Visit to the Cockpit Q&A with Pastor Skip - The Bible from 30,000 Feet - Skip Heitzig

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The Bible from 30,000 feet, soaring through the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

Tonight, we're putting this series to bed. And so now I give you your final teaching, a visit to the cockpit with your captain, Skip Heitzig.

Well, good evening. I'm joined by-- who are you?

Matt.

This is Matt Pirolo.

That's right.

I dedicated him, didn't I?

That's right. I was a little lighter then.

Yeah. So I had the privilege of watching--

Right there.

His parents meet each other and then see them get married. And then you guys came along, and we dedicated you right here.

Right here.

And now you're here as a pastor on the staff.

Yeah, that's right, which is fun. My parents actually met on a trip to Israel in an airport, so how appropriate.

I remember when their eyes locked.

We just love airplanes here. Do you?

I actually do. I remember the moment. It was like, zhih, happened.

Wow.

It was cool.

Well, very good.

I was there.

So we're going to have a lot of fun tonight. Obviously, we've been two years in this series. Thank you, COVID, for postponing the series just a little bit.

But we're excited to visit the cockpit. You've written in several questions. A lot of them are ends time related. You know, we just spent two weeks in the book of Revelation.

Sure.

And so I think that was fresh on a lot of people's minds, and some of the questions are going to be geared towards that. But before--

Is this your Bible, by the way?

Yes.

It's so tiny, these words.

Well, tiny Bible for a tiny man.

Can you read that OK? I didn't say that, and I wasn't thinking that.

Well, I appreciate it.

I was thinking how good your eyes must be.

For now.

I had eye envy for a minute because my-- I need bigger font. Go ahead.

So where were we? Are we doing Bob Dylan impressions? Is that what--

That was a while back.

OK.

[IMPERSONATING BOB DYLAN'S MUMBLING]

Can we just do this all night? We have 40--

Should we answer it like Bob Dylan would answer it?

I'd like for you to answer the questions like Bob Dylan would answer these questions.

(IMPERSONATING BOB DYLAN) OK, man.

OK. So speaking of COVID, the first question is pertaining to that and these current circumstances that we are living through. It says, "Did God create COVID-19 either as a warning to or a judgment on our sinful country and world? Does the use of the word pestilences in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 apply to COVID?"

Yeah. I can't tell you why God-- let's reframe that a little bit-- allowed it to happen, rather than creating it. God created humans with volition. And with that comes an enormous risk. It's the risk where free mortal agents might make the wrong choice.

And there are consequences to every choice that is made. Also, we live in a fallen world that has natural evil, and so everything from tsunamis to cancers to tornadoes, all sorts of things happen. Now when you take an atom that God made, and you decide, let's mess around with that atom. Let's split the atom. You're going to have a very explosive result, literally.

So you can take nature, and man can interpose his will in nature. And you can have results good or bad. We don't know if somebody in a lab in another country engineered this virus or not.

We haven't dug in far enough to know exactly what happened. I know there's been talk about that, accusations of that happening. But that is possible. God allows the potentiality for evil because we live in a fallen culture, and we have free will.

So would you say to the second part of that question, does the use of the word pestilences, could that pertain to coronavirus. Could that include coronavirus as well?

OK, it could in a secondary sense. The Matthew 24 text primarily has to do with judgments during the tribulation period, Daniel's 70th week, and the kind of catastrophic events that will occur on the earth, which include a number of things, including pestilences. This certainly is a pestilence of sort. Although there have been several in history like this, pandemics that have killed a lot more people than have died-- many more people than have died from COVID around the world, far worse.

But-- so I don't see what's happening as COVID as a pestilence described in Matthew 24. But I think it is-- it could fit into one of the birth pangs, where you see hints of it. And you can have a preview of coming attractions. I think what you're going to get in the tribulation will be far more disastrous than a highly transmissible flu.

Right, yeah, OK. Good answer. So in Genesis 15-- we're jumping-- we just talked about Matthew a little bit, Revelation later, going all the way to the beginning. Genesis, chapter 15, verse 28, the land that was promised to Abram was described as a rather large area of land, right? So the question is, "As God keeps His promises, is the thinking that Israel will one day reach its Biblically defined boundaries, either before or during the tribulation?"

I think that's an excellent question, first of all. Very astute, it's a studied question because if you look at the promise that God gave to Abram-- and I love that the questioner asked and used the term Abram because God gave that to Abram before his name was changed to Abraham-- but what God promises from the Euphrates River all the way to the river of Egypt, and if you look at the geographical layout of the promise that God made in Genesis, God promised Israel to inhabit 300,000 square miles of land.

It's enormous.

Now they have never in their history occupied all the land God promised. At Israel's peak, at its zenith historically under David and Solomon, Solomon gave peace. And he and his father expanded the borders. At their very zenith, they only occupied-- Israel as a nation-- 30,000 square miles.

So at the best in history, they've only occupied 1/10 of all that God promised. So is-- do we just let it go and say, oh, well, you know, they got part of it, so that's good enough. No, I believe literally they're going to occupy as a nation all 300,000 square miles. When will that be?

In the millennial kingdom, it is one of the purposes for the 1,000-year reign on the earth. God has made promises to the nation of Israel that have not been fulfilled ever. And that is that there would be a theocratic kingdom, a theocentric kingdom, and a geocentric kingdom. That it would center in Israel, Jerusalem as the capital.

Messiah would reign, and they will during the millennium occupy all of that. In fact, it's not just an Old Testament promise. When the angel predicted to Mary in the Gospel of Luke that she was going to have the Messiah, it says, "And He will sit upon the throne of His father, David." So there is a promise that God gave to David that has not been fulfilled for all of that land, and that will be fulfilled in the Messiah in the millennial kingdom.

So good that we serve a God that is faithful to His promises.

Yeah, he's going to keep every promise. And we might forget about it and try to spiritualize it, but God won't.

Yeah.

He keeps it, literally.

That's good. Just as a little tag onto that question, it wasn't written here, but I love the Biblical significance or the spiritual significance that you often draw from that truth, that they only occupied 10%. Oftentimes when you've taught onto that, you've applied that to us today, only sometimes taking God up on 10% of our promise. Can you flesh that out just a little bit?

Sure. "Every spiritual blessing in heavenly places," Ephesians 1 tells us, "has been given to us." How many of us enjoy every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus? So you can have a promise. But unless you take it to the bank and decide I'm going to claim that and live on that, you're only going to live part of what God wants for you.

So if God says, take this land and occupy it, take it. And as you know, when they took the land under Joshua and even in the Book of Judges, all the way through, they're still occupying land in the Book of Judges. And they never made it all the way because they were scared, or they let the enemy in the land. And so there were compromises. We have to be careful not to do that.

Yeah, that's so good, so good. Next question that we got is from-- ooh, they actually didn't write their name. First time that I decided I was going to name somebody and give credit to somebody, it's not even there.

So it says, "The Apostles' Creed says that Jesus descended into hell. I don't find a Bible reference for that. Is there one?

She's referring to the Nicene Creed, which we made mention of this last weekend, that Jesus descended into hell. And then after the resurr-- after His death and then He was raised, so that's part of the Nicene Creed. It actually comes from a text in Ephesians, chapter 4, that says, "And He that ascended first of all descended into the lower parts of the earth to set captives from their captivity."

Now, the place of the dead in the Old Testament is called Sheol, the place of departed spirits. In the New Testament, the equivalent is Hades. So it's accurate when you say He descended into hell, to say He descended into Hades, the abode of the dead. He did not descend into the everlasting hell. That isn't even around yet, the lake of fire.

Right.

That's an eternal hell. Jesus didn't go for any reason to torment or to experience pain, like some say He did. He simply went to make an announcement. And in the book of Peter, it sort brings this out, adds a little bit of light to that.

1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 18-- I wrote that down-- "Being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient." What Jesus did is, when He descended to the lower parts of the earth, He descended to make an announcement of His victory. So that's the idea that made its way into the Nicene Creed. And that word, the idea of Hades or Sheol, is translated into that Creed and in English is hell.

Thank you for answering that. These next two questions, I think, are really--

Can I add an addendum to that?

Sure.

So Hades had two places, two compartments, a place of blessing or comfort and a place of torment, until the judgment and the ultimate torment. But Jesus spoke about Abraham's bosom. He only did that once, but He talked about a place where departed spirits are comforted by Abraham. And so one is a place a blessing.

One is a place of torment. And that place-- that holding tank, if you will, as some people like to call it, Abraham's bosom-- is not occupied any longer. If a person dies in Christ today, He is immediately in the presence of God.

Be absent from the body. So in Romans, mainly chapter 13, we learn about dealing with government. And you've recently talked about this. But the question is, in light of the fact that anti-Christian ideologies periodically arise and sometimes become part of the government for discernment, what are some features of an anti-Christian ideology? And under what circumstances should a Christian submit versus resist?

Yeah, we got a couple of questions about this. And that is, it's a hot button topic right now.

Yeah.

Because of government mandates that are not equal in different states. People experience different things in counties, in cities. It differs, so there's not a homogeneous mandate. And so it's caused a lot of confusion.

But, you know, the idea about anti-Christian ideology, government has always had anti-Christian overtones, simply because it's of this world. And it is a fallen world. So John said, "Don't love this world, neither the things that are in this world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

Now the government that Paul wrote about obeying back then was not a democracy, a voting democracy. It was an imperial government. Rome was in charge. Rome had the right of life and death.

At a whim, they could just say, you know what? I don't like you. You're guilty. You die. They could do that.

So we haven't gotten there yet. We still have more freedoms. But here is the bottom line for Christians. When government mandates contravene clear Biblical standards, we resist it.

So kind of the rule of thumb I've always said is that being a good Christian, part of it means being a good citizen, until being a good citizen means being a bad Christian. So if your obedience to the government means you violate a clear dictate of God, then you are to resist it. And the early church did that by saying, "We must obey God, rather than man."

Yeah, so good. Well, that kind of answers the second question that really had to do with government as well, the next one that I had laid out. So we're going to jump into Kayla's question. She asks this. "Do you think there are any true prophets today or are they all false prophets?"

Well, first of all, let's go to-- that's a good question, the role of a prophet or prophets today. And in all of these questions, they wouldn't be asked as questions unless there was debate about it or controversy over it. And there are some churches that have their own apostles, and they have their profits, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah.

Some like to see prophets as simply preachers. You know, it's how they look at it, somebody who's a spokesperson for God. In the Old Testament, a prophet sort of served a dual role. Like so if Isaiah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets come, they foretold the future.

They foretold world events in some cases. They often foretold events just in the nation of Israel, just depending on what God called them to do. So part of it was foretelling, but another huge part was forth telling or telling forth the Scripture, telling forth the dictates of God, the word of God.

So it could be a word of exhortation or rebuke that a prophet had that role, could be to a king. So when you get to the New Testament and you have the apostles, you don't have a role of prophet in a local church typically. But Paul did talk about in Ephesians that, "God has given to the church some apostles, some prophets, some pastors, and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry."

And so clearly, there was in operation a prophetic gift. There were in the New Testament, though rarely, designated people who foretold the future. They had a prophetic gift in the sense of foretelling the future.

Agabus was one. He foretold that Paul, if he went to Jerusalem, would be bound with a belt, would be captured, and would be ill-treated. There were the four daughters-- Phillip's four daughters-- who prophesied.

We don't know exactly know what that means, but they gave some kind of either forthtelling or foretelling. So they were identified as either prophets or prophetesses. And so it seems to me that there was indeed that role, and it was used.

When you get to 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, there were rules for the exercising of gifts in the church, including tongues, interpretation of tongues, prophecy. And Paul belabors in one chapter, chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, the difference between the use of tongues and the use of prophecy in a public assembly. What he says there is, "Whoever prophesies"-- 1 Corinthians 14-- "speaks edification, exhortation, or comfort." Edification, build up; exhortation, stir up; and then comfort, cheering up, so that seems to fit the role.

Now what I see in 1 Corinthians is a specific gift of a word from the Lord for a person or a group at that time. Not necessarily a pulling out of scripture, though it could embody that if it fits that criteria, but it could be. And I see it mostly in that context as a specific word from the Lord for an individual or a group of people.

Anyway, so that's probably enough said. You could say more, but enough said on that.

Thank you. I love this next question because it highlights that some of the people that are here, listening online, have been coming for a long time. And we're constantly seeing people that are newer to the faith. People say, hey, who is this Jesus guy?

What's Christianity all about? And so this next question comes from somebody that admits that. It says, "Was Jesus Christ a real man who walked this Earth?" He goes on to say this.

Let me ask the whole bit because I love what he communicates afterwards. He says, "I gather from my short time reading the Bible that Jesus Christ was an outspoken, not afraid of anything type of man. I like His style." I like that he likes His style. He says, "It has drawn me to the Bible, and now I can't put it down." So the question is, "Was Jesus Christ a real man that walked this Earth?"

Yeah, I like His style, too. And I love-- I love the fact that Jesus is so compelling, even to this day. Those who read honestly the New Testament will be drawn to Him.

Yeah.

And so the short answer is, of course, yes, He was a historical person. It's written down in the history of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. There are other sources that speak of the historicity of Jesus Christ, Josephus and others.

And so, yes, He was. And I love the fact that Jesus wasn't intimidated by anybody at all. And that He did, like the question says or the comment says, He wasn't afraid of anything or anyone. He was never alarmed, and He was in perfect control. So, yes, He was indeed historical.

Good.

Do you agree with that, Matt?

Well, I think so, yeah. I'm pretty sure I'm there.

You looked at me like I don't know if I agree.

I was going to take a stab at another question.

I don't know if a pastor should not agree with that.

I will resign the day that I disagree with that, which I hope never comes.

Yeah, no, my hesitance was I was going to ask maybe another question kind of pertaining to that.

OK, go ahead.

So maybe what are some of the other-- what are some of the other secular-- I mean, you mentioned Josephus. But are there other secular writings or what other evidences do we have for the historicity of Jesus as a person?

We have some Roman writings that speak about the darkness that fell over the land.

Yeah.

All over that whole general region, that lasted for three hours, like the Scripture says. And so we have certain events that are written about that corroborate New Testament documents.

Yeah.

So several scriptures state that people are baptized for the forgiveness of sin. Are we saved through baptism? And is that why some faith traditions baptize infants?

Also, Jesus was baptized, and He had no sin? Was He baptized so that He could identify with humanity or to start his ministry? Or so that when we are baptized, we will identify with Him in His death and Resurrection?

Well, those are like several questions.

Three or four questions in there.

So let me tackle the first one about baptize for the remission of sins and are we saved by baptism. No, we are not saved by baptism. We like to say baptism is an outward sign of an inward change. The inward change happens first.

Then a person testifies to that and were changed by baptism. How do we know that we should look at the Bible that way? Well, this person is saying that there are several scriptures-- really there's one in particular-- in the book of Acts, chapter 2, where Peter says, "Repent and let every one of you be baptized for the remission of sins."

So some people read into that. It means that you should be baptized in order that you might have your sins forgiven. That's not what the text means. The word "for" in that particular verse is the word [NON-ENGLISH], which it could mean "so that" in certain cases, but it can also mean "because of." And most often it means "because of."

So, for example, if I say that soldier was decorated for bravery, do I mean that he was decorated. And because he was decorated, therefore he became brave. No, I mean that because he was brave, he was decorated to testify that he was brave.

Yeah.

That's how the word baptism for the remission of sins. The fact that your sins are remitted, now you get baptized to show that. That's the idea of the word "for."

That's good. One of the things that I really like that you just addressed is anytime that we come up across a passage that can be difficult, and it's, like, wait a minute. It seems to maybe have like some contradictions to other places in the Bible. It's always safest to let the Bible interpret the Bible.

Right, that's good.

So choose-- look at the whole context of Scripture and see what other passages say about salvation.

Right.

And whether or not it comes through baptism.

And we didn't even get into the other question. Did Jesus do it to identify? Yes. Primarily, I see His baptism-- Jesus being baptized at the Jordan to identify with sinful men.

Even John the Baptist said, hey, I shouldn't be doing this. I need to be baptized by you. And Jesus said, "Do this to fulfill all righteousness." So it was to identify with those that He came to save.

Yeah. So let me ask the third part of that question. That has to do with infant baptism. And I know that a lot of people practice that. I think we live in a state--

My parents practiced that. I was baptized as an infant.

You were baptized--

I don't remember it, but I was told that I was. I believe my mom.

You don't have that good of a memory, that you can think back to when you were an infant?

No, I can't. I don't. I'm sorry.

Wow.

I try really hard.

You quote poems up here all the time.

What's that?

You quote poems up here from memory all the time. You bring all your notes. Like, on Wednesdays, you don't even have notes, but you can't remember that.

I cannot.

I'm a little disappointed.

I failed, Matt.

So you did not baptize me as an infant, but you dedicated me. Talk about what's the difference--

But I wanted to baptize you as an infant, the whole time. I did. I just thought, you know this kid. I need to baptize him. I need to dunk him in the water.

Would it have been full submersion?

No, I'd just sprayed a hose at you or something.

Maybe you want to do that to me now. Hopefully not as an infant, but let's talk about that because I think it's a question that a lot of people have is, why not baptize infants. Why do we do baby dedications instead? Kind of, what's the mentality there?

The mentality of infant baptism is that baptism saves. So in the faith I was raised in, to secure a soul from eternal limbo, you want to make sure they go to heaven, you go through the sacrament, the ritual of baptism, which to them is tantamount to being born again. You get born again through baptism, rather than seeing it as an outward sign of an inward change.

So it's simply a safety precaution. It's the parachute. It's, like, we've got to make sure this kid goes to heaven. Now I believe if a child dies before a child can make a decision for or against Christ, that he's going to go to heaven, doesn't matter who he is or where he was raised. I think he's going to go straight to heaven.

Yeah, amen. So just right along with that, I think--

[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

Yeah. Right along with that, what was I going to follow up with? I guess we'll have to just jump to the next question.

You'll think of it, and then you'll go, oh, yeah.

Man, apparent-- I was calling you out on your memory.

Yeah.

Now I can't even remember something I was thinking about four seconds ago. OK. So the Scripture states that the communion elements are the body and the blood of Christ. We take communion more as a remembrance. But some faith traditions believe it really does turn into the body and the blood of Christ.

Yeah.

Does it?

It does not. The doctrine is called transubstantiation. And it's what the Catholic church espouses that the elements become the body. Why? Because Jesus said at the Passover that He had the last supper at, this is My body.

This is My blood. So they take that statement in a literal fashion, that the bread and the wine literally become His flesh and blood. So what the Catholic church has is what is called the continual sacrifice of the mass. That there is atonement going on around the world because the mass is being said.

And that consecration, that ritual, that sacrament, that prayer is being offered. We believe-- I believe that it is symbolic. Like baptism, an outward sign of something far more profound, and that's because when Paul, the Apostle, took and quoted what Jesus said at the last supper, he exegeted that passage for us. And He said, "As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show the Lord's death until He come."

You don't kill Him again. He doesn't die every time. It's not going through that sacrifice again and again and again and again. You are simply showing that He died.

Now let's go back to the last supper, when Jesus said that. Think of Jesus holding up the bread and holding up the wine and saying, this is My body. This is My blood. How could those elements at that time be His broken body and blood when He himself hadn't died yet?

Yeah.

He was in the room-- His body was-- and He would be arrested. And how could they at that moment do that?

Right.

That's an impossibility. So here's what we have to do in interpreting that. When we exegete something that is obviously figurative-- and I believe that's obviously figurative, "this is My body, this is My blood"-- just like when Jesus said, "I am the door."

I don't go to a door and go, wow, this is Jesus. This is Jesus. It's a door, but it's Him. Or "I am the vine."

I don't pick up a bunch of grapes, go, wow, that turned into Jesus just now. I don't do that. I understand He is speaking metaphorically, same thing with "this is my body, this is my blood."

Makes it easier to understand.

[AUDIENCE MEMBER CLAPS]

There you go. We had one person that likes that explanation.

Thank you, Richard.

It's so thorough--

And he drives a long way, so we should give him a hand.

We should. This next question says, "I have heard pastors say that Jesus was sick"-- yeah, "that Jesus was sick with maladies."

Like diseases.

Yes, yeah, illness.

Like you got a cold and stuff?

Or the flu or--

Not COVID.

Not COVID, it wasn't 2019 yet. "This is not mentioned in the Bible," the question continues, "that Jesus recovered or that He was sick. I heard from pastors that for Him to have been sick would complete His humanness. Since Jesus was our perfect sacrifice, how would you answer that contradiction?" I don't know that there is a contradiction.

There is no contradiction at all. And if pastors say that, they're speaking false doctrine because Jesus-- it's a false assumption. There is a strain of belief in Pentecostalism that Jesus needed to suffer. And that when Jesus died, He even went to hell and suffered in hell and was tormented in hell and had to from hell come back and be born again.

And it's nonsense. It's not in the scripture. And, you know, you can look for it all day long and you won't find it because it ain't there. So it's just a false assumption, and it's ridiculous to read stuff that's not there into it.

Right. And, furthermore, Him being the perfect sacrifice--

I like that you said furthermore.

Furthermore.

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, let me say it a few more times then. Yeah, no, so Him being the perfect sacrifice doesn't necessitate that He was never sick. It necessitates that He was sinless.

Sinless, right. That's why Hebrews says, "He was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin."

Yeah, and that would make Him the spotless Lamb.

Exactly, bingo.

Bingo. All right. So, yeah, let's jump into this one. It seems-- this is getting into the Revelation questions, and we've got a few here. We've got about nine minutes, so we might do two or three more questions. "It seems that the pre-tribulation rapture is a more modern idea.

Can you give examples of early and middle church leaders who talked about or taught the pre-tribulation rapture?" They go on to say this. "Matthew Henry wrote in his Bible commentary, about 1706, that he views 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and 17 as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ."

Yeah.

Do you want me to read that passage, just so that everyone is familiar?

Sure, go ahead. Can you-- you want a bigger Bible? Can you read?

Does anybody have my glasses?

Do you have a microscope maybe?

No, but if you have one handy, that I will definitely use it. Look at this, should have been ready. All right. What did we say, 16 and 17, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and 17. "For the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven, with a loud command with the voice of the archangel, and with a trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."

Yeah, so that is why that cannot be the Second Coming. So I love Matthew Henry. But Matthew Henry isn't scripture.

Yeah.

Matthew Henry is a man, like you or I.

Yeah.

So we can be wrong. Scripture cannot. What I see there is far different from the Second Coming, which is detailed in Revelation, chapter 19. Jesus comes to the earth.

What I see in Thessalonians is Jesus coming not to the earth but in the clouds, in the air, and we are caught up in the clouds, in the air, to meet Him and then be with Him. So it's a different coming. It's not coming to rule and reign, like it is at the end of the tribulation period.

So it is very different. The wording is different. I think what you have in Thessalonians is kind of a little bit of a commentary on what Jesus said in John 14. "If I go, I will come again and receive you to Myself."

Paul says that reception will take place in the clouds, in the air. And so He didn't come to Earth. He just comes to the atmosphere.

Yeah, I think He--

Yeah, but, you know, I've heard this for years. It's a very popular argument to say a pre-tribulation rapture is a modern thinking. The early church never had it.

And they like to kind of pin it on a guy named James Darby in the 1800s. They say he came up with it. Darby talked about the pre-tribulation rapture, but it really wasn't a thing until he did it. They're wrong.

All James Darby did is bring us back to what was said a long time ago. There are plenty of early church fathers and contemporaries of Matthew Henry, for that matter, who believed in a pre-tribulation rapture. So, first of all, Jesus taught He would personally come back for the church.

Paul in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, said, we'll be united with Christ because he'll come back for the church. But also people throughout the earliest centuries, like Irenaeus in the second century, predicted, like Jesus said, there's going to be a great tribulation upon the earth. But that the church would be removed from that time of persecution or tribulation.

Then a guy by the name of Victorinus in 240 AD wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation. He spoke about the plagues of God's wrath. And he said, and I quote, "The church shall have gone out of the midst of the earth during that time of wrath."

And then Cyprian also wrote of a coming judgment but an early departure of the church. And he said, what's coming on the earth will be far worse than has ever happened, according to the words of Jesus in Matthew 24. But that the church will be departed, "taken away"-- his words-- "and delivered from that time." So this isn't some new Darby 1800s thing. It goes all the way back to the earliest centuries.

Yeah, thank you for that. Well, we've got time for maybe just one more question. Then I have a final question, so I guess two.

And then I have a question for you, but I want tell you now.

Oh, do you?

Go ahead.

I can't do any good Bob Dylan impressions, if that's what you're asking.

No, it's not.

You've been thinking long and hard. I can see the smirk on your face. It's going to be a good one. "Are the judgments to be viewed as singular or separate events-- or singular separate events that happened one by one with each having a clear start and end? Or should they be viewed as a conflagration"-- wow, that's the first time that I've read that word today.

You like that?

Yeah. "Of events that are continuous throughout the tribulation? For instance, will the cosmic disturbances of the sixth seal still be occurring when the locusts of the fifth trumpet are released?"

Yeah, so there's debate about this. Short answer, I don't know. Another short answer, nobody knows exactly. But there's a couple of different theories on how the book of Revelation lays out.

Some see it as progressive and chronological. Others see it as a recapitulation. It's sort of happening simultaneously, and it's recap of the same kind of judgments, just expanded upon. It seems to me, I take it-- I take the first view that it's more progressive.

There can be overlap because you have these layers in it. You have this hiatus. You have these parenthetical statements, these intercalations that are in the book of Revelation that I can see an overlap. But it's best to read it progressive.

In other words, the Second Coming happens at the end of the tribulation. The millennium actually happens after the tribulation. The new heaven and new earth and all of eternity happens after that. It seems best to just read it chronologically.

Yeah, makes sense. OK, well, I want to ask this question. Since we've been spending-- we've spent two years flying over books of the Bible. So you spend an hour in one book.

You cover from a 30,000-foot perspective, kind of highlighting the themes. Here are the main people. These are the main events.

Can you give us in a few sentences the 30,000-foot view of all scripture? What is the main message that you want people-- why did we do this series? And what's the main thing you would want people to leave with?

The Bible is about one person and two events. Mainly, it's about the superstar of all history, predicted, interpreted, envisioned by the prophets through the ages. His name is Jesus Christ.

He is the son of David. He is Israel's Messiah. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's about one person and two events.

The first event is His First Coming. The second event is His Second Coming. At the First Coming, He comes to deal with sin. At the Second Coming, He comes to rule and reign with those who have been cleansed from sin. And that is the whole Bible in a nutshell. One person, two events.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Bible from 30,000 feet.

That was like 300,000 feet.

That was-- yeah.

That was way up there.

From Venus or something.

Just like one snapshot, boom.

Of the earth and the whole picture. Hey, would you--

Matt, real quick, tell me about this shirt. This is my question. It says, "Stay the Course."

"Stay on Course."

"Stay on course." Tell me what this means.

The font is as small as the font in my Bible. So that's not true, but this is a Bible from 30,000 Feet shirt.

OK.

And it's available over in Parchments.

I did not know that.

No?

I like that design. So I can go over to Parchments and get that?

It was almost like a shameless plug, but you didn't know. Yes, you can.

Is there anything on the back?

Just the color of it.

Just the color.

Solid color, yeah.

"Stay on Course," I like that.

So we've got all the Bible 30k merch. We didn't set this up, by the way. But we've got all the 30k merch over in Parchments. And since this is the last 30k, we've got everything discounted so you can go grab that.

It's actually right outside, even more convenient for you on your way out. But, Pastor Skip, would you close this in prayer? And then we have a short video we'd like to show everyone.

Yes. Father, I want to thank You for a group of hungry believers, who have been disoriented and confused, like everybody else has during this time of a pandemic, not knowing exactly what to do, what to believe, what scientific thread is right or wrong, but faithful and hungry and coming to fellowship week by week. Father, I pray that, as You said in Your Word, You are a rewarder of those who diligently seek You. And You said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

They will be filled. I pray that You would fill everyone, Lord, to the brim. Give them courage in these last days, courage to speak out, courage to live their life and their convictions in public, not being afraid of who they are and what they believe in for the cause of Christ.

Lord, we're entering in a very difficult season in our country, not only with health but with politics. And there's going to be lots of divisions and lots of lines being drawn. I pray, Lord, that we will see everything through the lens of what we have been studying the last couple of years. And that is the Scripture.

We would look at what the Bible says about the abortion issue, what the Bible says about life, what the Bible says about freedom. And we would interpret all these things and vote according to what the lens that the Scripture provides for us. Give us strength, Lord, in these days to come out of the closet as Christians.

And unashamedly, without fear, proclaim that I follow Jesus. Regardless of what you think or if you like it or not, that's who I am. That we'd identify with that one Person Who came once and is coming again. For it's in His Name we pray, amen.

Amen, amen.

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For more resources, visit calvarynm.church. Thank you for joining us for this teaching from The Bible from 30,000 Feet.