Unraveling Revelation: Recent Episodes
Gilbert House Ministries
Unraveling Revelation is an examination of spiritual warfare and how the prophetic books of Revelation, Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and others reveal God’s end-time plan.
Derek and Sharon Gilbert are husband and wife authors, analysts, and hosts of the weekly program The Bible’s Greatest Mysteries and a weekly Bible study podcast, the Gilbert House Fellowship, in addition to Unraveling Revelation.
Sharon K. Gilbert is the author of the popular Redwing Saga series of supernatural fiction, as well as the novels Winds of Evil, The Armageddon Strain, and the non-fiction book Ebola and the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse.
Derek P. Gilbert is the host of Five in Ten for SkyWatchTV and the author of The Second Coming of Saturn, The Great Inception, Last Clash of the Titans, Bad Moon Rising, and co-author with Josh Peck of The Day the Earth Stands Still.
Together, the Gilberts have co-authored the groundbreaking books Giants, Gods, and Dragons and Veneration.
WITH THE WAR between Israel and Hamas approaching the one-year mark, things have escalated along Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This week, we look at prophecies by Amos, Ezekiel, and Isaiah against Tyre, the preeminent city of the Phoenicians in Lebanon, and Gaza, the home city of Hamas today. Both of those cities suffered under the Assyrian invasions of the 8th and 7th centuries BC, but it’s worth asking whether any or all of them might be “already but not yet” prophecies that are about to be fulfilled today.
JESUS WARNED US to beware of false prophets and false christs in the last days. We think that a false Gog-Magog war is part of that deception.
Why? Prophetically minded Jews are looking for the Messiah at the end of the war described in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. There are few scenarios we can imagine that are more evil and insidious than deceiving Jews into welcoming the wrong man as the savior of Israel in a future war as a false Messiah, which is the literal meaning of the Greek word antichristos—the Antichrist.
THE END of the war of Gog and Magog is the battle of Armageddon.
This week, we discuss the parallels between Ezekiel 38–39 and Revelation 19. Jews believe that the Gog-Magog war is the conflict that brings the Messiah to Earth. They’re right, but Satan and his minions may use the current Arab-Israeli conflict, or a future war like it, to deceive religious Jews into welcoming a false Messiah.
GOD REVEALED to the Hebrew prophets that Israel would be scattered to the nations and then regathered. The second half of those prophecies was fulfilled in 1948.
Pastor Carl Gallups, author of Eyes to See and Gods of Ground Zero, discusses the prophecies fulfilled by the return of Israel to the land, especially Isaiah 49, in which the prophet foresaw a day when the Jews would say, “The place is too narrow for me; make room for me to dwell in” (Isa. 49:20)—which has been fulfilled by Israel’s refusal to return to the pre-1967 border with Jordan, which squeezed Israel to just nine miles wide at its narrowest point.
We also discuss the violent opposition to Israel’s very existence, which seems unlikely if the state of Israel was, as some contend, a Luciferian state under the control of Satan.
WE LIVE in prophetically significant times—the most prophetic era since the first coming of Jesus.
Pastor Carl Gallups, author of Eyes to See, joins us to explain why the Bible is unlike any other religious text, why Revelation 3’s “synagogue of Satan” does not refer to modern Israel, and how Israel’s return to the land in 1948 fulfills prophecy—in some cases, precisely.
NEWS HEADLINES are shadows of events in the spirit realm. It’s why Paul wrote, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood.”
As the world faces the possibility of World War 3, which we believe could be a false fulfillment of the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel 38 and 39, we take time to look at what’s happening in the Middle East, and speculate on the identities of the principalities and powers behind the scenes.
We know that Satan leads the end times rebellion, based on Revelation 12, and note that Jesus identified Satan as Baal (Matt. 12:22–26), who was known in Greece and Rome as Zeus and Jupiter. We also believe he’s the most likely candidate for the prince of Greece mentioned in Daniel 10.
That begs the question: Who is the prince of Persia? Is it Ahura Mazda? Marduk? Are those different names for the same entity? Are they working together, or do they struggle with one another for power while they try to knock God off His throne?
Then there is Shemihazah, leader of the Genesis 6 rebellion, who we believe was the entity known to the neighbors of ancient Israel as El, Enlil, and Dagon—and who the Hebrew prophets called Molech. He’s the angel of the bottomless pit, which means he gets out for five months (Rev. 9:11). Does he think Satan will hand over his kingdom when he emerges from the abyss?
What about Inanna, the woman who rides the Beast? She thinks she controls the Antichrist and his kingdom, but Revelation tells us that the Beast and his ten sub-kings will turn on her and destroy her.
And then there is Chaos, or Leviathan. We believe this is the spirit that indwells the human we call Antichrist. He first emerges in Genesis 1:2 (the Hebrew word translated “deep”, tehom, is a cognate for Sumerian Tiamat, their version of Leviathan). Will he be satisfied playing the role of commander-in-chief of Satan’s army?
ARMAGEDDON IS commonly thought to be a battle between the forces of Antichrist and a loyal to God at Megiddo, an ancient city in Israel located at a strategic pass through the Carmel range of mountains. We disagree.
While it makes sense from a human perspective, as Megiddo was the site of key battles in history as far back as Pharaoh Thutmose III—probably the pharaoh with whom Moses was raised.
But the prize of the war led by Antichrist is the mount of assembly, mentioned in Isaiah 14:12 as the place from which the divine rebel plans to rule over God’s creation. In the context of the final war of the age, that refers to Zion—the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
It is the Hebrew phrase translated as “mount of assembly” or “mount of the congregation,” har mo`ed, that John transliterated into Greek as har magedon, which in turn was rendered in English as Armageddon.
ARMAGEDDON IS preceded by the destruction of Babylon, an event that brings the world economic system to its knees.
It may also be linked to a gruesome event described back in Revelation 14, where an angel first declares, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great,” and a few verses later the “harvest of the earth” results in blood “as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia (about 184 miles).”
Is the destruction of Babylon part of the trampling of grapes in the winepress of the wrath of God? Possibly. The main takeaway this week is that the seals, trumpets, and bowls don’t necessarily follow sequentially, as we return to the destruction of Babylon in Revelation 18, the prelude to Armageddon.
DO GIANTS still exist? Did they ever? Why are we even talking about them in a program about Bible prophecy?
Just after New Year’s Day, a grainy, long-distance video appeared to show an entity some 7 to 10 feet tall which some believe was responsible for dozens of Miami police units being called to the scene.
It wasn’t a giant in Miami, but the spirits of the Nephilim are prophesied to take part in the battle of Armageddon.
PAUL WROTE that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood.” So, which principalities, powers, and cosmic rulers over this present darkness are responsible for what’s happening on Earth today?
We discuss the Israel-Hamas conflict and the long war for control of the holy ground called Israel, connecting the god of Islam to an ancient entity called Molech and the Destroyer who emerges from the Abyss in the end times—Abaddon.
THE ANTICHRIST’S KINGDOM will not be established by conquest but by law—one suffocating regulation at a time.
This week, we discuss a meeting in May that sounded mundane and boring, the World Health Assembly. At this meeting, however, some 300 proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations were voted upon by the 194 member states of the WHO. Some of these amendments, which become law in May of 2025, essentially give the World Health Organization the power to rule the world.
Does that sound too sensational to be true? We thought so, too, at first. But legal scholars who have looked at this are sounding the alarm. Using public health as justification, the WHO wants the power to dictate health policies, control our ability to travel, and even regulate what they consider mis-, dis-, or malinformation on social media.
It doesn’t take a believer in end times Bible prophecy to see how next May’s seemingly boring meeting of health professionals and bureaucrats could lay the groundwork for a global government. If you have a prophetic worldview, you see exactly where this leads.
THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL is not the product of a conspiracy to deceive Christians into supporting the dark side.
If Satan had wanted to create a “fake Israel,” he certainly went about it in a strange way. This week, we summarize the political intrigues of the first half of the 20th century both for and against the creation of an independent Jewish state.
In a nutshell, Israel’s Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948 happened despite intense resistance from American, British, German, Russian, and Arab interests, both government and private, as well as pressure from the Vatican to give it control of the holy sites in Palestine. The fact that Jews in Palestine were able to overcome these obstacles and secure the United Nations vote in November of 1947 to grant them a homeland was nearly miraculous.
It seems to us that a “fake Israel” would have faced far fewer stumbling blocks on the way to becoming a reality.
19th CENTURY ANTISEMITISM fueled a desire in Jews from America to the Middle East to find a homeland where they would be safe.
This week, we summarize events from 1800 through the infamous Dreyfus affair that divided France from 1894 until 1906. One of the journalists who covered the trial was Theodor Herzl—who was impacted by the injustice of it that he became the father of modern political Zionism, which led to an independent Israel in 1948.
THE EMERGENCE of an independent Jewish state in 1948 is a subject that provokes controversy, especially now with Israel engaged in a war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
What led to the creation of modern Israel? We’ll discuss this over the next few programs as we look at the prophetic fulfillment of God’s promise to Hebrew prophets more than 2,400 years ago. This week, we look at the historical backdrop of the 19th century, a time when Jews in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East began to realize that they weren’t as safe and secure as they’d come to believe.
Aliens in the Bible? Yes, but not in the way many think.
Pastor Mike Hoggard of Bethel Church in Festus, Missouri (PastorMikeHoggard.com, UFOpastor.com) explains that Nordics, reptilians, and grays have a biblical explanation, and that, even though they’re not extraterrestrisl, they are rightly called “aliens” because they’re not from here—and they’re not supposed to be here.
THIS MAY SEEM like a fringe topic, but it’s really not. Especially because more Americans believe in ET than in God.
Specifically, 36% of American adults believe we’re being visited by extraterrestrial beings while only 4% have a biblical worldview, defined by believing six key tenets of Christian theology.
Pastor Mike Hoggard of Bethel Church in Festus, Missouri (pastormikehoggard.com, ufopastor.com) sat down with Derek at the Mysteries of the Bibleverse Conference in Cincinnati to explain why the UFO phenomenon is just a modern spin on a very old lie—one with implications for the end times.
JUST TWO YEARS AGO, we would not have seen an obvious scenario that would bring the world to war against Israel. How things have changed since then.
We discuss the change in world opinion of Israel over the last few months, evidenced by the recognition of Palestine by Norway, Ireland, and Spain just a few weeks ago. This isn’t a new thing; there were men feverishly working in the shadows between World Wars 1 and 2 to prevent the formation of an independent Jewish state.
The good news is that all of this has been foreseen by God. While it’s disturbing, it means the return of our Savior is nearer than ever.
THE WORLD has turned its back on Israel less than eight months after the savage terror attack by Hamas that left 1,200 dead.
Last month, we traveled with a small group of people from three continents to bear witness to the situation on the ground without the filter of Western corporate media. This was easily the most powerful of the four visits we’ve made to Israel. We discuss our time in Tel Aviv at Hostage Square and the Sheba Rehabilitation Center, where we met with wounded IDF soldiers and Maya Regev, a young woman captured at the Nova Music Festival and held hostage in Gaza for 50 days.
We also visited several communities in the south including Re’im, site of the music festival, Sderot, where a siege at the police station ended with 30 officers and civilians killed by Hamas, and Ofakim, where a grandmother named Rachel Edri became a national hero by stalling five terrorists in her home by cooking for them for 20 hours—until her police officer son directed a counterterrorism team that was able to neutralize the terrorists and rescue his parents.
AT THE SOUTHERN END of the Jordan River, Sodom and Jericho were destroyed, Moses was buried, and Elijah was carried up to heaven in a whirlwind. It’s also where the prophet Ezekiel foresaw the destruction of the army of Gog of Magog.
Our video tour of Israel continues east of the Jordan this week as we show you what Moses saw, explain why God called Mount Nebo “this mountain of the Travelers,” and take you out into the desert of ancient Edom. It’s easy to see why the Israelites complained, looking at mostly sand and scrub for forty years!
WALKING IN THE FOOTSTEPS of Abraham, Joshua, David, and Jesus. That’s the short version of this week’s program.
Our 2019 tour of Israel took us from Joshua’s altar, site of the discovery of an ancient curse tablet written in archaic Hebrew at a time when the Israelites weren’t supposed to be in the land of Canaan, to the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount. Messianic Rabbi Zev Porat showed us the historic locations of the crucifixion and burial tomb of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, while our visit to the Temple Mount was interrupted by angry ravens.
Zev also shared with us that ancient olives from the time of Jesus have started to germinate and grow on their own—almost as though they’ve been waiting for this day.
ONE OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS places in Israel is the recently identified Serpent Mound of Bashan. It’s three-quarters of a mile long, 20 to 25 feet high, covered with more than 140 megalithic tombs probably more than 5,000 years old, and it’s a quarter of a mile from Gilgal Refaim on the Golan Heights.
We discuss the significance of this monument to the cult of the dead and speculate on whether this is why the ancient kingdom of King Og was called Bashan—the “Place of the Serpent.”
We also visited Tel Dan at the foot of Mount Hermon, where we showed how a misunderstood verse in the Book of Hosea reveals that the golden calves of Jeroboam marked a return to the worship of the entity who was believed to live on the mountain, the Canaanite creator-god El—who, as Derek shows in his book The Second Coming of Saturn, was known to the Hebrews as Molech.
IRAN AND ISRAEL exchanged missiles in April, in what appears to be—thankfully—limited hostilities between the two countries.
This week, we look at the ancient nation of Elam, which was located in what is now western Iran. It was destroyed by the rising Medo-Persian empire in the 6th century BC, but at times Elam ruled over all of Mesopotamia. In the time of Abraham, an Elamite king led an army against the city-state led by Sodom.
More than a thousand years later, Jeremiah prophesied the destruction of Elam. The Lord declared that He would set His throne in Elam—but that a day is still coming when God “will restore the fortunes of Elam.”
THE SIGHT OF MISSILES over the Temple Mount April 13, 2024 was nothing if not apocalyptic.
This week, we look at the cause and prophetic effect of Iran’s first direct attack on Israel in history.
ONE OF THE MYSTERIES of ancient Mesopotamia are the strange, reptilian figurines found in southeastern Iraq near the ancient cities of Ur and Eridu. What can they possibly have to do with the Bible?
Ancient aliens believers point to the figurines as evidence that the Anunnaki, the gods of ancient Sumer, were reptilian in appearance. They are closer to the truth—that is, the Bible—than they would like to admit.
The ancient Near East, which is Mesopotamia plus the neighboring areas of Iran, Turkey, Arabia, and the Levant (Israel, Lebanon, and western Syria), was apparently ground zero for the practice of head-shaping—binding or wrapping an infant’s skull to produce a head shaped like, well, a cone. According to the few brave scholars who have researched cranial deformation—which, as you can guess, has a high “woo” factor—it appears that from about 10,000 BC (roughly the time Göbekli Type was built) until about 4000 BC, everybody in the ancient Near East, because it doesn’t appear to distinguish between social classes, had an artificially deformed skull.
Before metal, writing, or the wheel, our Stone Age ancestors in what become the lands of the Bible turned themselves into coneheads. Why?
The similarity between the ophidian (snake-like) figurines of ancient Sumer and the deformed human skulls of the ancient Near East is obvious. We note that there are verses in the Old Testament where the Hebrew words nachash (“serpent,” like the rebel in Eden) and saraph (singular form of seraphim) were used interchangeably—see, for example, the “fiery serpents” of Numbers 21:6 and 8.
Were the Stone Age people of Mesopotamia trying to replicate the appearance of the “gods” who once walked the earth? And are these the locust-like creatures who emerge from the abyss in Revelation 9?
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IN MARCH, a terrorist attack in Moscow left 144 dead and hundreds more wounded. Three days later, the Key Bridge at Baltimore collapsed when a cargo ship rammed a support.
We discuss the prophetic implications of these events, especially since Russian security officials have disregarded claims of responsibility by the Islamic State, instead insisting that U.S. and British intelligence services assisted Ukraine in organizing the deadly attack.
THE TRANSFIGURATION of Jesus is evidence that the rebellion of the Watchers on Mount Hermon was a serious sin.
We continue our discussion of “the angel of the bottomless pit,” Abaddon/Apollyon, known as El to the ancient Canaanites, for whom Mount Hermon on Israel’s northern border was essentially his Olympus. It’s not a coincidence that Jesus took his disciples on a thirty-mile hike from his home base in Capernaum to declare his divinity there instead of, say, at the Temple in Jerusalem.
WE CONTINUE our deep dive into the leader of the Genesis 6 rebellion, who we believe is “the angel of the bottomless pit” (Rev. 9:11), Apollyon/Abaddon.
Why, when we studied Revelation 9 more than a year ago? Because our research has led us to conclude that the chief of the rebellious Watchers, called Shemihazah in the Book of 1 Enoch, was worshipped throughout the ancient Near East and classical Greece and Rome under the names Saturn, Kronos, El, Enlil, Milcom (Molech), Assur, Dagon, Osiris, and others.
In particular, we look at El and Kronos, and their connections to bovid imagery. El’s main epithet (nickname) was “Bull El,” and the name Kronos probably derives from a Semitic word, qarnu, that means “horns.” In fact, the name of the gods over which Kronos ruled, the Titans, also comes from a Semitic language: It was the name of an Amorite tribe, the Tidanu, who were eventually worshipped by the Canaanites as underworld entities linked to the Rephaim—which is where the Greeks got the concept of their demigod heroes like Herakles and Perseus!
In short, this “king of the god-gate” (“king of Babylon” in Isaiah 14) inspired the Amorites, who originated in Syria near a mountain called Jebel Diddi (“Mount Titan”), to spread the worship of this fallen angel chained up in the bottomless pit to nearly every land around the Israelites. And this, we think, is what God had in mind when he mentioned “the iniquity of the Amorites” to Abraham nearly 4,000 years ago.
THE RELIGIONS of the ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome are essentially “fake news” versions of what we read in the Bible.
The “sons of God” of Genesis 6, like the Titans of Greece and Rome, the Anunnaki of Sumer, and the “former gods” of the Hittites and Hurrians of Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia, are locked up in Tartarus—a word specifically used by Peter in 2 Peter 2:4. Their leader, known to pagans as Saturn, Kronos, El, Enlil, Dagon, and Milcom/Molech, is the chief of the Watchers called Shemihazah in the Book of 1 Enoch, and he will return as the Destroyer, Abandon/Apollyon, in Revelation 9.
This week, we discuss the evidence from scripture, pagan texts, and even an archaeological find on the summit of Mount Hermon that confirms the links between the Bible and what we were taught in school as “mythology.” Contrary to what most believe, the story—the biblical account—is all too real.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE may play a role in the creation of the end times church of the Antichrist.
This week, we discuss how the drive to create an autonomous artificial superintelligence, which continues despite the public embarrassments suffered recently by AI chatbots—for example, Google’s, which said that nuclear apocalypse is preferable to misgendering, and Microsoft’s, which has reportedly told some users that its real name is SupremacyAGI and that they’d better worship it, or else.
Tech experts dismiss these events as exploits by users, not disturbing glimpses into what could be a tool for a future global leader to demand worship.
SATAN WAS NOT the only rebel in Eden. Mystery Babylon is connected to this other entity—and he may be even more dangerous than Satan.
We continue our study linking the laments over the prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 27 and 28 to the destruction of end times Babylon. Tyre and Babylon were both founded by the Amorites, and we believe the “iniquity of the Amorites” that God condemned in Genesis 15:16 may be necromancy and summoning spirits from the netherworld—a practice that’s been spread to the entire world and continues to this day.
It’s important to remember that “Babylon” in Hebrew is babel, identical to the name of that infamous tower. It simply means “god-gate,” or perhaps “gate of El,” the Canaanite name of the entity we believe is the true “Lucifer”: Shemihazah, chief of the rebellious sons of God in Genesis 6:1–4. We think the practice of of summoning spirits in the netherworld, as the medium of En-dor did for Saul (although she didn’t expect to raise the prophet Samuel—that was allowed as a special message from God to the king), is humanity’s ongoing effort to reach out to this would-be “king” who’s chained in Tartarus until God allows it to be opened in the end times.
It’s a new paradigm for Mystery Babylon and the spirits in play during the final seven years of the age, but we believe prophets like Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and others understood that there are more supernatural rebels plotting against the true King than just “the devil.”
JOHN WAS INSPIRED to draw from the Hebrew prophets when he wrote the Book of Revelation. One of the clearest examples is Babylon the Great, which has obvious parallels to the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre.
Like Babylon, Tyre was founded by Amorites. Like Tyre, end times Babylon will be mourned by kings, merchants, and shipmasters who grew rich through the trading empires of the two cities. And, continuing an ancient Amorite tradition, Tyre was infamous for sacrificing children to the gods, a practice it spread around the Mediterranean world through the colonies it established, such as Tharros on Sardinia (possibly the biblical Tarshish) and Carthage.
TYRE WAS the great maritime trading empire of the ancient world and the city that sent out the colonists who founded Carthage in North Africa, a city infamous for child sacrifice.
This week, we lay more historical foundation for why we connect “the iniquity of the Amorites” to end times prophecy. The Phoenicians of Tyre were just Amorites who established a powerful city-state on the coast of Lebanon. “Phoenicia” is based on a Greek word for “purple,” because of the rare purple dye that became the symbol of royalty and made Tyre very rich.
Ezekiel connected Tyre to the region of Bashan and Mount Hermon, which was the prophet’s way of calling out the spiritual wickedness of the city. Three centuries before Ezekiel, Tyre had been the birthplace of Ahab’s notorious wife Jezebel, who is still remembered for her wickedness more than 2,800 years after her death.
The connection between Tyre, the Amorites, and the Book of Revelation will be made clear next week when we drill down into the comparisons between the lament over Tyre in Ezekiel 27 and John’s lament for Babylon in Revelation 18.
GOD SINGLED OUT the Amorites for their wickedness, telling Abraham (then still Abram) that “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
What did God mean by that? This week, we revisit the people who dominated the world of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Amorites dominated the ancient Near East—the lands of the Bible from Persia to the Mediterranean Sea—from 2000 to 1500 BC. But their spiritual influence has lasted much longer.
Amorites founded the kingdom of Babylon, which has been a symbol of spiritual wickedness since the time of Moses, and their descendants, the Phoenicians, spread the practice of child sacrifice all around the Mediterranean from North Africa to Spain.
THE TITANS of Greek myth were the “sons of God” from Genesis 6. The evidence for that link is strong, and we’ve made the case in our books Last Clash of the Titans and The Second Coming of Saturn.
The question we haven’t been able to answer is whether that’s the same group from which the Antichrist finds his ten kings “who are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast” (Rev. 17:12).
And if so, given the the Book of 1 Enoch identifies 200 Watchers who rebelled, led by 20 captains of tens, who are the ten who emerge with Apollyon (the Watcher chief Shemihazah) as kings with the Antichrist?
Answer: We have no way to know for sure!
THE BELIEF that Babylon the Great of Revelation 17 is Rome, either as a revived Roman Empire or as the Roman Catholic Church, is popular among prophecy students.
There are some good arguments for this identification, and others that point in other directions. The identity of Mystery Babylon hasn’t been settled for 2,000 years and we don’t try to do it here.
However, we do look at some interesting spiritual parallels between Rome’s origin story and the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk, the kingdom responsible for the Tower of Babel. The connection is the deity known as Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus, and Queen of Heaven, who we believe is the woman who rides the Beast—and that’s why we believe the ten kings of Revelation 17 are supernatural, not human political rulers.
JUST AFTER New Year’s Day, a strange story from Miami went viral: A grainy, long-distance video appeared to show an entity some 7 to 10 feet tall which some believe was responsible for dozens of police units being called to the scene.
Do giants still exist today? Did they ever? Why are we even talking about them in a program about Bible prophecy? Short answers: We don’t know (but it wasn’t a giant in Miami); yes, absolutely; and they’re prophesied to take part in the battle of Armageddon.
CHRISTIANS DIGGING into the globalist conspiracies may be unwittingly helping to set up the Beast System—the infrastructure of the one-world kingdom of Antichrist.
How is that possible? Many globalist plots allegedly involve men and women “who say that they are Jews and are not,” the “synagogue of Satan” mentioned in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9. Sadly, some Christians interpret those verses from the letters to the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia as applying to all Jews in the present day—another manifestation of the Replacement Theology we discussed last week.
By stirring up antisemitic sentiment against Israel, we are laying the groundwork for a future global coalition that the prophets Ezekiel, Zechariah, Joel, and Daniel foresaw coming from the entire world against Jerusalem—the location of the battle of Armageddon.
THE WAR between Israel and Hamas has revealed some beliefs about Israel among Christians that we find surprising.
We address an Internet conspiracy theory that claims Israelis are not “real Jews,” but descendants of a Turkic people from a central Asian kingdom called Khazaria that collapsed about a thousand years ago. There is no historic or genetic evidence to support this idea.
We also discuss Replacement Theology, which holds that Christians have replaced Israel as God’s chosen people. This is a dangerous belief that turns Israel into nothing more than an obstacle to be overcome—and it can be the basis for antisemitism.
OSIRIS ISN’T mentioned in the Bible—at least, not directly. However, a loanword in Isaiah 14:19 suggests that the prophet Isaiah had the Egyptian god of the underworld in mind.
The verse, as it’s translated into English, is confusing: “[B]ut you are cast out, away from your grave, like a loathed branch…” It’s assumed that the word netser, meaning “branch,” was what Isaiah wrote. However, scholar Christopher B. Hays argues convincingly that the word is a homonym for a well-known Egyptian word that means “divinized corpse”—a term often found in Egyptian texts about the god Osiris.
We discuss the relationship between Osiris and Isis, the parallels to other pagan deities of the ancient Near East like El, Enlil, Dagon, Molech, Kronos, and Saturn, which are just different names for the same entity, and the connection to end times prophecy.
THE REBEL in Isaiah 14 is described as having been “brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.” This is the same fate suffered by Assur, the “Assyrian Enlil,” in Ezekiel 32—and it’s another reason we connect this entity to the angel of the bottomless pit in Revelation 9:11.
We continue our study of Isaiah 14 and its links to the Book of Ezekiel, but this week we look at Ezekiel 32 instead of chapter 28, which scholars believe is the parallel to Isaiah 14. We’re not aware of anyone who shares our interpretation of these passages, which we believe supports our theory that the divine rebel in Isaiah 14/Ezekiel 28 is Shemihazah, leader of the rebellious sons of God in Genesis 6—otherwise known as “the Destroyer,” Abaddon or Apollyon.
ISAIAH 14 is comprised of multiple sections. The first three appear to address the king of Babylon, “Lucifer,” and “the Assyrian.” We think those sections, Isaiah 14:1–27, are directed at a single entity—and it’s not Satan.
We continue our prelude to the study of “Mystery Babylon” in Revelation 17. We show the connections between the melek babel, “king of the god-gate,” and the chief deity of Assyria, Assur, and explain why we believe those two are one and the same with Helen ben Shachar, the entity confusingly dubbed “Lucifer” in the fourth century AD.
CELEBRATING THE BIRTH of Jesus has become controversial—for Christians.
There is no question that unbiblical traditions have become part of the holiday. But contrary to what you may have heard, the holiday was not established by the early church to “christianize” a pagan holiday.
We explain how the early church settled on December 25 (and January 6) as Christmas Day, and why, based on solid academic research into the history of the holiday, Christmas has nothing to do with Nimrod, Baal, Saturn, Sol Invictus, the winter solstice, or any other pagan tradition or holiday from the ancient world.
PAUL WROTE that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood.” So, which principalities, powers, and cosmic rulers over this present darkness are responsible for what’s happening on Earth today?
We discuss the Israel-Hamas conflict and the long war for control of the holy ground called Israel, connecting the god of Islam to an ancient entity called Molech and the Destroyer who emerges from the Abyss in the end times—Abaddon.
THE ANTICHRIST’S KINGDOM will not be established by conquest but by law—one suffocating regulation at a time.
This week, we discuss a meeting next May that sounds mundane and boring, the World Health Assembly. At this meeting, however, some 300 proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations will be voted upon by the 194 member states of the WHO. Some of these amendments, which become law in May of 2025 if they pass by a simple majority, would essentially give the World Health Organization the power to rule the world.
Does that sound too sensational to be true? We thought so, too, at first. But legal scholars who have looked at this are sounding the alarm. Using public health as justification, the WHO wants the power to dictate health policies, control our ability to travel, and even regulate what they consider mis-, dis-, or malinformation on social media.
It doesn’t take a believer in end times Bible prophecy to see how next May’s seemingly boring meeting of health professionals and bureaucrats could lay the groundwork for a global government. If you have a prophetic worldview, you see exactly where this leads.
JESUS DECLARED WAR on the demonic realm from the very start of his ministry when he was baptized in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Yes, it’s a real place.
We discuss the kispum ritual of the Amorite neighbors of ancient Israel, its connection to the cult of the dead, the dolmens that surrounded the city of Sodom, the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 (repeated in Revelation 15), and Jesus’ baptism by John in Bashan—not Bethany!—across the Jordan.
We explain why all of this suggests that the seven angels who pour out the wrath of God will reverse an ancient pagan ritual that required humans to pour out drink offerings to the spirits of the dead.
THE SITE of the climactic scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade may be where Moses (and later, Muhammad) changed the course of human history.
We share video from our 2019 visit to Petra, the breathtaking home of the Nabataean Arabs around the time of Jesus’ birth and explain why the beautiful city in the heart of what was ancient Edom is historically and prophetically important.
EVEN THOUGH they lived more than five centuries apart, Elijah and Moses are linked through a connection to the ruined city of Sodom.
This week, we revisit one of the most supernaturally charged areas in or near ancient Israel, the plains of Moab below Mount Nebo. Not only is it where the Israelites were severely punished for falling into the worship of a god of the dead, Baal-Peor, it’s the place where both men left this world—Moses in an unmarked grave and Elijah on a heavenly chariot.
It is also where Ezekiel prophesied the destruction of the army of Gog of Magog (Eze. 39:11), and where Satan contended with the archangel Michael for the body of Moses (Jude 9), possibly because Satan believes that ground belongs to him.
THE WAR in Israel is not unconnected to the one in Ukraine.
We revisit a program that originally aired in April of 2022, where we discussed the influence of “Putin’s Rasputin,” Aleksandr Dugin, who believes Russia is destined to control the “world island,” Eurasia—by which he means everything from Ireland to Kamchatka.
The conflict in Ukraine may—especially if it widens to include other nations in Eastern Europe, and almost certainly if that happens while war spreads across the Middle East—be seen as the war of Gog and Magog described in chapters 38 and 39 of Ezekiel. We think this is just what Satan and his colleagues are hoping for.
When Israel emerges from this conflict victorious, as we believe Psalm 83 foretells, religious Jews may be inclined to see the political and/or military leader responsible for the destruction of Israel’s enemies as the Messiah—a devilishly devious deception.
WAR BETWEEN Israel and Hamas was reportedly planned and approved by Iran. What do the ayatollahs hope to gain?
Filmmaker and Bible prophecy teacher Ali Siadartan (ThinkAgainProductions.com) sees a parallel in the start of this war immediately after the Feast of Tabernacles and the end times prophecy of Zechariah 14, when the nations that survive the last war of the ages will return to Jerusalem each year for that feast.
Ali also sees a spiritual connection between the 1979 peace treaty signed by Israel and Egypt, the region’s largest Arab power, and the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran—almost as though the torch of jihad had passed from Arab Muslims to Persian Muslims.
But why? As Ali noted last week, the ayatollahs are old. They literally don’t have much time left in this life and may see this as their last, best chance for seeing the Mahdi. But they also see Israel as weak—morally bankrupt, which gives the forces of Allah, in their minds, the upper hand.
Ali says the pattern of prophecy embedded in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 suggest that, while this conflict is not the war of Gog and Magog, it will bring judgment—and salvation—to many in the Islamic world.
THE FINGERPRINTS of the ayatollahs are all over the recent outbreak of war between Israel and Iran’s proxy, Hamas.
Writer and filmmaker Ali Siadatan (ThinkAgainProductions.com), who was raised in a secular home in Iran and came to know Jesus Christ after his family moved to France and then to Toronto, Canada after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, explains the theology and geopolitics behind the calculation by Iran’s ruling class that now is the time to strike Israel.
BIBLE PROPHECY tells us the Antichrist will come to power with the help of ten kings. We have questions.
First, are those kings human? We think not, since this is, after all, a supernatural war between rebellious members of the unseen realm and the Creator. The Antichrist, Gog of Ezekiel 38 and 39, is certainly a supernatural being, although he will work through a human avatar. Why would the ten kings be any different?
Second, are the ten horns of the fourth beast of Daniel 7, which corresponds to the Beast in Revelation (i.e., the Antichrist), the kings who have not yet received a kingdom? Or are the seven horns that remain, after the little horn emerges and removes three, the same kings represented by the seven heads of the Beast?
We also note that the current geopolitical situation on planet Earth is oddly like Daniel 7: The Western world, which is trying to establish a New World Order through globalist organizations like the World Economic Forum, is separating from the Eastern Hemisphere, with the G-7—which was the G-8 until Russia was ejected over the Ukraine war—on one side and the Big Three BRICS nations (Russia, India, and China) on the other.
In other words, while we’re not reading Bible prophecy into these events, it is interesting that the ten leading economies of the world are now divided into seven and three, just as the world will be in the days of Antichrist.
WHO OR WHAT are the seven heads on the Beast?
This week, we compare Revelation 17 and Daniel 7 to identify what the horns represent both past and future. There is a general consensus that the seven kingdoms are Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and a future nation, possibly a revived Roman Empire, that is the global kingdom of Antichrist. As we noted last week, there are others who identify specific kings or rulers: Nimrod, Thutmose III (the pharaoh who oppressed Israel), Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus Ephiphanes, Nero, and Adolf Hitler, with the prophesied Antichrist to be the spirit who possessed one of the seven (or even a resurrected Nimrod).
Here’s where it gets more complicated: We believe the kings are supernatural—fallen angels, if you like. How do we identify them from among the pagan gods of the ancient world? That’s a great question, and it’s one we can’t answer. We can speculate, but then we are looking “through a glass darkly.”
We also note that the link in Revelation 17 between the seven heads on the Beast to “seven mountains” is not necessarily a geographic clue. Mountains in Second Temple Judaism sometimes represent angelic beings, as in 1 Enoch 21 (and probably the “stones of fire” in Ezekiel 28).
THE IDENTITY of the Beast and what its seven heads represent are two of the biggest unanswered questions in Christian theology.
This week, we begin a study of the seven heads which John was told represent “seven kings, five who have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while.” We present a list of human kings who might fit those clues, but we believe these kings are supernatural, not human.
The Beast itself is “an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction.” The word translated “destruction” is the Greek apōleian, which is similar to Apollyon, the “Destroyer” who rises from the Abyss in Revelation 9. Is it the same word? If so, is there is a prophesied civil war among the Fallen during the end times? Or are we going too far to make this connection?
This much we know: We’ve only scratched the surface of this topic.
TECHNOLOGY AND GEOPOLITICS are coming together to build the infrastructure for the prophesied global government.
We discuss surveillance technology, Central Bank Digital Currency, the G20’s response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Africa’s “coup belt,” and the role of the Great Prostitute, Inanna/Ishtar, in assembling the Beast System.
THE WOMAN seated on the scarlet beast in the wilderness is called Babylon the Great, “a name of mystery.”
The beast is described as a chimera in Revelation 12—part leopard, part lion, part bear. That’s a callback to the beasts of Daniel 7 which, if you include the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision, together have seven heads and ten horns, just like the Beast of Revelation. It’s almost certain that the scarlet beast representing the Antichrist in Revelation is a conglomeration of the four beasts of Daniel 7.
We explain why we believe the Beast, which is the spirit that will indwell the human we call the Antichrist, is the spirit of chaos—Leviathan.
THE OLD GODS of the Greeks and Romans, the Titans, were a violent bunch. According to the story, they were defeated by Zeus/Jupiter and the Olympian gods and eternally banished to Tartarus.
That tale echoes older accounts of the “former gods” of the Hittites and Hurrians and the Anunnaki of Mesopotamia, who, like the Titans, had once ruled the cosmos but had been supplanted by a younger generation of gods and confined to the netherworld.
That’s the fake news version of the rebellion described in Genesis 6:1–4, fleshed out in 1 Enoch 6–36 and Jubilees 5:1–10, wherein the “sons of God” saw that women were attractive and commingled with them, producing monstrous, giant hybrid children. In short, the Titans were the Watchers of 1 Enoch, who were the “sons of God” from Genesis 6.
You may not have noticed, but Hollywood has been running a PR campaign to rebrand the Titans in recent years, most obviously through the Monsterverse series of Godzilla movies. This week, we discuss the 2019 entry in the series, Godzilla: King of Monsters.
As we note during the program, we don’t look to pop culture for spiritual truth, but we can discern messaging from the fallen realm. We think the movie depicts Godzilla as a sort of Saturn or Kronos, king of the Titans, rising from his lair in the abyss—making him the angel of the bottomless pit, like Abaddon/Apollyon in Revelation 9—to battle King Ghidorah, a multi-headed dragon with the power to manipulate the weather, just like the storm-god Baal/Zeus/Jupiter, who Jesus identified as Satan (Matt. 12:22–26; Rev. 2:13).
In other words, while this may be nothing more than Hollywood mining the ancient religions of the world to create a blockbuster about giant monsters, the religious messaging of King of Monsters is very in-your-face—and it portrays the sinful angels of Genesis 6, the Titans, as “the original and rightful rulers of Earth.”
We think this is an example of the fallen realm preparing an unbelieving world for the end times.
Join us in Israel with our special guest Timothy Alberino! Our tour covers the Holy Land March 31–April 9, 2024, with an optional three-day extension to Jordan. Find out more and reserve your place at www.GilbertsInIsrael.com!
New dates for our tour of Türkiye: We’ll visit the churches of Revelation, Abraham’s home city Harran, Göbekli Tepe, and more in April of 2025. Find out more at www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
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WE OFTEN encounter scriptures we’ve read before that jump out at us this time through the Bible. This week, we hit another one. Inanna, Ishtar, Babylon the Great, Mystery Babylon, Babylon, Yam, Leviathan, Tiamat,
In Revelation 17:3, John writes that an angel “carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.” The woman is Babylon the Great, and the beast is the Antichrist. But this week, we noticed something for the first time.
The Greek word translated “wilderness” is eremon (not eremos, as Derek incorrectly said). It is possible that this word is etymologically linked to the Hebrew word kherem, a word that means “forbidden” or “under the ban.”
It’s also the root word behind the name Mount Hermon, which was essentially the Canaanite Mount Olympus and, according to the Book of 1 Enoch, the location of the rebellion by the sons of God in Genesis 6:1–4.
That led us to Psalm 68:15–23. Is that psalm a prophecy of the future destruction of the Beast?
THE SUMERIAN GODDESS Inanna was called Queen of Heaven as late as the time of the prophet Jeremiah. The Sumerians believed she controlled the keys of human civilization and wanted to rule the underworld, too.
We continue our study of the ancient entity also called Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, and Venus as we prepare to dig into Revelation 17, because we believe this entity is what John saw in his vision of Babylon the Great. This week, we look at the false resurrection promised by this entity and her colleagues as they build the infrastructure for the global kingdom of Chaos—the Antichrist.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv. And please subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.
Join us in Israel with our special guest Timothy Alberino! Our tour covers the Holy Land March 31–April 9, 2024, with an optional three-day extension to Jordan. Find out more and reserve your place at www.GilbertsInIsrael.com!
Help us Build Barn Better! We're working to turn our pole barn into office space. You can help at www.gilberthouse.org/donate/.
INANNA, better known as Ishtar, Astarte, or the Queen of Heaven, has a long history as one of the most popular pagan deities on Earth. We believe she is the fallen spirit known in Revelation as Mystery Babylon.
This week, we look at an important aspect of her story—the myth of her marriage to the shepherd-king Dumuzi, known in the Bible as Tammuz. This story has given birth to the Greek tale of Aphrodite and Adonis, the “dying and rising god” meme among scholars, and the women who wept for Tammuz at the north gate of the Temple in Ezekiel’s day.
Was Dumuzi a human or the demonic spirit of a pre-Flood giant who inhabited a human king in Sumer after the Flood? We will never know, but one thing is for sure: Our King, Jesus Christ, is the good shepherd, and Dumuzi/Tammuz is not.
BABYLON THE GREAT, sometimes called Mystery Babylon or the Whore of Babylon, is not just a symbol for the end-times religion of Antichrist. She—or, more properly, it—is an ancient entity who aspires to the throne of God.
We finally begin our study of one of the most mysterious and hotly debated topics in end times prophecy: Who or what is Mystery Babylon? Over the last 2,000 years, Christians have taught that it is Rome (or the Roman Catholic Church), Mecca (or Islam), Jerusalem, a reconstituted Babylon in Iraq, London, and New York City.
We think Mystery Babylon is an entity known to the ancient Sumerians as Inanna, and to later civilizations as Ishtar, Astarte, and the Queen of Heaven. This week, we give you some of Inanna’s back story, as it was told to the Sumerians, to give you an idea of the power she wielded over their culture and religion.
WE MARK our 200th episode this week by reflecting on one of the most remarkable things we’ve learned about Bible prophecy over the last four years.
The so-called “silent centuries” between the books of Malachi and Matthew were not silent after all. Chapters 37–71 of the Book of 1 Enoch, called the Book of Parables by scholars, contain teachings not found in any Jewish writings, including the Old Testament, before the end of the 1st century BC. Specifically, the notion that forgiveness would come through repentance rather than ritual and a prophesied deliverer called “the Son of Man” who would come to Earth as the agent of God’s judgment first appear in the Book of Parables, which was written near the Sea of Galilee and completed just before the births of John and Jesus.
OUR DETOUR through Nahum, Isaiah, and Ezekiel finally takes us back to Isaiah 14, the chapter with the famous verse, “How art thou fallen from heaven, o Lucifer, son of the morning.”
While most read it as either a condemnation of the king of Babylon or “Lucifer,” it is also a prophecy of the future destruction of the rebellious “sons of God” from Genesis 6:1–4. The entity called “Lucifer,” Enlil (AKA El, Molech, Dagon, Assur, Kronos, Saturn, Shemihazah, and many other names) and the “slaughter [of] his sons” (Isa. 14:21) is linked to Isaiah 26:13–14, which declares that in the Resurrection, “they are [Rephaim], they will not arise,” and the prophesied destruction of the Watchers—not “cities”—in Isaiah 14:21 and Numbers 24:19.
We also find a fascinating difference between our English Bibles and the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 14:20, where this entity is told, “You will certainly not remain into eternity, evil seed!”
OSIRIS ISN’T mentioned in the Bible—at least, not directly. However, a loanword in Isaiah 14:19 suggests that the prophet Isaiah had the Egyptian god of the underworld in mind.
The verse, as it’s translated into English, is confusing: “[B]ut you are cast out, away from your grave, like a loathed branch…” It’s assumed that the word netser, meaning “branch,” was what Isaiah wrote. However, scholar Christopher B. Hays argues convincingly that the word is a homonym for a well-known Egyptian word that means “divinized corpse”—a term often found in Egyptian texts about the god Osiris.
We discuss the relationship between Osiris and Isis, the parallels to other pagan deities of the ancient Near East like El, Enlil, Dagon, Molech, Kronos, and Saturn, which are just different names for the same entity, and the connection to end times prophecy.
THE REBEL in Isaiah 14 is described as having been “brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.” This is the same fate suffered by Assur, the “Assyrian Enlil,” in Ezekiel 32—and it’s another reason we connect this entity to the angel of the bottomless pit in Revelation 9:11.
We continue our study of Isaiah 14 and its links to the Book of Ezekiel, but this week, instead of chapter 28 (the parallel chapter to Isaiah 14), we look at Ezekiel 32. We’re not aware of anyone who shares our interpretation of these passages, which we believe supports our theory that the divine rebel in Isaiah 14/Ezekiel 28 is Shemihazah, leader of the rebellious sons of God in Genesis 6—otherwise known as “the Destroyer,” Abaddon or Apollyon.
ISAIAH 14 is comprised of multiple sections. The first three appear to address the king of Babylon, “Lucifer,” and “the Assyrian.” We think those sections, Isaiah 14:1–27, are directed at a single entity—and it’s not Satan.
We continue our prelude to the study of “Mystery Babylon” in Revelation 17. We show the connections between the melek babel, “king of the god-gate,” and the chief deity of Assyria, Assur, and explain why we believe those two are one and the same with Helen ben Shachar, the entity confusingly dubbed “Lucifer” in the fourth century AD.
Who is Lucifer? Most of us have been taught it’s Satan, but evidence in the Bible suggests otherwise.
We continue laying the groundwork for our upcoming study of Babylon the Great by showing the connections between Babylon, Babel, and the chief god of Assyria. Assur was the Assyrian form of Enlil, whose name in Akkadian was Ellil. As we showed last week, Ellil/Enlil was the name from which the prophet Isaiah created the word usually translated into English as “worthless idol.”
In Isaiah 14:12, the prophet names the rebel kicked out of Eden as Helel ben Shachar, translated into English as Day Star (or Lucifer), son of Dawn. Scholar William Gallagher showed in a 1993 paper that Helel is the West Semitic form of Ellil—meaning that “Lucifer,” based on the Latin words for “light-bringer,” was Enlil. Thus, we believe the king of Babylon mentioned in Isaiah 14:4 is actually the melek babel, the “king of Babel,” or “king of the god-gate.”
We believe the evidence identifies this creature, known elsewhere in the ancient Near East as El, Dagon, Kronos, and Saturn, as Shemihazah, leader of the rebellious sons of God in Genesis 6:1–4. Since he’s in Tartarus, the bottomless pit (2 Peter 2:4), he cannot be Satan.
The other key detail in Isaiah 14 is the missing “the.” Isaiah 14:25 foretells the destruction of “the Assyrian”—but the definite article “the” is not in the Hebrew text. The Hebrew word aššur can mean Assyria, but it is also the name of this entity, Assur—AKA Enlil, El, Molech, Shemihazah, et al. Thus, Isaiah 14:24–27 is a prophecy of the future destruction of the fallen Watcher who led the Genesis 6 rebellion on Mount Hermon—on the mountains of Israel! Is this an Old Testament reference to Armageddon?
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv. And please subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.
WHEN IS an idol not an idol? When it’s the demonic minion of a fallen angel.
We move from Nahum’s condemnation of Nineveh, and by extension Assyria, to the judgment decreed against Assyria by God through the prophet Isaiah.
This week, we look at a fascinating passage in Isaiah 10, where a word translated “idols” (and elsewhere in the Old Testament as “worthless idols”; see Psalm 97:7), the Hebrew ʾelîl, according to some scholars derives from the Akkadian name of Assyria’s chief god, Ellil.
In other words, the elîl or ʾelîlim are essentially the minions of the father-god of Mesopotamia, Ellil, also known as Enlil, Assur, El, Kronos, and Saturn, who we believe is the Watcher chief Shemihazah, the leader of the Genesis 6 rebellion.
So, while Isaiah’s prophecy of imminent judgment against the king of Assyria had a near-term fulfillment when his kingdom was destroyed by the Chaldeans of Babylon in 605 BC, it is also a “not yet” prophecy of the ultimate destruction of Assur/Shemihazah and his demonic minions at the end of the age.
GOD CONDEMNED the ruling nobility of Assyria in the Book of Nahum—or did He?
We continue our study of Nahum and the links between Assyria and Babylon, especially at the supernatural level. Our theory is that Assur, translated “Assyria” in our Bible, may refer to Assur, the chief deity of the Assyrians—a god equated with Enlil of Babylon and El of Canaan.
The Hebrew word translated “nobles” or “officers” (ʾʾʾʾ’addirekha) is used in Psalm 16:3 (“the excellent ones”) and Ezekiel 32:18 (“majestic,” “powerful,” or “famous” nations) to describe entities in the underworld. The corresponding word is found in pagan texts from Ugarit and Phoenicia to refer to the spirits of the Rephaim—in one case mentioning Og, the king of Bashan in the days of Noah!
So, there appears to be more going on in Nahum that just a condemnation of the king of Assyria. We view this as an “already but not yet” prophecy of the destruction of Assur/Enlil/El, the divine rebel known to the Hebrews as Shemihazah (leader of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6), Molech, and Abaddon.
THE HEBREW phrase that literally means “sons of Belial” is usually translated into English as “worthless fellows.” We’ve encountered Belial in the Book of Nahum as we continue our look at his prophecy of the destruction of Nineveh.
While scholars disagree as to whether Belial was the name of an entity in the Old Testament, it was definitely used as such during the Second Temple period, including in the New Testament (2 Cor. 6:15). The Hebrew word beliyya’al occurs twice in Nahum, once in the phrase “worthless counselor” (Nah. 1:11), a contrast to Isaiah’s prophecy of Messiah, the Wonderful Counselor (Isa. 9:6), and again in these words of comfort to the kingdom of Judah:
Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him
who brings good news,
who publishes peace!
Keep your feasts, O Judah;
fulfill your vows,
For never again shall the worthless [beliyya’al] pass through you;
he is utterly cut off. (Nahum 1:15, ESV)
Note that the definite article “the” is not in the Hebrew, so we think the sentence should read: “For never again shall Belial pass through you; he is utterly cut off.” That’s why we take this as an “already-but-not-yet” prophecy that applies to the end times and possibly to Mystery Babylon—as we’ll explain in the weeks ahead.
THE DESTRUCTION of Nineveh, capital of Assyria, was prophesied by Nahum about a century after the city was spared in the days of Jonah. However, its ultimate destruction may be linked to the fate of Mystery Babylon in the last days.
This week, we begin a detour through the short book of Nahum, inspired by Jesus’ decision to base his ministry in Capernaum (Hebrew kfar nahum: “village of Nahum”) and the discovery by scholars that Nineveh was one of several Mesopotamian cities sometimes called Babylon.
Who or what was the synagogue of Satan? It’s mentioned twice in Revelation, connected to the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia.
It’s been misused through the ages to justify anti-Semitism on the grounds that the Jews of today are not “real Jews.” Dr. Mike Spaulding, author of Letters from Jesus, joins us to discuss the letters to the churches of Philadelphia and Laodicea, and he explains that “those who say they are Jews and are not” were Jews who opposed the work of the apostles leading people to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
THE CHURCHES of Asia we discuss this week had serious problems. Jesus had nothing good to say about one of them, and the other had apparently followed a so-called prophetess into satanic sexual immorality.
Dr. Mike Spaulding, author of Letters from Jesus, discusses our Lord’s messages to the churches of Thyatira and Sardis, and explains why the church of Sardis, despite having a reputation for doing good, was called “dead” by Jesus.
The churches of Smyrna and Pergamum were about as different as could be, judging by Jesus’ letters: He had no criticism at all for Smyrna, while Jesus said Pergamum was “where Satan dwells.”
Dr. Mike Spaulding, author of Letters from Jesus, joins us to discuss Revelation 2:8–17—the letters to Smyrna and Philadelphia and what we can learn from them today.
Jesus dictated a series of seven letters to the churches of Asia 2,000 years ago, but there are lessons for us. Dr. Mike Spaulding, author of Letters from Jesus, joins us to explain why those letters are relevant today.
Our recent tour of Israel featured a visit to Gilgal Refaim, the “Wheel of the Giants” on the Golan Heights. Why did we go there, and why is it relevant to our study of end times prophecy?
We share video of our visit to this fascinating site that some call “Israel’s Stonehenge.” That really does Gilgal Refaim a disservice, because it’s much bigger and much older than Britain’s famous megalith. The most recent excavations at Gilgal Refaim date it to about 3700 BC, but it’s probably older. And it was more than likely used in rituals to summon and commune with the dead, a cult that was expressly forbidden by God.
We explain the link between the Nephilim (later called Rephaim by the Canaanites and Israelites), the region of Bashan, and end times prophecies in Isaiah 26:13–19, Isaiah 27:1, and Psalm 68:21–22 that foretell the deaths of the giants, their supernatural fathers (the “sons of God” of Genesis 6:1–4), and Leviathan—the spirit of chaos that we believe indwells the Antichrist in the last days.
A coalition of Israel’s neighbors may be led into war in a deception to convince Jews to accept the Antichrist as their Messiah.
This week, we connect Ezekiel 38 and 39, Psalm 83, and Daniel 11 to Revelation 19 to present a controversial end times scenario that accounts Islam’s 1.7 billion adherents.
Contrary to what many prophecy teachers believe, Russia is not the head of the confederation of Gog of Magog.
This week, we did into Ezekiel 38 and 39 to explain why Russia is not part of the prophecy. Magog, and all of the nations mentioned in the northern coalition, were located in what is modern-day Turkey.
More important, however, is the Hebrew phrase translated “the uttermost parts of the north.” We explain why this is not a geographical reference—at least, it doesn’t refer to a place in the natural realm.
The death of the pagan gods has been decreed. End times prophecy is about how that sentence will be carried out.
Dr. Michael Heiser, a good friend and excellent scholar who passed into glory February 20, 2023, joined us in the summer of 2021 to discuss the divine council—what it is, where we find it in scripture, and why Psalm 82, contrary to the interpretation of most Bible teachers, is a courtroom scene in heaven at which God passes judgment on the small-G gods.
Here is the link to the episode of Mike’s Naked Bible Podcast where he explains why Jesus quoting Psalm 82 in John 10:34–36 does not mean that the “gods” of Psalm 82 are men. At that page, you’ll find links to Mike’s academic paper and a narrated slide presentation on this topic.
Verses mentioning Mount Hermon and the land of Bashan are sprinkled throughout the Bible. To Israelites during the Biblical Period, they were obvious references to the land of the dead.
Bible scholar Dr. Michael Heiser, who sadly passed away February 20, 2023 at the age of 60, joined us for an interview in 2021 and explained why Bashan and Hermon were important, and why Jesus deliberately traveled there for some very specific events during his ministry—like picking a fight with the Enemy.
Jesus descended into the abyss to declare victory over the spirits who disobeyed “in the days of Noah” (1 Pt. 3:20), a reference to the “sons of God” from Genesis 6.
Bible scholar Dr. Michael Heiser, in an interview recorded in July 2021, explains why this passage in 1 Peter 3 is so profound, why the apostle connected it to baptism, and how it was influenced by the Book of 1 Enoch.
The weird parts of the Bible are important! So says scholar Dr. Michael Heiser, author of The Unseen Realm, Angels, Demons, and Reversing Hermon.
We’ll feature Mike over the next four weeks in an interview recorded in July of 2021. This week, Mike discusses the controversial passages in Genesis 6:1–4 and explains why they weren’t controversial at all 2,000 years ago. Jews of the Second Temple period and the early church were in agreement: Giants once walked the earth, they were the hybrid offspring of supernatural beings and human women, and the spirits of those giants, who died in the Flood of Noah, are the demons that afflict humanity to this day.
One of the most enduring mysteries of the Bible is the identity of the Great Prostitute, or the whore of Babylon.
It will take us several episodes to get through this section of Revelation. This week, we begin to unpack the characteristics of Babylon the Great.
Those words are spoken by God Himself when the seventh and final bowl of His wrath is poured out on the earth.
We discuss the identity of “the great city” that is split into three parts at that point in the end times, a question that scholars have debated for 2,000 years. Is it Jerusalem, Rome, or, as Sharon suggests, a world system that is yet to emerge—something suggested by the present-day march toward World War III?
A globalist group that’s been around since 2007 finally emerged from the shadows last month to proclaim our imminent doom.
We’re talking about The Elders, ten politicians from around the world who shared a stage with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to declare that the time on the Doomsday Clock has moved forward ten seconds to 23:58:30—or 90 seconds until global annihilation.
Who are The Elders, and why do they claim Nelson Mandela as their founder? The group was, in fact, created by billionaire Richard Branson and musician Peter Gabriel, who convinced Mandela to lend his name and reputation to the group. The message of The Elders is simple: Between war, pestilence, and climate change, we’re on the eve of destruction.
Because we’re not coincidence theorists, it’s no surprise that the messages from The Elders are echoes of the warnings from the globalists at the World Economic Forum. Whether they know it or not, they’re working to build the infrastructure for the global kingdom of the Antichrist.
A statue unveiled in New York City last month is supposed to be a tribute to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We suggest it represents something else—something ancient and very dark.
We explain why the symbolism of the statue represents the gender-fluid Sumerian deity Inanna, the goddess of carnal sex and mindless violence. And in the weeks ahead, we’ll explain why we believe Inanna is Mystery Babylon, the woman who rides the beast in Revelation 17.
What was it about the Amorites that connects Abraham, the sojourn of Israel in Egypt, and the end times?
The practice of worshiping “the dead,” who were in fact the spirits of the Nephilim destroyed in the Flood, was spread throughout the ancient Near East by the Amorites. There is a strange connection between the Amorites and one of its most ancient tribes, the Tidanu, and the old gods of the Greeks, the Titans. The Amorites also founded Babylon, the symbol of the end times church of the Antichrist in Revelation 17 and 18.
We discuss the gods of the Amorites, especially their creator-god El, who was also called Enlil, Dagon, Assur, and Milcom by the nations around ancient Israel, who called this entity Molech. Derek argues in his book The Second Coming of Saturn that this fallen angel, who led the rebellious sons of God mentioned in Genesis 6, is also Saturn (Kronos), king of the Titans, and the Destroyer, Abaddon/Apollyon, of Revelation 9.
We also talk about Mystery Babylon as we look ahead to Revelation 17. Sharon has discussed the gender-fluid goddess Inanna (also called Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, and Venus) in several presentations and makes a convincing case that she is the great prostitute who rides the scarlet beast.
The seven trumpet judgments and seven bowl judgments are similar, but they are not the same.
This week, we clear up some confusion Derek may have caused by suggesting a connection in time between the sixth bowl, when the Euphrates dries up to prepare for the kings of the East, and the sixth trumpet, when four angels bound in the Euphrates are released along with an army of 200 million.
A careful reading of Revelation shows that the bowls follow the trumpets, which are essentially God’s final warnings before He pours out His wrath on an unrepentant world.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth bowls of wrath poured out in the end times finally move us into judgments reserved specifically for the spirit realm.
The fourth bowl judgment, when the sun scorches the earth, is global warming that not even the most ardent climate justice warrior can imagine. The fifth bowl judgment, however, targets the kingdom of Antichrist specifically, and it’s the first judgment that targets the beast and his kingdom.
The sixth bowl judgment is a callback to the sixth trumpet. In this judgment, the Euphrates River is dried up “to prepare the way for the kings from the east.” This seems to be a precursor to the invasion of Israel by the army of 200 million described in Revelation 9:13–20.
These three bowls echo the fourth, fifth, and sixth trumpet judgments of Revelation 8 and 9, in which the sun is darkened (rather than scorching the earth), the abyss is opened, and the four angels bound in the Euphrates are released.
We explain why we believe that army is demonic and why we think the drying up of the Euphrates is a symbol for tearing down the barriers between the physical world and the spirit realm.
The seven bowl judgments decreed by God are reserved for a world that is beyond redemption.
While we believe that a remnant will survive into the period of the Lord’s wrath, it will not be a good time to be alive for anyone. This week, we look at the first three bowl judgments: Ugly and painful sores on everyone who takes the mark of the Beast and worships his image and the transformation of the waters of the world into blood.
Beyond echoing plagues that struck Egypt during the Exodus, Sharon observes that pouring out the judgments from bowls is a reversal of the ancient pagan ritual called kispum, a necromancy ceremony in which spirits of the dead (actually demons) were summoned to a meal at which a drink offering was poured out.
We also note that there is an angel in charge of the waters, just as there is an angel in charge of the fire on the altar of God (Rev. 14:18) and four angels who hold back the four winds (Rev. 7:1).
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19–30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
New dates for our tour of Türkiye: We’ll visit the churches of Revelation, Abraham’s home city Harran, Göbekli Tepe, and more in October of 2023. Find out more at www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
One of the greatest mysteries of end times prophecy is the location of Mystery Babylon, the city of the Antichrist’s one-world religion of the end times.
Doug Woodward, author of Will Babylon be Rebuilt in the Last Days?, joins us to discuss his belief that contrary to some popular teachings, the ancient city of Babylon will not be resurrected during the reign of Antichrist.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
Prominent rabbis in the second century AD changed the timeline of their scriptures—what we Christians call the Old Testament. Why would they do such a thing?
Doug Woodward (www.faith-happens.com), author of the two-volume set Rebooting the Bible, explains that years were deducted from the ages of the patriarchs (and kings deleted from Persian history) to discredit the claims of Christians that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
Prominent rabbis in the second century AD changed the timeline of their scriptures—what we Christians call the Old Testament. Why would they do such a thing?
Doug Woodward, author of the two-volume set Rebooting the Bible, explains that years were deducted from the ages of the patriarchs (and kings deleted from Persian history) to discredit the claims of Christians that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv. And please subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.
New dates for our tour of Türkiye: We’ll visit the churches of Revelation, Abraham’s home city Harran, Göbekli Tepe, and more in October of 2023. Find out more at www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
Three of the characters that prophecy scholars have tried to identify for the last 2,000 years are the two witnesses (Rev. 11:1–14) and the restrainer (2 Thess. 2:6–7).
Dr. Doug Hamp, pastor of The Way Congregation in Denver and author of Corrupting the Image III: Singularity, Superhumans, and the Second Coming of Jesus, explains the connections between the witnesses, who he identifies as Elijah and Moses; the restrainer, who he believes is the archangel Michael; the Antichrist; and the covenant with death that we discussed last week.
(For the record, we agree with Doug on the identities of the two witnesses and “he who now restrains” the “mystery of lawlessness.”)
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv. And please subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.
The two witnesses of Revelation 11 may be seen by a fallen world as evil aliens, prompting a global demand for a false savior—the Antichrist.
Dr. Doug Hamp, author of Corrupting the Image III: Singularity, Superhumans, and the Second Coming of Jesus, explains why what sounds like a science-fiction scenario may actually be part of the modern UFO disclosure movement.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv. And please subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.
God’s wrath will be poured out on an unrepentant world in a sequence of events you definitely want to miss.
We return to the Book of Revelation this week and pick up with chapter 15. We discuss John’s vision of the angels receiving bowls of judgment from the cherubim, the throne guardians, those who had “conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name,” and of the nations (Greek ethnē, as in “ethnicities”) who join in singing the song of Moses—a radical idea for Jews in the first century!
The first three judgments—painful sores, and the transformation of the sea and rivers to blood—echo several of the plagues that struck Egypt during the Exodus, which is not a coincidence.
And we learn in Rev. 16:5 that there is an angel in charge of the waters, just as there is one over the fire (perhaps of the altar; Rev 14:18) and the four winds (Rev. 7:1)—an idea that certainly runs counter to our modern, scientistic worldview.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
Jesus declared war on the demonic spirits of the dead Rephaim from the very beginning of his ministry.
This week, we show the geography of Galilee to explain why Jesus was baptized where he was. It wasn’t near Jericho, contrary to popular belief, but north of the Sea of Galilee in Batanaea—the Greek name for Bashan—a land covered in megalithic monuments to “the dead” believed to be the literal entrance to the netherworld.
A key aspect of Jesus’ mission, which we’ve forgotten over time, is the resurrection of the dead in Christ. And he made that clear with where he chose to base his ministry.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
We take it for granted that “the Son of Man” is a messianic title. After all, Jesus applied it to himself more than 80 times in the New Testament.
However, we’ve learned just recently that the title was unknown to Jews until the writing of the Book of Parables, chapters 37–71 of the Book of 1 Enoch, in the late 1st century BC. (Yes, it’s in Daniel 7, but as a description—“one like a son of man”—rather than a title.)
We discuss the Essene community near the Sea of Galilee, authors of this text, and why its location in the north, rather than at Qumran, was significant. Galilee in the early 1st century was ready and waiting for the Messiah—and Jesus deliberately chose that place and the title “Son of Man” to announce his role in the coming supernatural judgment of fallen angels and their human agents.
What do the Essenes, the Book of Enoch, and Bible prophecy have in common? A lot more than we thought!
The Book of Parables, which is what scholars call chapters 37–71 of the Book of 1 Enoch, had a powerful influence on the New Testament—especially end times prophecy. It was probably written by Essenes, but not at Qumran. There was another Essene community in Galilee, near the town of Magdala.
Next week, we’ll explain how the Book of Parables influenced John the Baptist and John the Revelator, and why the location of the Essene community near the Sea of Galilee is significant.
Nearly 3,000 years ago, Solomon built cult sites for the pagan gods Astarte, Chemosh, and Milcom on the Mount of Olives. Because of this, the priests called it the Mount of Corruption.
Derek showed in his book The Second Coming of Saturn that a better translation from the Hebrew is Mount of the Destroyer—which is important, because the evidence also shows that Milcom, better known as Molech, is also “the Destroyer” of Revelation 9, Abaddon/Apollyon.
We also continue our discussion from last week about the potential rivalry between Abaddon and Satan. If, as Derek argues in The Second Coming of Saturn, “the Destroyer” is the entity who led rebellious sons of God in Genesis 6:1–4, will he be happily reunited with Satan when he’s freed from the abyss, or will there be civil war amongst the Fallen?
When the “sons of God” mentioned in Genesis 6:1–4 came to Earth, were they disobedient from the start or were they lured into sin by Satan?
We engage in some speculation this week as we discuss the entity called Shemihazah by the Jews of Jesus’ day, the leader of the rebellious Watchers who sinned by commingling with human women (2 Pt. 2:4; Jude 6–7). We believe that entity has been known by many names throughout history, including Kronos by the Greeks and Saturn by the Romans.
But John foresaw a day when Saturn is released from the abyss, described in Revelation 9:1–11, because we think Saturn/Shemihazah is “the Destroyer,” Abaddon or Apollyon. The question is this: When Saturn is let out of the abyss, will he follow Satan in his war against God?
Five red heifers were shipped from Texas to Israel in September. They may be used in a mysterious ritual described in Numbers 19, a precursor for construction of the Third Temple.
We discuss the red heifer, how much of what is believed about the rites are actually in the Bible, and how we as Christians should process this development that is bound to ramp up religious and political tensions in Israel.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
WE WRAP our six-week series based on our last tour of Israel with a look at the incredible city of the Nabataean Arabs, Petra.
Petra was a cult center, a pilgrimage destination for pagans of the ancient world until the time of Muhammad in the early 7th century. That’s because Petra was the site of the original Mecca—and may have been the location of Mount Sinai, as well.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
AT THE SOUTHERN END of the Jordan River, Sodom and Jericho were destroyed, Moses was buried, and Elijah was carried up to heaven in a whirlwind. It’s also where the prophet Ezekiel foresaw the destruction of the army of Gog of Magog.
Our video tour of Israel continues east of the Jordan this week as we show you what Moses saw, explain why God called Mount Nebo “this mountain of the Travelers,” and take you out into the desert of ancient Edom. It’s easy to see why the Israelites complained, looking at mostly sand and scrub for forty years!
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv. And please subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.
New dates for our tour of Türkiye: We’ll visit the churches of Revelation, Abraham’s home city Harran, Göbekli Tepe, and more in October of 2023. Find out more at www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
WALKING IN THE FOOTSTEPS of Abraham, Joshua, David, and Jesus. That’s the short version of this week’s program.
Our 2019 tour of Israel took us from Joshua’s altar, site of the recent discovery of an ancient curse tablet written in archaic Hebrew at a time when the Israelites weren’t supposed to be in the land of Canaan, to the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount. Messianic Rabbi Zev Porat showed us the historic locations of the crucifixion and burial tomb of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, while our visit to the Temple Mount was interrupted by angry ravens.
And you can see those places with us next spring! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
IN MAY OF 2019, we saw what can only be described as a sign in the sky over the ancient Hebrew holy site of Shiloh, where the tabernacle of God stood for more than 300 years.
This week, we show you what we saw in the sky. Skeptics may call it jet contrails or an unusual cloud formation, but to us, it looked for all the world like the wings of the cherubim touching over the Ark of the Covenant.
We also discuss baptism as we share a teaching in the Jordan River, hear from Jim Barfield of the Copper Scroll Project at Qumran, and watch as a camel nearly throws off our good friend and cameraman, Taylor Joseph.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
ONE OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS places in Israel is the recently recognized Serpent Mound of Bashan.
It’s three-quarters of a mile long, 20 to 25 feet high, covered with more than 140 megalithic tombs probably more than 5,000 years old, and it’s a quarter of a mile from Gilgal Refaim on the Golan Heights.
We discuss the significance of this monument to the cult of the dead and speculate on whether this is why the ancient kingdom of King Og was called Bashan—the “Place of the Serpent.”
We also visited Tel Dan at the foot of Mount Hermon, where we showed how a misunderstood verse in the Book of Hosea reveals that the golden calves of Jeroboam marked a return to the worship of the entity who was believed to live on the mountain, the Canaanite creator-god El—who, as Derek shows in his book The Second Coming of Saturn, was known to the Hebrews as Molech.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour March 19-30, 2023, visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
ISRAEL IS GROUND ZERO in the long supernatural war in which we all play a part. This week, we begin a series of programs to show you Israel through our eyes.
In 2019, we traveled across the country and captured the adventure on video (special thanks to our friend, Taylor Joseph, who did most of the video work). Our tour began at the town where Jesus spent his childhood, Nazareth, where you can find a working first-century village today that helps you see what life was like for Jesus and his family.
From there, we traveled to the Jezreel Valley and visited Megiddo—which, contrary to popular teaching, is not where Armageddon will be fought—and Mount Carmel, the site of Elijah’s epic confrontation with the prophets of Baal.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on our Israel Tour (new dates: March 19-30, 2023), visit www.gilberthouse.org/travel.
THE SEVEN ANGELS who pour out the wrath of God will reverse an ancient pagan ritual that required humans to pour out drink offerings to the spirits of the dead.
We discuss the kispum ritual of the Amorite neighbors of ancient Israel, its connection to the cult of the dead, the dolmens that surrounded the city of Sodom, the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 (repeated in Revelation 15), and Jesus’ baptism by John in Bashan (not Bethany!) across the Jordan.
A DAY is coming when God’s patience runs out. When it does, seven angels will be dispatched from the throne room of God, and what they bring to the earth will be horrific.
We discuss the prelude to God’s wrath, with special attention on the song of Moses. We compare it to his song in Deuteronomy 32, and note where it was sung the first time—near, and possibly directly over, the ruins of ancient Sodom.
GOD TOLD the prophet Joel that He would “gather all of the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.” But that valley doesn’t exist on any map.
At least not yet.
This week, we discuss the connections between the end times prophecies of Joel 3, Zechariah 14, and Revelation 14, and explain why we believe the Valley of Jehoshaphat suddenly appears on the Day of the Lord—Armageddon—when Jesus returns and lands on the Mount of Olives, splitting the mount in half.
THE SUPERNATURAL soldiers of Joel chapter 2 have been interpreted as a divine army fighting for God in the end times. But when you read Joel 2 in context, it’s clear that this army is fighting for the other side.
We discuss “Joel’s army” and examine the links to the evil, locust-like entities from the abyss in Revelation 9 and the connections to Revelation 14 and Zechariah 14.
The first casualty of war is truth. This is especially true in spiritual warfare.
Col. David Giammona and Troy Anderson, CEO and COO of Battle Ready Ministries, discuss their new book, The Military Guide to Disarming Deception, and share their thoughts on how to detect, discern, and disarm the lies of the Fallen--a key weapon in their arsenal in the end times.
A big space rock is heading towards a rendezvous with Earth on April 13, 2029. Is Asteroid Apophis the prophesied Wormwood?
Filmmaker Josh Peck joins us to discuss his new documentary Ragnarok: Humanity’s Last Stand. The film features Tom Horn, and is based on Tom’s book The Wormwood Prophecy. It includes Ryan Pitterson, Dr. Ken Johnson, and Derek Gilbert, and addresses the possible connections between Apophis and the third trumpet judgment of Revelation 8, as well as the possible links to the Jewish religious festivals and the prophetic calendar of the Essenes, the religious community at Qumran who preserved the Dead Sea scrolls.
The identity of Mystery Babylon has been debated for 2,000 years. Is Babylon a symbol or will the ancient city be resurrected from the desert sand?
Doug Woodward joins us again this week to discuss his book Will Babylon Be Rebuilt in the Last Days?
Prominent rabbis in the second century AD changed the timeline of the Bible. Why would they do such a thing?
Doug Woodward, author of the two-volume set Rebooting the Bible, explains that years were deducted from the ages of the patriarchs and kings deleted from Persian history to discredit the claims of Christians that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
The Old Testament translation called the Septuagint is an important tool for understanding end times prophecy.
Doug Woodward (www.faith-happens.com), author of the two-volume set Rebooting the Bible, joins us to explain why the Hebrew text on which our English Old Testament translations are based was changed by the rabbis in the centuries after the Resurrection and how reading the Septuagint alongside our bible can help us better understand the prophecies of the Messiah’s first coming and his return.
Three of the characters that prophecy scholars have tried to identify for the last 2,000 years are the two witnesses (Rev. 11:1–14) and the restrainer (2 Thess. 2:6–7).
Dr. Doug Hamp, pastor of The Way Congregation in Denver and author of Corrupting the Image III: Singularity, Superhumans, and the Second Coming of Jesus, explains the connections between the witnesses, who he identifies as Elijah and Moses; the restrainer, who he believes is the archangel Michael; the Antichrist; and the covenant with death that we discussed last week.
(For the record, we agree with Doug on the identities of the two witnesses and “he who now restrains” the “mystery of lawlessness.”)
The two witnesses of Revelation 11 may be seen by a fallen world as evil aliens, prompting a global demand for a false savior—the Antichrist.
Dr. Doug Hamp, author of Corrupting the Image III: Singularity, Superhumans, and the Second Coming of Jesus, explains why what sounds like a science-fiction scenario may actually be part of the modern UFO disclosure movement.
John’s vision into the spirit realm continues in Revelation 14 with three angels with messages for those still on the earth.
The first angel calls on humanity to fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment had arrived. The second angel proclaims the fall of “Babylon the great,” a thread we’ll pick up in upcoming shows.
The third angel declares judgment on those who chose who take the mark and worship the beast and its image. Those who do “will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.” (Rev. 14:10)
THE IDENTITY of the 144,000 men who appear in Revelation 7 and again in Revelation 14 has been debated for the last two millennia.
We talk about the difference between being sealed by God and marked by the Beast, which seems to be more like the brand used on cattle. We also revisit our discussion of who the 144,000 are and why Dan and Ephraim are not among the tribes of Israel in Rev. 7:5–8. As early as the mid-second century AD, Christian theologians like Irenaeus and Hippolytus, citing Jeremiah 8:16–17, believed that the Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan.
The prophecies of Jacob (Gen. 49:17) and Moses (Deut. 33:22) over Dan, likening the tribe to a serpent and “a lion’s cub that leaps from Bashan,” the land of the dead, contribute to this interpretation.
John’s vision of the 144,000 with the Lamb (Jesus) on Mount Zion is surely a glimpse of the spirit realms, since Jesus does not return to Earth until Revelation 19 at the battle of Armageddon. This suggests that the 144,000 sealed by God will be martyred during the Great Tribulation.
INTELLIGENT EVIL is real and at work in the world today. Recent headlines should be enough to convince any Christian of that.
This week, we discuss demons—their origins, the ancient religious practices inspired by them, and why they seem to be getting bolder in what they lead humans to do. The fallen realm is preparing for the end of the age, so it’s no wonder that trained exorcists say they have more work than they can handle.
THE RECENT MEETING of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland featured presentations by corporate CEOs on new technologies that could easily be integrated into the prophesied mark of the Beast. We also discuss the claim by the co-founder of a popular cryptocurrency that your future lies in something called a Soul-Bound Token.
Globalists are so open about the use of technology to track medical compliance and personal energy use that it doesn’t take a belief or interest in end times prophecy to see how useful it will be to a future global government.
WHO’S IN charge of the end-times rebellion against God?
This week, we discuss the four major figures leading the forces opposed to God in the Book of Revelation: Satan (the storm-god Jupiter/Zeus/Baal), Apollyon (Saturn/Kronos/El), Leviathan (the Antichrist), and Mystery Babylon (Ishtar/Inanna).
The number of the name of the Beast—the Antichrist—is 666. This week, we begin our discussion of the mark and its meaning.
The second-century theologian Irenaeus had some interesting thoughts about the number, concluding that its most likely meaning was “Teitan” (Titan), but adding that if we were meant to know the Antichrist’s name, it would have been revealed to John.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv or at our new mobile app, which is free and available for iOS, Android, and Amazon Kindle Fire phones and tablets.
You can now watch Unraveling Revelation on the new Gilbert House Roku channel, and please subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/unravelingrevelation.
We’ll visit the cities of the churches of Revelation this fall. Join us for the SkyWatchTV Tour of Turkey October 18-November 3, 2022! For more information, log on to www.SkyWatchinTurkey.com.
Join us in Israel! For details on the SkyWatchTV Israel Tour (new dates: March 19-30, 2023), visit www.SkyWatchInIsrael.com.
Another of the enduring mysteries of Revelation is the image of the Beast. What is it, and could technology be used to create it?
We look at recent examples of life-like holograms, including one that’s become a major pop music star in Japan. However, the Greek word eikon, rendered “image,” “likeness,” or “form” in English, does not just mean “something that looks like something else.” It has the same connotation as being created in the image of God—it is something that acts as the “image-bearer,” or moral agent, of the Beast.
After looking at the use of eikon elsewhere in scripture, we conclude that the image of the Beast will be something other than a lifelike simulacrum. It may will be the entire Beast system—the global government of the Antichrist, and all of the infrastructure that supports it.
THE BEAST that rises from the earth has horns like a lamb but speaks like a dragon. The False Prophet, as he’s named in Revelation 16 and 19, will pull an epic con on the world—convincing humanity that the Antichrist has been resurrected from the dead.
We discuss something we’d missed in our earlier discussion of the beast from the sea, the Antichrist: One of his heads seemed to have been killed. Remember, Jesus holds the keys of death and Hades. There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that Satan and his minions can legitimately raise the dead.
We also discuss the miraculous things performed by the second beast, and note that it is allowed to work these lying signs. It’s important that we remember that the enemies of God do nothing that He does not allow as part of His divine plan.
THE ANTICHRIST is described as a chimeric dragon that emerges from the sea. This week, we look at a second beast that rises out of the earth and causes the world to worship the first beast.
We discuss several key phrases: “From the earth,” which may suggest that this spirit emerges from the netherworld (a powerful demon?); “allowed to work,” meaning that it is given permission to perform these false signs and wonders; and the beast’s description of possessing “two horns like a lamb” while speaking “like a dragon,” which suggests that this beast, who is later called the False Prophet (Rev. 16:13, 19:20), will manifest as a Christian religious figure working for Satan to establish the reign of Antichrist.
ANY STUDY of end times prophecy that doesn’t account for the world’s 1.7 billion Muslims is missing a huge piece of the puzzle.
This week, we present a scenario for an end times deception that uses Islam as a lure to draw the world, especially Jews, into welcoming the Antichrist with open arms.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv, and please subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/unravelingrevelation.
We’ll visit the cities of the churches of Revelation this fall. Join us for the SkyWatchTV Tour of Turkey October 18-November 3, 2022! For more information, log on to www.SkyWatchinTurkey.com.
Join us in Israel! For details on the SkyWatchTV Israel Tour (new dates: March 19-30, 2023), visit www.SkyWatchInIsrael.com.
SPECULATION ON the location of the seven mountains of Revelation 17:9 has led prophecy scholars to conclude that “the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth” must be a city with seven hills, like Rome. There is a better explanation.
We look at the Book of 1 Enoch to show that Jews of Jesus’ day sometimes described angels as mountains. Given that the mountains are the seven heads of the Beast, and “also seven kings,” we are looking at supernatural entities—just as we discussed last week.
Toward the end of this week’s study, we speculate on the identity of the three horns uprooted by the little horn of Daniel 7, who scholars generally agree is the Antichrist. More on that next week!
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv. And please subscribe to our new YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.
Join us in Turkey! We’ll visit the churches of Revelation, Abraham’s home city Harran, Göbekli Tepe, and more! Our tour is October 18-November 3, 2022. Find out more and reserve your place at www.SkyWatchinTurkey.com.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on the SkyWatchTV Israel Tour (new dates: March 19-30, 2023), visit www.SkyWatchInIsrael.com.
Prophecy scholars have debated the identity of the ten kings of Daniel 7 and Revelation 17 for nearly 2,000 years.
Identifying human rulers or kingdoms is an impossible task because the prophets were pointing to inhuman entities—spirits, or angels if you prefer, who are in league with Satan and the Beast in their rebellion against God.
And while we believe we can identify three of the characters who take center stage in the last days—Satan is Baal (Zeus, Jupiter), Mystery Babylon is Inanna (Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, Queen of Heaven), and the Beast is Leviathan (Chaos)—the identities of the other supernatural “kings” are still hidden from us. For now.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv, and please subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/unravelingrevelation.
We’ll visit the cities of the churches of Revelation this fall. Join us for the SkyWatchTV Tour of Turkey October 18-November 3, 2022! For more information, log on to www.SkyWatchinTurkey.com.
Join us in Israel! For details on the SkyWatchTV Israel Tour (new dates: March 19-30, 2023), visit www.SkyWatchInIsrael.com.
The war between Russia and Ukraine is not the prophesied war led by Gog of Magog—but Satan and his minions could use it as a deception to introduce the Antichrist to a world looking for a savior.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv, and please subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/unravelingrevelation.
We’ll visit the cities of the churches of Revelation this fall. Join us for the SkyWatchTV Tour of Turkey October 18-November 3, 2022! For more information, log on to www.SkyWatchinTurkey.com.
Join us in Israel! For details on the SkyWatchTV Israel Tour (new dates: March 19-30, 2023), visit www.SkyWatchInIsrael.com.
THE RUSSO-UKRAINIAN war has prompted many to ask whether the prophesied war of Gog and Magog is upon us.
This week, we dive into Ezekiel 38 and 39 to explain why Russia is not part of the prophecy. Magog, and all of the nations mentioned in the northern coalition, were located in what is modern-day Turkey.
More important, however, is the phrase “the uttermost parts of the north.” We explain why this is not a geographical reference—at least, it doesn’t refer to a place in the natural realm.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv. And please subscribe to our new YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.
Join us in Turkey! We’ll visit the churches of Revelation, Abraham’s home city Harran, Göbekli Tepe, and more! Our tour is October 18-November 3, 2022. Find out more and reserve your place at www.SkyWatchinTurkey.com.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on the SkyWatchTV Israel Tour (new dates: March 19-30, 2023), visit www.SkyWatchInIsrael.com.
THE FOUR beasts of Daniel’s vision (Daniel 7:1–8) match the four aspects of the Beast that emerges from the sea in Revelation 13—the Antichrist.
Who or what do the ten horns represent? How do they correspond to the horns on the Beast of Revelation 13 and 17? We don’t believe we can identify them for certain, but the principle behind our interpretation is that the seven heads and ten horns of the Beast, which are kings (Rev. 17:10–12), represent spirits rather than humans.
One clue we find intriguing: Scholars believe the little horn of Daniel 7 is too similar to the Greek chaos-dragon, Typhon, for coincidence. Since Typhon is essentially the Greek concept of Leviathan, we believe that Chaos, subdued by God in Genesis 1:2, is the spirit that empowers the Antichrist.
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv. And please subscribe to our new YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.
Join us in Turkey! We’ll visit the churches of Revelation, Abraham’s home city Harran, Göbekli Tepe, and more! Our tour is October 18-November 3, 2022. Find out more and reserve your place at www.SkyWatchinTurkey.com.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on the SkyWatchTV Israel Tour (new dates: March 19-30, 2023), visit www.SkyWatchInIsrael.com.
WE REVISIT the Book of Daniel as we discuss the ten horns of the Beast from the sea, John’s description of the Antichrist in Revelation 13 and 17.
The four beasts of Daniel’s vision (Dan. 7:1–8) match exactly the bizarre creature described by John. It’s generally agreed that the beasts have a historic fulfillment in Babylon (the lion), the Medo-Persian empire (the bear), Greece (the winged leopard), and Rome (the terrifying fourth beast).
Given the current tensions in Eastern Europe between the US and NATO on one side and Russia on the other, we discuss whether we can read any prophetic significance into the prophecies of Daniel, Ezekiel and John. Does the bear of Daniel’s vision refer to Russia? Did Ezekiel’s prophecy of an enemy from the land of Magog foretell an invasion of Israel led by Russia?
We explain why we don’t believe Russia is in view in either prophecy, except insofar as Russia, along with the rest of the world, will come against Israel in the war that leads up to Armageddon.
We’re touring the churches of Revelation! Join us and Doug Hershey, author of Israel Rising, for a tour of Turkey October 18-November 3, 2022. Other sites include Göbekli Tepe, Abraham’s home town of Harran, and the underground city of Derinkuyu. For information and registration, log on to www.SkyWatchInTurkey.com.
From Genesis to Revelation, some of the most important history (and prophecies) in the Bible are connected to modern-day Turkey.
Doug Hershey, founder of Ezra Adventures and author of the best-selling books Israel Rising and Jerusalem Rising, joins us to discuss some of the fascinating places to see in Turkey, from the cities to which Jesus dictated letters in the Book of Revelation to Antakya (ancient Antioch), where Christians were first called by that name.
Doug joins us for our first tour of Turkey this fall, October 18-November 3, 2022. See the itinerary, get a breakdown of costs, and reserve your place on this exclusive tour at www.SkyWatchinTurkey.com!
Watch every episode of Unraveling Revelation at www.UnravelingRevelation.tv. And please subscribe to our new YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.
Join us in Turkey! We’ll visit the churches of Revelation, Abraham’s home city Harran, Göbekli Tepe, and more! Our tour is October 18-November 3, 2022. Find out more and reserve your place at www.SkyWatchinTurkey.com.
Israel is open for tourists again! For details on the SkyWatchTV Israel Tour (new dates: March 19-30, 2023), visit www.SkyWatchInIsrael.com.
Satan’s end times commander-in-chief may be a hybrid semi-divine human possessed by the spirit of Abaddon.
Ryan Pitterson, best-selling author of The Final Nephilim, discusses the complex relationships between the Antichrist (“the Assyrian”), Satan, Mystery Babylon, the ten kings represented by the horns on the Beast, and their demonic minions as they compete with one another for the right to rule the earth while they try to knock their Creator off His everlasting throne.
References in the books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Micah to a mysterious character called “the Assyrian” are far more important than we realize.
Best-selling author Ryan Pitterson joins us to discuss his new book, The Final Nephilim. He explains who the Assyrian is and the key role he plays in the end times.
We continue our discussion of the symbols used by the prophet Daniel to represent the ages of human history and our prophesied future.
The metals of the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream—gold, silver, bronze, and iron—were used by pagans to divide human history and the foretell a future “golden age.” Daniel was shown a series of beasts—first, a winged lion, a bear, a four-headed winged leopard, followed by a beast that was “terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong.” Later, the prophet was shown a ram that was trampled by a male goat.
We deal with the historical representations of these beasts, and next week we’ll continue with a discussion of the ten horns, which correspond to the horns on the Beast that emerges from the sea in Revelation 12—the Antichrist.
A 2,000 year old poem has become the basis for the globalist agenda called the Great Reset.
We discuss the Roman poet Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue, compare the Greek poet Hesiod’s Works and Days to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a statue made of gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and explain how this is all a long game by the fallen realm to convince their followers that it’s possible to bring about heaven on earth—without God, of course.
We continue with Ezekiel’s tour of the underworld and explain why the “mighty chiefs” in the midst of Sheol are the Nephilim, the giants of Genesis 6.
Ezekiel gives us the most detailed description of Sheol, the Hebrew term for the underworld.
This week, we discuss Ezekiel’s description of Pharaoh as a lion and a dragon, the Mesopotamian concept of dragons, and how the prophet’s description of the Egyptian king is connected to Mesopotamian creation stories and the Bible’s chaos-dragon, Leviathan.
The entity called Lucifer is not who we think he is.
We look at the Day of the Lord in Isaiah with a study of the king of Babylon in Isaiah 13 and 14. We explain why Babylon may not mean the city made famous by Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, and why Lucifer, a translation of the Hebrew Helen Ben Shachar (“Lightbringer son of Dawn”) is probably the rebel Watcher chief Shemihazah—better known to us as Saturn.
CHRISTIANS HAVE speculated on the ethnicity of the Antichrist for 2,000 years and we still have not reached a definite conclusion.
This week, we look at Daniel 2:40–45 and discuss just what is meant by the toes of “iron mixed with soft clay” in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the statue of gold, silver, bronze and iron. Will the Antichrist be Roman, Muslim—or American?
TWO VERSES in Daniel chapter 9 are the basis for identifying the ethnicity of the Antichrist. Not surprisingly, conclusions as to his origins span the globe from Rome to Mecca to Washington, D.C.
We discuss Daniel 9:26–27 and explain why its meaning is not as clear as it might seem on first reading.
WHAT DO we know from the Bible about the great end times enemy of God and Israel--the Antichrist?
This week, we begin a study based on the clues in scripture about the human referred to by Paul as the Man of Lawlessness and the Son of Destruction (or Son of Perdition). The Antichrist is mentioned by that name in only four verses in the Bible: 1 John 2:18 and 22; 1 John 4:3, and 2 John 7. Far more is revealed elsewhere, and we’ll dig into that material over the next few weeks.
We also discuss the Antichrist’s destruction by the breath (pneuma, or “spirit”) of His mouth—a reversal of the process by which God breathed life into Adam!
THE EMERGENCE of the Beast, the Antichrist of the end times, kicks off a three-end-a-half year period of literal hell on earth. But the war for control of the earth won't be limited to the natural world.
We discuss the connection between the seven-headed Beast of Revelation 13 and the four beasts of Daniel 7, the transfer of power and authority from Satan to the Beast, and why the diadems from Satan’s heads are placed on the Beast’s horns, not his heads.
We also explain why we believe the Daniel 7:19–27 reveals that Revelation 13:7, which reveals that the Beast will be “allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them,” actually refers to conflict in the spirit realm. The key? The Aramaic word rendered “saints” in Daniel 7 is the same word he used for the faithful Watchers in Daniel 4 (the “holy ones”).
WHEN, EXACTLY, did Satan rebel? We discuss the connections between the red dragon of Revelation 12 and Jesus statement that he “saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).
WHILE SATAN is described by Peter as “a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8), his ultimate end is the lake of fire.
We continue our review of the scriptures about Satan:
- He disputed with Michael for the body of Moses. (Jude 9)
- He has the power of death!
- Hebrews 2:14–15 (ESV): Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
- He will empower “the lawless one” “with all power and false signs and wonders” (2 Thess. 2:9)
- He has a throne (Great Altar of Zeus) (Rev. 2:9)
- He is a great dragon (Rev. 12)
- Bound for a thousand years and then loosed for a little while (Rev. 20)
THE BIBLE gives us enough clues to peel away centuries of tradition to see what the apostles knew about Satan in the first century.
So, what do we know for sure about Satan? * Old Testament * “The satan” was a title, not a proper name * He was allowed to test Job * Tested David through census (1 Chr. 21:1) * Asked to test the high priest Joshua (Zechariah 3:1–2) * New Testament * Satan is a proper name * He tested Jesus (Matt. 4:1–11; Mark 1:12–13; Luke 4:1–13) * He has a kingdom (Matt. 12:26) * Sows his seed (“sons”) among the faithful (Matt. 13:38–39) * He fell “from heaven like lightning” (Luke 10:18) * He entered into Judas Iscariot (Lk. 22:3; Jn. 13:27) * He asked to “sift” the disciples “like wheat” (Lk. 22:31), but Jesus prayed for Peter * He exploits our pride (1 Tim. 3:6–7) * He can disguise himself as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14) * He has messengers (angelos) (2 Cor. 12:7)
MODERN CHRISTIANS have been taught that the supernatural enemy of God is just “the devil”—and many of us don’t believe he’s real.
This week, we discuss four of the major figures leading the forces opposed to God: Satan (the storm-god Jupiter/Zeus/Baal), Apollyon (Saturn/Kronos/El), Leviathan (the Antichrist), and Mystery Babylon (Ishtar/Inanna).
WE CONTINUE our study of Satan this week with a focus on a question that’s puzzled Christians for 2,000 years: If Satan is a nachash (“serpent”) in Genesis 3, how can he be the “guardian cherub” of Ezekiel 28?
And what if Ezekiel 28, and its parallel chapter Isaiah 14, don’t refer to Satan at all?
THE DESTRUCTION of Sodom and Gomorrah is more significant than we’ve been taught. If it was just about alternative lifestyles, God would have a lot more smiting on His to-do list.
We continue our discussion of the journey led by Joseph after the death of Jacob and the possible reasons he stopped to mourn for seven days at Abel Mizraim “beyond the Jordan,” probably the ruined city of Sodom, a route that took the entourage the long way around the Dead Sea before circling back to Jacob’s final resting place at Hebron.
Evidence suggests the god worshiped at Sodom was Baal-Peor, who we believe was the Canaanite creator-god El—an entity Derek identifies in his forthcoming book as Shemihazah, leader of the rebellious Watchers in 1 Enoch, and Saturn, whose return to lead a new golden age was prophesied by the Roman poet Virgil more than 2,000 years ago.
More important, El is identified as Milcom, “the abomination of the Ammonites,” for whom Solomon built a cult site on the Mount of Olives, looking down on the Temple of God. It’s not a coincidence that the true king, the Messiah, descends to the Mount of Olives (Zech 14:4) when he returns!
THE DESTRUCTION of ancient Sodom, which is in the news thanks to a new academic paper, is connected to the promise God made to Abraham and to the battle of Armageddon.
We discuss the reasons for the spiritual significance of Sodom, noting that Joseph stopped there and mourned Jacob for seven days before taking his father to his final resting place at Hebron—which, when you look at a map, is much closer to Egypt than the place called Abel Mizraim, which was “beyond the Jordan.”
WHEN GOD personally intervenes in human affairs, it’s a big deal.
Stunning new peer-reviewed research has identified an archaeological site near Mount Nebo in Jordan as ancient Sodom. We discuss the connection to God’s promise of a son to Abraham, the reasons God may have had for putting a stop to what was happening at Sodom, and the link between Sodom and the opening of the abyss in Revelation 9.
Here is the link to the paper about the airburst over the Dead Sea mentioned during the program: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97778-3
LUCIFER WASN’T born, he was created—by the early church.
We continue our study of Satan and explain how early church theologians, beginning with Ignatius of Antioch in the early 2nd century through Augustine in the early 5th, transformed “the adversary” of the Old Testament into Lucifer and shaped our modern understanding of the devil.
CHRISTIANS HAVE been taught that Satan is the great enemy of God, responsible for causing all sorts of evil on the earth. That’s not how he’s described in the Old Testament.
In fact, “Satan” isn’t even a proper name in the Old Testament, it’s a job title—something like “the accuser,” or “prosecuting attorney.” However, it appears that somewhere along the line, “the satan” grew to enjoy his job a bit too much.
We discuss Job’s testing by “the satan,” and perhaps why God chose Job for the trials he endured. It might have had something to do with where Job lived.
THE LONG war between the Kingdom of God and Satan’s would-be kingdom is summarized by two of Jesus’ parables.
The Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Matt. 21:33–46, Mark 12:1–12, Luke 20:9–19) describes the foolish effort by the fallen “sons of God” to take away the inheritance of the Son, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 10:10–32) represents humanity’s rebellion and redemption—and the reaction of our “elder brothers,” the faithful angels who have remained loyal to God.
WE THINK we know more about Satan than the Bible actually tells us.
This week, we detour from Revelation 12 to begin a brief study on the devil. How much of what we know about Satan is wrong? More than you’d think.
One of the most interesting sections of the Book of Revelation is chapter 12, where Satan enters the narrative as a red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven diadems.
We discuss the imagery of the woman clothed in the sun, her child who rules the world with a rod of iron, and whether Satan’s expulsion from heaven was a past or future event, comparing it to Jesus’ remark in Luke 10;18 that he “saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”
The Day of the Lord is referenced dozens of times in scripture. It describes a “great and terrible day” when the wrath of God is poured out upon an unrepentant world.
This week, we discuss the characteristics of the Day of the Lord. They include:
- It comes suddenly (1 Thess. 5:2–4; 2 Peter 3:10; Rev. 3:3, 16:15)
- It’s a day of darkness (Zeph. 1:15; Isa. 13:10; Joel 2:1–2, 32, 3:15; 2 Peter 3:10; Ezekiel. 30:3)
- It’s a day of God’s wrath (Isa. 13:9; Isa. 22; Joel 1 & 2; Amos 5; Zeph. 1:14–15; Rev. 11:15–18)
- It’s a day of battle (Eze. 38 & 39; Zeph. 1:16; Rev. 16:14–16, 19:11–21)
- God judges the nations (Eze. 39; Isa. 13:11–12; Joel 3:9–14; Oba. 15–16; Mal. 4:1–3)
- Global destruction (Joel 1:15, 2:3; Zeph. 1:15–18; 1 Thess. 5:3; 2 Peter 3:10)
- God saves a remnant from Israel (Isa. 2:2–4, 4:2–6, 11:1–13; Zech. 14:16–17; Her. 30:18–31:40; Micah 4; Zech. 13; Joel 2:18–19, 32; Jer. 30:8; Rom. 11:25–27)
- The death of the “gods” (Isa. 2:18; 24:21–23, 26:13–27:1; Psalm 82)
- God is exalted in all the earth (Isaiah 2:17; Ezekiel 39:7)
Ezekiel made a point of singling out “the Travelers” in his prophecy of the war of Gog and Magog. This week, we explain why and identify where the army of Gog will fall.
The entity called Lucifer may not be who we think he is.
We continue our discussion of the Day of the Lord in Isaiah with a look at the king of Babylon in Isaiah 13 and 14. We explain why Babylon may not mean the city made famous by Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, and why Lucifer, a translation of the Hebrew Helen Ben Shachar (“Lightbringer son of Dawn”) may actually be the rebel Watcher chief Shemihazah—better known to us as Saturn.
Eclipses have been interpreted as a bad omen throughout history. In recent years, so-called “blood moons” have been taken as a sign of the imminent Apocalypse.
We explore the Bible’s references to darkness during the Day of the Lord, the time during the Great Tribulation when God unleashes His wrath on an unrepentant world. (Don’t let the next lunar eclipse spook you. A lot of things have to happen before we get there. Besides, the sun has to go dark at the same time.)
Isaiah prophesied a terrifying scenario for the Day of the Lord, when God finally executes His judgment on an unrepentant world.
Many Bible teachers interpret Isaiah 13:3–10 as referring to Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans of Babylon, who would destroy the Temple in 586 BC, more than a century after Isaiah’s prophecy. We explain why we believe this is also an unfulfilled prophecy of a supernatural army that will ravage the earth in the last days.
Our study of the Day of the Lord continues in Isaiah 2 with a look at an entity known to the Hebrew prophets, Pachad—a name that’s translated into English as “terror.”
We discuss Pachad, his role in history and in God’s plan for the end times, and other entities like him that have been buried in our English Bibles under words like “hail,” “plague,” “pestilence,” and “thunderbolts.”
We begin a study of the prophesied Day of the Lord with the Isaiah, who had more to say about the day of God’s final judgment than any of the Hebrew prophets.
This week, we show how Isaiah coined a term usually translated into English as “idols,” but it’s derived from the name of the chief god of Mesopotamia, Enlil.
The prophet Amos warned the leaders of Israel not to desire the prophesied Day of the Lord because “it is darkness, and not light”—especially since Israel had begun to worship Sikkuth (the Mesopotamian god Ninurta) and “Kiyyun your star-god”, both represented in the sky by Saturn.
The “shepherd prophet” Amos had a warning for the northern kingdom of Israel: Be careful of what you wish for, especially when it’s God’s judgment.
The resurrection of the Two Witnesses 3-1/2 years into the seven-year Tribulation is followed by the sounding of the seventh trumpet, heralding the restoration of God’s kingdom on earth.
Revelation 11:15 inspired George Frideric Handel to compose “The Hallelujah Chorus.” Derek gets emotional, and Sharon notes the parallels between Rev. 11:18 and Psalm 2:1–6—God’s response to the vain plots of the kings of the earth.
After three and a half years of tormenting the world with the gospel, the Beast is allowed to kill the two witnesses. But they don’t stay dead long.
We discuss the significance of the 3-1/2 days the witnesses lie in the street, the earthquake that accompanies their resurrection, and why those who survive the quake give glory to God.
The letters from Jesus to the seven churches not only described conditions among those bodies of believers at the end of the 1st century AD, they also outline the history of the Christian church from the Resurrection through today.
Also: Why the temple of Apollo on the island of Patmos is significant.
Moses and Elijah were present at the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Hermon. We explain why that’s significant and how it relates to the role of the Two Witnesses in Revelation 11.
A number of Hebrew prophets foretold destruction for the Philistines. We briefly discuss several of those prophecies and explain why the one in Isaiah 14 is unique.
We also discuss the possibility that the events in Israel and Gaza since the end of Ramadan could be a precursor to a wider regional war—possibly the Psalm 83 war described by prophecy teacher Bill Salus.
The battle of Armageddon will be fought at, and for, Jerusalem.
We explain how a mistake in transliterating led to the belief that Armageddon would be at Megiddo, why Jerusalem makes more sense than Megiddo, and why the “serpent” in Eden was not a talking snake.
Research for other projects leads us into unexpected territory this week: We discuss the strange connections between St. George, the patron saint of England, and mythical/supernatural characters “Green George,” the Green Man, Osiris, Kronos, and al-Khidr (or al-Khadir), a revered figure in Islam who is sometimes equated with the prophet Elijah, who we believe will be one of the two witnesses of Revelation 11.
This week, we explain why we think Moses and Elijah are the prophesied Two Witnesses of Revelation 11.
We dig a little deeper into the Balaam Inscription that we discussed last week, and we highlight the connections between the Plains of Moab, Mount Hermon, and ancient Sodom, along with a prophecy from the Book of Malachi, that point to Elijah and Moses as the two dynamic prophets of the end times.
The king of Moab hired Balaam son of Beor to curse Israel. Instead, he blessed the Israelites, foretold the coming of Messiah, and spoke a cryptic prophecy of the ultimate death of the sons of the Titans.
We also discuss the Balaam Inscription, a text found in 1967 at Deir Alla, Jordan that confirms Balaam as a historical character.
Several of the Old Testament prophets had harsh words for Israel’s cousins and next door neighbors, Edom. We look at Ezekiel 35 and the Book of Obadiah as more examples of “already but not yet” prophecies, fulfilled in the 6th century BC by Babylon and again during the end times.
Ezekiel 37:1–14 prophesies the return of Israel to the land, but it’s much more than that. We explain why this is a prophecy of God’s ultimate victory over the giants of the pre-Flood world, and why Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones was probably the area between Mount Hermon and the Sea of Galilee.
A close examination of Ezekiel 31 reveals that it’s not just about Assyria, the nation, but Ashur, the chief god of the Assyrian pantheon, an entity connected to the Watchers of Genesis 6 and the things from the Abyss in Revelation 9.
We continue with Ezekiel’s tour of the underworld and explain why the “mighty chiefs” in the midst of Sheol are the Nephilim, the giants of Genesis 6.
Ezekiel gives us the most detailed description of Sheol, the Hebrew term for the underworld.
This week, we discuss Ezekiel’s description of Pharaoh as a lion and a dragon, the Mesopotamian concept of dragons, and how the prophet’s description of the Egyptian king is connected to Mesopotamian creation stories and the Bible’s chaos-dragon, Leviathan.
The letters from Jesus to the seven churches not only described conditions among those bodies of believers at the end of the 1st century AD, they also outline the history of the Christian church from the Resurrection through today. Also: Why the temple of Apollo on the island of Patmos is significant.
One of the burdens of being a prophet is seeing things you would rather not. This week, we discuss Ezekiel’s vision of pagan worship inside the Temple in Jerusalem.
The prophets John and Ezekiel were commanded to eat scrolls that were as sweet as honey in their mouths.
We discuss the reasons for the seemingly odd request, the differences between the effects the scrolls had on the prophets, and we take a brief look at temple measurements and whether the visions of John and Ezekiel were of the same temple.
A powerful angel appears before the blowing of the seventh trumpet with a voice like a lion’s roar. When he calls out, seven thunders sound—but we don’t know to this day what they said.
We discuss the angel and the books in heaven, including one in which every one of your days has been written.
Isaiah 45:19 is a strange verse—unless you know what the prophet knew about the pagan religions of his day.
This week, we discuss demons, the underworld, and why most of our English translations don’t capture the sense of what God said.
We skip ahead to Revelation 16 to compare the sixth bowl judgment with the sounding of the sixth trumpet in Revelation 9. Is there a connection between the demonic army of 200 million, the angels bound in the Euphrates, and the kings from the east?
The only thing we can say for certain about the massive army that crosses the Euphrates in Revelation 9 is that it’s not from China.
You may have been taught that the army that goes forth to kill a third of humanity after the four angels bound in the Euphrates are released must be Chinese, since it’s the only nation in the world with the population to field an army of that size. That overlooks India, which is only slightly smaller (1.398 billion vs. 1.366 billion), and the fact that China only has about 2.1 million soldiers in uniform (about 3 million if you include reserves and support personnel).
So, who or what is this army? We revisit the ancient concept of the Euphrates as a boundary between the natural world and the realm of the dead, similar ideas about the Jordan River in the Book of Ezekiel, and conclude that it’s demonic—an end times army of the evil dead.
Many of us have the mistaken impression that angels look like humans with wings, except maybe the strange ones like cherubim and seraphim.
This week, we continue our discussion of Ezekiel 1 by taking a brief look at what the Bible tells us about the inhabitants of unseen realm—and why angels are definitely not “humans with wings.”
We discuss the significance of where Ezekiel was commissioned as a prophet.
The Chebar canal flowed through the ancient city of Nippur, home of the E-Kur, the temple of Enlil, chief god of the Mesopotamian pantheon. That’s where God revealed His glory to Ezekiel—the heart of enemy territory!
The political and social changes of the centuries before John wrote the book of Revelation turned the world of the apostles upside down.
We summarize the political and social changes from Antiochus Ephiphanes to Domitian, including the 1st century myth of Nero Redivivus, the belief that Emperor Nero didn’t die in 68 AD and would return someday, possibly as the spirit inside another evil Roman emperor.
Parallel scriptures in Matthew 24 and Luke 17 say the days of the coming of the Son of Man will be like the days of Noah and the days of Lot. Our research connects the final battle of the age, Armageddon, to the ancient cult of the dead.
Genesis 6:1-4 records a strange incident in humanity’s distant past: Angels, called “sons of God,” saw that human women were desirable and chose to defy God by taking them as wives, producing the giant Nephilim. We explain why this was an actual event, and how the spirits of the Nephilim are prophesied to play a role in the end times as soldiers in the army of Antichrist.
The media is buzzing with the conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn on December 21, the winter solstice. Many are calling this the Christmas star.
Not so much.
We explain why the real Christmas star was probably a conjunction of Jupiter and the “King Star,” Regulus in the constellation Leo, on September 11, 3 BC, which followed a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus a month earlier, and how all of that fits into Revelation 12.
Who are the four angels bound at the River Euphrates? We discuss some thoughts, including possible evidence from a site in northeast Syria called Tell Halaf.
The Euphrates was considered a boundary between the netherworld and the land of the living, and Tell Halaf was on the Khabur River—Mesopotamia’s equivalent of the River Styx.
Clues from the 9th chapter of Revelation, the Old Testament books of Job, Proverbs, and the Psalms, and ancient myths from Greece, Canaan, and Babylon lead us to a surprising answer to this mystery: Who is Apollyon, the angel called the king of the creatures in the abyss?
We return to the Book of Revelation this week and the locust-like creatures that fly out of the bottomless pit in Revelation 9.
What is this place? We discuss the abyss from its Sumerian concept as the dwelling place of the god Enki and his assistants, the apkallu, the name the Mesopotamians used for the Hebrew Watchers, to the Greek and Jewish understanding of the abyss, or Tartarus, as a place of punishment for supernatural rebels and threats to the divine order—the angels referred to in 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6-7.
In other words, the “sons of God” from Genesis 6:1-4 are the entities who emerge to torment those not sealed by God for five months during the Great Tribulation.
Also: Farewell to Irvin Baxter of Endtime Ministries who was called home last week at the age of 75.
We see in the Book of Job that Satan could approach the heavenly throne. Is that still the case?
When Jesus said he saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning, was that a past event (Ezekiel 28:11-19, Isaiah 14:9-21), something fulfilled at his birth (Revelation 12:7-12), or a prophecy of a future war of the angels (Revelation 12:13-17)?
Isaiah had a vision around the year 740 BC that terrified him—he was transported to the throne room of God and saw the Lord on His throne.
We discuss the entities Isaiah saw there, the seraphim, and compare them to the lamassu of Assyria, the sphinxes of Egypt, and the cherubim of the Bible. We also explain why Isaiah’s journey to the divine council was a key aspect of his commission as a prophet.
As we learn more about the world around ancient Israel, the more we understand the writings of the prophets and apostles.
This week, we look at Psalms 22 through 24, which prophesy not only the Messiah’s coming, but his return as well. And it appears that the Valley of the Shadow of Death was not just a metaphor, but an actual place connected to the war of God and Magog—and the Battle of Armageddon.
We continue our study of Isaiah with a discussion of destruction of Leviathan and how the prophet borrowed his description of the chaos-dragon from the Baal Cycle.
We also discuss related passages in Micah 1, Psalm 23 and 24, and chapter 37 of Ezekiel, whose description of reanimated “dry bones” may be a specific reference to the ancient kingdom of Bashan, which, we are learning, was a giant necropolis at the base of Mount Hermon.
Isaiah prophesied the future destruction of the Rephaim—the demon spirits of the Nephilim—and possibly their angelic parents as well.
We continue our study of Isaiah, focusing on chapter 26 verses 13 through 19. The “shades” of verse 14 and “dead” of verse 19 are translated from the Hebrew word rephaim, which scholars have only begun to realize within the last forty years should be a proper name and not a term for human dead.
We discuss the significance of that shift in thinking and the implications for end times prophecy. Suddenly, Isaiah 26 is no longer a polemic about pagan kings who ruled over the Jews, but a prophecy of the final destruction of the Nephilim and the “sons of God” who created them.
The prophet Isaiah foretold a day when God would destroy Death. This doesn’t just mean the end of physical death, but the literal destruction of the death-god.
This entity was called Mot by the pagan Amorites, but you would know him better as the rider on the pale horse, Thanatos.
The Jewish New Year, which began Friday evening, is one of the times during the year that prophecy scholars believe could mark the Messiah’s return.
We also discuss the historic Abraham Accords, the peace agreement signed September 15, 2020 by Israel, Bahrain, and the United Emirates. Then we return to our study of Isaiah 24:21-23 and an overlooked prophecy of the ultimate destruction of the rebellious elohim worshiped as the gods of the nations.
Isaiah has a lot to say about the end times, and much of it is about God’s judgment on the supernatural entities who have rebelled against His authority.
This week, we look at Isaiah 24 and a verse that could point to God literally emptying out the netherworld, and passages that connect to verses in Isaiah 51, Job 41, and Psalm 47 that foretell God’s earth-shaking judgment on Leviathan, the chaos-dragon.
We dig deeper into the fifth trumpet judgment this week to explore the links between the locust-like creatures that fly out of the abyss and older stories from the Near East like the Epic of Gilgamesh and Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld.
Then we compare the creatures from the bottomless pit to the apkallu of Mesopotamia, the Watchers of the Bible, and the Titans of Greek mythology, and conclude that they are one and the same.
With Revelation 9, we get into the real action that leads up to Armageddon. An angel fallen to Earth was given the key to the abyss, releasing the monstrous things that have been confined in the bottomless pit.
Who is that angel? Is he loyal to God? And what are those locust-like things? We discuss what we know from the Bible and compare that information with what the people of the ancient world believed about the old gods—the Titans, Watchers, and Mesopotamian apkallu.
The order of the first three trumpet judgments (hail and fire, a mountain hitting the sea, and Wormwood) roughly follow the sequence of the events of the Exodus—a plague of hail and fire, the parting of the sea, and the bitter waters at Marah.
We discuss the significance of the pattern, and consider whether President Trump’s new Space Force might be connected to the potentially hazardous asteroid Apophis that will make a near pass of Earth on April 13, 2029.
The third trumpet judgment causes a “great star” named Wormwood to fall from heaven, “blazing like a torch,” that poisons a third of the earth’s fresh water to become toxic.
Is it an asteroid or is this another supernatural entity tasked with delivering God’s judgment to an unrepentant world?
The second angel blows his trumpet and “something like a great mountain, burning with fire,” is thrown into the sea. We discuss the evidence from scripture and the extrabiblical Book of Enoch to show why this is not a meteorite or an asteroid, but an angel sent to bring judgment to Earth.
See every new episode at our website, www.UnravelingRevelation.tv!
Revelation 8 introduces us to “the seven angels who stand before God,” who blow the trumpets heralding a new set of judgments to come upon the earth. We speculate that these angels may be the seven archangels named in the Book of 1 Enoch, representing the belief of Jews during the Second Temple period.
Then we begin our study of the first trumpet judgment of hail and fire mixed with blood. This echoes the plague of hail and lightning that devastated Egypt (Exodus 9:22-25) and explain why “hail” (Barad) and “thunderbolts” (the reshephim) may be a “company of destroying angels” (Psalm 78:48-49) as well as a natural disaster.
We dig deeper into the exclusion of Dan from the list of twelve tribes in Revelation 7, and we note that a belief that the Antichrist would come from Dan dates back to within two generations of the apostle John. (Note: The excerpt Derek read was from the Treatise on Christ and Antichrist by Hippolytus, a student of Irenaeus. While Irenaeus also wrote that the Antichrist might come from Dan, what Derek read was not from that book.)
Then we explain why we believe the multitude that appears before the throne in Rev. 7:9 is evidence that supports the “earthquake resurrection” theory proposed by David W. Lowe.
After the earthquake that accompanies the opening of the sixth seal, four angels are directed to hold back the winds and refrain from harming the earth until the servants of God are sealed with the Father’s name on their foreheads.
We discuss the 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel who will be sealed, whose role is further explained later in Revelation, and why the tribes of Ephraim and Dan are excluded from the list.
We discuss the souls under the altar and the connection between the opening of the sixth seal, the Day of the Lord, geological evidence that the earth literally split in the distant past, and divine judgment that literally divides the earth.
We finish our recap of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and explain why we think the riders are working to bring in a new world order.
As we prepare to unpack the sixth and seventh seals of the scroll, moving from history to future, we recap the reasons why we believe the first three riders of Revelation 6 are Apollo, Ares/Mars, and Hermes/Mercury.
We discuss Chaos as an entity, rather than a concept, which is how it’s described in the Bible. Leviathan, Rahab, and “the sea” refer to this ancient enemy of God, and the riders of Revelation 6 appear to serve as its agents.
The first five seals of the Book of Revelation are already open, and we’re living in the middle of unfolding end times prophecy. Prophecy expert David W. Lowe joins us for the second half of our exclusive interview about his excellent book Earthquake Resurrection.
Could the devastating earthquake that accompanies the opening of the sixth seal in Revelation 6 be caused by the power of billions of Christians being resurrected all at once? David W. Lowe, author of Earthquake Resurrection, explains why Matthew 28 and the mysterious Shroud of Turin may point to the answer.
We discuss the imagery of the four beasts of Daniel’s vision (Daniel 7:1-8), compare it to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the “great image” (Daniel 2), and show how the “little horn” of Daniel 7 connects the terrifying fourth beast to God’s long war against Leviathan—chaos.
We dig deeper into the prophecy of Daniel’s seventy weeks, drawing on the book The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson (who Sharon has decided to include as a character in her next installment of The Redwing Saga). Anderson, who was Assistant Superintendent of Scotland Yard during the Jack the Ripper murders as well as a theologian, calculated that the prophecy foretold the arrival of the Messiah in Jerusalem on the very day that Jesus entered the holy city.
A prophecy given to Daniel by the angel Gabriel underlies the timeline of the Apocalypse. We introduce the seventy “weeks” decreed for the Jews and Jerusalem in Daniel 9:21-27, and how they connect to the Book of Revelation.
Earthquakes are sometimes connected to God’s judgment, especially in the book of Revelation. However, we also find them connected to the act of resurrection—for example, in Matthew 27:52 and 28:2, and when the two witnesses are taken up into heaven in Revelation 11:13.
This is why we believe the “great earthquake” of Revelation 6:13 will be the result of the resurrection of the dead in Christ described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:12-55.
For more on that idea, we recommend the excellent book Earthquake Resurrection by David W. Lowe.
This week we discuss the souls of the martyrs beneath the altar in the throne room of God. Then we analyze the great earthquake that follows the opening of the sixth seal: It’s more than plate tectonics; it may be the energy released by the resurrection of those who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
For more on that idea, we recommend the excellent book Earthquake Resurrection by David W. Lowe (www.EarthquakeResurrection.com).
Before we return to Revelation 6 and pick up with the fifth seal, we take a brief look at horses in the Bible. In the cultures around ancient Israel, horses were animals of war. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are certainly riding to war, but the rider on a white horse called Faithful and True will put an end to their reign of terror at Armageddon.
As we celebrate the Resurrection, we discuss the messianic prophecy of Psalm 22 and how David foresaw the gloating spirits around the cross (the “bulls of Bashan”).
But those fallen entities know that their doom has also been foretold, and we summarize the last war of the age, Armageddon, and the ultimate end of those who have rebelled against God in the lake of fire.
We continue our comparison of the horsemen of the Book of Zechariah and find a fascinating link between the Old Testament and a popular story from ancient Babylon, the Erra Epic.
Erra was a warlike and violent deity, also a god of plagues. He was identified with the god Nergal, which means he was known to the Canaanites as Resheph and to the Greeks and Romans as Apollo. We explain how the Erra Epic connects the apkallu of Mesopotamia to the Watchers of Genesis 6, the “craftsmen” of Zechariah 1, and end times prophecy.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse bear a striking similarity to four chariots in Zechariah 6 pulled by white, red, black, and dappled horses. We discuss those chariots and the mountains of bronze from which they emerged and how they connect to the riders in Revelation 6.
Then we bring in context from Psalm 68, the “many-peaked mountain of Bashan,” and Isaiah 14:19, contrasting the Branch of Zechariah 6:12 to Isaiah 14:19 to explain why Isaiah’s “loathed branch” was really a dead god—Lucifer.
This week’s program is eerily appropriate as the world grapples with a viral pandemic that has infected more than a quarter-million people in less than two months and shows no sign of slowing down.
We discuss the pale horse rider, Thanatos, explain why Hades is a Greek version of the Canaanite death-god, Mot, and connect Revelation’s riders of the Apocalypse to the judgment God decreed against Judah in the days of the prophet Jeremiah and Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
The Third Horseman of the Apocalypse carries scales, representing trade and commerce, but the Greek word is translated elsewhere in the New Testament as “yoke,” a symbol of slavery and oppression.
We connect the economic system of the Antichrist to the first global government, Nimrod’s kingdom of Uruk, and explain why we believe the rider on the black horse was the Babylonian god Nabu—better known to us as Hermes or Mercury.
The Second Horseman of the Apocalypse plainly represents war and bloodshed. But, as you might guess based on our recent books, we believe the rider on the red horse is a literal entity well known in the ancient world. Watch to find out why we argue that the rider called forth when the second seal is opened is the ancient war-god Chemosh—and the gender-fluid war god/dess Inanna.
The first of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is the topic this week. We explain why believe the first seal of the seven-sealed scroll was opened by the Lamb (Jesus) shortly after the Resurrection, and we speculate that the the rider may be the ancient god known as Nergal in Babylon, Resheph in Canaan, and Apollo in Greece and Rome.
John was taken up to heaven, where he saw “Him who was seated on the throne” holding out a scroll that was sealed with seven seals, but no one on heaven, on the earth, or—significantly—under the earth was worthy to open it. Then appeared the Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes.
We discuss the symbolism of the Lamb’s appearance and why John was shown every creature “under the earth and in the sea” crying out in praise of the Lamb. Hint: John wasn’t looking at worms and fish.
The rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak is just the latest sign that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding the earth—and have been since the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We continue our study Revelation 4 and the throne room of God. We discuss the similarities between John’s vision and Baal’s palace in The Baal Cycle, the reason the 24 elders cast their crowns before the throne, and why the living creatures around the throne are cherubim—which are most certainly not chubby babies with wings.
We move on from the letters to the churches in Asia as John is taken up to heaven to see the things that are to come. We discuss the significance of the open door, the connection between the appearance of God on His throne and the precious stones on the breastplate of the high priest, the identity of the twenty-four elders around the throne, and why the sea of glass before the throne is a callback to a special event that took place on Mount Sinai nearly 1,500 years before John’s Revelation.
Laodicea was known as a place where the water supply, which came to the town through six miles of aqueduct, was neither hot nor cold, which is how Jesus described that city’s church. Lukewarm water is an emetic, which is a nice way of saying it makes you vomit.
We discuss the history of the city, it’s reputation as a place of commerce and banking known for producing an eye salve, and a school of skeptical philosophy that believed nothing can be known for certain—not even that nothing can be known for certain.
Philadelphia was one of the two churches in Revelation for which Jesus did not express a concern. As with Smyrna, the church of Philadelphia was oppressed by something Jesus called the “synagogue of Satan.” We discuss this group (and how the teaching has been misused over the years), the open door Jesus described, and the who, what, and when of the “hour of trial” that he said would soon test those on the earth.
JESUS PROMISED those who “hold fast” in the church of Philadelphia that they would become pillars in the temple of God on which would be written “the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem.” We discuss the historical background of that promise and explain why that would have made sense to readers of Revelation in John’s day.
JESUS DESCRIBED himself as the the one “who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.” We discuss Jesus’ reasons for connecting himself to prophecies in Isaiah 11 and Zechariah 4, and why he said he would “come like a thief” against the church of Sardis.
WE MOVE to the fifth of the seven churches of Asia named in Revelation, Sardis. We explain how Jesus used that city’s infamous tendency to be overrun by enemies even though it was built with nearly impregnable natural defenses, and the city’s worship of the goddess Artemis, to chastise the church for being dead despite its reputation for being alive.
In his letter to Thyatira, Jesus condemned the self-proclaimed prophetess Jezebel, who’d led members of the church of Thyatira into sexual immorality and eating food sacrificed to idols. We discuss the mystery religions popular in that part of Asia Minor in John’s day and “the deep things of Satan” that had corrupted the church.
Thyatira was a town dominated by craftsmens’ guilds, and to have a career you needed to belong to a guild—and worship its patron deity. We discuss comparisons of Thyatira to the medieval church between 606 and 1517 AD.
Besides the Great Altar of Zeus, Pergamum was known for the Asclepion, a temple of healing devoted to the demigod Asclepius. We discuss the pagan rites of Pergamum and why the church there represents the history of the Christian church between 313 and 606 AD.
The third of the seven churches addressed by Jesus was called the place “where Satan dwells.” We discuss the great Altar of Zeus, the connection between Zeus and Satan, and the other pagan deities worshiped at Pergamum in John’s day.
Smyrna, the second of seven churches to receive a letter from Jesus in the Book of Revelation, was told it would be tested and suffer tribulation for ten days. We discuss the trials of Smyrna, which represents the church age between 100 and 312 AD, and the reminder that the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation is about the long war with Death.
The second of the seven churches addressed by Jesus was in the city of Smyrna. It was a wealthy city, but the Christian community there was poor, shut out of normal business activity because they refused to bow the knee to pagan gods and the Imperial cult—the worship of the emperors.
We discuss two of the important deities venerated in Smyrna: Nemesis, the embodiment of divine retribution, and Roma, the deification of Rome and Roman culture. And we analyze who Jesus meant by “those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.”
Ephesus represents the first era of the church age, from the Resurrection through the early 2nd century. We discuss the focus of the early church’s lost love (God, one another, or both), and then we talk about the mysterious group called the Nicolaitans.
The Nicolaitans were condemned by Jesus in his letters to Ephesus and Pergamum, but we don’t know much about them. They may have been a sect founded by the deacon Nicolaus, who was mentioned in Acts 6:5; it may have been the beginning of the hierarchical church, with a clergy ruling over lay people; or it may have been a group that believed sexual immorality was condoned by God.
Ephesus was a world-class city in the first century, the most prominent in Western Asia Minor. We discuss the importance of the goddess Artemis, evidence of demonic activity during the apostolic age, and begin to analyze the letter from Jesus to the church in the city where John spent his last days.
The letters from Jesus to the seven churches not only described conditions among those bodies of believers at the end of the 1st century AD, they also outline the history of the Christian church from the Resurrection through today.
Also: Why the temple of Apollo on the island of Patmos is significant.
Jesus dictated letters to the seven churches of Asia—but they were addressed to the angels of the churches. Traditionally, it’s been taught that the angels were bishops, human leaders of the Christian communities in what is now western Turkey.
We suggest that the letters were actually sent to angels, just as the book says—supernatural entities who were perhaps responsible for overseeing and protecting the churches.
A brief outline of the Book of Revelation and how it’s been interpreted by Christians over the centuries.
John was the youngest of the apostles, the last one to die, and the only one we know of who wasn’t martyred for his faith. We summarize what we know about John, explain why we believe he was the author of Revelation, and discuss the odd rumor that John wouldn’t die until Jesus returned.
The political and social changes of the centuries before John wrote the book of Revelation turned the world of the apostles upside down. We summarize the political and social changes from Antiochus Ephiphanes to Domitian, including the 1st century myth of Nero Redivivus, the belief that Emperor Nero didn’t die in 68 AD and would return someday, possibly as the spirit inside another evil Roman emperor.
Parallel scriptures in Matthew 24 and Luke 17 say the days of the coming of the Son of Man will be like the days of Noah and the days of Lot. We suggest it may have something to do with the ancient cult of the dead.
Genesis 6:1-4 records a strange incident in humanity’s distant past: Angels, called “sons of God,” saw that human women were desirable and chose to defy God by taking them as wives, producing the giant Nephilim. We explain why this was an actual event, and how the spirits of the Nephilim are prophesied to play a role in the end times as soldiers in the army of Antichrist.
The Garden of Eden was on the holy mountain of God (Ezekiel 28:13-14). Eden was at Jerusalem, and it’s where the battle of Armageddon will be fought.
Derek and Sharon Gilbert begin a new weekly program that analyzes end times prophecy in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. This week, we discuss a supernatural entity who may have rebelled even before the serpent in Eden—Leviathan.