Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Jeffy's Corner: 'The Armageddon Code' w/TheBlaze.com Faith Editor Billy Hallowell

Episode Date: May 3, 2016

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You're listening to the Jeff Fisher Show. The founder of this company 10 years ago was trying to sell his house and went through real estate agent after real estate agent. And they were all talking a great game. And this guy who is selling his house, the founder of this company, he's kind of an important guy and should get the best treatment. And he said to his wife, if this is what it's like for us, how do people who have no clout ever get around this? So he started a company and it went into business, I think, three years ago. Their deal is, their word is their bond. And they are just like you.

Now, how can I say that? Because I'm the founder of the company. We have 1,000 agents across the country and they are people that listen to the show. And so when you go through real estate agents, I trust, it's sent to somebody who already, you already know their sensibilities. They already are cut from exactly the same cloth. There's got to be a better way. There is.

Real estate agents. I trust.com. William Harris Hollywell the third. You know him as Billy Hollowell. Hi, Billy.

There's a couple of things here. I cannot get over the idea of what a Michael Pelka paper clip would look like. So I have to start there. I mean, it's just possible that he's giving it away. I don't know that.

I'm just guessing. Oh, I love it. All right. I love that you went with my full name. That's great. You're welcome. You're welcome. problem. I wait with your full name, Billy, because I'm a little ticked. You have an IMDB page, and I don't.

So I'm just saying that I'm angry at you right off the bat for having that IMDB page. But on that it says your full name, born William Harris Hollowell III. And that's a strong name, powerful name. I love it. It's kind of a crazy name. But yes, it's good. Is that the name you used on the Armageddon Code? No, no, I use Billy Hollowell. All right, so the new book, Armageddon Code. End of times, the world is over. Do you predict a day when we're all dead in the book? No, I don't.

And I think this is one of those topics, right? Armageddon, the End Times, that people kind of, like, they either become completely obsessed with it or they kind of laugh it off. And so it's a tough topic to kind of write on. But this book, The Armageddon Code, it basically goes through about 20 experts who have spent their lives studying this issue, looking at the Bible, and it allows them to tell us what they think. And of course, none of them agree with one another on almost anything. So the book sort of documents, here's like, here's the battle. Here's what these people believe is going to

happen at the end of days. And so it really, it's kind of a crazy eye-opening experience writing the book, and I think, I'm hoping people will feel the same after they read it. when you got done talking to your experts, and you said most of them don't agree with what they believe, you know, they have different outcomes. What's the running theme that they all believe? Yeah, I think that that's the really interesting thing here, right? And all of these people obviously believe that, you know, they look back to the Old Testament and they believe that there's a lot in there about Jesus, you know, prophesying Jesus coming. but what they all believe is that there's a lot of mystery here. Now, some of them are a little bit more dogmatic.

Like, they will map out exactly timelines, not when they think, you know, in terms of a date it will happen, but they will map out certain events in sort of an order of events. But the one thing a lot of them agreed on was that there's mystery and that some of this is intentionally mysterious, and it is really fascinating. If you go back to the Old Testament and you look at all the different, you know, tidbits and pieces throughout the Old Testament, talking about this Messiah who will come, you know, Jesus satisfied. all of those things, but they're all over the place, and they're kind of mixed together. And these people, these experts view the end times in the same way that there are a lot of

pieces that are mixed together throughout the Old and the New Testament talking about the end, you know, but they also, a lot of them, and not all of them, because some don't believe, there actually is a group of people who believe that Jesus sort of already returned, and that happened in AD 70, that he, you know, with his death and the destruction of Rome. So they don't all agree on that, but a lot of them, the end times approaching, whether or not they think we're there yet, they feel like we're marching towards that. And you?

And me. Well, that's, you know, this is, a lot of people have asked me this, and I don't give, I don't tell people what to think in this, in this book, but the thing that I find, the, you have to, you have to tell me what to think, Billy. You want, you to tell me, you want, you to guide you. I have to tell you. Israel is such a strange dynamic, right? Like modern day Israel.

I feel like if you look at Ezekiel, the book of Ezekiel, which is written like 2,500 years ago, Israel is talked about in the book of Ezekiel, this notion of people being dispersed and then gathered back together in Israel. And this is the part that kind of blows my mind, right? So if I were an atheist, I would look at this now and say, huh, this is at least odd. You know, you may not believe in God. You may not believe the Bible, but this is odd. It actually lists out this coalition of nations who will go against Israel once Israel comes back together. And as we know, Israel was a nation again in 1948, but the first nation in this coalition is Persia, right?

And as we know, Persia is Iran. And so to me, how strange is it that somebody wrote a book 2,500 years ago, talking about Israel coming back together that happened in 1948, and then talking about one of its main enemies being Persia? It's just that's almost an impossibility for somebody to predict out. Now, a lot of the experts I interviewed don't believe, they don't believe that that's a prophecy that will be fulfilled. filled, I think it already happened, but it leaves me at least scratching my head. Right. Is it, is it prophecy, or are we just willing it to happen because it's written down? Yeah, and that's a great question. A lot of people will say that, right? But think, I guess, and this is where you get into very, you know, bizarre, you know, territory, but, you know,

what sort of led to Israel coming back? And you talk, you think about the Holocaust and all these horrific things that sort of have happened to Jewish people over time, you know, and you look at what's happening now with the Islamic State, people are sort of flooding back to Israel. And that was something that a lot of these experts were talking about. But yeah, I think that's an important question, too, and looking at all of this, you know, which parts are vague, you know, in the Bible, and a lot of it's vague. You know, wars, rumors of wars, all these things that will happen in the end. You know, Matthew 24, you know, Jesus talks about a lot of these things. Well, you know, we've always kind of had wars and rumors of wars. I do think that people are feeling that something

is off right now, though, and that there's sort of this thing about the culture. I mean, everything seems to just be detaching a little bit. Now, that doesn't mean that the end times are here, but I do think for a lot of these experts, they believe we're marching towards that. Well, I mean, yes, we hear that all the time,

right? I mean, we feel that. You know, something just isn't right. Right, exactly. It seems like the earth is spinning so fast, I'm going to fly right off. It's wrong. What's wrong with the world? Now, We've felt that way for many, many years, for a long time.

Right. Are there, is it because we have more people on earth that it seems like we have more people believing that it's closer to the end of times? I mean, I don't know that. I'm just speculating. Yeah, I know. I think these are all, look, this is a tough topic, right? And that's why when you go to 20 different experts and some of them agree with one another, but a lot of them have very different views. And you can get into the very specifics of this, this notion of an Antichrist rising eventually.

A lot of them believed that. Some did not. They believed that that was something that happened in the past or that it was meant to be something that should not be taken literally, right? And all of this, all of this requires looking back at a lot of different parts of the Bible and piecing them together. And that's a complicated thing to do. So you could, 10 different people can look at that and come away. But the point of the Armageddon Code is to really get people thinking. thinking about these things. It's not, you know, you kind of want to walk away and say,

this is what people believe, and I have a better understanding of it now. And then you could start to think about, okay, well, what do I believe? And how can I solidify that? And I think, even if you're an atheist and you read this book, it will give you a good idea of why people believe what they believe, because all of this impacts how you view Israel, how you view current events, how you view almost everything. It would feel like to me that if you're an atheist, you would almost want to, I don't know, hedge your bet and figure, you know, because if it's not real, you're good, right? If there is no heaven, there is no God, you're good.

Yeah, I knew it all along. But if there is, I don't know, you want to hedge your bed a little? I'm going to say, you know what, I did believe, I did believe, I did believe, really, I did. In my heart somewhere, I did totally. I did. I did. One of the things that just strikes me, how much did you know much about the rapture, this notion that Christians before the end of times, you know,

when it all starts to ramp up, Christians sort of disappear. This is a theory that pre-millennialists have that's a group of Christians who sort of look at this stuff and they say, yeah, well, we believe that the Bible sort of says that Christians will basically, Jesus comes back, meets the Christians in the air, they're gone, and that's how you have the whole left-behind series and books and movies. and then the world goes through this seven-year tribulation period, this awful period of time. Horrible.

And then it comes back to beautiful flowers growing everywhere all over the earth. And it's a wonderful thing. Now, I mean, the rapture is probably the most controversial piece of all this. And we were actually able for the book to go out and ask pastors about a thousand pastors, what do you believe about the end times? And we asked them three questions. We asked about the Antichrist. do they believe it will be a literal person?

We asked about the rapture, and we also asked about this millennium kingdom. If you go to Revelation, there's this mention of a thousand-year reign of Jesus on earth in the future. Is that literal? Is it not literal? What does that mean? And it was really, really fascinating. Like on the rapture, about 36% of pastors believe that it would happen. The Christians would be taken up before the rest of the end times events.

But there was a lot of debate. There was way more debate on all of those issues among pastors. then you would have thought there would have been. That is fascinating. Now, okay, so the Armageddon code, it comes out May 3rd. Is that right? Yes. Yep, on Tuesday, it's coming out.

So are you on a World Win worldwide tour, book signing starting a Tuesday? You know, it's interesting. Yeah, we're kind of starting up a lot of radio, a lot of interviews, and we're going to kind of take it from there and see where the interest is. This is a different kind of book, because I think when people go out and buy these books, They're looking for somebody to tell them exactly what's going to happen. You know, this is... I would have liked to have actually read it, you know, before I talked to you,

but I didn't get a copy. So, you know, it's okay. Don't worry about it. It's all right. I'm sorry, Bill. I didn't mean to cut you off. Go ahead. Listen, you know how it is.

You'll probably end up getting a copy on Monday. It always happens right after you've got to do the interview. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, Bill, I don't need a pity book. I don't need a pity book. I was just saying, I don't have it here. I don't have it here. I'm going to make sure you get a copy.

But I think it's good at, this is not, I'm not a theologian, so I'm not going out there and saying, this is what's going to happen. But it's going to, I think it will, in my conclusion, I kind of put my thoughts together on what I thought, what struck me the most. And it was just a really cool experience to be able to ask people to use questions and, you know, unpack a topic that I think really either terrifies people, they laugh at, they don't want to deal with, or, you know, they're confused by. So have you signed a movie deal yet?

I have not, but you know, you mentioned my IMDB page. I actually was a raptured passenger on an airplane in the last Left Behind movie. I was actually really, yeah. I kind of had a starring role with no one. Yeah, that's why it says uncredited, but it was almost starring. I almost said something, almost. The camera, you can see the back of my head in first class. So there's no movie deal, but let me ask you a question.

all these, and this is just a side note of me thinking out loud, when you asked, when you went around and talked to all these pastors, did you film them so that you could put together something in the end to make a, you know, bigger picture? Yeah, it's funny. You asked that we have, we have not done that yet, but that's been a discussion of doing a documentary on this because I think, again, you know, the last thing you want on these topics is to, and one thing I didn't mention, by the way, which is just a side note, is, I don't if you remember Harold camping, but the guy who told everybody the end was coming.

He said the end was coming more than once. It didn't happen in May, so he moved the dates October. That didn't happen again. You know, there's a whole chapter in this book, though, about why that is something you're never supposed to do, right? And the Bible says that we don't know that nobody knows the day in the hour. You're not supposed to be doing that. But the danger of that.

And a lot of these experts, all of them had all agreed on that. That was the number one thing they agreed on. Of course they would. I mean, yeah. I mean, and really that makes all, what it does is it, I mean, it sets, first of all, it makes you look bad, right? And your followers or flock or whatever you want to call them look bad. And it also makes the real story a joke. So why do it?

Right. Which is exactly why people don't want to talk about this topic, I think. One of the reasons why it becomes, like you said, it's sort of like a joke. And in the case of Harold Camping, I mean, you had people who stole all their belongings, who got rid of their homes, who gave all their money thinking this is going to happen. And that's a sad thing. But yes, to your broader question, we are hoping to possibly do a documentary on this

because I think it's something people care about, even if they don't believe their interest that they want to know. Absolutely. This is why we're obsessed with zombie apocalyps in entertainment. Well, I mean, it could happen, Billy. I mean... You know, it could. And I'm sure Michael...

It could happen. It could happen. It's very possible. And I know, you know, I know you probably want to promote your little podcast thing you've got going on, whatever that is. What is that again? Oh, yeah. Well, that's the church boys. That's basically making no sense for almost an hour once a week.

And a bunch of interviews throughout. It seems to be doing okay. So, you know, I mean, I know you're just throwing it together, but it seems to be doing okay. So Armageddon Code, oh, yeah, okay, I'm up against the clock. They're hollering at me in my ear. Thank you. William Hollowell. I appreciate it very much.

follow left. Thank you. The third. The third. Yes. Thanks, Billy. I'll see you later. Thanks a lot. All right. The Armageddon code. Get it on Tuesday. This is the Jeff Fisher Show on the breeze Radio Network. The founder of this company 10 years ago was trying to sell his house and went through real estate agent after real estate agent and they were all talking a great game. And this guy who was selling his house, the founder of this company, He's kind of an important guy and should get the best treatment. And he said to his wife, if this is what it's like for us, how do people who have no clout ever get around this?

So he started a company and it went into business, I think, three years ago. Their deal is, their word is their bond. And they are just like you. Now, how can I say that? Because I'm the founder of the company. We have a thousand agents across the country. And they are people that listen to the show. And so when you go through real estate agents, I trust,

it's sent to somebody who already, you already know their sensibilities. They already are cut from exactly the same cloth. There's got to be a better way. There is real estate agents, I trust.com.