Latest / Prophecy Watchers / The Ancient Gods Are Coming Back | Derek Gilbert | Repost
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- 0:00Speaker 1: There is a propaganda battle being waged today and you
- 0:04Speaker 1: need to know about it. And here to talk about
- 0:26Speaker 1: that propaganda battle is our good friend, Derek Gilbert. Hi, Derek. Hi, Gary.
- 0:31Speaker 1: It's an honor to be here. It's great to have
- 0:33Speaker 1: you here. And, of course, off camera, you and I
- 0:35Speaker 1: have just had a mile-a-minute conversation. There's so much to
- 0:39Speaker 1: talk about. Derek and, by the way, his wife, Sharon,
- 0:43Speaker 1: have produced this book called Veneration. And when I read
- 0:47Speaker 1: this book, the thing that kept haunting me is this
- 0:51Speaker 1: is going on right now. When you look at cable TV,
- 0:56Speaker 1: you look at the movie listings, you see a propaganda
- 0:59Speaker 1: battle and it features supernatural characters, the Avengers and super
- 1:05Speaker 1: this and super that. And the kids are being spoon
- 1:09Speaker 1: fed on superhuman creatures and all of their exploits. And
- 1:14Speaker 1: some of them are even heroes like Thor is a hero.
- 1:17Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:18Speaker 1: But when you read about the real Thor, he's no hero. No, no.
- 1:22Speaker 2: This has been going on for a long time. And
- 1:23Speaker 2: this has really informed the research that Sharon and I
- 1:25Speaker 2: have been doing for some years now. It's led to
- 1:28Speaker 2: several books now and then more books in the wings.
- 1:31Speaker 2: But I remember as a kid getting hold of my
- 1:33Speaker 2: cousin's comic book collection and seeing the very first issue
- 1:36Speaker 2: of Thor, Thor versus Hercules, and just being really caught
- 1:40Speaker 2: up in the story. But now, I've got to confess,
- 1:43Speaker 2: the Avengers films, the Thor movies are very entertaining. Thor
- 1:45Speaker 2: is portrayed as a very likable character. But when you
- 1:48Speaker 2: understand who he is, he is the storm god of
- 1:51Speaker 2: the ancient Germanic religion. In that role, he is equated
- 1:56Speaker 2: with Jupiter of the Romans, Zeus of the Greeks, Baal
- 2:00Speaker 2: of the Bible. And as Baal and as Zeus, Jesus
- 2:04Speaker 2: identified that character as Satan. So 2,000 years ago, Christians
- 2:09Speaker 2: would have known hey, this is not a good guy.
- 2:11Speaker 2: Now he's a chart-topping Hollywood blockbuster leading action hero.
- 2:18Speaker 1: He really is. And, you know, I think back to
- 2:21Speaker 1: Josephus and going back to the beginning of the story
- 2:25Speaker 1: where he speaks of Genesis 6 by saying that the
- 2:29Speaker 1: sons of God who came down to the daughters of
- 2:31Speaker 1: men were the ones called titans. Yes. And Josephus actually
- 2:35Speaker 1: uses that word. Now, the Titans are demigods. And we
- 2:41Speaker 1: used to think that the Titans were sort of fictional characters. Now,
- 2:45Speaker 1: looking at the Bible and a lot of extant literature,
- 2:49Speaker 1: we're beginning to see that the Titans were real people.
- 2:52Speaker 2: Well, the Titans were the old gods of the Greeks.
- 2:54Speaker 2: They were the ones who ruled the earth under their king, Kronos,
- 2:58Speaker 2: until the Olympians, led by Zeus, the storm god, rebelled
- 3:01Speaker 2: against them and banished them to Tartarus, which was not
- 3:04Speaker 2: the same as Hades. That's a separate level of the underworld,
- 3:07Speaker 2: as far below Hades as the earth is below heaven,
- 3:10Speaker 2: and it was reserved for supernatural threats to the divine order.
- 3:14Speaker 2: But this myth is repeated in a number of ancient religions.
- 3:17Speaker 2: The Hittites and Hurrians believed that there were old gods
- 3:20Speaker 2: who'd been overthrown by their storm god called Teshub. The Canaanites,
- 3:25Speaker 2: the Amorites believed that their storm god, Hadad, called Baal
- 3:29Speaker 2: in the Bible, had taken over for their creator god, El.
- 3:32Speaker 2: You go back further into Babylon, where Marduk, a storm god,
- 3:36Speaker 2: replaced Enlil at the top of the Pantheon. This was
- 3:38Speaker 2: repeated over and over, and in each case, the old
- 3:41Speaker 2: gods were moved or banished to the netherworld, or to
- 3:45Speaker 2: the abyss, or to Tartarus, as the new gods took over. Well,
- 3:49Speaker 2: we see in 2 Peter, a hidden reference to these
- 3:52Speaker 2: old gods. 2 Peter 2, verse 4, talks about God
- 3:55Speaker 2: didn't spare the angels when they sinned, but thrust them
- 3:59Speaker 2: down to hell. Well, the word translated hell in English
- 4:02Speaker 2: is in Greek, Tartaraou. It's the only place it's used
- 4:06Speaker 2: in the Bible, which means it's important. We need to
- 4:08Speaker 2: take note. Literally means thrust down to Tartarus. Again, there's
- 4:12Speaker 2: a difference between Tartarus and Hades. And certainly Peter knew
- 4:15Speaker 2: the difference, writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
- 4:18Speaker 2: He was talking about the angels who sinned. And if
- 4:21Speaker 2: you read 2 Peter 2 in context, or Jude 6, 7, 8, 9,
- 4:26Speaker 2: it's clear that in context, they're referring to angels who
- 4:30Speaker 2: committed a sexual sin. And the only place in the
- 4:32Speaker 2: Bible we see that is Genesis 6, verses 1 through 4.
- 4:36Speaker 2: The watchers who descended made a mutual pact on the
- 4:38Speaker 2: summit of Mount Hermon, which we know from the book
- 4:41Speaker 2: of 1 Enoch. Those are to be equated with the
- 4:44Speaker 2: titans of Greek myth, the old gods of the Hittites,
- 4:47Speaker 2: and the Anunnaki of ancient Sumer. The story just retold,
- 4:51Speaker 2: but the Bible has the accurate account.
- 4:52Speaker 1: Now, my curiosity at this point, and by the way,
- 4:56Speaker 1: I'm speaking to our audience because I want them, and
- 5:01Speaker 1: I want everybody, I think, as many people as possible
- 5:06Speaker 1: to know what's in this book. How would you describe
- 5:09Speaker 1: what's in this book? It's an expose, I would call it.
- 5:13Speaker 1: That's a good way of describing it. We did a
- 5:15Speaker 1: deep dive into the theology and the history of the
- 5:19Speaker 1: Nephilim as they were destroyed, condemned by God and destroyed.
- 5:24Speaker 1: We know from the book of Enoch, and this was
- 5:26Speaker 1: the understanding of the apostles and the early church, their
- 5:30Speaker 1: spirits became demons. But in fact, even the pagan Greeks
- 5:34Speaker 1: understood that the spirits of the heroes who lived during
- 5:37Speaker 1: the golden age when Kronos ruled in heaven, in other words,
- 5:40Speaker 1: the pre-flood world, when they died, their spirits proceeded from them.
- 5:44Speaker 1: They were called daemons. They attracted cult, in other words,
- 5:47Speaker 1: worship or veneration, hence the title of the book. And
- 5:50Speaker 1: by the way, if you read the ancient Greek histories
- 5:53Speaker 1: and philosophies, they think of the demons as their friends.
- 5:57Speaker 1: Exactly right. That was the key difference.
- 5:59Speaker 2: The Greeks and The early church and the Jewish scholars
- 6:03Speaker 2: of the centuries before the birth of Jesus understood that
- 6:06Speaker 2: demons had the same origin point. They just had a
- 6:08Speaker 2: very different view of their nature. And Hesiod, for example,
- 6:12Speaker 2: actually said this. He said that demons are our friends.
- 6:15Speaker 2: And then he proceeds to go forth with a little
- 6:21Speaker 2: kind of an instruction on how to get close to
- 6:24Speaker 2: these people. Because if you get close to them, they
- 6:26Speaker 2: will bless you.
- 6:27Speaker 1: Yes. They will bring you good things.
- 6:30Speaker 2: But what we show in veneration is that secular scholars
- 6:33Speaker 2: in peer-reviewed research have shown that the Greeks didn't invent
- 6:36Speaker 2: this idea on their own, that they drew it from
- 6:38Speaker 2: the Semitic cultures, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hebrews, who
- 6:42Speaker 2: understood that the Rephaim were the spirits of the Nephilim
- 6:46Speaker 2: destroyed in the flood. A scholar by the name of
- 6:49Speaker 2: Amar Anus wrote a paper in 1999 in which he titled,
- 6:54Speaker 2: Are There Greek Rephaim? And showed that the origin of
- 6:56Speaker 2: these demigod heroes of the Greeks were actually the Rephaim
- 7:00Speaker 2: spirits who were venerated by the Canaanites and the Amorites.
- 7:03Speaker 2: We found in our research that this idea that spirits
- 7:07Speaker 2: continued on after death and interceded or intervened in the
- 7:11Speaker 2: affairs of mortal humans was a basic part of the
- 7:15Speaker 2: worldview of the Amorites who dominated the world of the
- 7:19Speaker 2: Bible from the time of Abraham... through the time of
- 7:21Speaker 2: the Exodus, but their influence continued down through the time
- 7:24Speaker 2: of Jesus Christ. They believed that the ancestors, the parents, grandparents,
- 7:30Speaker 2: great-grandparents who had gone on before, had to be summoned
- 7:33Speaker 2: once a month in a necromancy ritual. It was always
- 7:36Speaker 2: held on the 30th of the month, the night of
- 7:38Speaker 2: no moon, in a lunar calendar. The ritual was called Kispim,
- 7:42Speaker 2: and they would summon their ancestors by name for a
- 7:45Speaker 2: ritual meal where they would feed the ancestors. They had
- 7:48Speaker 2: to give them bread. drink water or wine. The ancestors
- 7:52Speaker 2: were buried below the floor of the house and in
- 7:54Speaker 2: many cases a tube was installed down to the corpse
- 7:57Speaker 2: so that water could be poured out. In fact the
- 8:00Speaker 2: heir who was responsible, the oldest son usually, for performing
- 8:03Speaker 2: this ritual every month was called the pourer of water.
- 8:08Speaker 2: And the Mesopotamians, the Amorites, believed that if their descendants
- 8:12Speaker 2: didn't perform the rituals faithfully they would be condemned to
- 8:15Speaker 2: eat dust and clay for all eternity and live a
- 8:18Speaker 2: miserable life in the afterlife. In fact, that explains, we think,
- 8:22Speaker 2: why Abraham was so distressed about not having an heir.
- 8:25Speaker 2: He didn't think he was going to have anyone, a
- 8:27Speaker 2: blood relative, who would perform the ritual so that he
- 8:31Speaker 2: and Sarah would be fed after death because he didn't
- 8:33Speaker 2: have the understanding of the afterlife that God revealed to
- 8:36Speaker 2: Moses and then to the prophets and the apostles.
- 8:39Speaker 1: I'm going to read from Isaiah 14. And by the way,
- 8:42Speaker 1: we're going in a specific direction here. Stay with us.
- 8:45Speaker 1: This is complex. But Derek has done so much research.
- 8:49Speaker 1: Isaiah 14, 19. It says, thou shalt not be joined.
- 8:54Speaker 1: 19 and 20, by the way. But thou art cast
- 8:58Speaker 1: out of the grave like an abominable branch and as
- 9:00Speaker 1: a raiment of those who are slain, thrust through with
- 9:05Speaker 1: a sword. Those that go down to the stones of
- 9:08Speaker 1: the pit as a carcass trodden under feet. Thou shalt
- 9:11Speaker 1: not be joined with them in burial because thou hast
- 9:14Speaker 1: destroyed them. thy land, and slain thy people. The seed
- 9:19Speaker 1: of evildoers shall never be removed. And we have a
- 9:22Speaker 1: mystery enemy here to be spoken of. And the reason
- 9:26Speaker 1: I want to bring this up, not only do you
- 9:27Speaker 1: use this as a topic verse in your book, but
- 9:33Speaker 1: it marks what's going on for me. Because there is
- 9:38Speaker 1: a propaganda battle. And when Isaiah talks about These evil ones.
- 9:47Speaker 1: You could read right over that and just think he's
- 9:48Speaker 1: talking about some bad people. But no, if you read
- 9:52Speaker 1: the whole of Isaiah in an enlightened way, suddenly you
- 9:56Speaker 1: have the story of the Rephaim. Yes, Isaiah 14. is
- 10:00Speaker 1: an amazing chapter because it describes the history and also
- 10:02Speaker 1: the future of these entities and why they're relevant to
- 10:05Speaker 1: us as Christians today. Isaiah 14, of course, is the
- 10:08Speaker 1: famous chapter that condemns the rebel from Eden. How thou
- 10:11Speaker 1: art fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning. So in
- 10:13Speaker 1: the context, you see that that's the entity who's being
- 10:17Speaker 1: addressed here by Isaiah. But then when we see he
- 10:20Speaker 1: is cast out of Eden, and when he falls, shale
- 10:24Speaker 1: beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come.
- 10:26Speaker 1: It rouses the shades to greet you. It rouses the
- 10:28Speaker 1: Rephaim to greet you. This is the moment at which Lucifer, Satan,
- 10:33Speaker 1: is cast out from Eden to become Lord of the dead.
- 10:36Speaker 1: And then we go back to verse 19, which you mentioned.
- 10:40Speaker 1: There's a couple of interesting things here. The abominable branch.
- 10:42Speaker 1: We do a word study on that, and a scholar...
- 10:46Speaker 1: brilliantly pointed out that the word translated abominable branch in Hebrew, netzer,
- 10:53Speaker 1: it's a prophetic reference elsewhere in Isaiah where it talks
- 10:56Speaker 1: about the branch, the shoot that comes from the root
- 10:59Speaker 1: of Jesse. But here he says, no, this is actually
- 11:02Speaker 1: a loan word from Egyptian, which Isaiah would have been
- 11:05Speaker 1: privy to because King Hezekiah, who was ruled during Isaiah's day,
- 11:10Speaker 1: was trying to make an alliance with the Egyptians as
- 11:12Speaker 1: protection against the Babylonians and Assyrians. Netzer is a well-known
- 11:16Speaker 1: word in Egyptian that means dead god, like a divinized
- 11:20Speaker 1: dead king, or the Rephaim, who were the spirits of
- 11:24Speaker 1: these mighty men who were of old. And you go
- 11:26Speaker 1: into this rather deeply in your book.
- 11:28Speaker 2: So in context, it makes sense. And then, of course,
- 11:30Speaker 2: you go further down, and as we mentioned, the watchers
- 11:32Speaker 2: who are the progenitors of these shades, these Rephaim, these
- 11:37Speaker 2: dead kings of old. Verse 21 reads, and I'm reading
- 11:41Speaker 2: from the English Standard Version instead of the King James,
- 11:43Speaker 2: but Prepare slaughter for his sons because of the guilt
- 11:46Speaker 2: of their fathers, lest they rise and possess the earth
- 11:49Speaker 2: and fill the face of the world with cities. Now,
- 11:53Speaker 2: I'm a Chicago kid, so I wonder, what's the problem
- 11:55Speaker 2: with cities here? I mean, God had David in a city,
- 12:00Speaker 2: put his name in Jerusalem, and there he will dwell forever.
- 12:03Speaker 2: But again, it's another loan word. When we understand that
- 12:06Speaker 2: the word for cities in Hebrew, irim, is identical to
- 12:10Speaker 2: the Aramaic word for watchers. lest they rise and possess
- 12:16Speaker 2: the earth and fill the face of the world with watchers.
- 12:18Speaker 1: And you know what? All those ancient cities, the biggest
- 12:22Speaker 1: cities in the world, were dedicated to the gods. Yes, yes.
- 12:26Speaker 1: That was common practice in Mesopotamia. Each god had its
- 12:29Speaker 1: patron deity. Right. Or each city had its patron deity.
- 12:32Speaker 1: Moving forward a bit, and this is the last I'm
- 12:36Speaker 1: going to read from Isaiah, but I have to say
- 12:38Speaker 1: this because Derek has such insight. In this particular verse,
- 12:42Speaker 1: we talked about it a minute ago, Isaiah 26, 14,
- 12:46Speaker 1: they are dead. They shall not live. They are deceased.
- 12:49Speaker 1: They shall not rise. Therefore hast thou visited and destroyed
- 12:53Speaker 1: them and made all their memory to perish. They are dead.
- 12:58Speaker 1: Who are they?
- 12:59Speaker 2: Well, this is another reference, another hidden reference to the
- 13:01Speaker 2: Rephaim in the Old Testament. The word translated deceased is
- 13:06Speaker 2: actually Rephaim. And The scholars, the great theologians of the
- 13:10Speaker 2: last 2,000 years, didn't have access to some of the
- 13:12Speaker 2: texts from the pagan neighbors of ancient Israel that had
- 13:15Speaker 2: been translated within the last 50 years or so. We
- 13:18Speaker 2: understand now that in context, Rephaim means more than just
- 13:22Speaker 2: run-of-the-mill dead. It means these divinized kings of old. The Canaanite,
- 13:26Speaker 2: the Amorite neighbors of ancient Israel, believed that their kings
- 13:29Speaker 2: upon death would join the assembly of the Rephaim or
- 13:35Speaker 2: something that in some of these texts only translated since
- 13:38Speaker 2: the 1980s, called the Council of the Tidonu, which is
- 13:42Speaker 2: the origin of the name Titans of the Greeks. They
- 13:46Speaker 2: believed that these spirits existed in the afterlife, their kings
- 13:49Speaker 2: would join this council. But what's interesting is when you
- 13:53Speaker 2: skip down in Isaiah 26 to verse 19, you get
- 13:57Speaker 2: a prophecy of their destruction. Your dead shall live, their
- 14:01Speaker 2: bodies shall rise. This is a prophecy of those who
- 14:04Speaker 2: are faithful to God the Father, our Creator. You who
- 14:08Speaker 2: dwell in dust, awake and sing for joy, for your
- 14:11Speaker 2: dew is a dew of light, and the earth will
- 14:13Speaker 2: give birth to the dead. The thing is, the Septuagint
- 14:16Speaker 2: translation renders this differently. The Jewish scholars who translated Hebrew
- 14:21Speaker 2: into Greek a couple hundred years before the birth of Jesus,
- 14:24Speaker 2: the Bible that would have been available to the Apostles,
- 14:27Speaker 2: actually translates that differently and renders that last sentence, the
- 14:32Speaker 2: earth will give birth to the dead. The verb give birth, nephal,
- 14:37Speaker 2: many scholars believe is the origin of the word nephilim,
- 14:40Speaker 2: which is possible, but everywhere else it's used in the
- 14:42Speaker 2: Old Testament, it means to fall or has fallen. The
- 14:46Speaker 2: Septuagint translator said the land of the impious will fall.
- 14:51Speaker 2: In other words, scholars who look at that say, you know,
- 14:54Speaker 2: the Jewish translators of the Septuagint understood that this verse,
- 14:57Speaker 2: this whole prophecy here, was a reference to the Rephaim,
- 15:01Speaker 2: the giants, and the progenitors, the titans, the watchers. If
- 15:05Speaker 2: it's a reference to Tartarus, the land of the ungodly
- 15:08Speaker 2: will fall.
- 15:09Speaker 1: Now I have a special connection with Isaiah 26, 14,
- 15:12Speaker 1: because years ago, and I won't say how many years ago,
- 15:15Speaker 1: but it's been decades ago, I read this and I
- 15:17Speaker 1: started looking that word up, Rephaim, and That took me
- 15:21Speaker 1: in a jillion other places, but the whole Old Testament
- 15:24Speaker 1: talks about the Raphaim, the offspring of the fallen ones,
- 15:29Speaker 1: the Nephilim. And they were giants. But here's the thing.
- 15:36Speaker 1: They are treated with absolute contempt by our Lord, that
- 15:42Speaker 1: is to say, and by his prophets. And there's a
- 15:46Speaker 1: deeper story. That is, once you begin to recognize that
- 15:50Speaker 1: the Bible talks about the Rephaim in a very special way,
- 15:53Speaker 1: suddenly you go another layer deeper and you have an
- 15:57Speaker 1: amazing story about the old heroes, the Titans, the Olympians,
- 16:02Speaker 1: the gods, the demigods, coming all the way, I think,
- 16:06Speaker 1: down into our day because there are literally thousands of
- 16:10Speaker 1: gods being worshipped all over the world today. And they
- 16:14Speaker 1: are a remnant of the fallen ones. Yes. Paul makes
- 16:17Speaker 1: it clear. The pagans were worshiping demons. And bringing us
- 16:22Speaker 1: right up to today, you go to the movies, you
- 16:26Speaker 1: buy your ticket, you go in there, and you can
- 16:29Speaker 1: actually sit down and be treated to two and a
- 16:31Speaker 1: half hours of superheroes who are nothing but cheap copies
- 16:36Speaker 1: of everything the Bible talks about. Mm-hmm. And that's really
- 16:42Speaker 1: what is exciting, I think, about your book, because anyone
- 16:45Speaker 1: who reads this book is suddenly going to have their
- 16:48Speaker 1: eyes open and say, wait a minute, this is real.
- 16:51Speaker 1: That's the thing that's really excited Sharon and me about
- 16:53Speaker 1: this research that we've been doing for the last four
- 16:55Speaker 1: years or so, is that it makes it very clear
- 16:58Speaker 1: that the Bible has got all of the elements of
- 17:00Speaker 1: these modern superhero stories. You've got wizards and sorcerers and
- 17:04Speaker 1: monsters and demons and heroes and self-sacrificial love. And then
- 17:10Speaker 1: when you realize that because this is actual history and
- 17:13Speaker 1: we are part of that history, we are part of
- 17:15Speaker 1: a story that is much bigger than we are. We
- 17:19Speaker 1: are part of the fellowship of the ring, if you will,
- 17:22Speaker 1: you know, Tolkien or Lewis or any of these great
- 17:25Speaker 1: stories of quests. I mean, you know, think medieval knights
- 17:28Speaker 1: with chivalry and honor and loyalty and love. And, you know,
- 17:35Speaker 1: it is the kind of story that would attract our
- 17:38Speaker 1: youth groups, our kids, our teens, if we told them
- 17:41Speaker 1: the story in these contexts, and God bless them, there
- 17:44Speaker 1: are young men and women out there who are beginning
- 17:47Speaker 1: to pick up on these stories and transfer this into
- 17:50Speaker 1: teaching materials for youth groups for this reason. Because when
- 17:53Speaker 1: kids understand that they are part of a story that's
- 17:56Speaker 1: just as exciting as what they're seeing on the screens,
- 17:58Speaker 1: except it's real. Exactly. Suddenly they get really excited about
- 18:02Speaker 1: the Bible. And I have to tell you, when I
- 18:04Speaker 1: read Veneration by Derek and Sharon Gilbert, I thought, mission field.
- 18:10Speaker 1: This is what hit me. Because I know of so
- 18:13Speaker 1: many families who have had so many teenagers get to
- 18:18Speaker 1: a certain age and say, Mom, Dad, I know you
- 18:20Speaker 1: raised me in the church. But you know what? I've
- 18:23Speaker 1: outgrown that. I don't believe that anymore. So thank you
- 18:26Speaker 1: very much. I'm leaving. I'm going to go off to college.
- 18:29Speaker 1: And don't bother me with this Christianity garbage. It's just
- 18:35Speaker 1: no longer pertinent to my life. And that's it. I've
- 18:39Speaker 1: seen this happen hundreds of times, literally, as a pastor
- 18:44Speaker 1: over the years. And suddenly I read your book, and
- 18:49Speaker 1: if that group of people could be convinced, as you are.
- 18:54Speaker 2: One of the most exciting things we saw was standing
- 18:57Speaker 2: on Mount Nebo and looking down at the plains of Moab,
- 18:59Speaker 2: where Moses and the Israelites camped before crossing over and
- 19:03Speaker 2: attacking Jericho, which incidentally was named for the moon god
- 19:07Speaker 2: of the Amorites, Yarik. And we go into some depth
- 19:11Speaker 2: on the moon god in other books and why the
- 19:14Speaker 2: moon god was so important. But down there, while they
- 19:17Speaker 2: were on the plains of Moab, the Bible tells us
- 19:19Speaker 2: that they began to worship a deity called Baal Peor.
- 19:22Speaker 2: And we explain in veneration that when you do a
- 19:25Speaker 2: deep dive into the origin of that word, Baal just
- 19:27Speaker 2: means Lord. Peor comes from a root that means cleft
- 19:30Speaker 2: or gap or opening. But in the context, when you
- 19:33Speaker 2: piece together the puzzle, it probably means entrance or opening
- 19:37Speaker 2: to the underworld. Because that was when God was provoked
- 19:42Speaker 2: to send a plague among Israel for their worship of
- 19:44Speaker 2: this entity that killed 24,000 Israelites until Phineas, the grandson
- 19:49Speaker 2: of Aaron the priest, took a spear and stabbed a
- 19:51Speaker 2: young Israelite man and Midianite woman who were engaging in
- 19:55Speaker 2: some rite in the sight of Moses and all Israel,
- 19:59Speaker 2: which is shocking. This pagan act that was taking place
- 20:02Speaker 2: right there in front of the tent of meeting or
- 20:04Speaker 2: possibly even inside the tent of meeting. But that isn't
- 20:07Speaker 2: what The psalmist in Psalm 106 verses 28 and 29
- 20:11Speaker 2: said was what provoked God. They said it was because
- 20:14Speaker 2: Israel began eating sacrifices offered to the dead. They were
- 20:18Speaker 2: lured into this worship of these ancient spirits that were
- 20:21Speaker 2: believed to be the ancestors or the mighty kings of old,
- 20:25Speaker 2: but were in fact the demons who proceeded from the
- 20:27Speaker 2: Nephilim in the flood.
- 20:29Speaker 1: Now, are they coming back? Yes. Are they really, really
- 20:33Speaker 1: coming back? I mean, there's a tendency. And by the way,
- 20:36Speaker 1: for years, I must say, maybe even decades, I was
- 20:41Speaker 1: one of those people who put the Titans and the
- 20:43Speaker 1: Olympians in the mythological category. They were just nice stories
- 20:47Speaker 1: written by the Greeks and the Romans and the Babylonians
- 20:49Speaker 1: and the Assyrians. But they weren't about real people at all.
- 20:54Speaker 1: Now we know they are about real people. And it
- 20:58Speaker 1: makes everything different in our world when we realize that
- 21:02Speaker 1: there literally is a battle of the gods going on.
- 21:07Speaker 2: I mentioned those Rephaim texts from the ancient Amorite kingdom
- 21:10Speaker 2: of Ugarit written about the time of the judges around
- 21:13Speaker 2: 1200 BC. They make reference to several rituals in which
- 21:19Speaker 2: these Rephaim spirits were summoned through a necromancy ritual to
- 21:22Speaker 2: the threshing floor of El or the sanctuary of El. Well,
- 21:25Speaker 2: that's a reference to Mount Hermon. The threshing floor. Apparently
- 21:29Speaker 2: a portal, and Sharon wrote a wonderful chapter in there
- 21:31Speaker 2: on the imagery, the symbolism of the threshing floor and
- 21:34Speaker 2: the importance of threshing floors in the ancient world as portals.
- 21:37Speaker 2: In fact, the threshing floor of Orana on the summit
- 21:40Speaker 2: of Mount Moriah is where the Temple of Solomon was built.
- 21:44Speaker 2: It is the Temple Mount today where we believe the
- 21:48Speaker 2: final battle, Armageddon, will be fought. Ezekiel says in Ezekiel
- 21:54Speaker 2: 39 verse 11, He makes reference to the hordes of
- 21:58Speaker 2: Magog being buried in a place called the Valley of
- 22:00Speaker 2: the Travelers, east of the sea. The word traveler in
- 22:04Speaker 2: the Semitic is avarim. Well, God said to Moses, climb
- 22:09Speaker 2: this mountain of the avarim to get your look at
- 22:11Speaker 2: the promised land. Well, that's Mount Nebo. There's a place
- 22:15Speaker 2: somewhere in the Exodus route, we believe right there on
- 22:17Speaker 2: the plains of Moab, called Ayit HaAvarim, which means ruins
- 22:20Speaker 2: of the travelers. And there's a site there. in plain
- 22:23Speaker 2: sight of the plains of Moab, with 1500 dolmens at
- 22:26Speaker 2: the base of a ruined city. These dolmens are megalithic
- 22:29Speaker 2: funerary monuments, like miniature stone hinges, little trilithons of stone.
- 22:35Speaker 2: The Israelites would have seen them there. But the key
- 22:38Speaker 2: is in these Rephaim texts from Ugarit, in which they
- 22:41Speaker 2: are summoned to the threshing floor of El, they mount
- 22:43Speaker 2: their chariots, they travel first one day and then another,
- 22:46Speaker 2: and arrive at dawn of the third day, where the
- 22:49Speaker 2: word of El, the name of El, will revivify or
- 22:52Speaker 2: resurrect The Rephaim. And they are specifically called travelers in
- 22:57Speaker 2: those texts. And scholars agree that in Ezekiel 39, the
- 23:01Speaker 2: reference to travelers is not talking about people on vacation
- 23:05Speaker 2: on the king's highway east of the Dead Sea. It's
- 23:08Speaker 2: talking about these entities. They travel. They cross over from
- 23:11Speaker 2: the land of the dead to the land of the living.
- 23:13Speaker 2: These warriors of Baal will be in the army at Armageddon.
- 23:17Speaker 2: And there they will fall.
- 23:18Speaker 1: And by the way, Derek, you're referring to Ezekiel 38,
- 23:22Speaker 1: Battle of Gog. Everybody's got his private interpretation of the
- 23:25Speaker 1: Battle of Gog. You need to read about this interpretation
- 23:29Speaker 1: in Veneration. There are some very, very high spiritual battles
- 23:36Speaker 1: being fought there, high-level spiritual battles. It sort of takes
- 23:40Speaker 1: me forward to Revelation where Satan and his angels are
- 23:45Speaker 1: gathered against Michael and his angels. You try to visualize
- 23:49Speaker 1: what that is. And it's very difficult because we simply
- 23:53Speaker 1: don't have the background, the history, the base to understand
- 23:58Speaker 1: what it means when two groups of angels go to war.
- 24:03Speaker 1: But I think you get a pretty good idea in
- 24:05Speaker 1: this book because you go back and reference all of
- 24:07Speaker 1: the ancient references to supernatural creatures, as we would call them.
- 24:15Speaker 1: But they were real. And there really was a battle. Yes.
- 24:19Speaker 1: The battle's not finished. That's correct.
- 24:22Speaker 2: And that's the thing that we remember. We need to
- 24:23Speaker 2: remember when we look at the War of Gog and
- 24:25Speaker 2: Magog and we look at the uttermost north, that phrase
- 24:28Speaker 2: translated in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is only used three
- 24:31Speaker 2: places in the Bible. And the other two places refer
- 24:34Speaker 2: to a mountain on the border between Syria and Turkey,
- 24:37Speaker 2: right on the Mediterranean coast called Mount Tsefon. And that
- 24:41Speaker 2: is a reference to the mountain that everyone in the
- 24:43Speaker 2: ancient world knew was the mountain where Baal's palace was located.
- 24:47Speaker 2: That is the rallying point for Gog of Magog. It's
- 24:49Speaker 2: a supernatural north that we need to look to. Not,
- 24:53Speaker 2: is it Turkey, is it Russia? Well, yes, there will
- 24:55Speaker 2: be human actors involved, but we need to remember that
- 24:57Speaker 2: Gog of Magog is the Antichrist figure. He is the
- 25:01Speaker 2: chief of staff for Satan, and that supernatural army, or
- 25:04Speaker 2: a demonically infused army that comes against Israel for Armageddon,
- 25:08Speaker 2: that's their headquarters, is this mountain that everyone in the
- 25:11Speaker 2: ancient world knew was the headquarters for, well, Satan.
- 25:14Speaker 1: I wish we had three hours. We haven't even scratched
- 25:18Speaker 1: the surface or begun to. The book is called Veneration
- 25:23Speaker 1: by Sharon and Derek Gilbert. She got top billing, by
- 25:26Speaker 1: the way. And by the way, she is a great researcher,
- 25:30Speaker 1: I must say.
- 25:32Speaker 3: Prophecy Watchers just celebrated 12 years of ministry, and we're
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- 25:49Speaker 3: cutting-edge prophetic teaching you may never hear about in church.
- 25:53Speaker 3: You can still access both the print and digital magazine
- 25:57Speaker 3: subscription offers online. But this anniversary, we're doing something different.
- 26:01Speaker 3: Over the years, we've built an incredible library featuring Gary Stearman,
- 26:05Speaker 3: Mondo Gonzalez, L.A. Marzulli, Tom Horn, Bill Salus, Jan Markell,
- 26:11Speaker 3: and many more. We're talking about the Rapture, Revelation, the Antichrist,
- 26:16Speaker 3: the Nephilim, artificial intelligence, Gog and Magog, Israel's future, and
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- 27:45Speaker 1: We are going to spend another broadcast with Derek. We
- 27:49Speaker 1: have not scratched the surface here, and we're going to
- 27:51Speaker 1: go a little deeper next time. Derek, less than a minute,
- 27:56Speaker 1: what would you have people to know about your book?
- 28:00Speaker 2: That the spirit realm is real, and that God takes
- 28:03Speaker 2: very seriously the protection of us from these entities who
- 28:08Speaker 2: want to destroy us. When you look at this long
- 28:12Speaker 2: war in context, God sent his only son, to shed
- 28:16Speaker 2: his blood to die for us, where these false gods
- 28:20Speaker 2: who rebelled against our creator want to shed our blood
- 28:25Speaker 2: so that they can live forever. When you think about it,
- 28:28Speaker 2: that Last Supper, where Jesus gave the bread and the
- 28:31Speaker 2: wine to his disciples to show his sacrifice, it's complete
- 28:36Speaker 2: reversal of that monthly ritual that the pagan neighbors of
- 28:39Speaker 2: ancient Israel performed for their, well, what they thought were
- 28:42Speaker 2: their ancestors, but were in fact the spirits of these demons.
- 28:46Speaker 1: His love.
- 28:47Speaker 3: Amen.
- 28:47Speaker 1: Those other gods, well, not so much. Thanks, Derek. It's
- 28:51Speaker 1: good to have you here. Thank you. I'm Gary Stearman.
- 28:54Speaker 1: You keep watching. We are.
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