Pastor Jack Hibbs from Calvary Chapel Chino Hills is at The Babylon Bee to talk about why he made the decision to keep the church open even though the State of California told him to go home and stay masked up. Jack discusses his thoughts on Christian involvement in politics, his friendship with Dennis Prager, and how belief in Jesus being God's Son is found in the Old Testament. Jack also talks about the Jesus movement, Chuck Smith, and how we need to get Jordan Peterson saved. In the full-length ad-free podcast, Jack answers the Ten Questions and gives his thoughts on Donald Trump. You can hear more from Jacks Hibbs on the Jack Hibbs Podcast: https://podcast.jackhibbs.com To see the whole interview, become a Babylon Bee subscriber at: http://babylonbee.com/plans Use the promocode 'PODCAST' to get 20% off! You'll be supporting The Babylon Bee and you'll get access to the content like this at The Babylon Bee completely ad-free.
And now it's time for another interview on the Babylon B podcast.
Well, thanks for coming in, Jack.
Love it.
Thanks for the invite.
So what's your workout regimen?
We noticed that you have pretty nice.
Honestly, we were talking about it before.
We were admiring your...
If I were to exhale and relax right now, I'd probably be all over the room.
I don't have one.
So you're just naturally sort of...
But he's sucking it all in there.
Well, that's very kind of you guys, but I used to work out years ago in high school years and stuff and just shortly out.
But other than that, wow, thanks.
Would you do a push-up challenge right here right now?
Yeah, I'd probably do that.
Would you do that?
Yeah.
All right, let's do it.
Okay, but what's the push-up challenge?
I worked my chest this morning, so I'm not going to be able to do it.
That's a good excuse.
So are we going to do it?
Yeah, let's do it.
All right.
So what's it just.
How old are you?
I'm young.
He's like 45 or something.
So how are we going to do this?
45.
No, yeah.
So we're just going to do push-ups.
42 and see how many we can do.
Okay.
So who's going to count?
How do you do that?
I'll count you off.
All right.
Here we go.
Let's do it.
Ready?
All right, ready?
Let's go.
Go.
One, two, three.
Don't outpace him, Jarrett.
Five, six, seven, eight, nine.
Jack's shaking a little bit.
He's shaking.
I can see it.
13, 14, 15, 16, 17.
You're getting ahead of him, Jarrett.
19, 20.
Oh, my God.
21.
22.
23.
25.
Oh, 26.
27.
28.
I'm done.
30.
Good job.
You beat him.
30.
Wow, great job, man.
Oh, gosh.
Well, thanks.
Thanks for asking me to be here.
John's face is going to be red and sweaty the whole interview.
That's why you did it to be.
You're starting to burn there?
Did you feel?
Yeah, of course.
So Jack did 30 and you did 28.
I did 28.
I was praying that you would come to your end.
Yeah.
The Lord answered your prayer.
He said, Jarrett, stop now.
Pray the imprecatories on Jarrett.
But you do diet.
Any keto or paleo?
You just eat like church donuts or what?
You eat whatever you want.
I don't do donuts, but I mean, I love eggs.
I eat eggs all the time, but I don't have, I stay away from bread as much as I possibly can.
All right, that'd probably help.
A lot of almonds.
I love almonds.
I love Mediterranean food.
Oh, me too.
So, yeah.
Is that your natural hair?
Yeah.
How's it look?
It's good.
That's really good.
Just want to make sure.
Good deal.
Yeah, it's nice.
That's awesome.
All right.
Well, we know Pastor Jack now.
Well, I think we've gotten really broken the eyes.
Yeah, what are we doing?
Yeah, we're talking about all kinds of stuff.
So I got to let him catch his breath, but we can like out of it.
You want me to ask all the questions?
Yeah, yeah, you go.
I just got to.
Well, let's talk COVID lockdowns.
Yeah, let's talk it.
There was a couple prominent pastors in the area that didn't shut down.
You and John MacArthur were probably the two main ones in the area of the larger churches.
I know I had trouble finding a church that was open during that time.
So why the heck did you do that?
Yeah, I think that when we started to see, if you guys remember way back when we all saw on the news, which now I'm looking back, I'm ashamed if you think about it.
We saw on the news breaking news regarding COVID.
We saw pictures coming out of China where people were laying down in the streets.
They were just laying down their shopping bag, they're laid out like they got struck by lightning.
And fear swept across the world to the point where even Donald Trump said, we need to shut things down for 15 days.
Well, I never expected ever that that would mean the church.
It just didn't dawn on me because I happened to know a little bit about church history.
And when the cholera epidemic was sweeping through Europe and specifically England during Charles Spurgeon's time, the church was a major help to the cholera pandemic.
And then you back up even further, of all things, the bubonic plague, you've got Martin Luther where the church is out front saving, helping people.
So I'm thinking along the lines that, okay, well, nobody means the church, but at the same time, we're hearing about all of this.
We've never seen anything like this before.
And I got to tell you, I fell for the rhetoric.
Yeah, me too, early on.
You know, not because I'm woke or anything, but it's because, wow, I mean, this is like going to be catastrophic.
They're bringing in a ship into LA to manage the bodies and they got refrigerator trucks for the dead.
And then so 15 days goes by.
And by the way, during those 15 days, we just immediately from day one, in-house, we converted our sanctuary, which is pretty big, into seven different studios.
And we were cranking out 24-7 content for people from reading kids' stories from the Bible to marriage issues.
This is what you might be facing right now, being locked down.
So we just kept ministering probably harder than ever.
But then, remember, Trump asked for another 15 days to flatten the curve, that famous statement.
I was not happy about that at all.
Did you guys shut down for that first two weeks?
Yep.
And so I thought, okay, this is something's wrong here.
Something's weird because, and here's why I thought something was weird, is you have one expert saying one thing, a real expert.
You had, for example, experts out of M.D. Anderson, Houston, Texas, one of the most world-renowned infectious diseases departments on the planet, saying, you know what?
A lot of the problem is mistreatment.
We need to go with this.
And isolation is not going to work.
Mass don't work.
Get out in the sunshine, breathe air through the mouth.
You know, they were giving you things that kind of your mom would have told you to do.
And then there was guys like Fauci who were saying we're all going to drop dead and all this.
So the experts were not agreeing with each other.
So I'm not a brain surgeon, but I figured out if that expert's saying this and this one's saying that, then we don't have an expert on this topic.
It's not to say anything bad about the two teams, but something's up.
And so I put together about a 15-minute video that from my office recorded it and sent it to the governor's office because I, like you, saw that we need to shut down and stay shut down unless you're a pot dispensary, strip club, a bar.
You can stay open.
But everybody else needs to shut down.
And so I literally asked him, what's your position on the church?
Because if you guys remember right, he never addressed houses of worship early on.
He never mentioned it.
He didn't say.
So where I come from, if he's not saying, then it's green light.
He never said, he never specifically said.
So I made the announcement by video saying to him, with all due respect concerning the office of governor, this is the position of the church.
Well, here's the reason why you guys, I did that.
I'm reading through my Bible.
I remember it was April 26th, reading through my Bible.
And right out of the blue, I felt so compelled from an area of scripture that I wasn't even reading.
And that's what Jesus said to the church at Philadelphia in that region of Turkey at the time.
Jesus said, behold, I've set before you an open door that no man can shut.
And I was so convicted by that that that's what drove me to not only send that announcement to the governor that we're opening up, we're going to provide every possible experience we can.
If you want to sit in a group with your family six feet apart, we're going to have, and we did, huge decals on our campus where you could, big ones, where you could stand with your family.
You want to stay in your car and tune in on the radio in the parking lot, you can do that.
Or streaming.
If you want to sit outside under the pavilion, so there's, you know, 1,1,800 seats out there, you could do that.
You could do all of these different things or, and, or, you can just come into the sanctuary and be normal, whatever you want to do.
You can be weird.
Yeah, if you're going to be a lunatic and kill everybody.
Oh, brother.
I mean, man, I got to tell you, when we did, when we opened up like that, oh, I'm missing a key point.
What a lot of people don't realize, and you're right, the media covered John MacArthur in L.A. County and they covered us in San Bernardino County.
And it's the tale of two counties.
It's the tale of two churches.
It's the tale of two positions.
But what is not told, and I want to just thank all of these pastors who don't get any credit at all, is the fact that when I send out a statewide invitation to the pastors in California, we're opening up.
We're inviting you to open up and let's do this together because this is what the church is.
Let's love on people because they need us.
Just over 1,200 pastors responded back to me and said, we're going to open up with you.
Do you guys have any guidelines, standards, whatever?
We cranked that out statewide.
This is just California.
So those are the 1,200 unsung heroes that probably saved a huge population of people from suicide and marriage and all that kind of stuff, right?
I mean, everything was being tested.
And so we went for it.
And here's the cool thing.
MacArthur starts getting hit really hard.
We didn't get hit hard at all by our county.
He's getting beat up by the county, sued by the county.
We're getting threats, but not from our county.
Our county reached out to me and asked, are you okay?
Yeah.
Why?
If anything comes your way by way of threat or government imposing, you could tell they didn't say Sacramento, but they were saying Sacramento.
Do not stop what you're doing.
Send us a copy of what you get, but don't stop.
Here's the thing.
Did we get letters from the governor's office?
Yes.
Did I send them to our county?
Yes.
Did we keep going?
Yes.
Did anything happen?
No.
Why?
Because of this reason is because for 30 years, we had established a relationship with our politicians.
How can we help in a time of crisis?
You're training your SWAT team for a mission.
Use our sanctuary.
For real.
We are a friend of the civics that surround us.
And Grace Church was not.
John MacArthur taught, stay out of politics.
That's the devil's world.
Stay out of that.
We serve a greater kingdom.
Of course that's true.
But the last time I checked my Bible and the last time I looked at American history is this nation was founded upon a Judeo-Christian worldview value and the Mayflower Compact itself made it very clear about the mission of this nation.
So for me, it made perfect sense to always find out, Mayor, is there anything I can pray for you for?
Police chief, if you need us for anything, let us know.
That has always been our relationship.
Still is to this very day.
And so MacArthur's relationship with the county, he didn't have it.
He didn't engage the culture.
He didn't engage the elected officials.
And they didn't host voter registration.
They didn't talk about propositions.
They didn't talk about some of the godless politicians running for office versus some of the good ones.
Well, to be fair, his county is also communist.
Communist county.
But listen, communism only invades when good people don't do anything.
Now, do you think you could beat John MacArthur in a push-up contest?
Probably not.
I think he could.
You think now?
Yeah.
Now that I've seen you in action.
So you have faced the beast.
I faced and he and been subdued.
And he doesn't even work out.
He was just going on prayer power.
I work out all the time.
Amazing.
He's going on prayer power.
That's funny.
Can you expand on this, though?
Because I think your philosophy of engagement with civics and politics is something that some Christians find controversial.
Like, I mean, I don't personally think it's controversial for me personally, but like, what's your philosophy?
How did you come to this biblically?
You know, what's your exegesis here?
Because I want to know how we can do it.
Did you say extra Jesus?
Where's the extra Jesus here?
Is this extra Jesus?
So here's the secret sauce.
Do you even exeggee, bro?
So it's this.
Book of Acts.
The book of Acts tells us that when they got in trouble for preaching the gospel and that Christ had been risen from the dead, the religious authorities got together and they said, they brought them together, they said, we command you to no longer speak in Jesus' name.
And now, look, these are the apostles answering the powers that be.
And they concluded, well, I tell you what, either A, we obey you guys and not God, or we obey God and not you guys.
So here's what we're going to do.
We're going to keep preaching the gospel because that's what God said to do.
And you decide what you want to do about that, but we're not going to stop.
So the civics beat them up and they went out and they kept preaching until eventually the gospel came to the Babylon B, right?
I mean, it covered the earth.
Well, they were kind of rebellious in a way.
No, you know what?
To those civic people.
The civic people would have said they're rebellious.
God would have said they're being obedient.
And that's where we've got pastors today saying, we've got to obey the governmental powers.
That's not what the Bible says.
Romans 13 says that we are to obey the authorities that God has established over us because he's established them for them to do good.
And when you do not do good, you should be in fear of the civic power because he does not bear his sword in vain.
Now, I do this because we don't use some awesome swords.
I actually grabbed one of them.
I've been eyeing that one for a while.
That's awesome.
In our day, they use the pen to write a ticket.
The point is this, that laws were given by God for good to keep the peace.
But an authority like Newsom, for example, or like LA County Board of Supervisors, they can take their authority and actually vacate it by doing wrong.
Right?
So God's authority established is to do good.
When they stop doing good, the mantle of that authority falls off their back, if that makes sense.
So when they go after things that are, for example, the whole transgender mutilation thing that's happening right now, well, you know, we're going to meet on it as a city council.
I don't care if you get about, if you get all the popes from history together.
It's wrong.
You can't do that.
No, we're going to, who are you to tell us we are the authority?
Especially if you get all the popes from history.
Especially.
Especially.
So, I mean, that's where I get it from.
I'm passionate about the Bible.
It's actually the only thing I have.
It's really the only thing that I own.
And I'm not saying that to be some sort of a funny pastor.
My life was so lost.
I was so messed up.
And then I found out from my mom that I was a failed abortion attempt that wound up her being pregnant with me, having me rushed to the hospital until three weeks later I was born.
When I find that out at 16 years of age, it didn't really tally much to me.
But when I was 19 and I heard the gospel, it galvanized me.
So wait a minute, I was slated to be dead, but I lived.
And there's a God in heaven that loves me, really, and wants me to actually be in a family?
I'm on that.
And so I went all out for him, and I still do today.
I'm 65 years old.
I can't wait to see what's happening next.
And the thing is, his word's real.
I've seen it happen.
I have no doubts about it.
And so it's way better to obey God rather than man.
Way better.
Yeah, that's amazing.
So Christian nationalism.
It's wrong.
Yeah.
I get labeled that all the time because people don't understand me.
They don't know what it means.
There are those guys that are Christian nationalists and they believe that God has given up on Israel.
It's America.
And America is going to save the world.
And America, Jesus is an American.
and the Messiah rides on Air Force One, and we're going to— Are there actually people who say that?
We're going to.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
I feel like it's a straw man.
I feel like Doug Wilson might say that.
No, there's people that they are controlling.
I like the picture of Jesus helping Trump sign the missionary.
Yeah, yeah.
You don't have that picture?
No, I don't have it.
No.
But there are people that are just so, they just so think that everything that means anything has got to be wrapped in some sort of a Christian bow, but what it's wrapping is America.
And look, I love the United States and I would fight to defend its Constitution and your freedoms.
But I've also read my Bible at length.
And the only nation that's preserved for all time is Israel itself.
America has a role to play.
But to think that America has special favor where we can murder 70 million babies and not get judged by that, that kind of Christian nationalism is insane.
I do not believe that we should expect our government to become so pure that we've Christianized America.
Our founding fathers didn't believe that.
It's not going to happen.
You can never find such a person.
But the fact of the matter is, what I love about this nation is that we have freedoms to wear.
And I love this.
Our founding fathers were so secure in their faith and in their understanding of civics that they created a government, a constitution, which is not a democracy, by the way.
I'm sick of hearing the word democracy.
This is a constitutional republic that CNN will never mention.
That governing document of ours gives the same exact liberties to an atheist as it does the most committed Christian, Muslim, or Jew.
That's nowhere on earth.
That's what makes America exceptional.
It's not that we're better than anybody else.
We've got a better governing document than anybody else.
If you found out that one of your church members was voting for a Democrat, would you put them under church discipline?
That is awesome.
We'd probably, no, I'm kidding.
He's like, yes.
I'm so glad you asked that because here's what I'd say to them privately, or maybe I'd even say it publicly from the pulpit.
The pulpit, you George, Steve.
Steve, Steve.
Steve, get out.
No, I would actually vote for Biden.
You got to bring two or three, and then you, yeah, or you can just go straight real quick from the pulpit, do it in front of 3,000 people.
Like John MacArthur would.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, just streamline it.
I would say this publicly in a generic form and privately to Steve if we were talking: is this.
Are you a Christian?
Yes.
Do you believe in the word of God, the Bible?
Yes.
Okay, have you read the platform for the Democrat Party?
Have you read it?
They're going to say no.
I've never met a Democrat yet.
Who can read?
Am I right?
You know?
Got him.
I didn't think of that.
But when you show the professing Christian, they're pro-death.
You see this?
Abortion up to birth or even after birth.
Do you see that?
Yeah, yeah, I see that.
That's not good.
So how do you square that?
Are you a Democrat?
Are you a Christocrat?
Right?
I'm not.
Listen, I like to put it this way.
I'm not a Republican, Independent, or Democrat.
I'm a monarchist.
I believe in a ruling king.
I'm waiting for him to show up.
And this is my constitution.
And so.
Let the records show that he's holding up a leather-bound book.
It's leather.
It's well-born.
I don't know what it is.
Could be the Quran.
It could be the Book of Mormon.
It is not the Quran.
This is.
Look at that.
This is the Bible.
I recognize that.
Bible.
It's got highlighting in it.
He clearly reads it, read it at some point.
Yeah.
That's good.
Yeah.
No, I mean, I would educate a Democrat.
I would love.
I wish somebody would walk up to me and say, I'm a Democrat.
Argue me out of being a Democrat.
Yeah, wouldn't that be nice?
And I would say, look, I'm not a big fan of the Republicans either.
They've been a big problem.
But the thing is, this, you've got to pick, if you're going to vote, which I believe we must vote.
I really do believe that.
That's the most important thing.
A lot of people died, so you and I can have the freedom to pick our leaders.
That's a big deal.
That's a responsibility.
That's a republic.
So what kind of government do you want to leave your kids with?
You know, I have grandkids, so it's very important to me.
I want to leave them some freedoms.
Do you like your grandkids?
No, I don't like them at all.
Do you have a favorite?
That's impossible.
People who are grandparents know.
That's a good answer, Jack.
You can't have a favorite because they're all three so different, just like we're all different.
They're just so three different.
But as a grandparent, it's the coolest thing.
You guys are too young to know.
But when you are a grandparent, it's awesome because there is this sense of liberty that you have that you didn't have as a parent raising up your kids.
When you're raising your kids up, especially your firstborn, stand up, sit down, tuck your shirt in, pull up your zipper, get your finger under your nose.
What are you doing?
Turn your hat around.
Turn your hat around.
Pull up your pants.
My dad used to do that.
Then the second, third, the fourth one's born, and it's like, don't worry, they don't break.
They'll fall.
That's fine.
When you get grandkids, each three are just insanely perfect.
That's great.
You can tell us after the cameras are off which one's your favorite.
Okay.
Well, let me go back to the topic of staying open during COVID and kind of this issue of civic engagement.
Do you think, like you and MacArthur have different approaches when it comes to civic engagement?
Obviously, there were some pastors that shut down for longer, and there's some that probably are still shut down.
You know, some did more measures for COVID, some did less.
Do you think that's strictly an issue of biblical faithfulness?
Or do you think that there's some room for context down a pastor having that kind of autonomy to decide what they want to do with their congregation?
Wow, great question.
It all depends on that church's government.
How is that church structured?
Because I do know some pastors whose hearts were broken and some having lost their jobs as pastors because they answered to a governing board of leaders that said to them, this is what you will do.
But the word of God says this, you will do this.
And so they either went along and they lost almost their spirit to fight.
They were gutted.
Imagine somebody having you forcing you to alter your convictions.
You lose your fire.
One of the greatest things that drives the bees is the ability.
You guys wake up with a fire to look and see what's going on in the world around us and make truth palatable in an amazing way and sometimes prophetically.
If a pastor loses his drive, his purpose, calling, then you've just, you've killed his voice and you've killed his spirit.
It's almost like beating a kid.
You destroy them.
And so I know pastors who lost their jobs eventually.
They couldn't do it.
Versus, I thank God for our particular church where our board members, they've been with me for 31 years.
Crazy.
We've gone through it all together.
And so when I told them, guys, this is what we're going to do.
If you want to throw me out, throw me out.
But I'm just going to stand in the street and preach.
We cannot let Satan win this war.
And we cannot let the government dictate what the church is going to do because the church is not essential or non-essential.
It's a spiritual entity.
And every one of those guys just said, you do whatever God's leading you to do.
What do you need from us?
And so that's just been, you know, and the congregation, they were wild.
They were amazing.
So it, yeah, you know, this almost sounds terrible to say, but I thank God for this platform.
I know this is going to generate some mail.
I thank God for the outcome of what COVID brought.
He said, how can you say that?
People died.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, but people were going to die also anyway.
I'm not discouraging that.
What's funny is since COVID, no one's died of getting hit by a truck or falling on their skateboard or old age.
Everybody died of COVID, right?
So we know something's weird about that.
Point being this.
When we never would have known what was going on in school without COVID, because school kids got sent home and then mom and dad found out that their kids were being taught BLM and CRT junk and that they couldn't read.
The same is also this.
So many churches were not really New Testament churches.
They weren't preaching the gospel of repentance and faith in Christ.
They were not preaching through the Word of God.
And those churches, listen, we know this for a fact, so do you.
If you had a pastor who taught you every week five principles on how to be happy, next week it's five principles on how to have a good marriage.
The week after that's five principles on how to manage your income.
Hey, those are great things for a talk around a coffee table, but Sunday service is where the disciples are supposed to be discipled to go back out into the world.
Those churches, if you were told every week, you're a champion, so act like one, and COVID slaps you in the face, people around you are dying, you're going to be gripped with fear because you've got no foundation.
But if you've been taught, you can lean on the word of God.
God's word is true.
You don't need to worry because God sees this.
We need to seek him for the answer.
The Bible makes it very clear, this is what we were to do.
Now you've got some place to put your weight in the hour of testing.
And so we've taught, and I know this sounds, a lot of people are going to say, you sound like a dinosaur.
But for 31 plus years, we've taught verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book through the Bible.
And people say, well, that's got to be incredibly boring.
Well, it's interesting, but that's exactly, you mentioned exegesis, exegetical teaching.
The way the Bible was designed to be taught is chapter by chapter and verse by verse.
Why?
Because it builds faith and strength.
It doesn't give you a false sense of security.
Have you ever preached a topical sermon?
Man, you know what?
Are we going to go back and find 20 years ago?
We'll catch them up.
No, I'm going to tell you right now.
I'm asked, I'm grateful for this, but I'm asked to.
I've asked to.
No, yeah.
I've asked to speak to many.
I've asked to speak.
I've asked to speak at many venues and many places over the years.
And I've done that at conferences and things like that.
And so you have to teach a topical message because you're there for an hour and then you're gone.
But I hate it.
I'm telling you right now, I've never said this publicly.
I'll do this, but I'm not happy about it.
You're saying it publicly right now.
I'm saying it publicly right now.
If so-and-so calls us.
It's a big expose stand on this area.
Exactly.
Patients expose.
Exactly.
I'm coming out.
Here it is.
I hate topical teaching.
I hate topical teaching because I never feel like I can get into it.
I love to unpack the Greek meaning, the Hebrew meaning, the context of what was being said.
That's my life.
I'm a Bible teacher, expositor in the word.
But listen, when Salem broadcasting or when I have a chance to address Congress or somebody on a topic, they give me a topic, it's an honor to go.
I hate it.
I just hate it.
But I'll do the best I can.
So you asked, do you ever do it?
The answer is I do it.
But in my opinion, I fail at it miserably.
No good.
I'm no good at it.
I'm the last guy you want to call to be a guest speaker.
I don't feel like that's really true that you're the last person I would call you.
I would call you for sure.
I think he could be pretty good actually.
50 percentile, but definitely not last.
Not last for sure.
So speaking of the Bible.
You preach verse by verse through the Bible.
Do you kind of skip through Leviticus, though, or do you like— What you have to do in portions where there's, for example, areas where there's 13 chapters devoted to the entrails of an ox.
You don't— The longer the long lobe of the liver.
The lobe of the liver.
What you want to do is make sure that you understand, first of all, what is being required?
What's the point?
Why?
So in these next 13 verses, the whole point is this.
This part of the body provided this for the animal.
God says without it, you can't live.
What you do is you tie it back to the way that you and I have been created, the way that you and I have functioned both physically and then spiritually.
Those areas, yeah, they're tough if you're going to unpack them, you know, as like an MD or a medical doctor would do.
But, you know, you'll come to the, you'll come to chronicles where there's chapters of names that no white man, that includes a black man too, can pronounce those Hebrew names.
I got to call my friends in Israel and say, how do you say that guy's name?
Well, those things I run through, but what's important is it's very, those portions of scripture are extremely important to my good friend Dennis Brager.
Those names and lineages, so-and-so begat so-and-so.
My buddy Dennis is all over that stuff.
He's Jewish and it's his roots and it means everything to him.
To me, I'm not even quite sure where I came from.
Have you ever tried to convert Dennis Brager?
Yes, I have.
We asked him to accept Christ twice and he said no.
I tried once.
Yeah, I've had deep, and look, he'll watch this broadcast.
He and I are friends.
We love each other.
Probably talk by text or phone once a week.
It's been that way for...
If they text you, like memes and stuff?
No, he'll got it.
Honestly, he'll text me with a comment about what happened.
Or he'll ask me this.
Hey, I know you as a Christian believe this.
Or I heard that you said this about the book of Isaiah.
Now you're into my people's book.
We view it differently.
One of the greatest honors I've ever had in my life.
And you got to understand how Jewish people talk, first of all, which is awesome.
My phone rings.
I see it's Dennis.
He's finishing his commentary on Deuteronomy.
He says, and this is so Jewish.
He didn't say, hi, Jack, how's the family?
The phone rings.
I pick it up and he goes, so let me see if I got this right.
You evangelicals believe that a guy that just committed murder, if he repents and he's on the brink of being executed for his crime, he can accept Christ and be forgiven.
Do I have that right?
Dennis, you've got that exactly right.
And he hung up on me.
That's how good of friends we are.
It's precious.
That is funny.
That is awesome.
And so I gave him, and he'll appreciate this.
I gave him a verse that he's still thinking about to this very day.
And how?
Why did I do this?
Because I used this verse 20 plus years ago in Israel to a guy who was arguing with me, literally in the Kidron Valley.
We were filming for production, and some guy is running and yelling in the early morning hours of this shoot.
Get out, get out, get out of my country.
You mentioned the name Jesus.
God doesn't have a son.
Get out.
And he's freaking out.
And the crew, they stop, which they shouldn't have stopped because if they would have kept rolling, it would have been a YouTube sensation.
Before YouTube.
Viral hit.
Yeah.
Here's what happened.
The guy was all dressed up in his Orthodox gear and he said, you said God has a son.
I said, God has a son.
He goes, that's New Testament theology.
We don't believe that.
I said, it is not New Testament theology.
Where do you get that from?
Well, aren't you a Christian?
I am a Christian.
You need to leave this country now.
I said, wait, wait, wait, wait.
I'm in this country because I'm a Christian.
I'm in this country because this country is Jewish.
And he goes, what?
I go, I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I believe in the Old Testament.
He goes, I thought you said you're a Christian.
I said, that's why I believe in the New Testament is because I believe in the old.
You can't believe in the New Testament unless you understand the old.
Tell that to Andy Stanley.
Andy Stanley, Andy, there's no way that you can understand the New Testament.
It's impossible to understand the New Testament unless you know the Old Testament.
For this one reason, here's the punch.
How do you know the New Testament's new?
There's no way to know that it's new unless the Old Testament said this is what's going to happen.
And the New Testament records what the Old Testament prophesied.
So this guy's arguing and we're arguing.
And by the grace of God, I'm holding true to my Old Testament knowledge.
And he said, you know what?
Stop, stop, stop.
He said, you said you're a Christian, but you sound like a Jew.
What's your last name?
I said, it's Hibbs.
He goes, it sounds German.
I go, it might be a little bit of German, but it's probably more English, I think.
Not that kind of German.
It's funny.
Isn't it funny?
He goes like this.
No, no, no.
You know what I mean?
So he's telling me, no, no, no, no.
Hibbs sounds Jewish.
You must have Jewish blood in you.
I think you're a Jew.
And I said, well, I'm not a Jew.
I'm a Gentile.
And he goes, no, no, no.
I'm not a Jew.
He goes, I'm not a Jew.
So this is what he says to me.
He says, I'm going to end it now.
I'll show you.
I'm going to ask this.
Are you circumcised?
And I said that's one of our questions.
That was question nine.
And I said, well, yes.
And he goes, you're a Jew.
And I said, why are you saying this?
He goes, because you're arguing with me from Old Testament scripture.
You've got to be a Jew.
And you just sealed it.
You're circumcised.
I said, listen to me right now.
I said, I'm a believer in Jesus being the Son of God because your Old Testament tells me so.
No, no, no.
And this is the verse that Dennis Prager and I enjoy going over.
It's Proverbs 30, verse 4.
Who has ascended into heaven and who has descended?
Who holds the wind and his fist and the fold of the seas in the hem of his garment?
Died on the cross exactly as the Old Testament said he would die.
And on the third day, be resurrected from the dead.
And Jesus held Israel responsible to know the scriptures.
Not the New Testament.
It hadn't even been written yet.
And so I think every believer needs to know that they can argue the existence of Christ from the Old Testament.
Wow.
Interesting.
That's a pretty cool story.
Yeah.
Oh, you have any, so you guys are Calvary Chapel.
Do you have any cool demon casting out stories?
I have some.
Forget Calvary Chapel had nothing to do with the money that we've had over, but I've seen some stuff.
I've seen some stuff, and I don't care what MacArthur, the Pope, or Billy Graham has to say.
I've seen.
You could say, you know, Calvary Chapel's a little more or a little bit more.
No, you know what, though?
A little bit less cessationist.
You know what?
I hold that against MacArthur, actually.
Yeah, same with me, too.
What biblical, you know, come on.
It's not there, but exactly.
But I have to say, you know, since the death of Chuck Smith, Calvary Chapels have in some way kind of gone their own ways, which is okay with me.
A bit of a split and bit of a.
Yeah, I mean, people would say a split, but I wouldn't even say a split.
I would say that there's been a healthy, a healthy departure.
There's been a healthy schism.
That's okay.
A healthy cleaving where after the death of Pastor Chuck, people got to see what Calvary Chapels were standing on the word as taught from the beginning with Chuck Smith and which ones weren't.
And I actually, we happen to be Calvary Chapel Chino Hills.
I really could care less about the name.
There's no membership.
There's no connection.
Look, I knew Chuck Smith personally.
He ordained me personally.
I was schooled at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.
When my pastor died, my pastor died.
I keep my eyes on Jesus and I'm trying to keep up with Jesus.
I mean, our church has gone nuts trying to, I mean, it's just gone crazy.
So I'm not going to mess with it.
Did you ever meet Lonnie Frisbee?
I did not.
Lonnie Frisbee moved during the Jesus movement.
By that time, he had moved to Florida.
He had moved on.
And then he came back, which a lot of people don't realize, and was then connected with John Wimber in the Vineyard movement.
But even that didn't last too long.
Lonnie Frisbee was a different kind of person.
This Jesus Revolution movie that's out right now.
Who played you?
They sort of hint at that.
Nobody played you?
Oh, gosh, no.
Who would have played you?
Who would have?
Yeah, who would you like to have played you?
Tom Cruise.
Can we cast him real quick?
Tom Cruise.
No, it wouldn't cast.
It wouldn't even apply.
At a young man.
You got to remember something.
All of us.
Let's Google young Jackie.
All of us had afros.
I'm looking at you with an afro.
I mean, it's scary because I can show you my high school graduation picture.
Hayden Christensen.
Let's see.
You know what's sad?
You guys mentioned this, and this is terrible to say, but I have been labeled as, oh, you look like Jeff Gordon.
Jeff Gordon.
You look like, this is horrible.
Isn't this an interesting thing?
I cast Garrett Dillahan.
I was thinking that.
All right.
I was literally thinking that.
Garrett Dillahan.
I cast him for everything.
The eyes aren't quite right.
No, I've only been stopped and in a very darkly lit room.
Are you Jeff Gordon?
I wish I was Jeff Gordon.
I mean, I like cars, but no, this was the biggest insult paid to me by, I think, my son-in-law who said, what's his name?
Is it Ray Liota?
Ray Liota.
He goes, you look just like Ray Liota.
And I go, who's that?
And then I looked up Ray Lioda and I said, get out of my house.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's so Phil Hartman.
No.
No, I can see Ray Lioda.
Well, yeah.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm kidding.
Interviews are kidding.
The problem is we need a young actor to play young people.
Yeah, because when we're talking about Jesus Revolution times, we gotta.
Yeah, that actually, I listen, Lonnie was gone.
I got saved in 1977.
So I think Lonnie moved on in like, was it 75 or something?
Yeah, so it was before, before, after Lonnie had moved on, you were part of it.
So I got saved on, I'll never forget.
I got saved on a Monday night, June 20th, 1977.
I mean, I wasn't even planning on it.
I was driving to a party in Newport Beach, and I just saw, you know, Cover Chapel Costa Mesa didn't have a cross out front.
They had this thing called the Marinatha Dove, which is like, unless you know what it is, I know of what you speak.
See, you know what it is because somebody explained it to you.
Yeah.
When you're not a Christian, Christians don't know what's that stupid thing.
It doesn't make any sense.
And so there were two attractive girls that drove into the parking lot and I'm thinking, what's going on with this?
Thousands of people.
What's happening here?
I'd never been to church in my life.
I walk in and there's music blaring out of the building.
There was one guy on a keyboard on a piano, grand piano.
And got to remember back in those days, you guys are too young, but afros.
Not only just black guys had afros, white guys who could have an afro had them.
And this guy had an afro like this.
He had no shoes on, bell bottoms, huge beard.
And his name was Keith Green, and he's playing the piano.
And everyone's gone crazy.
And I'm going, what is this?
It wasn't Matt Keith Green.
It was Keith J. Green.
What's going on here?
And I didn't get it.
I didn't understand the music.
I didn't understand what was happening.
And then this guy comes out with a hang 10 t-shirt on, bell bottoms, sandals, long hair, and a beard.
And it was Greg Laurie.
And he preached from Revelation chapter 20.
I'll never forget it.
And his message was, and by the way, later on, Greg Laurie sent me the message.
I actually have the message on cassette.
How to inherit hell was the name of his message.
And he went down the list of Revelation chapter 20 on how do you get into hell.
And the first thing was, he pointed out is that you have to climb over, so to speak, the body of Jesus Christ to get there.
You've got to ignore God every day of your life.
And this is what happens when you ignore God.
You start living for yourself.
And I was totally living for myself.
I was on my way to a party.
I loved money.
I think I thought girls were the most amazing invention that had ever happened.
And I just thought this was all about life.
Still pretty true.
I still think it's, you know, so, and then this guy, I mean, he comes up and he starts teaching, and I'm like, what?
If there's a hell like he says, I'm going there.
I'm in the, I'm going.
And so when he gave an invitation to get up and come forward to accept Christ, I don't care what anybody says about altar calls.
You know, people will criticize evangelism and all that.
I don't care what anybody says.
I know what happened.
I went forward.
I looked around.
People were crying.
I wasn't.
So I'm thinking, what am I?
Retard?
What's wrong with me?
Everybody's so emotional.
I just feel like I'm going to hell.
What's happening?
And I prayed to accept Christ and I was sick over my sin.
And I got to tell you, that night on the way home, I knew something was different in my mind.
There was somebody else thinking in my head.
And it was God Almighty.
Because it was my, I could hear my voice, but it was not my word usage.
And it's been the same for 46 years.
And I've never, ever, since that moment, ever felt alone.
So God doesn't sound like Morgan Freeman or something.
Doesn't sound like Morgan Freeman.
He doesn't sound like Billy Graham or, no, he sounds like you.
Because I think I've come to this conclusion.
Like Kyle or like me?
I think Kyle sounds like Kyle.
God sounds like Jared.
I think God will do that because you know what?
This is kind of funny, maybe not.
But I've always wondered, God, you spoke so clear and yet it was in my voice, but I knew it wasn't you.
And in a funny way, in a Babylon B way, I thought, well, that makes sense because my voice is the only voice I want to listen to anyway.
It's true most of the time.
That's sick.
Like I knew you wouldn't listen to anyone else.
Exactly.
So there's a lot of charisma, a lot of charismatic stuff going on in the early Jesus movement.
Yeah, there was.
I mean, I'm interested in that.
I was a younger pastor in an agy church.
I'm stepping on your chest.
Yeah, go ahead.
No, you go.
It interests me, though.
I never got a good demon story.
Oh, yeah.
But it interests me, though, that it was culturally trying to connect, you know, and they didn't have this.
They were trying to do away with some of the stuff that was a barrier for people.
But it sounds like it was still biblically faithful preaching about hell and judgment and God's wrath.
Because I feel like a lot of times in the modern church, when you have people that are trying to kind of break down those barriers, it becomes a seeker-sensitive thing.
Oh, God.
And it wasn't that.
Oh, no, no, no.
In fact, you got to remember something.
This is pretty awesome.
It's pretty cool.
You've got a generation of hippies that have gone through the whole thing of ACID, the LSD world, speed, the whole scene, right?
They've, imagine, they've burned themselves out on trips.
They've burned themselves out on— These are all drug terms for the homeschoolers.
Yeah.
True.
That's good.
They burned themselves out on free sex.
They burned themselves out on materialism.
So they had nothing.
So when Chuck Smith gave the word, remember, you got to remember something.
This is an old man, at that time, with a bunch of 17, 18, 19-year-olds who would come in and listen to an old man sit on a stool.
And I'm going to guess, old man, what, late 40s?
Sitting on a stool, Bible open, just talking to thousands of people about what the Bible says verse by verse.
And, you know, people have wisely said every Sunday people vote with their feet.
Well, 5,000 kids showed up, then 10,000 kids showed up.
Then by the time I showed up, you've got 28,000 people a week going in and out of that facility, and it made international news.
And so, yeah, none of this, nobody had even thought of the word, would you say seeker?
Yeah, seeker.
I don't even think seeker was a word yet.
But I got to tell you.
The Bill Heibels kind of, I think, came up with that later.
Very good.
You're very right.
What's interesting is that a lot of, and I won't mention their names because people could know their names, but a lot of really profound and noted pastors of the day saw what was happening at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, and they couldn't quite explain it because it didn't match up exactly to their denominational education.
Now, with all fairness, there were things that were going on in the charismatic realm that the Bible addresses clearly is not the right way to do things.
But that didn't last long because when Chuck Smith started teaching the Bible, you got to remember, there was the flash of Lonnie Frisbee that influenced some people.
But when Lonnie Frisbee moved on, there was the day in, day out, consistency, fatherly figure of an old man, Chuck Smith, who became a father figure to this lost generation of people.
And he taught.
Jordan Peterson of the 70s.
Maybe so.
Yeah.
Plus the gospel.
We need to get Jordan Peterson saved.
Jack, get on that.
Exactly.
Get on that.
Yeah, we're kind of trying through some.
We're trying.
Good.
We need to kidnap him.
We should.
Like do the Blackboard Orange thing.
Blackboard Orange with the tape.
He needs a...
I know a lot of people are going to watch this.
Indoctrinates.
We're being honest here.
Yeah.
I was at an event in L.A.
It was a Prager event.
Prager you.
And so backstage, I was to open up in prayer.
Dennis Prager walks in with Jordan Peterson.
He's the keynote speaker.
Oh, that's good.
That's good there.
Prager says to Peterson, you need to talk to this pastor.
You need to get his number.
Peterson just says, hi, and just keeps walking.
Well, Peterson's security detail, the guy goes, why would Dennis Prager want you to talk to my boss?
And I said, well, first of all, Dennis and I are friends.
And number two, I'm going to tell him the truth.
So I may never get a chance to tell Jordan Peterson the truth.
But Jordan Peterson went from not believing in God to all of us watched his evolution and social media of his struggles and his breaking.
And it's as though he got so close.
And then I noticed, I've noticed in the last, because I'm watching him and I'm praying for him.
I've noticed in the last few months, there's been a hardening and almost a cynicism to Jordan Peterson and a spirituality that's there, but it's without the person of Jesus Christ.
And he seems to be now, it's almost like something that's re-entering the atmosphere, but it's got the wrong trajectory and it skips out into space.
Jordan Peterson's genius, brilliant, but he better make a decision about Jesus quick because I don't know how much time he might have to play with the idea.
Jordan's brilliant, but he's not God.
Jesus is the one.
And his spirituality could actually work against him if he doesn't seal the deal with Jesus himself personally.
He has a form of godliness, but denies it.
You nailed it.
And when you say he doesn't have that much time left, is that a threat of some kind?
Is that a threat?
Well, no.
We don't know.
Or else.
It's this.
It's this.
Even if he lives to be old, that's not far from now.
But we don't know.
We're not guaranteed tomorrow.
None of us are.
So that's the intent of that.
Especially when you've got a lead pipe.
Jack Hibbs is after you have a lead pipe.
So who is the Antichrist?
Is it Hillary Clinton?
Oh, gosh, no.
The Antichrist is going to be brilliant.
Attractive.
Oh, attractive.
Oh, gosh, no.
Attractive.
Very, very.
The Antichrist is going to really be somebody.
Look, I could see like somebody like.
You could see the Antichrist being somebody like.
If I had to cast an Antichrist for a movie right now.
You're going to say Obama.
No, I said somebody attractive, I said, and brilliant.
So that's off the table.
It would be somebody, it would be Gavin Newsom, tall, tall, even when he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Even when he doesn't know what he's saying, he sounds like he knows what he's saying because he sounds like Batman.
Yeah.
He's got amazing hair.
He wears his suit just right.
You don't see him in the tie often.
It's just open enough to be GQ looking.
Hubba hubba.
Right?
Right?
Yeah.
I mean, ask all the women in his life.
It's the hubba-hubba thing.
You know, I played the Antichrist this last year.
Are you wearing a red suit or is that paint?
No, no.
And I played the devil too, but I played the Antichrist.
He's played all the DNA.
In a pilot for a TV show.
All the evil.
I had glasses on, so you may not recognize it.
Are you serious?
No, yes.
So did you pray about that before you accepted that role?
No.
No, I didn't at all.
No, actually, I pray about everything.
I do pray about everything I do, but yeah.
No, it's funny.
I was a British politician.
That was the kind of like take on the Antichrist thing.
Well, I know this.
I mean, your work is great.
And you would have been a great Satan or Antichrist.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It's such an honor.
I just thought.
So you think Gavin Newsom would be because he has to be good looking.
We know this.
We know this from scripture, that the Antichrist will arise out of a time where there's global, global stress in two specific areas.
The book of Daniel says economics, the world will be struggling economically.
And the other thing is war.
Because Daniel says he will deceive all.
We're in the clear then.
We have neither of those.
Yeah, isn't that great?
It's so far off.
Dang.
Everything's going so well.
Everything is going so well.
So Daniel makes it clear.
He will deceive the world through peace and prosperity.
And through his cunning, it says he will deceive many.
So the word cunning is his ability to swoon.
That's an old English word to swoon.
He's going to say something.
And to maybe to the believer, it's absolutely incredibly stupid and insane, but there's going to be people saying, isn't that brilliant?
And what's terrifying about that old Hebrew word is the fact that we're watching stuff today when somebody says, wear a mask.
It has stopped COVID when everybody who works down at the mask manufacturing plant puts it on the box and says, this doesn't stop viruses.
But people still, I was on a Delta airline flight just the other day.
You guys can wear a mask if you like.
It was so funny.
Hi, everybody.
You can wear a mask if you'd like.
Welcome aboard Delta Airlines.
And people just chuckled.
But are you serious?
You're still offering a mask when it didn't work.
So was that one person, though?
So was the person.
They're like, oh, thank God.
Sprague's the whole sea.
Oh, another one.
I just told our church recently, when you see someone like that, I mean this in a good way.
So you don't have a private jet you fly?
You fly commercial?
I fly whatever airlines got the cheapest deal.
And you do economy.
Sometimes I'll do economy plus, which is very hard.
No, no, I'll do the economy plus.
Economy plus is cool, especially.
Listen, I just got my, my assistant is outside.
He'll laugh over this.
I just had him buy me because my laptop, I have a 15-inch.
I got the laptop that's too big.
I have the one that's too big and I can't.
I have a 15-incher.
And in coach, when you try to work on a sermon on your way home, you're going like this.
And so he got me this new tee.
Exactly.
So he got me this very cool super duper iPad right now that's got this little built-in keyboard kind of thing.
So it works better for Flying Economy Plus.
So, but I do have tons of miles.
And there will be times when my wife and I will upgrade to business to go on a vacation or to take our kids somewhere.
There's really nothing like it.
Being up in, I was in first class one time.
I don't recommend it.
Yeah, because you get spoiled.
I got bumped.
Lisa and I were heading to Tel Aviv.
We were taking our church on Israel tour, which we normally do.
And we were in an Economy Plus LL Israeli Airlines setting.
And before takeoff, I went to just, you know, you settle in, right?
And I'm moving my chair and I lean back and the chair busted.
And they came, are you okay?
Are you okay?
I'm fine.
I'm fine.
You know, we can make this work.
And they just said, listen, that's not, no, both of you.
You traveling together?
Yes, this is my wife.
First class now.
Let me tell you, we were like, yay.
And that's all great until you don't fly first class again.
Yeah, once you do it, you're done.
Because you know, they shut that.
Kyle's flown first class.
They shut the curtain.
First of all, you're eating pretzels in the Pepsi, and then they shut that curtain and you can smell, right?
You can smell beef brewing, cooking, coffee.
Brewing the beef.
And it's like, yeah, you can.
But then the that's how the rich people smell.
So you don't think a commercial airline is a tube of demons like Kenneth Copeland?
No.
I'm wondering how long, this is totally off script, I guess.
Do we even have a script?
No.
Okay, how long will the woke world allow there to be a coach, business, and first class?
Yeah, that's a good question.
That's a good.
Yeah.
It's all going to be coach.
That's not all first class.
Exactly.
Because they want to bring everybody.
Well, they, whoever they are, they want to bring everybody down because they want to be the only ones in first class.
But then they, the tube, they all want to be in first class.
So the airlines are coming up on a big conundrum here real quick, right?
To make it all coach or all first class.
Jumping up next for Babylon B subscribers.
The first thing I would do as president is absolutely unilaterally 100% repeal.
All right.
So are you a Calvinist or an Arminian?
That's a Dietrich Bonhoeffer's type of grace.
Yeah.
That's very expensive.
You cannot add Check Smith's 77 Reasons That Christ is Coming in 1977.
People can say what they want about Trump, but what they don't know about Trump is that when the cameras are off.
This has been another edition of the Babylon Bee Podcast from the dedicated team of certified fake news journalists you can trust here at the Babylon Bee,