The Glorious Blessed Hope of the Church with Skip Hietzig

Part 2

Skip Heitzig: Tim, it’s great to be with you and your listeners and viewers. I love the set, by the way, that you have behind you. I love the way that looks and the motif of the lamb and lion. Beautifully done.

Tim Moore: Well, thank you very much. Obviously, the lamb and the lion harkens none other than to our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, and so I’m very glad that we’re pointing people to Him even through our motif. Well, as I’ve already said, I tried to express my appreciation for the gift of teaching that God has given to you, but I praise Him for that gift, even as I’d like you to share with our viewers how you were called into the ministry and how you realized the importance of preaching the full counsel of God, including His prophetic Word.

Skip Heitzig: Okay, I’ll kind of give you a nutshell version. I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church. I went to church every Sunday. I didn’t know the Lord, but at about 18 years of age, when I left home, I was 17, almost 18. I went up to the San Francisco Bay Area, living with my brother, and I happened to turn on television and Dr. Billy Graham was live on TV having a crusade. And I just remember being riveted and I decided to listen to it.

I went to the refrigerator, took a beer, and popped it open and was listening to Billy Graham. Well, by the end of the broadcast, I was so convicted that I needed to do something that I said in my mind, “If I were in that stadium, I would walk forward and do what those people are doing, but at least I’m hidden and safe behind this TV.” As soon as I thought that Billy Graham focused those eyes right on the camera and said, “If you’re watching by television, you can know Christ.” And it was like he was talking directly to me.

Right then, shortly thereafter, I prayed to receive Christ in my life, and then I got plugged into a church back home, back in Southern California called Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa with Pastor Chuck Smith, who plowed through the Scriptures verse by verse. And that gave me a hunger for the Bible and a thirst to be able to do something like that.

So I taught little home Bible studies, and I had a medical background, and I thought, I think I’d like to maybe start a Bible study and/or a church somewhere. That’s how I ended up moving from California to New Mexico, started a Bible study while I was working at a local hospital, and it grew into this church.

Tim Moore: My goodness. You know what? That’s a tremendous testimony. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard someone say they cracked a beer listening to Billy Graham, but it shows you that we come from all sorts of backgrounds. I was also thrilled with your rendition of Billy Graham. The only other person I know who does a dead-on impersonation is Erwin Lutzer, a mutual friend of ours.

Skip Heitzig: Oh, he does it better than anybody.

Tim Moore: He does very good! Well, Skip, I’ve got to tell you, as a former Air Force and airline pilot, your series entitled The Bible from 30,000 Feet really struck a nerve with me. And you can see so much further and clearer when you’re six miles up. What inspired you to begin unpacking the Bible from that perspective, from the grand overview, so to speak?

Skip Heitzig: Well, I had taught through the Bible, and I’ve done it now about four times from Genesis to Revelation, every single verse, a couple chapters at a time on our midweek Bible study. Well, it takes a long time to do that, and people are mobile and they’re not going to necessarily sit at the same church every week for 11 or 12 years.

So I just thought, what about condensing it to give people a view of the forest, kind of a… you fly in the airplane and you go over the Grand Canyon and it’s spectacular from the air as it is from the ground, but it’s a whole different way of seeing things when you look at it all at once.

So I remember John MacArthur did a study once called A Jet Tour through Revelation, and I thought, I wonder if that could be translated to every single book of the Bible. And so I just sort of was thinking about the jet tour and flying an airplane and the cruising altitude, and I thought, “The Bible from 30,000 Feet,” I could probably cover the entire Bible in about a year and do that and ask people to commit to one year of study, which I did it in California and I did it here in New Mexico a couple times.

And it proved to be very successful because you can get caught in the weeds so quickly when you’re going verse by verse through 66 books of the Bible. It’s a big book. And to do it justice, you have to do more than just read it, you have to study it. So to kind of lift off and get the grand scheme of things, get oriented, get reference points, get a history flow, get a chronology. It’s just helpful and people really resonated with it.

Tim Moore: They certainly do. One of my dear friends from the past, Stephen Armstrong, you may know that name, had done a verse by verse. He was in my class at the Air Force Academy, had lived in the same squadron, just down the hall from me. He’s gone home to be with the Lord.
I have found, even as I’ve taught through the Old Testament, if you take, I call it a key verse from every part of the Old Testament, every chapter or perhaps every book is more appropriate, and you weave them together, it provides a tremendous overview that points to the Savior.

Some people would worry that you would lose some detail if you approach the Scripture from an overview. But my experience is that people do not have a true biblical framework to understand the meta-narrative of God’s plan. So as you said, when you focus only on individual stories and narratives, they miss that overarching theme and plan that God has chosen to reveal.

Skip Heitzig: Yeah, agreed. I totally agree with you. You do lose some of the detail, but you lose some of the detail on purpose in favor of getting the grand scheme, the general orientation, the flow of history, et cetera. You know, the Bible, when you read it, if you were just to read it chapter by chapter, book by book, it’s not in chronological order. Some of it is, but some of it’s largely out of order.

You have the book of Job, which probably should have been placed first. You have, you know, the Gospels and then Revelation that wasn’t written till about 95 AD. You have 1 Corinthians, which probably was the first New Testament book written. So a 30,000-foot view really helps kind of place a chronological frame as well as a historical frame.

Tim Moore: Well, to get to the end of the book, as you just referenced, you refer to the Rapture itself as the glorious Blessed Hope of the Church. When did you come to recognize the Rapture as the ultimate promise and homegoing of the Church? I know that’s something that is stressed in Calvary Chapels, but how early did you understand that the Rapture is our Blessed Hope?

Skip Heitzig: I’ve got to tell you, when I first heard about the Rapture, I thought it was bogus. I thought it was the weirdest thing I ever heard. I didn’t grow up believing in a Rapture. I didn’t read the Bible. I was raised a Roman Catholic.

And when somebody… I had become a Christian; I gave my life to Christ. I was having a conversation with somebody who was my neighbor; actually lived down the street from me in California. I was maybe a believer about a month or so, and he started talking about a rapture, and I said, “Well, describe that.” And he said, “It’s a catching away. All the saints are going to be caught up.” And I said, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

And it wasn’t until I started reading it for myself and I started…you know, I remember reading, he showed me First Thessalonians chapter four, he showed me other texts, and you know, I had to look at it fairly. I had to look at it linguistically, historically, exegetically. I just kind of broke it apart. And I said, “There’s no escaping it. He’s right, there is going to be a Rapture.”

Now the question is, when is that going to be and how’s that going to play out? But I was probably three, four weeks old in the Lord when I was confronted with the idea of a Rapture and first came to believe in it.

Tim Moore: Do you think that’s why some Christians, even to this day, are scoffing, just as Peter says in 2 Peter 3, they’re scoffing at the promise of His coming, and by virtue of their scoffing, missing out on the blessing, even of anticipating His coming, or perhaps getting the Crown of Righteousness that Paul speaks of?

Skip Heitzig: Yeah, I think so. I think that, you know, the context when Peter wrote that, he was kind of addressing uniformitarianism, how that people will say, “All things continue as they were from the beginning. There’s no change.” You know, Christians are not uniformitarianists, we’re catastrophists. We believe that God intervened in history, in creation. He will do it again in consummation and various points along the way.

Yeah, the rapture of the Church is scoffed at by many, but I think it is scoffed at because people are taught a framework that denies it. In other words, if they were to just read the Bible on its own at face value, historically, linguistically, it would be unmistakable. It’s pretty obvious. But when you are given a framework or a set of glasses before you read the Scripture and you are taught to interpret things not literally, but figuratively, allegorically, then you can make the Bible say a lot of what it doesn’t really say.

That’s kind of what I think is, in my view, the problem with the Amillennial view. Largely, the reformed churches take a viewpoint that allegorizes the Scripture rather than taking it at face value.

Tim Moore: That’s a tremendous insight. I have a great appreciation for the fact that when I was first introduced to the promise of Jesus coming, I did not have a preconceived framework to go in and begin interpreting by. I hadn’t been told anything about the Lord’s coming. So as I began to study, it was just obvious to me, and I challenge many who would scoff whether or not they’re coming with their preconceived notions, their frameworks.

And of course, anybody that is a Protestant follower of Christ has a great appreciation for the Reformation. But to say reformed, yes, sometimes connotates an Amillennialism or allegorize all of the promises of God instead of taking them at face value.

Skip Heitzig: Just to be fair, you can be both. I know people who have been reformed in their theology, but also accurate eschatologically. John MacArthur was a great example of that. You know, he was a diehard Calvinist reformed guy.

But you know, I think he made the contention that if you just read the Bible through at face value, you’re going to come up with the Rapture, you’re going to come up with the Tribulation, you’re going to come up with the end of the Tribulation where Christ comes back, sets up a literal thousand-year kingdom on Earth from Jerusalem, to be followed by an uncreation and destruction of the heavens and the Earth, and a New Heaven and a New Earth and the Eternal State.

It’s there, it’s so plain and obvious. It’s only if you read things into Scripture and you don’t exegete it, but eisegete it, you’re going to come up with a different set of ideas.

Tim Moore: You certainly are. I’ll give you another example. Al Mohler, who is committed toward being reformed, Calvinistic in many of his theologies, but he is also committed to a Premillennial, Pretribulation, imminent return of Christ. And so you can blend the two together.

Well, Skip, as someone who recognizes that the Rapture is our Blessed Hope, we do not set a date here at Lamb & Lion Ministries. I know you don’t either. We reject that out of hand. But what signs do you see that would indicate we are living in the season of the Lord’s return? In other words, the imminent promise is coming closer and closer to fulfillment.

Skip Heitzig: Yeah, that’s a great question, and that’s a very common question that I’ve been asked, you’ve been asked, “Are we in the Last Days? What are the signs of the Last Days?” I think the mega sign, the first sign that always has to be talked about, is the existence of the nation of Israel. Because there are so many predictions that necessitate the rebuilding of the Temple. Well, you can’t rebuild a Temple in Israel unless you have a literal Israel existing.
The invasion, the Gog and Magog invasion spoken of by Ezekiel, that presupposes there has to be an Israel living in the land. Well, because that happened May 14th, 1948, that becomes and has been a mega sign of End Time. We’re living in a day when all of those other predictions can come to pass.

The second, I guess, mega sign that goes along with are the enemies of the Jewish people. The fact that Israel’s in the land, but there’s so many different predictions that state that they’ll be surrounded by people who don’t want them in the land; in fact, want them annihilated. In fact, there’ll be growing tension in a geopolitical sense on a worldwide scale that would bring the forces of the world against that tiny nation at some point.

So the fact that you have a religion and some nations that are bent on Israel’s total destruction, as well as the United States’ total destruction. I’ve always believed the last few years, I believe that the greatest threat that we are facing, and there’s a number of threats we’re facing, but the biggest challenge is going to be Islam. And that the tipping point has already passed in Europe, in England, and Europe, it’s too late. They will be at some point taken over by Islam because they have allowed it, they have invited it.

And we’re seeing that starting here. It’s been going on for a while. It’s just been silent. But now you have a mayor of New York City that is going to be pushing that agenda and others. So it’s coming to our shores.

Tim Moore: It certainly is. I’ll tell you, I consider it a great honor and blessing to live in such a time as this. I tell people 150 years ago, there were faithful Christians who believed God’s promises that Israel would be reestablished, even though they couldn’t imagine how that would happen. As I say, Jews were very happy in places like Germany and Poland and Russia. But it has happened in this last century, and even within our lifetime, Skip, Israel has come back into possession of Jerusalem.

And although most Christians yawned in 1967, the chief rabbi of the Israeli Defense Force rushed to the Western Wall, blew the shofar, and said, “I proclaim to you the beginning of the Messianic Age,” because he knew that when Israel, the Jewish people, the House of Israel, as Ezekiel 36 says, is back in possession of Jerusalem, the Messiah is coming soon.

Well, you talked about the turmoil and chaos, and I agree with you, the threat of rising Islam and militancy around the world, and even here at home, I think is the greatest threat. But there’s also turmoil and chaos throughout the world. And even in our own society, it’s as if the divide has grown wider in every arena, whether it’s politics, social divide, and even between the forces of light and darkness. Do you think that is another demonstration that Satan knows his time is short and so he is pulling out all the stops?

Skip Heitzig: Yes, I do. I think, in fact, Jesus did say in Matthew 24, in the Gospel of Luke, and in Mark 13, the Olivet Discourse, that one of the key factors of the End Times would be deception. Many will rise and say, “I am Christ.” But he talked about deception, and I know that largely, that is that discourse. He’s speaking primarily of the Great Tribulation period or the Tribulation and Great Tribulation period.

However, he said, when you begin to see these things happen, you know, lift up your heads, and your redemption is drawing nigh. So we’re starting to see that, and you’re right. This kind of deception is rampant. It’s widespread. I mean, if you just look at the issue of transgenderism and, you know, so many things that are so blatantly scientifically false, it’s like, who in the world swallowed the stupid Kool-Aid? I mean, to even question some of these things, but yeah, the deception is real and rampant.

Tim Moore: The deception is real and rampant. In my home state of Kentucky recently, our governor was on a national television program, “The View,” where he stated that his Christian faith taught him that he had to show love by embracing and encouraging gender transformation surgery for children. And that’s just such an abomination. And yet this false gospel that he is purporting to support is rampant in our culture.

You know, one of your sermons keyed on John chapter 14. You said that Jesus’ Upper Room Discourse was not only His second longest sermon, it was one of the first intimations regarding the promise of the Rapture. So how do you think Christians living today and following Christ almost 2,000 years after that sermon understand it to apply to their lives? And what reassurance does that sermon offer in such a time as this?

I would just reflect, you spoke of the comfort, the chronology, the controversy, and the choice that it offers us still today.

Skip Heitzig: Well, you know, with all that’s going on around us, the chaos, the anguish, the division, the signs that are happening, the upheaval in the world, in one sense it’s disarming, but on the other side, it should comfort us. It should comfort us in the sense that God knew about it and He’s told His disciples, “Behold, I’m telling you these things before they happen, so that when they happen, you know that I have spoken them.”

And so when you start seeing what the Bible predicts come to pass, it brings comfort. It’s comfort that what I’m trusting in, the promises that I’m trusting in, are rooted in Truth. And you know, every tomorrow has two handles: the handle of anxiety and the handle of faith. And you can grab the handle of anxiety and be freaked out, or you can grab the handle of faith and you can chill out. And it’s our choice what we’re going to do with them.

But Jesus, you know, He said, “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions. I’m going to go prepare a place for you and come again and receive you.” That’s a promise of the Rapture. It has to be contextually. But He spoke those things to them to comfort them.

And then Paul the Apostle, when he spoke about the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4, he said, “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” So even in the midst of the anguish, the Christian has this deep-rooted, deep-seated joy and confidence that the Book we are reading from, the script we are reading from, is accurate and to be trusted.

Tim Moore: Amen. You know, I love the fact that Jesus says, “In this world you will have trouble,” or little-t tribulation. “But in me, you will have peace.” Well you say, “How do you have both trouble and peace?” Well, I point out its external trouble, internal peace. In other words, if Christ is in me, I am calm in spite of all the chaos around me.

And on that note, I’ve already mentioned the turmoil that seems to be growing day by day. If the Lord tarries, what do you see as the trajectory of our nation, our society, let alone the rest of the world? We’ve already talked about the rise of Islam, but how bad will it get for our children and grandchildren if the Lord continues to tarry?

Skip Heitzig: Boy, Tim, that’s a great question. And it’s a question near and dear to my heart because I have children and grandchildren. I think we’re going to see apostasy because the Bible predicts apostasy. That is the falling away of believers. People within the Church. You already have lots of notable figures, Christian musicians, Christian pastors who are deconstructing their faith, who are saying, “Don’t trust in the Bible.” So you’re going to see apostasy. The Bible predicts that.

You’re going to see more and more persecution against believers in the Church from the secular world. And you’re going to see the rise of Islam like never before, just based on birth rate. And you know, in 2 Timothy 3, Paul said evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse. So there’s only one way to read that; things aren’t going to get better. They will eventually, but they’re going to get worse before they get better.

Tim Moore: Yes, they will. It gets darkest right before the dawn, as the old saying goes. What is amazing to me is that even within self-proclaiming or self-professing Christian circles, animosity against Israel and the Jewish people in general has been growing exponentially before our eyes. I would’ve thought after October 7th that Christians at least would’ve stood firm with Israel. But they have gone wobbly.

And so tragically, we’re seeing so many Christians that are buying into this lie, even whole entire denominations. And how can we seek to bless the Jewish people and Israel in particular, as we are called, as Paul says, to make them jealous of our relationship, our faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

Skip Heitzig: Well, Tim, I really do believe that one of the reasons that people are turning against Israel is… I’ll speak to Christians; I’ll speak to young Christians who are spending more time on their phones than they are in the Scriptures. And there’s a wave in social media against Israel. It’s been popularized by Tucker Carlson, by Candace Owens, and a number of these new conservatives that have divided that movement.

But when it comes to the nation of Israel, you know, you have to, let’s think for a moment like the devil would think, okay? God made Satan a promise back in Genesis 3 that the woman would have a seed, offspring, that eventually would crush Satan’s head. The seed of the woman is going to come and crush his head. That’s called the protoevangelium of Scripture. That’s the first Gospel.

And ever since Satan gets the notice that his kingdom will come to an end, that his head, his authority will be crushed, he has to figure out a way to counterattack. And so there’s a spiritual battle. It’s been well documented in a book called The Invisible War. I’d recommend that to anybody by Donald Grey Barnhouse. The Invisible War traces that battle scheme throughout history from Genesis 3.

But here’s the premise that the devil works on: If God’s plan to redeem the world requires the existence of a nation and the continuance of the nation, if you can destroy that nation, you can thwart God’s plan. And God promised that He would establish a nation through which Messiah would come to bless the world. God said, Abraham, Genesis 12, “In you all the nations of the world will be blessed.”

It’s not just the blessing of the Jewish people; it’s a blessing that the Messiah will come through the Jewish people. So if God’s plan of redemption requires the existence of a nation and the continuance of the nation, if I can destroy the nation, I can thwart God’s plan. And ever since Genesis 3, all of the attacks against the Jews be there, Pharaoh trying to kill all the Hebrew children, or Herod the Great trying to kill all the babies in Bethlehem, or on and on and on, we could cite many in the Scripture.

All of that is Satan’s attempt to destroy the seed that would crush his head. That is what is behind antisemitism. That is what is behind the anti-Israel. It is a satanic movement.

Tim Moore: I call it Satan’s modus operandi. Introduced first in the garden, but continuing all through history. And it’s funny how some of the H’s tend to keep popping up, whether it’s Haman, Herod, Hitler, and now Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, a lot of hatred going on, all coming from the pit of Hell.

Well, Skip, the writer of Hebrews tells us that as we see the day drawing near, and we certainly do, that we the followers of Christ should not forsake assembling together or encouraging one another. And there are so many that contact at least our ministry and say, “Tim, I live somewhere…there’s not a good church in my area. There’s no church that’s proclaiming the entire counsel of God’s Word or even touching on the prophetic Word.”

And we’re going to ask you in a moment how they can watch sermons from you. But what would you say to someone if there’s not a church body local to them to plug into, to assemble together, and to provide joint encouragement?

Skip Heitzig: I would say, first of all, nobody’s perfect. No church is perfect. Find a church that checks some of the boxes that is faithful to the Word. You know, when I travel, I always like to find a church, and I’ve gone to some that are just okay, but at least I’m among God’s people and I’m getting fed something. If that’s too hard for you to do, then at least get a group of people in your home and have a Bible study.

If that’s too much, then have a few people in your home and start a watch party. Watch a preacher who can teach you the Bible. We have several watch parties like that around the world. We encourage people to do that, but get plugged in. But don’t do it alone. You still need other people. God never intended us to be independent, but always interdependent. So we need each other as imperfect as we are. You need each other to grow.

Tim Moore: There’s no lone wolf, or dare I say, lone sheep Christians. The Lord intends us to be gathered with one another under one shepherd.

Well, Skip, I already mentioned we want to make sure our viewers know how to plug into you. So how could they stay in touch with your ministry, even get some of the tremendous resources? We’ve talked about your Bible From 30,000 Feet. Obviously, You Can Understand The Book Of Revelation, another tremendous book. How can they plug into your ministry there in Albuquerque?

Skip Heitzig: Well, one of the ways they can do it is on their phone. They can go to the app store and they can get the Connect with Skip app. It’s an app that gives you access to everything I’ve ever taught. Every book of the Bible, every verse of Scripture, all the sermons that are topical, textual, expository for 40 years, they’re all there and they’re free. You can just listen to them anytime you’d like. Also, there’s a website, connectwithskip.com, and those resources are available as well.

Tim Moore: Well, Skip, I want to thank you for letting us share your insights, not only with the readers of our Lamplighter magazine. If folks haven’t been able to get a copy of that, call the number on the screen; we’ll make sure to get you signed up for the Lamplighter magazine. But I also appreciate you joining me today, and I hope that we can do this again on Christ in Prophecy.

Skip Heitzig: Thank you, Tim. Great to be with you. Thank you for keeping the lamp lit and for letting the lion roar. God bless you.

Closing

Tim Moore: Well, there you have it, folks. I couldn’t think of a better way to describe the Rapture than how Pastor Skip did: the glorious Blessed Hope of the Church. I hope that Jesus’ imminent upward call to our forever home with Him is your Blessed Hope. If you are eager for Him to come for you and excited about all that He has promised, then you are promised a Crown of Righteousness! And if you don’t already know Him as Savior and Lord, then I pray that our conversation today has whet your appetite to join the followers of Christ who cry out, “Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus!” Godspeed!

End of Program