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A Forgotten Prophet Saw the Rapture? | Ken Johnson | The Week in Bible Prophecy · The Week in Bible Prophecy

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  Speaker 1: The Week in Bible Prophecy, a Prophecy Watchers podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Gary Stearman, and this is Prophecy Watchers. With
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  Speaker 2: me on stage today, Ken Johnson, one of our favorite
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  Speaker 2: people when it comes to writing about Bible prophecy. Ken,
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  Speaker 2: welcome to Prophecy Watchers. Thank you. In front of me
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  Speaker 2: is a book that you have turned out just very
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  Speaker 2: recently called And it's called The Ancient Book of Gad
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  Speaker 2: the Seer. And what an interesting opener. That's all you
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  Speaker 2: have to see before your mind starts to crank a
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  Speaker 2: little bit and you say, wait a minute, I've heard
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  Speaker 2: of Gad the Seer, but I really don't know what
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  Speaker 2: he did or when he lived. I don't know anything
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  Speaker 2: about Gad the Seer. And you're going to tell us
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  Speaker 2: about this man. Turns out he's very interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you read the Old Testament, you know about
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  Speaker 3: King David. And King David had Nathan the prophet and
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  Speaker 3: Gad the seer as two of his seers or prophets.
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  Speaker 3: And seer is the old word for prophet, but it
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  Speaker 3: has the connotation closer, the idea of seeing a vision.
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  Speaker 3: And so in those days, David would ask God for,
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  Speaker 3: you know, can I do this or whatever, ask God
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  Speaker 3: a question. And pretty soon, One of the prophets would
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  Speaker 3: come and say, oh, God told me to come and
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  Speaker 3: tell you that the answer to your question is this.
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  Speaker 1: So it's kind of neat to see.
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  Speaker 3: And then we all remember the thing about the prophet
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  Speaker 3: coming and saying there was a guy that had a
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  Speaker 3: lamb and then his neighbor had lots of lambs, but
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  Speaker 3: he didn't want to kill one of his lambs for
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  Speaker 3: a party.
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  Speaker 1: So he stole this guy's pet, butchered it, and fed
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  Speaker 1: it to the guests. What do you think we should do?
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  Speaker 1: And David's like, as long as I'm king, that man
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  Speaker 1: will die. It's like, well, by the way, I'm talking
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  Speaker 1: about you and Bathsheba and Uriah. So that's an amazing
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  Speaker 1: piece of logic or wisdom to get you to make
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  Speaker 1: a judgment on yourself before you can hem-haw about it.
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  Speaker 1: But the prophets were amazing. They would hear from God
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  Speaker 1: and tell us stuff. In Gad, there's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: good moral stories.
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  Speaker 3: There are some prophecies about the end times, about the
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  Speaker 3: rapture of the church, about the formation of Mystery Babylon.
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  Speaker 2: And when you say about the rapture of the church,
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  Speaker 2: how does it depict the rapture of the church?
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  Speaker 3: Well, in chapter 14, he sees a vision.
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  Speaker 1: And it's Resurrection Day. So whatever day that was, we've
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  Speaker 1: just been resurrected and raptured and everybody's standing before the
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  Speaker 1: throne of God.
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  Speaker 3: And it's really cool because Satan's among them. Satan comes
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  Speaker 3: up and we're there and Satan's like, who are these
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  Speaker 3: unworthy people? And of course you and I both know
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  Speaker 3: we are not worthy.
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  Speaker 2: So Satan plays the role of the adversary in this
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  Speaker 2: huge scene. That's fascinating.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one of my favorite parts in that particular
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  Speaker 3: one because an angel standing there says, shut up!
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  Speaker 1: This day is holy to our God. You need to
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  Speaker 1: mind your place. Shut up now, okay.
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  Speaker 2: How is that expressed? Now in English it's shut up,
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  Speaker 2: but How is that expressed in Hebrew?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's emphatic. Yeah, it's just like, shut your mouth.
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  Speaker 2: Shut your mouth. Yeah. Wow.
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  Speaker 3: So I don't know who this angel is, but Satan
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  Speaker 3: has kind of put his place there.
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  Speaker 2: So do you suppose we'll be there to see that?
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  Speaker 2: I would think, yeah. See that happen? Yeah. Wow. It
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  Speaker 2: would be interesting to see an angel tell Satan to
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  Speaker 2: shut up.
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  Speaker 3: Well, looking at the rest of scriptures, I'm thinking maybe
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  Speaker 3: Michael Because Michael didn't dare come against Satan because it
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  Speaker 3: wasn't time. You know that Satan was doing something he shouldn't,
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  Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean you're the one that's supposed to
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  Speaker 3: stop it. I know one day the Lord's going to say, Michael,
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  Speaker 3: I know you would love to throw him in jail.
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  Speaker 1: Go do it, if you want. And he's going to
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  Speaker 1: be like, I've been waiting for this for a long time.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, in other words, the... Oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, some interesting things like that and some riddles.
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  Speaker 3: Like you're trying to figure out what today is, and
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  Speaker 3: today is the first day of the seventh month.
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  Speaker 1: That's trumpets.
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  Speaker 3: And today people have eternal life. Well, that sounds like
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  Speaker 3: the rapture happens at that.
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  Speaker 1: Point, maybe.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe.
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  Speaker 3: And then it goes on, and he's looking at the books,
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  Speaker 3: and he's going to judge another set of people a
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  Speaker 3: third through the month. which is a cryptic way of saying,
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  Speaker 3: you know, if this is Tishrei, a third through the
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  Speaker 3: month is the 10th, the 10th of Tishrei is Yom Kippur,
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  Speaker 3: you know, Day of Atonement. So in other words, there's
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  Speaker 3: another group of people that have to make a decision
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  Speaker 3: by Yom Kippur, which would be the end of the
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  Speaker 3: tribulation period.
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  Speaker 1: Otherwise, they're toast. You know, so there's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: details in there. You read it and you just miss
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  Speaker 1: the dates and stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's fascinating and At this point in time,
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to pick up my Bible here, and I'm
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  Speaker 2: looking at 1 Chronicles, and you led me to this point,
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  Speaker 2: so I opened my Bible and looked at it. 1
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  Speaker 2: Chronicles 29.29, which is in itself kind of an interesting number.
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  Speaker 2: And it says, Now the acts of David the king,
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  Speaker 2: first and last, behold, they are written in the book
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  Speaker 2: of Samuel the seer, in the book of Nathan, the prophet,
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  Speaker 2: and in the book of Gad, the seer. It's nice
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  Speaker 2: to find Gad's name in Scripture because if it weren't there,
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  Speaker 2: people would say, what are you doing? You shouldn't be
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  Speaker 2: studying Gad the seer. He might not.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, like Nostradamus or something.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, but he is not Nostradamus. He is a
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  Speaker 2: man called by the Lord to do a certain work
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  Speaker 2: And he does it in the environment of King David
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  Speaker 2: to a great degree.
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  Speaker 1: I think that's a very important point to look at.
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  Speaker 3: So what I've done is I've read the scriptures, and
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  Speaker 3: the scriptures will say something like there is a book
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  Speaker 3: written by a prophet, or at least used to be
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  Speaker 3: a book, and it's entitled this. So I'm assuming if
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  Speaker 3: it's letting me know that, if I can find it,
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  Speaker 3: I should read it. But then we'd have to know
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  Speaker 3: it's the right one. So you look at the Dead
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  Speaker 3: Sea Scrolls. And you look at the early church, the
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  Speaker 3: first century, and see what they say about that. And
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  Speaker 3: they give little clues about, they read it, where's it at?
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  Speaker 3: And they'll give a clue about where it might be.
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  Speaker 3: So you just kind of follow the chain or the trail.
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  Speaker 3: And then sometimes the Lord blesses you and you find
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  Speaker 3: an archive where it's supposed to be and you're able
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  Speaker 3: to get some of these documents.
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  Speaker 2: That's fascinating to me. And at this point in time,
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  Speaker 2: I'd like to talk about the word seer. I think
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  Speaker 2: we need to settle for the definition of seer as
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  Speaker 2: opposed to prophet. Do they have a different authority? Do
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  Speaker 2: they have a different viewpoint? What's the difference between a
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  Speaker 2: prophet and a seer?
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  Speaker 3: It says that anciently they were called seers. This is
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  Speaker 3: another place in Samuel chapter 9. And in modern times,
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  Speaker 3: which would be in David, Isaiah's time in that area,
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  Speaker 3: they were called prophets. So it's basically the same, but
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  Speaker 3: I think the prophet has the connotation.
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  Speaker 1: Of being a forth teller. So maybe the Lord tells you,
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  Speaker 1: go tell these people.
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  Speaker 3: I'm mad at them, and unless they repent, I'm going
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  Speaker 3: to do this and this, which is a prophecy, but
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  Speaker 3: it's more centered on your relationship with the Lord. And
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  Speaker 3: a seer would give you the connotation of, I just
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  Speaker 3: saw a vision of the future, whatever it is.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe you can get out of it, maybe you can't,
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  Speaker 1: but here's the vision. So more of a prophetic.
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  Speaker 2: Now, we discriminate, I suppose, between the words seer and prophet.
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  Speaker 2: In the verse that I just read a moment ago,
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  Speaker 2: we have the book of Nathan the prophet mentioned, and
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  Speaker 2: right after that, the book of Gad the seer. So
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  Speaker 2: when I read this, the first question that popped into
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  Speaker 2: my head, which he'd never had before, was, wait a minute, prophet, seer,
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  Speaker 2: what's the difference there? And that's a study you have done.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, to compare the difference, actually, we don't have the
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  Speaker 3: full book of Nathan. Otherwise, I would have published it,
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  Speaker 3: and you'd be the first to know. But we do
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  Speaker 3: have fragments of it. And so when you look at
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  Speaker 3: that and you look at Gad, Gad is more along
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  Speaker 3: the lines of I was walking one day at this
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  Speaker 3: time in this place, and I saw a vision, much
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  Speaker 3: like John writing the book of Revelation. It's basically all seer,
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  Speaker 3: kind of. But when you get to Nathan, yeah, Nathan
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  Speaker 3: the prophet, It's much more, I saw a vision, it
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  Speaker 3: was this, and so because of this, I'm going to
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  Speaker 3: do that.
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  Speaker 1: And there's more of a story to it. This is
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  Speaker 1: why I did this.
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  Speaker 2: So he is given a kind of a visual, if
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  Speaker 2: you will. So he's called a seer. And he brings
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  Speaker 2: that to us as almost a little movie clip. The
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  Speaker 2: word seer would describe that. Interesting. Interesting. That's very interesting
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  Speaker 2: indeed and it's interesting to me because we're always looking
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  Speaker 2: for prophecy and we think if I spot this next
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  Speaker 2: prophecy it'll connect with several others I have looked at
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  Speaker 2: and eventually I'm going to get the big picture and
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  Speaker 2: I will be able to make a very good estimate
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  Speaker 2: about what's going to happen in the near future. Whoops.
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  Speaker 2: Doesn't work that way.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, at least not until recently anyway, or hopefully in
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  Speaker 1: the near future.
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  Speaker 2: It is beginning to look like it works that way.
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  Speaker 2: But I think all serious Christians who really read their
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  Speaker 2: Bibles and who from time to time pop across a
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  Speaker 2: little prophecy and say, I never saw that before. I
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  Speaker 2: wonder where that fits in. And Gad the Seer seems
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  Speaker 2: to help us to lock some things together that we
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't otherwise.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple of big questions.
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  Speaker 3: Not answering everything, but just a couple of questions put
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  Speaker 3: together with something else.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: And so now we can go back and look at it.
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  Speaker 3: And that's a good point, too. We've got to be
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  Speaker 3: very careful. Just because the Bible says there's a book
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  Speaker 3: of Gad the Seer and it's important for you to read,
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  Speaker 3: and we found a manuscript that says this is Gad
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  Speaker 3: the Seer, doesn't mean that that's the real one or
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  Speaker 3: that it hasn't been tampered with.
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  Speaker 1: So you always got to wonder about that.
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  Speaker 2: Now, when you said that, that we found a manuscript
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  Speaker 2: of Gad the Seer, the question popped up in my head. What?
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  Speaker 2: How did you do that? And how did that come
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  Speaker 2: to you? Because I've never seen a manuscript of Gad
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  Speaker 2: the Seer. It must be something rare.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, it is rare.
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  Speaker 3: There's actually several different pieces to it that have surfaced
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  Speaker 3: in different areas. Then finally there was one that came
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  Speaker 3: from Kosh in India. And then, of course, everybody's debating
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  Speaker 3: on whether that's the real one or not. Then there
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  Speaker 3: was actually a manuscript of the same that came from
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  Speaker 3: the Vatican. You know, they tend to dump out papers
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  Speaker 3: every so often. So what's interesting is you've got these
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  Speaker 3: two full manuscripts that are word perfect, and you've got
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  Speaker 3: these other little fragments that are pieces of it, but
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  Speaker 3: the pieces are word perfect. So that tells you that
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  Speaker 3: it comes from a very, very ancient time. And the
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  Speaker 3: way that it's written lets you know that it goes
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  Speaker 3: back a long ways.
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  Speaker 2: You know, when I think of manuscripts, the first one
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  Speaker 2: that pops into my head, when I think of something
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  Speaker 2: like you're describing, the Book of Enoch, which has become very,
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  Speaker 2: very popular of late. And you think the story that
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  Speaker 2: I heard was that that manuscript of Enoch was buried
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  Speaker 2: in the wall of an ancient building and archaeologists were
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  Speaker 2: dismantling the wall. to see what was in a space,
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  Speaker 2: and they found the manuscript of the book of Enoch,
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  Speaker 2: and not too long ago. In other words, that manuscript
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  Speaker 2: hasn't been around all that long, and it's like the
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  Speaker 2: Lord chose that day, you know, when those guys were
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  Speaker 2: opening up the wall. This is the day that that
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  Speaker 2: particular manuscript is going to go out and be publicized.
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  Speaker 2: It's very, very popular now.
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  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. You got the same thing with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, they sat there in those caves for almost 2,000 years,
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  Speaker 3: and somebody accidentally throws a rock and hears pottery breaking?
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  Speaker 2: Accidentally.
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  Speaker 1: Accidentally, yeah. Makes you wonder what angel was saying, here, goat,
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  Speaker 1: come here, come here. Get him to go up there.
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  Speaker 2: It is time to reveal. Yeah. And God works that way,
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  Speaker 2: which is remarkable. And by the way, I love the
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  Speaker 2: way that God unfolds what we as humans look at
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  Speaker 2: as mysteries. We read something in the Bible and say,
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  Speaker 2: I'd like to know more about that. Where can I look?
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  Speaker 2: And you decide, well, after looking for a few weeks,
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  Speaker 2: I think I'll put this off. And that's basically your life.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just too curious to put it off. It
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  Speaker 1: bugs you.
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  Speaker 3: You read something like that, it's like the Lord, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the Bible's written by the Holy Spirit. So there's some
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  Speaker 3: reason why the Holy Spirit let us know there's a
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  Speaker 3: book of Enoch, there's a book of Gad the Seer.
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  Speaker 3: For some reason he wants us to know it actually existed.
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  Speaker 3: So the logical reason would be to find it and
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  Speaker 3: read it.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed. And so you are doing that, and your book
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  Speaker 2: Gad the Seer is partitioned in a very interesting way.
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  Speaker 2: You have different chapters here that allude to different aspects
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  Speaker 2: of Gad the Seer and different historical markers. Tell us
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  Speaker 2: about that.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the first two chapters are prophetic and the last
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  Speaker 3: chapter is prophetic. And then in the middle part, there
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  Speaker 3: are several things that actually answer a lot of questions
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  Speaker 3: for us.
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  Speaker 1: There's the story about the Moabite.
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  Speaker 3: Which tells us about Noahide law and the fact that
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  Speaker 3: we're all saved by grace. And then there's stories of
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  Speaker 3: David and stories about what happened to his daughter Tamar.
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  Speaker 3: The one about the Moabite is really interesting.
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  Speaker 1: He was a Moabite. He was a friend of David.
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  Speaker 1: He kept David's flock.
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  Speaker 3: He fell in love with this cute little Jewish girl.
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  Speaker 3: And he's like, OK, I want to get circumcised. I
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  Speaker 3: want to fully convert to Judaism so I can marry her.
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  Speaker 1: And David's like, you can't. It's forbidden. You're a Moabite.
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  Speaker 3: It says so in scripture. And so he's like, well, David, buddy,
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  Speaker 3: got a thing for you here. Think about this.
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  Speaker 1: Your mother, your grandmother, rather, was a Moabitess. So there's
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  Speaker 1: a way to do it.
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  Speaker 3: And it's really cool because David doesn't say, you know,
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  Speaker 3: maybe there are exceptions.
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  Speaker 1: Let's ask the Sanhedrin and see if we can get
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  Speaker 1: them to rule in your favor.
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  Speaker 3: Forget the Sanhedrin. He says, you come with me. I'm
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  Speaker 3: going to grab the Urim and Thummim.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to go ask. Forget the Sanhedrin. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to ask God.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: So and then he's like, I want to know about this.
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  Speaker 1: He brings a really good point. How can we do this?
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  Speaker 3: So then Gad comes back and says, the Lord told
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  Speaker 3: me you asked a question, so I got to give
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  Speaker 3: you the answer. You know, and the answer is women
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  Speaker 3: and children are mine. Men are the ones that cause
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  Speaker 3: the problems. No male Moabites. When you marry into a family,
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  Speaker 3: like a Jew marrying a Levi, she becomes a Levitical tribe.
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  Speaker 3: She's no longer Jew, I mean, Judahite or whatever. So
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  Speaker 3: it's a really interesting story about that. And he's talking
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  Speaker 3: about the fact that you will be in paradise with me,
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  Speaker 3: but you are forbidden to convert to Judaism. Because we've
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  Speaker 3: got a lot of people now that are like Hebrew
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  Speaker 3: roots thinking you got to convert to Judaism or you
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  Speaker 3: can't get saved or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: And it's like, no, you're created in.
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  Speaker 3: A certain place and you're supposed to stay there. And
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  Speaker 3: so it answers a lot of questions like that, a
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  Speaker 3: lot of moral questions. My favorite Probably these days, anyway,
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  Speaker 3: my favorite passage is the one about Tamar. You know,
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  Speaker 3: Tamar was attacked by her brother, remember? And then her
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  Speaker 3: father was actually a Gentile king. So she just takes
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  Speaker 3: off to kind of quietly disappear and she goes and
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  Speaker 3: lives with him. Well, the rest of the story is
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  Speaker 3: in Gad. She is attacked again by a high-ranking official.
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  Speaker 3: And this time she's not going to put up with it.
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  Speaker 3: She kills him. Well, that's Gentile law, right? So Gentile
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  Speaker 3: law is that's not a killable offense. So she's put
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  Speaker 3: in prison because you just don't kill somebody for attacking you. Well,
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  Speaker 3: Solomon hears about it and says, no, no, I want
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  Speaker 3: my sister.
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  Speaker 1: I want her here now. And if you don't do
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  Speaker 1: that and if she's roughed up at all, I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to destroy your entire army. Get her here now. So
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  Speaker 1: she comes. There you go.
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  Speaker 3: And so he actually renames her, I forget the name,
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  Speaker 3: and kind of makes a heroine or a picture out
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: of her.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: This is what a lady of valor would do, a
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: woman of valor. She protects her family. She protects herself.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: This is not a sin to protect your family.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: It is a virtuous act.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Today, we have a lot of women being told, just
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: don't worry about it. You can't attack or you can't
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: defend yourself. There's a lot of good moral stories like
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: that in there. And of course, my favorites are the prophecies.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Indeed. And again, you're talking about this fellow whom we
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: may have heard of him once or twice, but how
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: obscure can you get? And then when someone like Ken
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: comes along and opens up all these manuscripts, we add color,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I think, to the Bible. No, we're not talking about
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: divine scripture here. We are talking about historical color. And
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: as you were telling me that last anecdote, it occurred
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: to me, wow, these are real people doing real things,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: having real battles, scheming, plotting, doing not necessarily good things,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: but the Lord is in that whole picture. In other words,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: nothing escapes his eyes. And that comes through when you
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: tell these little anecdotes.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, those and the other Dead Sea Scrolls, they have
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: some of the same stories in them too. Very personal,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: but at the same time, I wish all of our
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: kids could read these stories and get to understand there's
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: a right and there's a wrong, and there's going to
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: be somebody telling you You can't do it that way.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I've got a job for you, Ken. You write
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: a book called Dead Sea Scrolls for Kids. And have
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: little pictures and... nice little colored pictures.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like a graphic novel.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Graphic novel. Yeah.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: That would be interesting.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: That would be cool.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I would need help with the graphics, but yeah.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Well, you can always get someone to help you do that.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: But the point is, Ken Johnson looks where nobody else
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: looks in literature. and in particular, prophetic literature, going way,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: way back into the days of the Old Testament, which
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: gives us the opportunity to look forward to our own
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: day and add some detail that we might not have
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: seen otherwise. And that's what's fascinating. Gad the seer. In fact,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the first question, I'm sure, out of anyone's mouth, Why
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: would you write a book about Gad the seer? I mean,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: does he even appear in the Bible? Well, I guess,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: but not a lot, but he's there at crucial times.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's actually a translation of a scroll, but
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: then they did add commentary to it, so I tend
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: to do that a lot.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm glad you do. So what else do
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: we need to know about Gad that would be really interesting?
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Um, well, I don't know if we mentioned it in
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: this program or not, but in chapter two, it talks
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: about certain countries coming together to do something, which is Europe.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: And that could be like what happened with World War II,
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: or it could be something yet to occur. But it
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: talks about the development of this, a false Babylonian religion.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: He calls it a fake religion. And so we know
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: about the Babylonian mystery religion from Revelation. So we've always wondered,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: you know, is that Roman Catholicism?
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Is it Islam?
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Is it something else? You know, all those groups have
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: attacked and killed innocent people. And so Gad is interesting
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: because it says that in the end times, there will
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: be two anti-Semitic world religious powers. And one is headquartered
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: in Khatim in the northern part of the Mediterranean. Of course,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: that's Khatim is the old word for Rome. So it's
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Rome in the northern part of the Mediterranean, in case
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: you think there's a different Rome. So it makes it
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: very clear we're talking about a Roman Catholic religion. And
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: then it says there's another religion that's anti-Semitic that exists,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: that is headquartered actually south of Israel somewhere, and its
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: symbol is a crescent moon. And of course we know
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Mecca Medina is directly south of Israel, so.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: That's obviously Islam.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: But Islam and Roman Catholicism are not the problem. There
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: are factions from them that come together to form this
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: new religious system.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So it's a type of chrysalm.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: And that you're being told from a guy who's writing
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: this 1,000 B.C. before Rome was even a city, back
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: when Alba was the capital of Italy. And so it's
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: amazing to see these things come up. There's a lot
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: of prophecies in Scripture, and there's a few like this
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: that just really illuminate the whole thing.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: You mentioned that in 1 Corinthians, 1212 and Galatians 426
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: in the New Testament Gad is mentioned and not particularly
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: much to see there if you will but he's there
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: and the question is why would he be quoted in
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: the New Testament by name?
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: I think what is interesting he's either quoted by name
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: or a quote from the book or a quote from
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: the Old Testament where Gad is doing something. And I
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: think it's number one is that the Holy Spirit want
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: us to know that those things are real, that those
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: things are important. Just like Jude quotes from chapter one
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: of Enoch to let us know there's a little more
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: of the story there.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: And so it's interesting to see that.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, just like when Jude quotes from what's called
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: the Assumption of Moses about Michael arguing with Satan about
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: the body of Moses. So these are all quotes from
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: that they would have known about in the first century.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating. God does not miss a detail. People who
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: have studied the scriptures over the years, bit by bit
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: by bit, come to the conclusion it's all in this book.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: You just need to know how to connect it. Yes.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Which takes time, as you well know.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I would like to say that if you
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: just read Scripture over and over and over, you will
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: figure it out.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: It's not that hard. You really don't need any extra
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: biblical literature.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: However, if you want to cheat and speed it up
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: a little bit, you can look at some of the
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: histories like Josephus, some of the things like Gad the Seer,
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: and I think you'll come up with the same conclusion.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: There are Gnostic works that are totally trash, you know,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: made-up stories, and they contradict Scripture. But these things don't
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: contradict Scripture. and seem to explain a lot.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: You know, it's, to me, what makes this most fascinating is, well,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: your question would be, why study cadmium cedar? Well, here's why.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: At least from my perspective, when you begin to lock
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: these little tiny details together that you never saw before,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: it really validates the fact that God has overseen the Scriptures.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: In other words, every tiny detail that's in there is
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: connected in some way that we may read over it
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: 20 or 30 times, and then on the 31st time, wow,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: it says this, and I never saw that. And that's
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: where you come in, because you go behind the scenes,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: if you will, and study rare manuscripts, and you tell us, well,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: here he is right here, and we never saw it before.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I see stuff like that, and then it bugs me.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I've got to figure it out.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: You have that mental mindset, shall we say, that drives
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: you to look in places where other people never look, ever.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: We kid about the basement. You always lock the basement door,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: go down to your desk, turn on the lamp, and
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: look through the old manuscripts. And when you come back upstairs,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: you bring something that none of us have ever seen before.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's definitely what I like doing. You never know
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: what you're going to find in one of the manuscripts.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: If you look at the scriptures, assume that they mean
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: exactly what they say and they mean what they say,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: and then look at the early church fathers and the
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Dead Sea Scrolls, you have a picture of what is
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: believed and taught before, during, and after the New Testament
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: time period. And you see that everything, the words are
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: used the same way. Nobody's changing things. Then you just
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: follow directions. If there's supposed to be a book that
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: exists in a certain area, we go try to find it.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: When you write about someone like Gad, Do you ever
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: find things that you don't expect to find? I mean,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: real kind of shockers if you were, wow, I never
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: saw that before. Do you have those moments very often?
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Just in certain manuscripts.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: That I thought was interesting because almost every chapter is
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: something like that, whether it's prophetic or whether it's moral
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: or whether it, you know, answers an age-old debate on
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: something like, do you have to get circumcised to be
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: a Christian, you know, or something like that.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: A little more information.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: Like, for instance, there's one chapter in Gad where King
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Hiram of Tyre is helping to build the temple, right?
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: And so he's sending all the wood down and stuff
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: like that. And he actually asks for priests to come
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: up and train them on how to worship the Lord.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: And he wants to convert to Judaism. And so it's
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: another one of those things. And David tells him directly, no,
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: it's forbidden. You're the king of a Gentile nation. You
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: need to remain Gentile and guide your people to be,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: you know, basic norahide. Look for the Messiah to come.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: You and I are brothers.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: You and I will be in paradise together. No doubt
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: about that. But you do not convert.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: You know, and so it's just interesting to have things
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: like that because we've got so many people today that think, well,
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: you've got to convert, you've got to do this.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Well, as you're telling this story, you know what I'm thinking?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about Israel today. Anti-Semitism is looming large again,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: and we have the Jews back in the land. In
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: the year 1948, we rejoiced that Israel had come back
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: into the land and become a reality, and everybody started
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: studying prophecy. on the basis that Israel had returned to
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: the land. And that was all going to be wonderful
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: from there on. Bigger, better, the more a part of
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Middle Eastern politics, economics, and so forth. In other words,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: we visualized a growing and stabilizing Israel after World War II.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: And Suddenly it occurs to everybody, wait a minute, there
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: are a lot of people who object to Israel being
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: in that little parcel of land. And we didn't take
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: that into consideration. And as the years have rolled by,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: we have a lot of dramatic events concerning Israel. When
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: you read about the writings of Gad the Seer, he
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: delves into those very subjects. Just like the example you
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: gave about David saying, no, you can't do that because
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: you're not a Jew, you're a Gentile. And today it's
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: all turned around. The Gentiles want to wipe out the
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Jews in the Middle East. But there are these battles
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: and these, what shall we say, dramatic conflicts that continue
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: on and on and on, and we find references to
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: those constantly in the Bible. And then when you come
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: along with the ancient book of Gad the Seer, it
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: kind of throws light on it that we never had before. Yeah,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: it does.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: And you can get that kind of light from just
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: about everywhere. There's Josephus for the history, Josephus Jasher, and
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: then there's some of the prophetic books like Enoch and
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: and Gad, and then if you want to know things
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: about Nephilim, you look at the church fathers and Enoch,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: and there's a lot of stuff like that, and again,
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: not super necessary, but just filling in some of the details,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: sometimes everything clicks much better.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Indeed. So, drawing this thing to a close, why should
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: somebody pick up this book and read it? The ancient
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: book of of Gad the Seer, I can't get interested
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: in that. That's going to be maybe one reaction. Who
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: needs to know about Gad the Seer?
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Well, like what you.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: Just read in 1 Chronicles 29-29, the acts of David
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: the Seer, the first and the last, the acts of David, rather,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: the king, are recorded in Gad the Seer and in
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: 1 Samuel.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: And in Nathan. So, Number one, if you want to
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: learn more.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: About David, what he did, why he did, those kind
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: of things, that would be important. Those are good moral
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: lessons like the stuff that we're talking about. And they
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: really do make a difference in some of the debates
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: we're having now on the air and in different denominations.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: Plus the fact he's a seer. So if there's any prophecy,
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: that would be very interesting to look at. And there
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: is in chapters 1, 2, and 14.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and as you talked about, David, a minute ago, I...
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: suddenly developed another facet to David's personality. Usually we think
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: of David as somewhat vacillating. You know, he's willing to
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: compromise here and there, and he gets in a lot
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: of trouble for it. But then when you came along
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: with the anecdote that you did about David standing up
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: and saying no, you got a picture of a David who,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: when he made up his mind, could be very persuasive. Mm-hmm.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: And we don't think of David that way. No, we don't.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: But if you just think of you, when you were
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: a teenager, you probably were pretty wishy-washy.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: It took some time for you to realize, I don't
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: want to get some knocked around.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: A little bit.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: There's right ways and wrong ways to do things. And
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: from now on, I'm going to do this. And when
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: you become the type of person that David became and
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: you realize God is actually in control and whether your
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: enemies threaten you with a knife or a sword is
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: kind of irrelevant. If God's for you, nobody can be
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: against you. And if you're not following what the.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Lord wants, you can be punished.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: So your relationship with the Lord is the only thing
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: that really matters.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Ken Johnson, just by my curious nature, what are you
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: working on now? Have you got another surprise lurking in
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: that secret basement laboratory that you work at?
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, actually the same place that Gad came from is
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Kosh in India. And what has been discovered is a
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: extremely old Hebrew version of.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: The New Testament.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: And so I've managed to be able to get verses
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: of 2 Thessalonians and translate those.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: We talked about those, I think, last year. And I'm
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: working on the general epistles now.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: The amazing thing is, like when you look at Peter
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: and Jude and things like that that talk about Nephilim
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: or talk about end-time prophecy, it says the same thing
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: that we do, but it's very, very specific. and you
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: completely understand. I look at the Greek sometimes and I think,
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: it's gotta mean this, you know, and it does, but
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: you gotta think about it for a while. But you
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: look at the Hebrew and there's a few extra words
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: or the verb tenses are different and it's like, oh,
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: it just clicks. So I'm really excited to see what
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: happens to that. If the Dead Sea Scrolls can make
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: a lot of Jews become Messianic, what's gonna happen when
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: they get a first or second century Hebrew New Testament?
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: That just explains it much better.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: A Hebrew New Testament. And you say it came from where?
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Cochin, India.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: There's been several of these around, but nobody knows how many,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: because a copy of a copy of a copy, you
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: just assume it's medieval.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: That's surprising. Yes. You don't think of India as a
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: place where you would find that.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or even Gad, for that matter. Yeah, India's different, yeah.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I will have them ready for
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: the Branson Conference or not. Branson Conference will probably be
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: talking about some of the general epistles, 1 and 2 Thessalonians,
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: the rapture, the restrainer, because that's extremely clear now in
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: the Hebrew.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: So that should be really exciting. I'm looking forward to
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the Branson Conference in December.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Adding a little dimension that we don't ordinarily do, which is,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: by the way, Ken's middle name, adding little details where
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: other people do not think to look. The Ancient book
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: of Gad the Seer. It is well worth looking at.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: I'm still working on it, by the way. This is
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: my personal copy and it has markers in it. And
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go back to this section and I'm
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: going to read it again because I found it very interesting.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: And all I can say is keep up the good work.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Don't let anybody keep you out of that basement. I won't.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: That legendary Ken Johnson research basement. One of these days,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: if I'm ever in the vicinity of where you live,
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: I have to have a tour of the basement.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: You're welcome, anytime.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much. And you keep studying, too.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: And Ken will help you. His book, The Ancient Book
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: of Gad the Seer, worth a read. I'm Gary Stearman,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: and it's been fun. Keep looking up, because we are.