mistakes they can repel you know they they can go astray and in other words they have that track record so this sense that everything is now set in stone that's a Christian myth you know the a lot of what a lot of what Christians think they know about angels and demons again they is a derivative of something taught in tradition mm-hmm we actually don't have a verse for or against you know some of these ideas so right you know we we have to be able to know what we can think about but again recognized our limitations in terms of the conclusions we can draw well I've always heard you know the theories of you know a lot of the the mythical creatures and and and ancient times that you know those kinds of stories come from somewhere you know I mean I was thinking of the golem you know the the man they make a clay and write the name of God on his forehead and he comes alive kind of stuff so I mean these sound like crazy things but at the end of the day there's there's got to be something I think in the in in that you know there's got to be some in the Gilgamesh story it seems similar to the right yeah which which kind of helps us tie into I guess hopefully it does ya know so no the the the Ugaritic texts and stuff like that that you you cite in your your scholarship quite a bit um you know the Book of Enoch that you cite in in the scholarship I feel like these would be a false accusation but people that would say now you we don't have a whole lot in the text right so you're trying to use these sources to kind of fill in the blanks that's not necessarily what you're doing you're trying to understand the worldview but but help me understand the difference there well you can only say that this lugar in ik passage is a parallel if the other side the parallel exists in the biblical text so I'm not using a grid Akmal to fill in holes I'm using critic material to frame what is said in the Bible in its worldview context you know so that it's a fundamental difference and I think I think people would be prone to accuse me of filling in holes because they either don't understand the material they don't understand the process or they don't like the implications you know for a certain where it takes you in I think that's probably more often than not you know I would I would say it's probably the you know the the third of those and again the reason why people become uncomfortable is because they weren't taught this in church and then the dirty little secret of unseen realm is that nothing in the book is original to me zero everything in the book you can find in peer-reviewed scholarship and and whether it's by a Christian or a non-christian I yes the answer is both okay everything in the book has been heard and digested and taught by people who teach and believing Bible believing seminaries that's the dirty little secret people think that I'm just like innovating I don't have an innovative thought in my head okay I'm not innovating anything what I'm doing is I'm taking the stuff that your seminarians are gonna hear in their classrooms or articles they're gonna read because they're assigned things that they're just going to be confronted with in a class that they need to be able to think through I'm taking all that and I'm I'm I'm giving it to the person who's not the specialist who isn't gonna go to seminary yeah and hopefully again comprehensible language think of me as an arms dealer okay that's what I do we're in Texas so like that yeah we like that illustration I want to get people you know back into the text in its own context and what what most Christians experience are little little tidbits of the Bible again given to them sort of piecemeal nothing is ever connected and and then you know some applicational thought I mean that that's typically what what a you know even a good sermon you know might might do on a Sunday morning but people don't realize that man there's just there's a lot more beyond this the weird stuff is important there are a lot of passages you'll never hear a sermon on that are really important again to framing the the bigger picture of what the Bible is about and how to understand that on its own terms but a lot of Christians don't want to understand it on its own terms they're they're happy with the distillation they're happy with the filtering because they don't they don't want to think about these questions yeah they don't want to possibly either I have to change my mind on this or I'm still going to land on the same doctrine but the way I got there for 20 years is just garbage okay and I have to abandon it they don't want to do that yeah you know which again is it's kind of pitiful you know to me because if you're willing to sort of get into the material and what unseen realm really really tries to help people do is rediscover the text rediscover the Bible now it's not marketing shtick I mean you've read the book and I say on the book in the and in the introduction look if you read the book and if you get a handle on what's in the book you will never read your Bible the same way again and that's okay it's a good thing because it'll it'll sort of reignite the sense of discovery yeah I never knew this was here and that was here and this connected to that that's what you hear so much with people and when they've been in the faith for a decade or so you're getting in the word and they're like okay I've read this before I kind of but you feel like you're you're just skimming the surface but you don't know how to go any deeper so right yeah I mean I'm not I'm not telling people something that will happen to be a slick marketer I'm telling them because that's what happened to me yeah yeah all right and I was not a newbie I was in a doctoral program in Hebrew studies before I really started running into some things that I had to deal with you know theologically and exegetically and I understand it's a little scary at first but but I I you know I I just you asked me before we began what was the motive for writing unseen realm and the answer is guilt okay and what I mean by that is I remember sitting in Memorial Library at the University of Wisconsin this is after the the watershed moment I had that I described an unseen realm in the first chapter that my Psalm 82 you know watershed moment I'm a year or two pass that and I am just sitting there thinking you know like this is just awesome like like the Bible just makes so much more sense now I can see where this connects to that and if if I just read it the way they would have read it it makes sense on its own terms and and and there and somebody else comes along and they use that to say that it was wonderful but then the thought hit me you know what I'll bet 95 percent of the Christians who really care about the Bible sitting in church they will never have this experience and this feeling and that just isn't right it's just not right so I determined from that point that I was no longer going to protect people from their Bible and I'm really serious about it if you don't like it okay I understand why I understand again that the process but you're really missing out yeah cool okay so I said that earlier lightning round we got like 15 minutes left in the program so I I I do I do have some some some ones that I think are applicable things that I've heard that I'd love to get answered when it comes to these principalities these governing spirits these regional whatever's do we as Christians are are we responsible for should we engage with praying against those things would it I've heard on both sides ending up seeing it you know should command to the Prince of Persia to leave is there I mean I don't see I'm gonna leave you with with my presupposition guy my answer's no because I don't see it but border your thoughts yeah I don't I don't see that we have the rank or the authority to command the Prince of Persia to leave town mm-hmm we do have the rank and authority as children of God to ask God to send whoever's up to that task the job right in other words wheat we used a means at our disposal and asking God to use the means at his disposal to get the job done we don't assume that for ourselves you know Hebrews 1 talks about angels being ministering spirits you know sent you know for the sake of it doesn't say that they're sent at the behest of us like an angel shows up and says I got five minutes now what do you want me to do the sender is God we are not the sender yeah the sender is God they are sent you know to work on our behalf and I do think prayer is one way again of of you know telling God that we are dependent on that asking God to take care of a problem through his means and not ours you know not our own might but by the spirit or by whatever agency God wants to use you know spiritual warfare is not walking into a room and screaming at a demon or some higher power because demons are kind of low-level in the biblical world you know spiritual warfare just ask yourself this question what would frighten the principalities and powers Jesus lose Jesus and losing their subjects yeah yeah losing the ones that they have enslaved that frightens them it's it's not a coincidence it's not like that right it's not a coincidence that the return of the Lord is linked in Scripture to a concept called the fullness of the Gentiles the fullness of the Gentiles is about the nation's being reclaimed through the gospel so I get asked a lot well are like the powers of darkness are they just kind of dumb you know like they really think they can win or you know it's like okay they know who God is they know they're not him let's just establish that they're not idiots but they also know at the return of the Lord and their final judgment because the return of the Lord is linked to the day of the Lord as well when everything is you know all the wrongs are set right and they're in the righteous or vindicated all that stuff they know that that when the day of the Lord comes it's up for them times up but the day the Lord is also linked to the second coming which is linked to the fullness of the Gentiles they're trying they're attempting to prolong for them means delaying the return of the Lord delaying their own judgement for as long as they possibly can and the way you do that is to thwart the expansion of the kingdom of God and the king God grows through the dissemination of the gospel as people are one you know to Christ in other words Jesus knew what he was doing when he gave the Great Commission and that makes a warfare makes sense spiritual warfare finally makes sense with that worldview as one kingdom grows the other diminishes you know we like to quote the Great Commission at verse 19 go ye therefore and teach all there you know all that we skip verse 18 all authority is given to me in heaven and on earth okay there's a reason Jesus says that hmm there's a reason why the book of Acts plays out as it does in terms of cosmic geography okay all of this is in unseen realm you know but spiritual warfare is about growing one kingdom so that the other one diminishes you know until until God decides we're good now you know you know only God can define the fullness of the Gentiles and the day that triggers the day of the Lord the return of the Christ you know all that kind of stuff yeah as long as they can keep that from happening they're good yeah well it seems like there's the scriptures even allude to that Jesus didn't know the day or the hour on the front end again it's not a coincidence that when the kingdom is inaugurated during Jesus ministry you know when he goes out and he starts he says the kingdom of God is among you if I cast out demons it's because the kingdom of God has come and all that stuff it completely announcement of the kingdom of God coincides with the authority to get rid of demons again that's not a coincidence it corresponds to Jesus sending out how many disciples does Jesus send out the first time he sends them it's not 12 which corresponds to the nations that were disinherited again these things are not throwaway items there's an intelligent interconnectedness to Scripture but if you cut yourself off from the original context if you D mythologize the Bible and get rid of the supernatural stuff other than the stuff you need you even call yourself a Christian you're never going to see it okay so three questions that are coming to my mind I know 10 minutes in the program there is the Leviathan is that a spirit or a creature the Matthew 24 as in the days of Noah so will it be in the coming of the Son of Man I've heard people talk about that account meaning that these Nephilim beings are coming back in the end times I I personally think that might be a stretch for that context but I want your thoughts on it and then finally revelation 12 they overcame with a blood of the Lamb in the word of the testimony and then a third of the angels get cast down to the earth so I can run through those again but I have one question but I want to ask you sure angels and demons fight in like a spirit world oh they fight amongst teachers like literally like fighting angels and demons but earth sorry fallen angels but go ahead okay Leviathan what are your thoughts on Leviathan and so when we read about Leviathan we were actually reading about all of the all of the forces or an eruption of the forces that oppose what God wants what once done and the way things God wants them to be so could it be used in hyperbole in a sense to say it's it's a metaphor but but the way the metaphor works out the way the way the way chaos operates must include the spiritual world so sure there could be a spiritual entity there could be a group of spiritual entities that are sowing chaos somewhere and of course Psalm 82 says that's pretty much what they do in the nation's okay so it's a metaphor but it but that doesn't mean it doesn't operate in our world and the spiritual world excellent second one was Matthew 24 yeah as in the days of Noah so will be in the coming son of man yeah I don't I don't think that that verse means that there's going to be like a new crop of Nephilim that show up at the end of days and I have two reasons for for not holding that view for rejecting that idea one is if you most of the time that the New Testament writers quote or refer to or allude to the the Old Testament they do so by means of the Septuagint which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was done a few centuries before the time of Jesus I mean that the New Testament writers use this seventy five eighty percent of the time there are no textual links in Matthew 24 in those verses back to Genesis six hmm what I would need to see to convince me that Matthew wanted me to think of Genesis six is he would be dipping into the vocabulary but he doesn't the other problem is that there's actually three or four points of characterization about the days of Noah that show up in Matthew 24 three of them are very normal eating and drinking okay you know but so why should we pick out the one that we imagine to be sort of the bizarre supernatural thing back in Genesis 6 why should we pull that one out and and make that the interpretive filter for the entire passage to me that's a very poor method it's it's a very self-serving method yeah so I don't I just don't think that that has anything to do with excellent and then and then finally the revelation 12 we've been taught I've been taught often which well just the context of a third of the Angels is the one that I think that's the most interesting I've always been taught that that third of the Angels fell in Genesis but that does not seem to be consistent I mean what would I've listened to your book and your podcast I am I am it it is yeah who's the guy who wrote the that book it's like a book of fables it's anyway regardless sorry this this idea that a third of the Angels fell this is at this is at the end of the days they overcame with a little lamb and the word of the testimony and then a third of the angels were cast out of heaven and beware woe to the earth because they know their time is sure that's the only time that we have a record of a third of the angels fallen correct correct this is this is one of the great Christian myths to the third of the angels rebelled before the fall or something like that you might be thinking of Milton's Paradise Lost that's exactly I couldn't think of Milton's name for what everything you know but but again this is this has become mediated to us through centuries of Christian tradition is almost the level of doctrine mm-hmm you know for some people but you're correct the only place you see the word third and the word angel or angels anywhere in the Bible is the last book of the Bible revelation 12 and I mean just you just read it is there number of things here okay say you know that you have the woman and the dragon in the first couple verses and verse 4 says his tail the dragon's tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast him to earth we don't even know that that means angels it might just be that he killed off you know a bunch but we read it as though that means he had a third that or that were in his pocket that serve him well it does it actually say that no you know but but the the the larger point is if you continue in verse 4 the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she bore her child he might devour it she gave birth to a male child one as to who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron it's very clearly the birth of Jesus because he quotes Psalm 2 which is a messianic Psalm about ruling the nations with a rod of iron has nothing to do with Genesis or the at the moment after creation or whatever it's about the first coming of the Messiah that's what launches foments a war in heaven and that makes perfect sense because it's like oh we got to do something about this guy because if it's the Son of God the Messiah well he's probably here to restore the kingdom of God and that's not something we want yeah you know it makes perfect sense and he the woman is pursued the woman and her child is or pursued it's not Mary its Israel okay Israel produces the Messiah because the Messiah is the Messiah of Israel you know it's not a terribly difficult passage to interpret but we've been taught that it's somehow having something to do with you know before creation of humanity or just after or something like that okay so do is there when we talk about spiritual warfare I know I kind of our application prayer fasting is there actually warfare that goes on between spiritual beings and like a third heaven or whatever you want to say yeah I mean I I think I think we are given evidence that that is the case you know when Paul talks of that sounds so cool just like I really want this to be true you know when Paul talks about principalities and powers and and warring against those powers you know we can't enter into you know that the spiritual realm so you know right away you know we can look at like just what you did like spiritual practices that help in some way you know help us deal with them but we have to marry that to the very clear teaching about you know angels being sent here to assist us we have to we have to look at Old Testament passages to about you know that associate that the kingdom again with with conflict of God's Holy Ones against you know the gods of the nations and stuff like that you know we can even look at the Exodus you know this night I will have victory over the gods of Egypt that sort of thing well if you read if you read in Psalm 78 God was accompanied by a company of destroying angels nor that are associated you you have this sense that that behind what we see going on there's this other conflict that is playing out and if you have intelligent spiritual beings that that are diametrically opposed what God wants done they're going to try to be influencing others and Foam enters of misery and conflict and chaos and the other side is going to try to deal with that yeah to steer humanity in the other direction alright we're gonna start in seconds right yep okay I don't see how we can get away from the notion that spiritual conflict means a little bit more but doesn't exclude the spiritual practices we do there's just something else going on so so tell us how how do we follow you dr. Heiser what's what's the best way for people to get introduct introduced to what you do because I think it's an invaluable research for the bodies Christ yeah my homepage is Dr as in dr. Dr MSH those are my initials dr MSH calm my you can follow me on twitter at ms Heiser but you know you can link to that from the home page the home page has all the books it links out to my blog it links out to the podcast Naked Bible podcast is the biggest one we also have a podcast where we deal with paranormal you know subjects through peer-reviewed literature I'm into a lot of stuff because I I want to help people in the Academy I want to help people in church and I want to help people who are sort of in the wild world of the internet again the fringe what I call middle-earth to think well about Scripture and about dr. Mann thank you so much for coming on today it was an honor to get you thank you for making time in your busy schedule it's it's a blessing to have you and if everybody who's watching on line thank you so much for tuning in today to the remnant radio ask your questions there in the comment section below you can continue in the conversation continued support us at V remnant radio comm you can donate there watch all of our previous videos and you can follow us on tons of platforms by google play YouTube Facebook added to daily so be blessed and we will see you next time Monday 8:30 p.m. Central Standard Time I'll be blessed have a good one

Channel: The Remnant Radio

Views: 303,708

Rating: 4.7842216 out of 5

Keywords: unseen realm michael heiser, dr. michael heiser, Angels, angelology, angels and demons, demons, Dr. Michael Heiser Leviathan, Nephilim with Dr. Michael Heiser, Demons with Dr. Michael Heiser, principalities and powers, theology podcast, remnant radio, the remnant radio, one third of the angels, Naked bible podcast, michael s. heiser (person), michael heiser, michael s. heiser, the unseen realm, sons of god, michael heiser unseen realm, unseen realm, dr michael heiser

Id: c2dspQOtiug

Length: 60min 41sec (3641 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 09 2018