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A
In the book the unseen realm, Dr. Michael Heiser pulled back the curtain on the supernatural worldview of scripture, calling the church to wrestle again with the divine council, the rebellion at Hermon, and the cosmic backdrop behind redemption. His books, like Reversing Hermon, didn't just inform, they reshaped biblical theology for countless believers. Today we're joined by someone who walked directly beside the legendary Dr. Heiser through that journey and is now helping carry his legacy forward. For from those foundational works to new projects that aim to reach the next generation. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Skywatch Television. I'm Joe Artishorn. Today we have a massive broadcast planned for you, but before we dive in, let me introduce who's here. She's the president of the Michael S. Heiser foundation, dedicated to preserving and advancing her late husband's biblical scholarship. She leads efforts to archive his work, publish new content and equip future generations to engage deeply with the word of God. Drina Heiser.
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B
Yeah, there you go.
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A
And he's an American Baptist hospital chaplain and chaplain educator who was friends with Mike Heiser from the age of 19. They attended Dallas Theological Seminary together and he was one of the first people to see the the original draft of Mike's fiction book, the Facade. Please welcome Reverend Doug Vardell.
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B
Welcome,
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A
Drina. I just want to start by saying this is probably way overdue that you be here with us and all of our friends and those watching at home, Skywatch tv, that. Drina Heiser. Join us. One of the most difficult years that our families, plural, have been through was the year 2023. We lost our co founder, the late Dr. Thomas Horne, my father, in October of that year. And that came after February 20th of 2023, when the legendary Dr. Michael Heiser passed away. And I got to tell you, that was like a riptide through the ministries, plural. We couldn't keep up with the correspondence, the emails, the people, the outcry, you know, people asking questions that I can't answer, like why, in a world that is lost and dying under the circumstances that we're faced with, why in the world take Rob Skiba home, following just a couple of years prior, the great Chuck Missler. And then in close proxy to that, you have Russ Dizdar. Then we get to 2023 and it's Michael Heiser and then Tom Horn. People are asking, well, is God calling his generals home? I mean, that's what it appeared like. But I said at the time, I said, this is devastating on its surface, of course. We always are going to miss the warriors that are doing battle with us in the spiritual realm. I know that Donna Howell bawled her eyes out like she had lost a family member. And that's not hyperbolic, that's not conflationary for tv. She literally wept. And it's because for a lot of us, people like Tom Horne, Dr. Michael Heiser, they weren't just spiritual mentors. They were like the people we took our questions to when we're undecided, when we flush this out to a narrow 50, 50 on something. What does Mike have to say about this? We feel like we've lost that. Like what now? Where does Bible theology go now? Right? It was a devastating loss. God knows what he's doing, but he is raising a remnant. And here's the thing, and I want to say this. At the onset of this program, did you see two weeks ago where Candace Owens played a clip of Steve Quayle and Dr. Thomas Horn on her podcast? And within 24 hours, I believe it was over 2.4 million listens in the first 24 hours. Now, for the record, if you're listening to this broadcast, you're instantly your thoughts about Candace Owens are all divided. This is not an endorsement of the comments that Candice might make on her podcast. This is not just a blind, ditto, head follower statement. Here's what I loved about anybody willing to put my father back out on the airwaves. She's got the largest podcast in the world right now. It's larger than Joe Rogan. And my father always said, I want my work to outlive me.
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C
Amen.
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A
And I don't care who's listening to it. It's my truth, it's my calling. And I don't care if that means that warlocks or New Agers or people that are confused politically play my stuff. I want my work out there. So I want to say at the onset, my opinion is that these men may have passed on to glory before us, but their work is far from over. It is still impacting a changing world.
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B
Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Hallelujah.
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C
Hallelujah.
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A
Drina, none of us can say that we hurt more than you did. February 20, 2023. If you're comfortable talking about it, walk us through Mike's cancer diagnosis and what it was like to lose him and the aftermath.
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D
First of all, thank you for having me here. I feel honored. I know Mike sat in this chair and I was never called to do what he did. You know, I was his wife, mother of his four kids, supporter behind the scenes. And so thank you for having me. And just feeling like his legacy matters, and. And it does to me, and it does to all of you. Obviously, you're here. So my journey and Mike's journey with his cancer journey really started about three years before he was even diagnosed. So we were living in the Pacific Northwest. Mike was at Logos Bible Software. He was scholar in residence there, writing books. The Unseen Realm was one of them supernatural, another one angels and demons, all those. And so about 13 years in, he was there 15 years. About 13 years in, we were, like. We felt the spirit moving us, like we were no longer content doing what we were doing. And we knew we wanted to do something more. And so we wrestled with that for two years. We prayed, we talked. What is our next step here? You know, we had an easy gig at Logos. It was wonderful, and it's beautiful there. But we started this stirring of the Holy Spirit, like, moving us. And so we waited two years, and then out of the blue, Mike gets a phone call from a megachurch pastor in Jacksonville, Florida. And he had this supernatural thing happen to him on stage. Never happened before. He's not hyper, like, charismatic, open to, you know, supernatural things, but nothing had ever really happened to him until even Easter Sunday of that year. And he did not know how to process it. And so he's like, I'm not used to this. I don't know how to process this. What do I do with it? So one of his staff members had read the Unseen Realm and said, maybe you and your wife should read the Unseen Realm. And so he did, and it just, like, settled it for him what his new mission should be. And so he contacted Mike. And Mike, you know, know, knowing Mike, he was very suspicious of a mega church pastor. And so he kind of vetted him a little bit. And then we. A couple weeks later, we met him and his wife in Seattle, and we knew this was genuine. And this was like, I think this is what the Lord is calling for us, right? And not sure, but we thought moving in this direction completely out of the blue. And so they had us out, and Mike did a conference. It was really. Well, the supernatural conference was called, and it was really well received. And so most mega churches have a. Like, a little school they call, like, a school ministry. And so they had one, too. So the pastor decided, I want theology taught in this school. Not just how to run a church, how to run the audio, how to do worship. You know, I want these kids to learn theology as well. And so he offered Mike a school and it was the awakening school of theology. And this was Mike's dream. You know, I can develop this curriculum, and then I can write full time. We moved. It happened so fast. And so we were on the west coast, moved to the east coast, and it was great. This was a calling. We got there January 16, 2020. And what happened next, Covid two months later, shut the church down, shut kind of the school down just for a little. And we were in lockdown and didn't know anybody in the whole area. And so it was actually a beautiful time of family and stuff. But that was the first negative thing that happened. And so fast forward, Florida was a little bit more lax. And so Fast forward to 2021. Mike is really in the throes of recording all the episodes for two years. And then he started getting sick. And so he had back pain. So when he would lay down at night, he goes, oh, my back hurts. And I'm like, oh. You know. But he's like, you know, I'm used to it. I was an athlete. I played football, wrestled, baseball. I was a UPS truckloader in seminary, so I'm used to paying. But this one hit a little differently. And so he started going to doctors. So one doctor put him to chiropractor, one doctor put him to physical therapy, one doctor put him on pain medication for pain management. And so it was, I think, like our 34th anniversary. We had a little conference in a little church in Miami, Florida. And so we went there, and Mike was pretty sick and getting sicker. And so we came home. I was a little bit worried. And so the next weekend, he went to California for a little conference, conference. And he came home, he looked terrible. And he goes, drina, I didn't eat or drink for the whole three days. So I'm like, okay. We went to urgent care. And she immediately looked at him and said, you are severely dehydrated. Go to the hospital. So finally, after six months of going to doctors and symptoms, we went to an ER and they did a CAT scan. And that's when we got the news. It was August of 2021. And so when we met with the oncologist the first time, it was bad. It was the bad one. But they said it could be operable. I cannot tell you the look on Mike's face. He was finally doing what he wanted, and he was in the best shape of his life. He was going to the gym four times a week. He was thin and muscular. He was really taking care of himself. Never drank, never smoked. You know, all that stuff. And here he's hit with this. And so we had hope, though, going through all the chemo. And I can remember the first chemo he had, we were laying in bed that night, and he goes, darina, I don't think I can do this. I'm like, you have to do this. You know, it's like, step it up. You know, you gotta do this. It'll be fine. You know, we'll adjust all the medication so, you know, just week after week. And if you guys have ever watched any of his stuff while he had cancer, you could see how thin he was getting, just the pallor of his skin, you know, how yellow it was. And anyway, so we prayed. We had thousands and thousands of people praying. You guys were praying. You know, everyone was praying. And God said, no, no, no. Every time. We couldn't understand it, and Mike never complained. But the thing that really hurt me the most was the lack of hope. Every time we saw a surgeon or a doctor, just the look in Mike's eyes, that crushed me.
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A
You're talking about what the doctors are saying.
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D
Yeah, what the doctors were saying. How helpful.
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A
And they have some reasonable outcome projection.
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D
Yeah. And so the very last time we met with the surgeon, and that's another thing, you know, we thought, oh, God, moved us to Florida so we could be near Mayo. The best in the country. Right. They could do nothing for him, you know? And so the very last time we met with the surgeon, Mike's like, can't you just do the surgery? And the surgeon looked at him and said, there's some things worse than death. And we knew right then that there was no chance, you know, barring a miraculous recovery or healing. And so we went home from there and just tried to live our life. And then right after Christmas in 2022, I had to call the ambulance because Mike. There was something wrong. He couldn't walk, so the cancer had spread to the stomach and was having a bleed. And so they.
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A
I remember that.
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D
Yeah. So they gave him a transfusion. He felt a lot better, came home, and then two weeks later, it happened again. So we went in, and so we had to make a tough decision. You know, Mike always clung to hope, and I was kind of the rational one because I was, like, walking through this and having to be the caretaker 247 for him, I kind of made the decision to do hospice. We could have done palliative care or hospice. And so, you know, I just said, mike, I think it's time that we. So he came home and going through hospice and the final stages, he struggled. He didn't happily go to paradise. You know, he was full of life, and he didn't want to leave. He loved his life. And so that was really hard to walk through. But I can remember the last few days, I was reading the scripture to him, and I was reading out of psalms or proverbs, I don't remember which one. And he was, at this point, not talking anymore. And so I was reading this, and I had a question. I'm like, I don't understand this. And I just looked at him, I said, I wish I could ask you one more question. But it wasn't to be, you know. And so I promised Mike I was not gonna get bitter, and I was not gonna let Satan have the victory in my life.
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A
That's right.
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D
I was going to go gracefully with this. And so. And I promised him that. I think that was. That was huge. I know I'm talking a lot, but I want to say one more thing. And this will lead into the foundation. Mike cared about four things when he was in hospice. He cared about his legacy. He cared about his library, and we can talk about that at a different time. And he cared about his four kids and his three pugs. Those were the four things he was really zoned in on. And in my life, that's what I'm trying to honor right Sitting right here, those four things.
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A
Well, you've taken over the leadership. And, you know, my mom has faced. She's been through a lot of. I can see it in her face, what you're describing, you know, different circumstances. My father went in an ICU. We were there for 11 days. I'm sure praying many of the same prayers and believing to the very last minute for a miracle. But Donna said something very profound. She said, well, he did get healed. He did get healed. You know, Tom, Mike, they're not jealous of us at all right now. They're in their heavenly bodies. They're not suffering anymore. But for those that survive them, it's tough to navigate big things like Skywatch TV and Defender Publishing and the estate and the land. And how are we going to have summer camps for the kids at Whispering Ponies Ranch? God, it is not Joe Horn's business acumen that any of this is still alive. It is totally that God has decided, for his own kingdom purposes, that he would like for these places to survive. Thank you, Lord. I can't imagine that you didn't grapple with, you know, in the short time we have today, probably can't even. You know, unpack myriad emotions about how am I gonna do this? It's Mike's want that his work go on. How in the world my mom would say, I'm the wife, I was the support, he's the big ideas guy. Where do we go? You've taken over the leadership of the nonprofit that Michael leaves behind. Can you tell our viewers what the mission of that ministry was and still remains?
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D
Okay, okay. So Mike left a few documents for me and I didn't read them through them until after he passed. And so one of them was regarding the nonprofit he started, which was McLot, which means haven.org and so in that document, it said, don't worry about McLot, let it die. It will eventually die. The donors will drop off and it's okay, I don't want you to worry about it. And I was looking at that like, there is no way that is going to happen. You know, I'm not going to do that. And so I prayed about it, got a team, I had a board. It was very supportive. But I wanted to honor Mike. And so I decided to rebrand and to shift focus because I'm not a content creator. McLot was all about creating content. So I'm not a content creator. And so I have to shift focus and honor Mike the best that I can. And, and one of Mike's biggest things was like, I can't be the only one. You know, there's got to be somebody after me. Right. And so I rebranded to the michaelsheiserfoundation.org and so we are moving away from strictly content creation to offering. Well, we are doing mostly content creation, but bringing other people in to do the content. So we have a new podcast in Mayan Council, Worldview Podcast. We have a publishing arm which you guys are giving me a feedback on and we offer scholarships to PhD students in the biblical fields and conferences. And so year 2026 is a big year and it's gonna explode and I'm really excited.
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E
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we wanna remind you that Skywatch TV is a viewer supported ministry. And right now, when you partner with us, your support not only helps us stay on the air, it also enables us to continue the mission through our networks and digital platforms. Reach areas of the world with the Gospel of Jesus unable to support us financially right now, while supplies last for your donation of only $65 or more, we're not only going to send you the late Dr. Michael Heiser's all time best selling book, Reversing Hermon Enoch, the Watchers and the forgotten mission of Jesus Christ. But we're also going to send you his incredible companion books to the Book of Enoch. Both volumes one and two, these works provide his personal, thoughtful and detailed commentaries on the Book of Enoch, breaking down insights and revelations that theologians have missed for centuries. But in addition, we're also going to send you the Book of Enoch, Fallen Angels and Ancient Aliens on DVD featuring Dr. Michael Heiser, as he exposes the blatant lies of ancient astronaut theory and the horrifying nature of fallen angels and alien abduction. Finally, also included in this incredible special offer, the unseen adversary on MP3 audio disc. This series is over six hours in length and features Dr. Michael Heiser and Derek Gilbert discussing the watchers, UFOs, the gods who Rebelled, the Divine Council, God's Holy Mountain, and so much more. These amazing works, sold separately, hold a retail value of over $100. Yours now for your donation of only $65 or more, which includes free shipping to all US addresses. So, again, your support helps Skywatch TV continue reaching the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can scan the QR code on your screen using the camera app on your phone for instant access to this special opportunity. You can also Visit us at skywatchtvstore.com or call 1-844-750-4985 and ask for the Michael Heiser Legacy Collection right now.
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B
I'll jump in really quickly here. I have to say, as long as we're talking about the man, who he was, and not just his work, his legacy, like Joe said, Tom always said, Joe always said, let my life outlive me, Lord.
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C
Yes.
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B
And with Mike Heiser, there's no doubt that the next generation is gonna come in asking some bizarre questions and the church is not prepared to answer it. Mike always was. So his books are only getting ready to boom, in my opinion. But the man of Mike Heiser. I gotta tell you this very brief story. We went out to a steak dinner once and I remember having an eschatological question from a question about the end times regarding, you know, who's got it right in this whole thing and read all of his work about how everybody cheats the ending, you know, all the theological loopholes that they, you know. And so I wanted to ask him to help me parse that out. He was in person. We were at a table with 10 other scholars, right? And so everybody was wanting to talk to Mike and everybody else. And one thing I'll never forget is that he was very polite when they would jump in and take his attention Away from the question that I had asked him. He was very polite. He would finish talking to them and whatever, but he never forgot to come back to me. Now here's the funny at the time, I had never been on tv, I'd never had my name on a book. I was a nobody. I was just Tom's kid. And he probably didn't even know that at the time. I was just the rugrat in the room. But he came back to me. Did I answer your question? Do you have the answer that you were looking for? The man Mike Heiser cared about, the nobody in the room. And I remember going home and thinking to myself, who am I that he would even care what I have to ask or you know? And what shot out to me in the following year was the verse, who am I that God is mindful of me? Part of being a Christian, part of Christ, she and little Christ, the moniker of being owned and part of the family of God is doing the best that we can to be Christlike in everything that we do and to emulate Scripture. And when I read the verse, who am I that God would be mindful of me? I thought, boy, did Mike emulate that because he was a big and I was a nobody. Who was I that Mike Heiser would be mindful of me? God just opened up in my mind after that.
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A
Well, see, Mike understood that there's no such thing as a nobody.
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B
That's right.
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A
So I'm going to correct Donna Howell
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D
in front of all my friends today.
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A
There's no such thing in God's kingdom as a nobody. Doug, you were a long time, very trusted friend of Mike from age 19, I understand and actually proofread some of his most well known works. Talk to us briefly about your time with Mike. How did you meet him? Take us back.
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C
Well, I'll jump in and add to Donna's lovely description that from the age of 19, as college roommates, I got to know this guy. I was responsible as a prayer captain in our college dorm to maintain the rules. Lights out, everyone's silent after 10 o' clock at night. And in our room, the conversations kept going until 2 in the morning. And I felt a little guilty. But this was Mike Heiser at 19 years old. It was amazing. And when I was going through a devastating time in my life, training to become a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Mike reached out to me, sent me actually a copy of his PhD dissertation on the divine council, the Sons of God, and helped me to understand that I'm not a Nobody. Because I was feeling like a nobody.
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A
Wow. I love that you guys are saying the same thing through different lenses.
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C
That's right.
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A
You consider Dr. Michael Heiser's book Reversing Hermon. And let's bring this up on the screen. This is one of Donna Howell's favorite books, but the subtitle the Watchers and the Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ. As we are looking at less than five minutes on the clock. Doug, why do you consider this work to be so important, especially for people still today, right now living their lives that might happen upon this program?
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C
Well, I hope that everyone has read the Unseen Realm. That lays an.
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E
I agree.
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C
That lays an Old Testament foundation. But the reversing Hermon is the New Testament theology capstone. This was Mike's intention. I didn't realize that y' all's dad was the one who prompted him to write it. That was so cool to learn from you today, Donna. When Mike published that, I had the privilege of reading and was so excited to see him bring this Old Testament divine council worldview and then apply it to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. How his birth was a response to the Genesis 6 Rebell Watchers. How his exorcism ministry and then his death, burial and his resurrection was the triumphant announcement of victory over those watchers who rebelled in Genesis 6. It was so exciting for me to read this and I want everyone to read it. In addition to the unseen realm, these are critical.
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B
Well, and every moment in scripture that we see in the New Testament where Jesus is casting out demons, that is the spiritual offspring of that forbidden union. That's right, Mike. I mean, he covered all the bases. Jesus is absolutely in the Nephilim story as the triumphant Savior and reversing her mom puts that out. That's awesome.
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A
Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately we are razor thin on time. So some of what we were going to get to today is going to have to wait until next week. And I want to take just a second to kind of pre blow your minds. How many of you remember the facade and the portent? What if I told you that I have it on pretty good authority that there's a thing third book to that now becoming a series that is coming down the pike. We're going to talk next week about how that's possible. Who is helping to make that work come to fruition? Unfortunately, we're all out of time. But don't despair. Next week our guests are going to return to talk about whether or not there's a 10th anniversary edition of Dr. Michael Heiser's. Legendary book, the Unseen Realm. It is not an episode of Skywatch Television that you're going to want to miss. For everybody here in studio, everybody up here on panel, Drina, Doug, thank you so much for being here this week. I'm Joe Artis Horne. Keep your eyes on the prize, which is. Jesus Christ. We'll be back. Oh, my goodness.
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C
You caught one.
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D
Look at that little tiny fish. I caught one.
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B
Another one.
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D
You're famous now, sugar.
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B
You're doing good,
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D
Sam.