Nimrod and the Goddess

Nimrod was born in the second generation after the flood. His father was Cush, son of Ham, son
of Noah. In Sumerian history, the second king of Uruk after the flood was named Enmerkar, son
of Mesh-ki-ang-gasher.
The Hebrews, doing what they loved to do with language, transformed Enmer—the consonants
N-M-R (remember, no vowels in ancient Hebrew)—into Nimrod, which makes it sound like
marad, the Hebrew word for “rebel”.
As we mentioned in an earlier article in this series, an epic poem called Enmerkar and the Lord
of Aratta from around the time of Abraham, circa 2000 B.C., preserves the basic details of the
Tower of Babel story.
We don’t know exactly where Aratta was, but guesses range from northern Iran to Armenia.
(Which would be interesting. Not only is Armenia located near the center of an ancient kingdom
called Urartu, which may be a cognate for Aratta, it’s where Noah landed his boat—the
mountains of Ararat. So Nimrod/Enmerkar may have been intimidating his cousins who settled
close to where their great-grandfather landed the ark.)  Wherever it was, Enmerkar muscled this
neighboring kingdom to compel them to send building materials for a couple of projects near and
dear to his heart.
The poem refers to Enmerkar’s capital city, Uruk, as the “great mountain”. This is intriguing,
since Uruk, like most of Sumer, sits in an alluvial plain where there are precisely no mountains
whatsoever. Uruk was home to two of the chief gods of the Sumerian pantheon, Anu, the sky
god, and Inanna, his granddaughter, the goddess of war and sex. And by “sex,” we mean the
carnal, extramarital kind.
While Anu was pretty much retired, having handed over his duties as head of the pantheon to
Enlil, Inanna played a very active role in Sumerian society. For example, scholars have translated
ritual texts for innkeepers to pray to Innana, asking her to guarantee that their bordellos turn a
profit.
Apparently, the conflict between Enmerkar and the king of Aratta, whose name, we learn from a
separate epic, was Ensuhkeshdanna, was a dispute over who was Inanna’s favorite. One of the
building projects Enmerkar wanted to tackle was a magnificent temple to Inanna, the E-ana
(“House of Heaven”). He wanted Aratta to supply the raw materials. Apparently, this wasn’t only
because there isn’t much in the way of timber, jewels, or precious metal in the plains of Sumer,
but because Enmerkar wanted the lord of Aratta to submit and acknowledge that he was Inanna’s
chosen one. And so Enmerkar prayed to Inanna:
“My sister, let Aratta fashion gold and silver skillfully on my behalf for Unug [Uruk].
Let them cut the flawless lapis lazuli from the blocks, let them …… the translucence of
the flawless lapis lazuli ……. …… build a holy mountain in Unug. Let Aratta build a
temple brought down from heaven — your place of worship, the Shrine E-ana; let Aratta
skillfully fashion the interior of the holy jipar, your abode; may I, the radiant youth, may
I be embraced there by you. Let Aratta submit beneath the yoke for Unug on my
behalf.” 1

Notice that Inanna’s temple was, like Uruk, compared to a holy mountain. And given the type of
goddess Inanna was, the embrace Enmerkar wanted was more than just—ahem—a figure of
speech.

 

 

 

The Burney Relief at the British Museum is a terra cotta plaque dated to 1800-1750 B.C. It’s
believed to represent the goddess Inanna, also known as Ishtar, and later as Astarte of the Bible.
To be honest, some of the messages between Enmerkar and Ensuhkeshdanna about Inanna were
the kind of locker room talk that got Donald Trump into trouble during the 2016 presidential
campaign. But I digress.

Well… no. Let’s continue with the digression for a minute. We should stop for a brief look at
Inanna’s role in human history. The goddess has been known by many names through the ages:
Inanna in Sumer, Ishtar in Babylon, Astarte in Canaan, Atargatis in Syria, Aphrodite in Greece,
and Venus across the Roman world. Let’s just say the image we were taught of Aphrodite/Venus
in high school mythology class was way off.
Since we’d like to keep this a family-friendly article, we won’t dig too deeply into the history
and characteristics of Inanna. Scholars don’t completely agree on the details, but it’s safe to say
the goddess wasn’t a girl you’d bring home to meet your mother.
In fact, she wasn’t always a girl, period. You see, while Inanna was definitely the goddess with
the mostest when it came to sex appeal, she was also androgynous. She was sometimes shown
with masculine features like a beard. On one tablet (although from much later, in the first
millennium B.C., almost three thousand years after Nimrod), Inanna says, “When I sit in the
alehouse, I am a woman, and I am an exuberant young man.” 2 Her cult followers included

eunuchs and transvestites, and she was apparently the first in history to make a practice of sex
reassignment:
She [changes] the right side (male) into the left side (female),
She [changes] the left side into the right side,
She [turns] a man into a woman,
She [turns] a woman into a man
She ador[ns] a man as a woman,
She ador[ns] a woman as a man. 3
It’s wonderfully ironic. The 21st century progressive ideal of gender fluidity was personified
more than five thousand years ago by the Sumerian goddess Inanna, a woman who craved sex
and fighting as much (or more) than men, taking on all comers in love and war, and better than
men at both. Her personality is celebrated by modern scholars as complex and courageous,
transcending traditional gender roles, turning Inanna into an icon of independent
man/woman/other-hood.
There is an ongoing debate among scholars as to whether the priesthood of Inanna was involved
in ritual sex. The concept of divine marriage was common in ancient Mesopotamia, but generally
the participants were a god and his consort. It appears that the rituals were intended to please the
god so he’d be receptive to the requests from a city or kingdom under his protection.
However, as a harimtu, which may mean “temple prostitute” or may have simply referred to a
single woman, Inanna herself participated in the rite with a king. And since she was the dominant
partner in the ritual coupling, gender roles might not have been as clearly defined as we would
assume.
From a Christian perspective, however, Inanna isn’t complex at all. She’s a bad Hollywood
screenwriter’s idea of a 15-year-old boy’s fantasy woman. Inanna is selfish, ruled by her
passions, and destructive when she doesn’t get her way. The Sumerian hero Gilgamesh, who
ruled Uruk two generations after Enmerkar, is remembered partly for rejecting Inanna. As he
pointed out in the story, every one of the men in her life suffered horrible consequences—for
example, Dumuzi the Shepherd, who ruled as a king in Bad-Tibara, the second city in Sumer to
exercise kingship after Eridu.
In the myth, even though Inanna married Dumuzi, she was happy to throw him under the bus
when demons tried to drag her younger son, Lulal, down to the netherworld. At Inanna’s urging,
the demons spared Lulal and took Dumuzi instead. Dumuzi’s sister pleaded for him, so Inanna
agreed to allow her to take his place for half the year, thus making Dumuzi the first of many
“dying and rising gods” in the ancient Near East.
More than two thousand years later, one of the abominations God showed the prophet Ezekiel
was women at the entrance of the north gate of the Temple weeping for Dumuzi, called Tammuz
in the Bible.
Well, for his impudence at daring to remind Inanna about the fate of Dumuzi, and the other fools
who’d succumbed to the charms of the wild goddess, she flew up to heaven in a rage and
demanded that her father, the sky god Anu, unleash the Bull of Heaven on Gilgamesh. That

didn’t go well for the Bull of Heaven, but sadly for Gilgamesh, his best friend Enkidu was killed
by the gods as punishment for spoiling Inanna’s revenge.
We share all of this with you to make a point: This is the deity Enmerkar/Nimrod wanted to make
the patron goddess of his city, Uruk. Could it be that veneration of the violent, sex-crazed,
gender-bending Inanna was responsible for Yahweh’s decision to stop Nimrod’s artificial holy
mountain?
Well, no, probably not. Inanna has enjoyed a very long run near the top of the Most Popular
Deities list. And why not? Selling humans on the concept of sex as worship is easy.
Looking at the values of our modern society, it’s no stretch to say that Inanna is the spirit of the
age. Gender fluidity is the flavor of the month among progressives in the West. The values of
Inanna—immediate gratification and sex with whoever, whenever—are considered more open-
minded, tolerant, and loving than the virtues of chastity, fidelity, and faithfulness introduced by
Yahweh long after Inanna was first worshiped as the Queen of Heaven.
Of course, this means the so-called progressive ideas about gender and sexual morality promoted
by academia and the mainstream media are actually REgressive! The enlightened think they’re
on the cutting edge, breaking new ground and smashing old paradigms, when in fact they’re just
setting the calendar back to more than a thousand years before Abraham.
If Yahweh had genuinely intervened to put a stop to the cult of Inanna, she would be long
forgotten. Instead, as the Queen of Heaven. mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah, her cult has
continued for thousands of years. She became Aphrodite and Venus of the classical era, and was
eventually Christianized and venerated as the Virgin Mary.
But the transgression of Nimrod was much more serious than worshiping Inanna. He tried to
expand and upgrade the home of the god Enki, the abzu—the abyss—to create a dwelling place
for the gods on Earth.
For more on that story, see our earlier article, “ The Tower of Babel: Abode of the Gods. ”

1 Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Fluckiger-Hawker, E, Robson, E., and Zólyomi, G. “Enmerkar
and the Lord of Aratta,” The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
(http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.8.2.3#), retrieved 12/17/16.
2 Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Fluckiger-Hawker, E, Robson, E., and Zólyomi, G. “A cir-
namcub to Inana (Inana I),” The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
(http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.4.07.9&charenc=j#), retrieved 12/17/16.
3 Sjoberg, A.W. “In-nin Sa-gur-ra: A Hymn to the Goddess Inanna,” Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie
65, no. 2 (1976), p. 225.

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Part 2-The “gods” or spirits in the Arabia mountains!!!

Let’s dig a little deeper into the spirit or spirits at work on this mountain in Arabia. And, if you’ll indulge us, we’ll get a little speculative. As we’ve noted, there is only so much we can know for sure about the spirits opposed to God. They lie, and our perception into that realm is limited. But let’s look at what’s available to us and see if we can draw some tentative conclusions.

Most Bible scholars who trace the movement of the nations that dispersed from Babel in Genesis 10 place two nations that are mentioned in Ezekiel’s prophecy of the Gog-Magog war, Sheba and Dedan, in Arabia. Sheba was the father of the Sabeans, who founded a kingdom in southwest Arabia, modern-day Yemen.

Dedan settled along the coast of the Red Sea in western Arabia, in the area called the Hejaz. Dedan was an important oasis along the caravan route between Sheba and Babylon. Because of the brutal desert that covers the interior of Arabia, the route traveled north along the Red Sea coastline, and then through Edom, southeast of Judah. Dedan grew into an independent kingdom around the time of the prophets Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel, in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. The last king of Babylon, Nabonidus, spent most of his reign at the important Dedanite oasis of Tayma while entrusting Babylon to his son, Belshazzar—he of the mene, mene, tekel, upharsin incident.

Sheba and Dedan were sons of Raamah, a son of Cush, the son of Ham. This makes Sheba and Dedan nephews of Nimrod, who we believe was the Sumerian king Enmerkar, would-be builder of the abode of the gods, the tower of Babel at Eridu. (Sheba and Dedan are also mentioned in Genesis 25 as grandsons of Abraham and his concubine Keturah, through their son Jokshan. Geographically, though, it still places them among the tribes of Arabia.)

Nobody is sure why Nabonidus spent a decade living in the desert. It may have been to consolidate his control over the profitable spice and incense trade, but he was seeking prophecy and guidance from his preferred deity, the moon-god Sîn, who the king apparently tried to elevate to the top spot in the pantheon in Babylon. Needless to say, this wasn’t popular with the priesthood of Marduk which stood to lose prestige and power if he’d succeeded.

I accomplished the command of Sîn, king of the gods, lord of lords, dwelling in the heavens, who, in comparison of the gods in heaven, his name is surpassing: (also) of Šamaš [sun-god], who is his brightest (peer), of Nusku [fire-god], Ištar [Ishtar/Inanna, goddess of sex and war], Adda [Hadad, the storm-god Ba`al], Nergal [Resheph/Apollo, god of war and plague, and gatekeeper to the underworld], (those) who accomplish the command of Nannar [Sumerian name for Sîn] their surpasser. (Text in brackets added.)

Note that Marduk is missing from that list of deities. Nabonidus probably made an enemy of the established Marduk priesthood in Babylon, possibly creating a religious fifth column that contributed to the ease with which Babylon fell to the Persians.

It’s believed that Nabonidus’ mother Addagoppe was a priestess of Sîn from Harran in northern Mesopotamia. Harran was an important cult center of the moon-god as far back as Abraham’s day, 1,400 years earlier. So Nabonidus may have been of old Aramean/Amorite stock, and for some reason—call it infernal revelation, if you will—he was compelled to revive the flagging cult of Sîn and transplant it to the Arabian desert.

Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, shown worshipping the moon-god Sîn, the sun-god Šamaš, and Ishtar, represented by Venus. Credit: Jona lendering (own work), CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2629946.

The moon-god has a long history in that part of the world. Not only do we have the evidence of the cult centers of Ur, Harran, and Jericho that date back to the 3rd millennium B.C., but in the Bible’s account of Gideon’s victory over the Midianites, another people who lived in northwestern Arabia, we’re told that his haul of gold included crescent ornaments from the Midianites’ camels, which presumably honored the moon-god. Symbols depicting a heavenly triad of Sîn, Šamaš, and Ishtar—moon, sun, and Venus—are common from the mid 2nd millennium B.C. at least through the time of Nabonidus, who is depicted on a number of surviving stelae venerating the three deities.

The star and crescent symbol prominent in the Islamic world today only came into use after the Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453. However, it’s not too much of a reach to suggest that the ancient cult of the moon-god in the Near East and Arabia was carried forward into the modern era by the descendants of the Amorites, Arameans, and their Arab neighbors to the south, especially with the boost given to the moon-god’s cult in Arabia by the king of Babylon during the last days of that empire.

Why is this of interest? While Sheba (Yemen) seems almost geographically irrelevant to end times prophecy (except maybe as a flashpoint for a wider Sunni-Shia war), Dedan, as we showed earlier, bears the same name as the ancient Amorite tribe Didanu/Tidanu, from which the Greeks derived the name of the Titans. And the area settled by the Dedanites, the Hejaz, includes the two holiest sites of Islam, Mecca and Medina.

While Muslim scholars would argue the connection, the symbolic link, at least, is obvious. Joel Richardson does an excellent job of establishing the pagan roots of Allah in his new book, Mystery Babylon. The historical link between Nabonidus, the moon-worshiping king of Babylon, and the region of Islam’s holiest sites may be coincidental, but you know how we feel about coincidence theories.

Now, please understand: I’m not suggesting a physical connection between the Watchers/Titans and the Arab tribes that spread Islam across the world. In other words (and I truly hope this doesn’t disappoint you), I do not see a role in the end times for ISIS Nephilim.

Nevertheless, it’s fascinating that history has once again provided a spiritual link between the past and the future where we never expected to find one.

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Merry Non-Pagan Christmas

This time of year brings back memories of childhood and family, at least for those of us who were blessed to have parents who made Christmas a memorable time.  As a parent myself, there was a special joy in creating similar Christmas memories for our daughter when she was young.

As I grew in my walk with the Lord, however, our culture’s annual celebration of the holiday began to bother me.  The rank commercialism is so out of character with what the birth of Christ means for the world that being part of it felt more wrong with each passing year.

Recently, there’s been a growing trend among some Christians to take it further.  It’s not just the trees and decorations that appear before Halloween, it’s the day itself that some Christians object to.

A belief has been growing that Christmas is based on pagan celebrations.  December 25 was selected for Christmas, it’s believed, because it was the date of the annual Saturnalia, a Roman festival for the winter solstice.  It was celebrated with a sacrifice in Rome’s Temple of Saturn was followed by a big party—a public feast, private gift-giving, and temporary suspension of social rules with masters waiting on slaves, gambling, and general drunkenness.

It’s probable that the church sometimes adopted days celebrated by pagan religions and Christianized them—which is not to say the pagan holy days were made Christian, just given a Christian veneer.  For example, All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day, which likely developed out of the Celtic festival of the dead, Samhain.  So, the logic goes, it must also have happened with Christmas—the “Christ mass”—and Saturnalia.

Or Christmas might have been an attempt to hijack the birthday celebration for Sol Invictus, the “unconquered sun” god of Rome.

Some take the rites back even farther in time and claim that December 25 was celebrated in the ancient Near East as the birthday of the world’s first emperor, Nimrod.  The belief is that Christmas originated as a celebration of the birth of Nimrod, king of Babylon, to his wife-mother, Semiramis.  You see, she didn’t like the idea of giving up the lifestyle of a queen just because of Nimrod’s untimely and inconsiderate death, and so she produced another child—either Nimrod’s unborn son or through an affair—who she claimed was the resurrected Nimrod.  She declared Nimrod a god, a sun god by most accounts, thus making herself a goddess.  The yule log represents Nimrod, who’s also sometimes identified as Ba’al, and the Christmas tree represents Nimrod resurrected as his son, Tammuz.

On top of all that, we’re told that we also celebrate the birth of Christ on the wrong day.  We can’t know for sure, but clues in the Bible suggest a birthday in the spring or fall.  (There is an excellent analysis of prophetic clues in Revelation 12:1-5, the passages referring to “the woman clothed with the sun,” by E.L. Martin in his book The Star of Bethlehem: The Star That Astonished the World, pointing to the precise arrangement of the skies over Jerusalem on September 11, 3 B.C.)  Some feel that the birth of the Messiah, if it’s going to be celebrated at all, should at least be remembered on the correct day—or as correct as we can be, anyway.

So what shall we say then?  Should we just chuck Christmas out with the uneaten Thanksgiving leftovers?

No.  Not necessarily.

The questions we need to ask are these:

  • Is Christmas really based on the worship of pagan gods?
  • When did the early church begin celebrating Christmas?
  • Why did they settle on December 25 for the holiday?

The answer to the first question is a resounding “no.”  First of all, the concept of Nimrod as a god is a non-starter.  Let me make this very clear: There is no evidence whatsoever from the ancient Near East that Nimrod was ever worshiped as a god in any way, shape, or form.

In fact, the myths that grew up around the memory of Nimrod were probably based on a Babylonian god—most likely the warrior god Ninurta—instead of the other way around!

Furthermore, Semiramis, the Assyrian queen Sammuramat, reigned between 811 and 808 B.C. or from 809 to 792 B.C.  She was one of the first women in history to rule an empire.  However, to put Nimrod at the Tower of Babel (which was not at Babylon—but I’ll spare you the explanation because it is in my book, The Great Inception, see below), we have to go back about 2,300 years before Semiramis.

It’s tough to have children when you live 2,300 years apart.

Much of the information about Nimrod, Semiramis, and Tammuz comes from Alexander Hislop’s 1858 book The Two Babylons.  With all due respect, because he was no doubt sincere in his desire to warn the world about what he believed was the false religion of the Roman Catholic Church, Hislop’s scholarship was poor at best.  It looks like he took the names of literally dozens of ancient gods and goddesses and mixed them up into an ancient myth smoothie.  Hislop may have meant well, but he’s misled Christians for more than 150 years.

Now, that’s not to say Nimrod got a bum rap.  There was a reason God came down to personally stop construction at Babel.  You’ll have to wait for the book for that explanation, too.

In short, Nimrod was not a sun god and he wasn’t Ba’al, either.  In fact, Ba’al would probably be insulted you said so.  Nimrod was only human, while Ba’al was a god of storms, rain, and vegetation.  He was worshiped for a time as one of the ancient Near East’s “dying and rising gods”—like Tammuz.  (Who was worshiped as a god in Sumer long before Semiramis came on the scene.)  As such, Ba’al and Tammuz would have been mourned in the fall and celebrated in the spring.  Neither of those seasons matches December 25.

So when did Christians begin to celebrate Christmas?  The earliest record of its observance comes from Clement of Alexandria around 200 A.D.  But the first suggestion that Christmas might be linked to pagan worship didn’t come until the 12th century, about 900 years later.

In other words, as far as historians can tell, none of the Christians from the 3rd through 12th centuries seemed to think they were accidentally worshiping a pagan god.

The Donatist sect in North Africa celebrated Jesus’ birth on December 25 in the early 4th century, before Constantine became emperor of Rome (so we can’t blame him).  And while it’s true that the emperor Aurelian, who really hated Christians, made veneration of Sol Invictus the law throughout the Roman Empire in 274, a collection of ancient writings called Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae records the feast day during the reign of Licinius (308-324 A.D.) as being on the 18th of November.

There is limited evidence that a feast for Sol Invictus was held on December 25 before the middle of the 4th century.  And remember, Christians were celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25 about half a century earlier.

In other words, we can just as easily say that pagans moved the feast of Sol Invictus to hijack a Christian tradition!

So, given that nobody in the first century thought to write down the actual date of Jesus’ birth, how did the early church arrive at December 25?  It’s a little complex, but it illustrates the motives of the church fathers—which, you might have guessed, was not to sneak pagan worship into the faith.

It seems that second-century Latin Christians in Rome and North Africa wanted to determine the exact date of the Lord’s death.  For reasons that escape us, they settled on March 25, 29 A.D.  (The reasons escape us because March 25 was not a Friday that year, nor was it Passover Eve, nor did Passover Eve fall on a Friday in 29 A.D., or even in the month of March, for that matter.  Still, there we are.)

Now, there was a widespread belief in Judaism back then in the “integral age” of great Jewish prophets.  It was thought that the prophets of Israel died on the same day they were conceived.

It’s not biblical, but that’s not the point.  The early church believed it and that’s what led to their conclusion:  When you add nine months to March 25, you arrive at… December 25.

There you have it.  No pagan influence, just a desire to know the dates that forever changed the history of the world.

Now, are there unbiblical, and even un-Christian, traditions in our culture that surround the Christmas holiday?  Absolutely!  And if they lead you to avoid Christmas, then by all means you are correct to do so.

But if you are satisfied in your mind that Christmas is a time to reflect, remember, and give thanks to a loving God who willingly came to Earth as one of us, ultimately to sacrifice Himself for our sins, then by all means celebrate the day without a trace of guilt.

If God judges us on accidental paganism, we’re all doomed.  The wedding ring is a tradition that started in ancient Egypt.  The days of the week are named for pagan gods (in English, anyway).

The apostle Paul put it best:

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

Romans 14:5-6 (ESV)

Be convinced in your own mind. If you keep Christmas, or if you do not, do it for the Lord.

Merry Christmas, and may God richly bless you and your family.

_______

Derek Gilbert
www.derekpgilbert.com

Last Clash of the Titans: The Prophesied War Between Jesus Christ and the Gods of Antiquity | LastClashOfTheTitans.com
The Great Inception: Satan’s PSYOPs from Eden to Armageddon | TheGreatInception.com

The Day the Earth Stands Still: Unmasking the Old Gods Behind ETs and UFOs (with Josh Peck) | OfficialDisclosure.com

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My podcast: A View from the Bunker – live Sundays 7-9 PM Central Time
Weekly Bible study: The Gilbert House Fellowship

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Goat Demons and the Foundation Rock of the Church

We go back more than 1,400 years from the time of Jesus to the Exodus. Apparently, the Israelites began to worship entities during their forty years in the desert called se’irim, or “goat demons.”

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the people of Israel and say to them, This is the thing that the Lord has commanded. If any one of the house of Israel kills an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp, or kills it outside the camp, and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it as a gift to the Lord in front of the tabernacle of the Lord, bloodguilt shall be imputed to that man. He has shed blood, and that man shall be cut off from among his people. This is to the end that the people of Israel may bring their sacrifices that they sacrifice in the open field, that they may bring them to the Lord, to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the Lord. And the priest shall throw the blood on the altar of the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting and burn the fat for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.

Leviticus 17:1-7 (ESV), emphasis added

The se’irim, literally “hairy ones,” were satyr-like (i.e., Pan-like) beings who the Israelites began to worship during their wanderings in the desert. The sacrifices away from the tabernacle were consistent with the worship of Pan. It appears that the section of the Law recorded in Leviticus 17, requiring that all sacrifices be brought to the tent of meeting, was specifically to stop the worship of these goat-demons.

Now, se’ir is one of those words where the translation depends on the context. Usually, it simply means “goat” or “kid.” But there are four places in the Old Testament where the word clearly refers to a demon or devil. Here’s another example: In Isaiah 34, the prophet turns his polemical gift on the land of Edom:

Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,

nettles and thistles in its fortresses.

It shall be the haunt of jackals,

an abode for ostriches.

And wild animals shall meet with hyenas;

the wild goat shall cry to his fellow;
indeed, there the night bird settles

and finds for herself a resting place.

Isaiah 34:13-14 (ESV), emphasis added

Again, the “wild goat” is based on the Hebrew root se’ir. The KJV translates the word as “satyr,” as it does in Isaiah 13, but most English translations are similar to the ESV—wild goat, male goat, hairy goat, etc.

Now, back to Moses: The Book of Leviticus records an interesting requirement for the Day of Atonement. It involved a goat that was driven from the camp into the wilderness for a being called Azazel.

“Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.

Leviticus 16:6-10 (ESV), emphasis added

Scholars interpret the ritual as complementary rites of atonement, with the sacrificial goat and the second goat who carries the sin of the people away. The priest would lay hands on the goat for Azazel and impart the sins of the people on it before it was led out of the camp and into the wilderness. This is the origin of the term “scapegoat.”

Because you’ve been paying attention, you’re remembering right about now that the name Azazel has come up once before in this book. That’s because the Book of 1 Enoch names Azazel as one of the leaders of the rebellious Watchers who descended at Mount Hermon. And right there is a link between Azazel and the se’irim, the satyr-like deities dancing in the wilderness who just happen to bear a strong resemblance to the Greek god Pan.

Of course, unless you’re a coincidence theorist, you see these details as a connected thread, part of an enemy PSYOP to distract the Jews from their devotion to Yahweh. But that’s not all.

Greek myths record fascinating connections between Pan and a pair of other deities we’ve already encountered in this study: In one story, Pan, in his goat-god aspect Aegipan, assisted Zeus in the chief god’s epic battle with the chaos god, Typhon. When Typhon turned to attack Aegipan, the goat-god dove into the Nile River, with the parts above the water remaining a goat but the part below the waterline transformed into a fish. Thus, Aegipan became the goat-fish Capricornus, or Capricorn.

Even though the constellation Capricorn is faint, it’s been consistently depicted as a hybrid goat-fish since at least the 21st century B.C., the time of the last Sumerian kings to rule over all of Mesopotamia. And—here’s the kicker—the goat-fish was a well-known symbol of the god of the abzu, Enki.

So now we can draw links directly from Enki, god of the abyss, to the goat-demons of the Exodus and the goat-god worshiped at the base of Mount Hermon in the time of Jesus Christ.

And it was there at Caesarea Philippi, right outside the Grotto of Pan, where this exchange took place between Jesus and his hot-headed disciple, Peter:

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.“

Matthew 16:13-18 (ESV), emphasis added

Remember that the Grotto of Pan is at the foot of El’s mount of assembly, site of the rebellion by the Watchers. It’s also in Bashan, gateway to the netherworld. Was it a coincidence that it was there Jesus asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”

No. Jesus made a statement to the Fallen there, a declaration of his divinity: On their rock, he would build his church!

Then he climbed their rock, Mount Hermon, and was transfigured into a being of light, his face like the sun and his clothes dazzling white—and the disciples heard Yahweh’s voice from heaven.

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We need to look at one more event that took place in northern Israel, near Mount Hermon. This is in Luke 10, the chapter immediately after Peter’s declaration of faith and the Transfiguration on Mount Hermon. In other words, the time and place of this event was also deliberate.

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go.  […]

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Luke 10:1-20 (ESV), emphasis added

Now, some translations say there were seventy disciples, others say seventy-two. The Greek manuscripts of Luke are split and there is no way to know for sure which number Luke wrote on his original draft of the gospel. But either way, given the location and the purpose of the mission, there are good theological reasons to believe the number was not, you know, coincidental.

How many sons of El were in El’s assembly on Mount Hermon? That’s right, seventy—plus Ba`al and El equals seventy-two.

How many nations did Yahweh create at the Tower of Babel? Seventy—but some translations of the Bible actually name seventy-two.

How many elders of Israel climbed Mount Sinai to meet Yahweh face to face? Seventy—plus Moses and Aaron makes seventy-two.

What was the point of Jesus sending the disciples out ahead of him? It was the start of the church’s mission to reclaim the nations from the Fallen, the kickoff event of the Great Commission. Satan, the nachash from the book of Genesis, fell “like lightning from heaven” because he’d lost his legal claim as lord of the dead over those who die in Christ. Why? Because we are guaranteed eternal life through the shedding of his blood.

However you count it, sending out that specific number of disciples wasn’t an accident or a coincidence, it was a clear message to the old gods: Get off my land!

 

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Jesus and the Gods of Mount Hermon

Jesus, of course, was fully aware of the ongoing war for his holy mountain. For him, the war was personal.

Many of the key events in the life of Jesus occurred at the Temple Mount. As an infant, Jesus was presented at the Temple in accordance with the Law, where Simeon, a man who had been told he’d live to see the Messiah, and Anna, an 84-year-old prophetess, were led to Jesus by the Holy Spirit. When he was twelve, he stayed behind in the Temple after his parents started back to Nazareth after the Passover celebration in Jerusalem. It was a full day before they realized Jesus was missing, and at least three more before they found him in the Temple talking with the rabbis.

Early in his ministry, Jesus visited Jerusalem during Passover and drove the moneychangers and animal merchants out of the Temple. Later, probably during the second Passover of his ministry, Jesus healed a lame man at the Pool of Bethesda at the north end of the temple complex. Shortly before the Crucifixion, Jesus drove out the moneychangers a second time, and Matthew records that he healed many lame and blind people who came to him at the Temple.

Isn’t it interesting that even in the building erected by the wicked king Herod, and without the Ark of the Covenant in the temple, Jesus was still consumed with zeal for his Father’s house?

And that passion extended beyond the 35 acres that make up the Temple Mount. Israel’s inheritance was Yahweh, and the land inside the borders He established during the time of Moses and Joshua belonged to Him. That’s why Jesus devoted so much of his ministry to healing the sick and casting out demons—which were, remember, the spirits of the Nephilim. He wasn’t just restoring people to physical and spiritual health, he was casting them out of his land, Israel.

When we step back and take a fresh look at the events of Jesus’ life, many things take on new meaning when they’re framed in the context of the war between God and the gods. And, of course, many of the arguments offered by skeptics to explain away the divinity of Jesus are nothing more than PSYOPs by the Fallen to convince modern minds, clouded by the fog of scientism, that Jesus was either a political radical, a social justice warrior, or a misunderstood itinerant preacher—anything but God made flesh.

For example, the Transfiguration. What was the point of all that?

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

Mark 9:2-8 (ESV)

First reaction by the modern reader: Awesome special effects! But if the purpose of the Transfiguration was to demonstrate his divinity, why did Jesus take only three of his disciples? Wouldn’t it have been more productive to bring all twelve? Or why not perform this great visual effect for the thousands of people who had to settle for a miraculous lunch of bread and fish?

Here’s why: The intended audience wasn’t human.

The clue to the real purpose of the event is the location. Both Mark and Matthew note that the Transfiguration took place on a high mountain. Now, Israel has plenty of mountains, but not many that can be described as high—at least not relative to the rest of the peaks in the land.

Second, note that they climbed a mountain near Caesarea Philippi. That narrows the field. The town was in the northeastern part of the Holy Land, north of the Sea of Galilee and Lake Huleh, in the area we call the Golan Heights. To be precise, Caesarea Philippi sat at the southwestern base of Mount Hermon.

Ah. Bull’s eye!

Yes, the very mountain where the Watchers/Titans descended and made a pact to corrupt humanity was where Jesus was transfigured into a being of light before the eyes of Peter, James, and John.

Coincidence?

Not on your life! Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. This was a cosmic poke in the eye, a declaration to the Fallen that the Second Power in Heaven, the Messiah, had arrived in the flesh. He was declaring that the temporary dominion of the rebellious bene elohim was nearly at an end—that Yahweh’s mount of assembly would soon fulfill the promises proclaimed by the prophets. And he did it on the mount of assembly of El, the high god of the Canaanites.

More accurately, it was where the Fallen tried to usurp the name of El Shaddai, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

If we back up a chapter in Matthew and Mark, there is another incident that foreshadowed what happened on Mount Hermon. At the base of the mountain, outside the city of Caesarea Philippi, is a place called Paneas (today called Banias). It’s a cave and a spring that’s been sacred to the Greek god Pan since the time of Alexander the Great.

Pan was the god of wild, desolate places, shepherds and flocks, music, fields, groves, and wooded glens. Pan was also linked to fertility, which influenced much of the art depicting the god in the classical world. He was often shown pursuing or engaged in physical relations with goddesses, nymphs, women, teen boys called eromenoi, and/or goats. (Some of those ancient vases and frescoes should have been rated R or NC-17.) As a rustic nature god, Pan normally wasn’t worshiped in temples. He preferred outdoor settings, especially those that were like his home in Arcadia, a mountainous region of southern Greece.

The Grotto of Pan at Paneas has been sacred since ancient times. A gushing spring once flowed from the cave, feeding the marshy area north of Lake Huleh that was the source of the Jordan River. An earthquake years ago shifted something under the mountain, and today the stream seeps quietly from the bedrock below the mouth of the cave.

After the Greeks came to the Levant, Pan gradually replaced an earlier local fertility cult. Scholars have suggested that Aliyan, a minor Canaanite god of fountains, may have been the deity worshiped at Paneas before the Greeks arrived. This might have been the god called Baal-Hermon, the Lord of Hermon, in Judges 3:3.

Christians in the centuries after Jesus equated Pan with Satan. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how Greek depictions of the goat-god influenced later artists, what with the horns, hooves, tail, and all. But those connections were mainly in the minds of imaginative medieval artists, since there is nothing definite in the Bible that describes the appearance of Satan other than a warning that he can appear as an angel of light.

However, there are some events in Israel’s past that suggest Pan was not at all a fun-loving nature spirit.

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Are you ready for Messiah Yeshua?

(Numbers 29:1) ‘Now in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall also have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. It will be to you a day for blowing horns יוֹם תְּרוּעָה.

God tells us to come together, blow horns and make some noise.

(Leviticus 23:23-25) Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of horns, a holy convocation. You shall not do any laborious work, but you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord.’”

Reminder of blowing of horns – זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה

(TLB) … it is a time of remembrance, and is to be announced by loud blowing of trumpets.

God calls us to blow horns and this is to announce something He wants us to remember. What is it that God wants us to remember?

(Rosh Hashanah Prayer) … May it (the shofar) direct our thoughts to [cause us to remember] the day when the Shofar will sound for the redemption of all mankind.

(Weekday Amidah) “Sound the great shofar for our freedom, raise the banner to gather our exiles and gather us together from the four corners of the earth.”

(Matthew 24:30-31) And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great shofar and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

(1 Thessalonians 4:16) For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the shofar of God. Shout – תְּרוּעָה

Yeshua will return with His angels to redeem people from Israel and every nation who belong to Him. There will be a teruah; a shout and blast of the great shofar. God calls us to meet yearly to blow the shofar and shout so that we’ll be very familiar with these sounds and recognize them instantly when Yeshua returns.

Are you ready for Messiah Yeshua’s return? Are the people in your congregation ready for His return? Invite Rabbi Ron to Speak at your congregation.

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Summoning the Rephaim

Let’s bring our timeline of history into focus: The Bible tells us that Abraham arrived in Canaan 430 years before the Exodus. With the Exodus at 1446 B.C., that puts Abraham in Canaan in 1876 B.C., just as the fog over the political situation in Mesopotamia lifted with Amorites in control.

So let’s review:

  • Amorite kingdom of Babylon founded — 1894 B.C.
  • Abraham arrives in Canaan — 1876 B.C.
  • Isaac born to Sarah — 1851 B.C.
  • Isaac marries Rebekah — 1811 B.C.
  • Hammurabi crowned king of Babylon at Eridu — 1792 B.C.
  • Jacob and Esau born — 1791 B.C.
  • Abraham dies — 1776 B.C.
  • Hyksos take over Lower Egypt — c. 1750 B.C.
  • Jacob arrives in Egypt — 1661 B.C.
  • Ahmose drives Hyksos out of Egypt — c. 1550 B.C.
  • Moses leads the Exodus — 1446 B.C.
  • Joshua leads the Conquest of Canaan — 1406 B.C.

 

Interesting, isn’t it, that the Amorite domination of Mesopotamia began just as God called Abraham and directed him to Canaan? And that Babylon reached the peak of its power with the ascension of Hammurabi the Great just about the time Jacob and Esau were born?

At the same time, a Semitic-speaking, Baal-worshiping state emerged to take control of northern Egypt just before the arrival of the house of Jacob. Wouldn’t it be, you know, coincidental if the Hyksos rulers of Lower Egypt were Amorites, too?

Well, yes, it would—if we believed in coincidences. And as it happens, scholars do, in fact, believe the Hyksos were Amorites.

The best-known of the Hyksos kings, Khyan, is attested from inscriptions found as far from Egypt as Cyprus and modern-day Baghdad (probably originally in Babylon). An Amorite king with the same name, spelled Hayanu, is listed in a genealogy as a distant ancestor of Šamši-Adad and the royal house of the old Assyrian kingdom.

Scholars have also noticed strong similarities in the burial practices of the Hyksos and various Amorite kingdoms, especially the practice of sacrificing donkeys for burial with important people and under the doorways of new buildings.

So yes, it’s strangely coincidental, if you’re a believer in coincidence theories. Otherwise, it seems an unseen hand or hands moved the Amorites into position in Egypt and Canaan just before the Israelites arrived—almost as if they’d been placed there to wait for God’s chosen people.

It’s also noteworthy that while the Anakim were confirmed in Canaan by extrabiblical sources from Egypt, the Anakim haven’t been found anywhere else in the ancient Near East.

But you know by now we’re not coincidence theorists. Let’s pull these historical threads a little harder. Why did God link the timing of Israel’s return to the iniquity of the Amorites?

We’ve established that the Amorites founded Babylon. This is documented mainstream history, unquestioned by secular scholars. The Amorites are also linked by historic records to a tribe called the Tidnum/Tidanum which seemed to have a strong military reputation, troublesome enough that the last Sumerian kings of Mesopotamia built a very long wall in a futile attempt to keep them away. That is also solidly documented mainstream history.

The Bible links the Amorites to the Anakim (Deut. 2:10-25). The Transjordan campaign was aimed at two Amorite kings, Sihon and Og, who were both remembered as giants. Remember that the Amorite king Og was called the last of the Rephaim (Deuteronomy 3:11). Texts found throughout Mesopotamia identify the Tidnum/Tidanum as a tribe of the Amorites. In Ugarit, the spelling is usually Ditanu or Didanu. And those texts are usually in the context of venerated dead ancestors, especially the honored royal dead.

The city-state of Ugarit, usually described as Canaanite by Bible teachers, was more accurately an Amorite kingdom. The tablets found by archaeologists there have provided a wealth of knowledge about ancient Hebrew and the history of the period around the time of the Exodus. And some of the connections between secular history, the Bible, and the supernatural realm are absolutely fascinating.

For example, a funerary text identified as KTU 1.161, or RS 34.126 (designations that identify the tablet in question), plainly connects the Amorite tribe of Didanu (Ditanu/Tidnum/Tidanum) with the biblical Rephaim—in a ritual to summon them from the dead!

“Sacrifice of the Shades” liturgy:

You are summoned, O Rephaim of the earth,
You are invoked, O council of the Didanu!
Ulkn, the Raphi’, is summoned,
Trmn, the Raphi’, is summoned,
Sdn-w-rdn is summoned,
Ṯr ‘llmn is summoned,
the Rephaim of old are summoned!
You are summoned, O Rephaim of the earth,
You are invoked, O council of the Didanu!1

(Emphasis added)

Yeah, I know! What?!

Scholars who look at this text from a secular perspective tend to view it as an academic curiosity, a window into the psychology of people who lived 3,500 years ago. But as Christians, filtering this through the lens of truth, we get a whole different picture.

In this ritual, the Rephaim, a group that included the “council of the Didanu,” were invoked to accompany the recently deceased king of Ugarit, Niqmaddu III, to the underworld. They were also there to bless the new king, Ammurapi III, who—although he probably didn’t know it—was the last king of Ugarit. His kingdom was about to be overrun by the so-called Sea Peoples sometime around 1200 B.C.

The Rephaim and the council of the Didanu were apparently summoned to impart to the king the power to overcome death, and to make the living king one of the rpum—the Rephaim. Assuming this ritual wasn’t an invention for Ammurapi, and evidence from Babylon suggests it wasn’t, it appears that the coronation rites of the Amorite kings of Ugarit (and maybe other Amorite kingdoms) summoned the king’s dead ancestors, who they identified as the Rephaim.

Imagine a ritual like that in front of the White House on Inauguration Day!

Now, buckle up, because we’re going to work through some challenging stuff in the rest of this. Most of what follows comes from a paper published in 1999 by scholar Amar Annus of the University of Tartu, Estonia,2 whose research into the Mesopotamian origins for some of the weirder themes in the Old Testament, like the Watchers and their sin, is truly groundbreaking.

For starters, Annus concluded that the West Semitic root for the word Rephaim, mrp’, appears to be the origin of the Greek word merops. The word can have a similar meaning in both languages, “healer” or “healing.”

Kos, an island in the southeast Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey, was formerly called Meropis, after one Merops, the mythical first king of the island. Merops was thought to be an autochthon, an original inhabitant of the land, one who sprang from the rocks and trees as opposed to a foreigner who settled in it. His people, then, were the Meropes. The key point is that Merops, Meropis, and the Meropes all derive from the Semitic root mrp’.

We also find that root as the basis of the phrase meropes anthropoi. That phrase was used by the Greek poet Hesiod in his famous poem Works and Days to describe the men who lived in a long-ago Golden Age.

First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the blessed gods.

Hesiod, Works and Days

Who were those meropes anthropoi, and what’s the connection to the Rephaim of the Bible? We’ll pick up there next month.

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1 Suriano, Matthew J. “Dynasty Building at Ugarit: The Ritual and Political Context of KTU 1.161,” Aula Orientalis 27 (2009), p. 107.

2 Annus, Amar. “Are There Greek Rephaim? On the Etymology of Greek Meropes and Titanes,” Ugarit-Forschungen 31 (1999), pp. 13-30.

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Mark of the Beast Part II

Continued…..

this mark may very well be the ultimate human enhancement because it will give someone new found strength, abilities and youth

The Last Divided Kingdom of Daniel and the Beast of Revelations Connection

Last Kingdom Revelations Daniel 2
Saved Unmarked Non-mingled seed
Unsaved Marked Mingled Seed

 

Once genetic modification begins to happen, it only takes 3-4 generations before God’s creations would no longer exist through intermarriage or war. However, it could happen much faster if the mark of the beast was some kind of advanced hybrid RFID bio-chip that carried the power to rewrite human DNA. All of these recent developments may very well be why Jesus says, “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.”  What Jesus is saying here is that if He does not come back when He does, then His people would soon perish from off the earth? Trans-humanism and genetic tampering certainly meet the criteria for creating this kind of scenario. Furthermore, with both the genetic and electronic parts of the mark of the beast fully operational, the clock is now ticking. This is also why I believe that we must be living in the end times and that Jesus is coming back very soon. Understanding that the mark of the beast may very well be a genetic marker that bears the name and resemblance of it’s designer helps us understand Satan’s ultimate plan to remake God’s creation into His own.  Trans-humanism represents Satan’s plan of salvation for humanity. Just as God created us in His image, so too the mark of the beast will change us into a fallen image of a fallen angel. The problem is that on human terms this mark may very well be the ultimate human enhancement because it will give someone new found strength, abilities and youth. The question is, will you still be human? Will you bear any resemblance to what God created and can you be saved? Unfortunately, I believe the answer is no!

The idea that we are created in God’s image means that we resonate with many of His Holy qualities.  Our conscience comes from this resemblance to our creator and that is why some things just feel right and are universally considered wrong.  In the same way, wolves, quail and whales have a very different morality and patterns of relating versus humans. However, if we were no longer made in God’s image because our DNA was tampered with, then we would no longer have a Godly conscience for the same reason.  This is a big problem because the Bible says that we are unredeemable if we have a reprobate mind or a seared conscience. (Rom 1:28) This was the same kind of mindset that was happening during the Days of Noah because the Bible says that “every intention of the heart of man was only evil continually.”  (Genesis 6:5) Redesigning our DNA would also redesign our minds permanently because DNA is both the language and assembly line of what will be created in reality. A seared conscience is not the only other unredeemable or unforgivable sin however.  The other one is blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which is found in Matthew 12:32 & Mark 3:29. “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks or blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” I believe there is a connection between a seared conscience, blaspheming the Holy Spirit and Trans-humanism.  How can this be? Because rewriting our DNA would literally change every dimension and feature of our body including our mind and our conscience. Let’s listen to see how God feels about that.

  • 1 Corinthians 3:16 & 17 – Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Our bodies are Holy because the Holy Spirit is Holy! Understanding that God will not stand for any kind of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit or destruction of His temple helps us understand why this also applies to our bodies because we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Changing what God created and called good is an act of war because we are His temple, His house and His children. God doesn’t want us to look like anybody else because He has already contractually redeemed us by virtue of being the children of Adam & Eve. By faith, it is only a matter of time before we receive our new bodies, but certainly one temptation that Satan could offer humanity is a new body now. Just give up your ancestral link to both Adam & Jesus.  Still, if we believe that God created us and that we are His temple, how could anyone think that changing our DNA would not qualify as corrupting God’s temple or blaspheming His Holy Spirit? In fact, the same promise of destruction applies to those who destroy God’s temple as to those who take the mark of the beast. Is that a coincidence? Once we know that a Holy God wrote our DNA as a literal blue print for His temple that He would literally inhabit, then we have to ask one more question. “How can a Holy God inhabit an un-holy temple?” This is why taking a mark that would re-write our DNA to be more like Satan and less like God would surely qualify as a special sin, and deserving of God’s wrath.

Understanding the heart of God and knowing that He is not willing that any should perish, means that people perish against God’s will because there are other issues at play. Chiefly, His Holiness as the rightful judge of the seen and unseen world.  Just as we were legally redeemed in the court of heaven by the rights of creation and through a Father’s rights to His children, so too if it could be proven that God was not our Father, then even a loving God must through His righteous declare our verdict of conviction. Isn’t it interesting that if an earthly father was fighting for his rights to his child that the issue of DNA would come up? They would test the DNA of both the father and the child and if there are no commonalities, then the father’s rights could be terminated.  Moreover, some would say that the purpose of the book of Ruth in the Bible was to give us yet another picture of exactly how God can legally redeems us. In the book, Ruth, who was a Moabitis, married an Israelite, but unfortunately he died shortly thereafter. Instead of remaining in Moab, she decided to stay with her mother in-law and return back to Israel.

Once she was there she obtained favor of Boaz, who happened to be able to marry her because he was her next of kin.  This is why Jesus is often referred to as our “Kinsman Redeemer” because He too was a son of Adam with ancestral links to all of humanity.  In fact, based on this idea, the most boring and yet important book of the Bible may very well be the book of numbers because it lists the genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam.  This proves that Jesus was our Kinsman and that He can legally redeem all of Adam’s descendants. We may very well be in a fallen state, but there is enough of a familial match for us to be counted a relative of both Adam & Jesus. This means that Jesus is the only one who is qualified to redeem us. He was the unblemished Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. Now most people would certainly say that Jesus did not die for cows, pigs and chickens, but what if taking the mark of the beast changed your DNA so that you no longer shared any familial DNA to Jesus of Adam?  This is why tampering with our DNA would be the ultimate blasphemy. It would pervert the image of God, contaminate the words of God, desecrate the temple of the Holy Spirit and remove all familial connection to Jesus, all in one fell swoop. If the mark of the beast rewrites our DNA according to the specs provided by Satan, then it could possibly turn us into the temple of Satan and remakes us into his image. If the mark of the beast is a genetic marker like what is being promoted through the religion of Trans-humanism, then this would completely explain why someone couldn’t be saved after taking this mark. There would be no way to cut it out, take it off or ever turn back once a decision like this has been made.  

It is impossible to debate that if the Bible is true, then God wrote and designed all of the information that is found in our DNA. Moreover, God blessed it and gave it His seal of approval by calling it good.  If someone else writes our DNA, then how could it be called good unless they were God? This is why Trans-humanism is blasphemy. Another way of looking at this is, whoever writes your DNA is your God because they are your creator.  Whoever writes the DNA is the author and they determine the image that will be created. The problem is that the one and only true God would no longer be our Creator or Father. If Jesus was a descendant of Adam, and we change our DNA, then we are no longer His Kinsman. We are no longer related to Jesus because we have become a whole new species.  This is why God arranged it so that everything in His creation would only reproduce after it’s kind, because He was completely against anyone else creating any other kind of life. In fact, most people are unaware that God specifically forbids the mixing of species in Leviticus 19:19, which says, “Do not mate different kinds of animals.” This alone is a justification as to why Tran-humanism is wrong, and why carrying a genetic marker of the beast would be an unforgivable sin.

What must not be forgotten is what the promise of Tran-humanism brings to the table. Trans-humanists routinely talk about how redesigning humanity is the next step of evolution.  More importantly, they make fun of the idea that there is a loving and creative God because, in their opinion, they can make better humans than He can. Trans-humanism was Satan’s’ crowning achievement in the Days of Noah and it will be once again as he comes good on his plan of salvation for mankind.  This is the same promise that Satan said to Eve if she ate of the fruit, “you will become like God’s.” Certainly, it is true that many people in our fallen state might consider some of Satan’s changes to be a drastic upgrade from what we currently have. The problem is that this taking this mark destroys God’s image, His temple and makes us unredeemable.  Not only that, but the promises of Tran-humanism are nothing compared to the new bodies that the Lord has promised to all those who follow Him. However, let’s not kid ourselves, it will take faith to turn down this mark because of some of the amazing promises of Trans-humanism. Moreover, it will take faith to say no when our lives are on the line. Initially, there may be many of the general population who are lining up to take the mark of the beast? People will see it as their salvation because they will be bigger, better, stronger, faster and live 10 times longer. Only simpletons, religious fanatics and ignorant people would ignore such an amazing discovery of science. This is just another example of how science has replaced God and how we are evolving into gods.

The world is already obsessed with being superior or extraordinary. These days, every movie or cartoon is about humans that excel to the point of superhuman abilities or wielder of magic.  It is clear that the desire to be more than human is in all of us. Even Paul groaned in the flesh in expectation of the new body that we will receive at the resurrection from the dead. (Romans 8:23) Why would we think that the offer of a new body with new abilities wouldn’t be just as tempting as the fruit that Satan offered to Eve in the Garden of Eden or a bowl of pottage that Jacob offered Esau to give up his birthright?  The problem is that we would loose our God given humanity. Tom Horn mentions that when they put quail DNA in chickens, the end result is that the chickens move their heads like quail and sound like quail. Complex memories and patterns of behavior are stored in our DNA. If we change it, then we will change everything that it means to be human including our mind, our will, our emotions, our hopes, our dreams, our desires and our faith. We will have defiled the temple of the Holy Spirit and blasphemed the one who made us. So you are probably saying we have years before this is happening, at least in the USA.  Well think again because a Wisconsin company has become first US Company to microchip employees and they are throwing a big party to celebrate! For myself, there can be nothing more insulting to be branded like a cow with a piece of the company literally inside me. It is time for the church to speak out about a 1900 year old prophecy that speaks against such technology. We can wait no longer because the Millennials have never even heard about this life changing decision that is right in front of our faces! As Jesus said in Luke 21, “when we see these things happening, then we need to stand” up to the world and everyone around us by saying “we will not take this mark.” I also believe that we have come to the point in history where sharing the warning not to take the mark of the beast may be just as important as sharing the gospel! Like many other things, prophecy is like an alarm clock because it is supposed to alert us to what time it is on God’s prophetic clock.  We can’t be worried about earthly things when we could be leaving this earth any day now. Now is the time we need to be looking for the return of Jesus! Now is the time to share both the gospel and the warning not to take the mark of the beast with all those who might be left behind. Now is the time to be about our fathers business!”

http://fox8.com/2017/07/24/wisconsin-company-to-become-first-us-company-to-microchip-employees/

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Dead Kings and Rephaim

The ancient Amorite tribe called the Tidanum was not only honored by their descendants, it was venerated. Based on texts found across the ancient Near East, the Tidanum were the ancestors of the ruling houses of the old Assyrian kingdom of Šamši-Adad, the old Babylonian empire of Hammurabi the Great, and the kings who ruled Ugarit down to about 1200 B.C. Two of the kings in the line of Hammurabi include a variant of the tribal name as the theophoric element (Ammi-ditana and Samsu-ditana), indicating that the Tidanum, if not gods, were at least considered god-like by their descendants.

The name Tidanum and its variants—Tidinu, Titinu, Tidnim, Didanum, Ditanu, Datnim, Datnam—had a strong military connotation in ancient Mesopotamia. A text from Ebla refers to an official named Tidinu, chief of the mercenaries in the court of Ibrium, the powerful vizier of king Irkab-damu in the 24th century B.C. It appears that some Amorites served Sumerian kings during the late 3rd millennium B.C. as soldiers, and they might even have been part of the royal bodyguard in Ur for kings Shulgi and Šu-shin.

But the Tidanum were also depicted as enemies of Sumer alongside Anshan (northwest Iran) by Shulgi, who ruled Ur for nearly half a century sometime around 2100 B.C. His son, Šu-sin, marked one of the years of his reign as the year in which he defeated a coalition of rebellious Tidnum and Ya’madium, another Amorite tribe that lived in eastern Mesopotamia.

And when Ur finally fell around 2004 B.C., the “Tidnumites” were one of the groups blamed in a Lamentation Over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur:

In Ur, no one took charge of food, no one took charge of water,
Who was (formerly) in charge of food, stood away from the food, pays no heed to it,
Who was (formerly) in charge of water, stood away from the water, pays no heed to it,
Below, the Elamites are in charge, slaughter follows in their wake,
Above, the Halma-people, the “men of the mountains,” took captives,
The Tidnumites daily fastened the mace to their loins…1

So what’s the significance of the Tidnum/Tidanu? We’ll get to that shortly.

After the fall of Ur, things changed quickly. Scholars still debate whether the change was by conquest or gradual assimilation, but within a hundred years or so Amorites had taken control of every major political entity from Canaan to southern Mesopotamia.

A hundred years after that, by the early 18th century B.C., an Amorite city-state that had been a small settlement on the Euphrates since about 2300 B.C. began an incredible rise to become the dominant power in Mesopotamia—Babylon. It became so influential that people from the time of Isaac and Jacob until the present day have called the region Babylonia instead of Sumer.

Take a moment and think back to Genesis 15:16: “The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

Now realize that Babylon, a byword for sin, depravity, and occult wickedness throughout the Bible, even in prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled, was founded by the Amorites.

There is no ethnicity called “Babylonian.” That’s like me claiming to be ethnically Chicagoan (Chicagoite?) because I was born there. Babylon was just the name of a small village led by an ambitious Amorite chief named Sumu-Abum. He and his next few successors didn’t even bother calling themselves “king of Babylon,” an indication of how unimportant it was at first. It was more than a hundred years before Hammurabi, the greatest Amorite king in history, made Babylon a regional power.

As with all cities in Mesopotamia, the village of Babylon had a patron god. Marduk was a second-rate member of the pantheon until the Amorites elevated Babylon to prominence during the 18th century B.C. By the second half of the 2nd millennium B.C., Marduk had assumed the top position in the Mesopotamian pantheon, replacing Enlil as king of the gods.

Marduk’s early character is obscure. As Babylon grew in importance, the god assumed traits of other members of the pantheon, especially Enlil and Ea (the Akkadian name for Enki). Marduk was considered the god of water, vegetation, judgment, and magic. He was the son of Ea and the goddess Damkina, and his own consort was Sarpanit, a mother goddess sometimes associated with the planet Venus, and not surprisingly, the goddess Ishtar/Inanna.

By the time of the Exodus, Babylon had been the dominant power in Mesopotamia for nearly three hundred years. It proudly carried on the tradition of arcane pre-flood knowledge brought to mankind by the apkallu, who, as fish-men from the abzu, were presumably able to survive the flood, or by Gilgamesh, who is mentioned on a cylinder seal as “master of the apkallu.”

Of course, the Hebrews under Moses knew that the knowledge of the apkallu/Watchers was forbidden, secrets that humans weren’t meant to know. It was as much the reason for the imprisonment of the Watchers as their sexual sin of mating with human women. And this knowledge was proudly celebrated by the Amorite kings and priests of Babylon.

Bringing this back around to the conquest of Canaan: That’s why the kingdoms of Sihon of Heshbon and Og of Bashan were charam, a Hebrew word usually translated in the Old Testament “devoted to destruction.” It was applied to people and things that were spiritually irredeemable. And that’s why Moses went out of his way to show his readers the connection between the Amorites of Babylon and the Amorites of the Promised Land.

How did he do that? Have you ever wondered why Moses bothered to include this little detail in his account of the victory over Og?

For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.

Deuteronomy 3:8-11 (ESV), emphasis added

Nine cubits by four cubits is thirteen-and-a-half feet by six feet! So Og was a giant, right? Well… No, not necessarily.

Yes, the Rephaim were linked to the Anakim, the descendants of the Nephilim, and tradition holds that Og was a really big dude. But that wasn’t the point here. Moses was writing to an audience that was familiar with the infamous occult practices of Babylon.

Every year at the first new moon after the spring equinox, Babylon held a new year festival called the akitu. It was a twelve-day celebration of the cycle of regeneration, the beginning of a new planting season, and it included a commemoration of Marduk’s victory over Tiamat. The entire celebration, from Yahweh’s perspective, was a long ritual for “new gods that had come recently” involving all manner of licentious behavior.

The highlight of the festival was the Divine Union or Sacred Marriage, where Marduk and his consort, Sarpanit, retired to the cult bed inside the Etemenanki, the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth, the great ziggurat of Babylon. Although scholars still debate whether the Sacred Marriage was actually performed by the king and a priestess, it didn’t matter to Yahweh. The idea that a bountiful harvest in the coming year depended on celebrating Marduk’s sacred roll in the sack was abhorrent.

Now, here’s the key point: Guess how big Marduk’s bed was?

“…nine cubits [its long] side, four cubits [its] front, the bed; the throne in front of the bed”.2

Nine cubits by four cubits. Precisely the same dimensions as the bed of Og. That is why Moses included that curious detail! It wasn’t a reference to Og’s height; Moses was making sure his readers understood that the Amorite king Og, like the Amorite kings of Babylon, was carrying on pre-flood occult traditions brought to earth by the Watchers.

And that’s why Og and his Amorite ally Sihon were charam. The term is used multiple times in the Old Testament, especially about the Amorites and their allies in the Book of Joshua. It was, and still is today, a spiritual battle.

But that’s not all. Oh, no—there’s a lot more we can add to the legacy of the Amorites. Let’s go back to our discussion of that fearsome tribe, the Tidanu.

A scholar named Amar Annus made a startling connection in 1999 that has gone mainly unnoticed, especially by Bible scholars. Several Amorite royal houses, including those of the old Babylonian kingdom, the old Assyrian kingdom, and the kings of Ugarit, traced their ancestry from Dedan, whose descendants were called the Didanu, Tidanum, and variations thereof.

According to Annus, that’s the name from which the Greeks derived the one they gave to their old gods: Titanes—the Titans.3

Did Amorite royalty really believe they descended from the Titans, the old gods who had been banished to Tartarus, a special level of the underworld reserved for supernatural threats to the divine order? Yes, it looks that way.

Given the established links between the Amorites/Canaanites, the Rephaim/Nephilim, the Titans/Watchers, and the forbidden pre-flood knowledge brought back into the world by the Amorite kingdom of Babylon, this speculation isn’t exactly coming out of thin air.

 

1 Pritchard, James B., editor. 1958. The Ancient Near East: Volume I, An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, p. 616. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

2 Veijola, Timo. “King Og’s Iron Bed (Deut 3:11): Once Again,” Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, and the Septuagint (ed. Peter W. Flint et al.; VTSup 101; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003) p. 63.

3 Annus, Amar. “Are There Greek Rephaim? On the Etymology of Greek Meropes and Titanes,” Ugarit-Forschungen 31 (1999), pp. 13-30.

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Balloons and Kites

Balloons and kites usually stir up pleasant memories for many people. But this is not true for people living in Israel right now. Some Palestinians have been launching fire kites and balloons into Israel during the past 12 weeks. More than 430 fires have erupted, and 2,000 acres of wood and farmland have been damaged by the flames. The fires have also ruined produce worth millions of shekels.

Why hasn’t the UN put together a resolution against these acts of terrorism? Why haven’t any world leaders responded to this tragedy? As usual, the leadership in Israel is being challenged with how to respond.

If this happened here in America, our government would have acted immediately to apprehend the people launching fire kites and balloons, but Israel is always criticized when they do what every other government (rightfully) does.

Over and over again, Hamas incites and encourages acts of terrorism. Israel must protect their citizens and do whatever is necessary for people to live in peace. Things stay calm for a while, then acts of terrorism and war returns to the land of Israel. This cycle repeats itself over and over again. How long will this last? The Bible informs us that in the End Times nations will unite to attack Jerusalem. No one wants this to happen, but since it is written in the Bible it is unavoidable; we can be certain that it will happen.

As horrible as this will be, we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) What good will come out of this?

The Bible teaches that when the nations unite to attack Jerusalem, Messiah Jesus will return to defend the Jewish people, and defeat their enemies. Jesus will then rule as King over all the earth and bring the world peace most people have hungered and hoped for so many years.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and every city on earth. And pray for the return of King Jesus so that He can bring world peace.

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The Mark of the Beast “Part 1”

The Bible with respect to the “mark of the beast” is chilling…

If you haven’t read our first three articles, I recommend going back and reading them in order to fully understand the chain of events.  The paradigm or cipher that we are using for this entire series is the one that Jesus gave us in Luke 21. “When you see these things happen, then stand up, and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near.” This simple scripture lets us know that there will be a time in human history when our newspapers and our Bibles will converge.  I believe that we can make a case that prophecy is happening like never before. In fact, the accuracy of the Bible with respect to the “mark of the beast” is chilling. In our last two articles, we covered what happened in the “Days of Noah,” and how this same genetic tampering is happening again. Here is a quick summary of some other Biblical prophecies that are also happening right now.

  • Jerusalem is no longer tread down by the Gentiles.  Luke 21
  • Jerusalem has become a “burdensome stone” for the whole world.  Zechariah 12:3
  • Persecution of Christians is at unprecedented levels in modern times and they are being beheaded just as Revelations describes. Revelations 20:4
  • There is a dramatic increase in pagan and occulted activity just like Jannes and Jambres. 2 Timothy 3:1-9.
  • There are more false Christ’s, false religions, false gospels and false prophets than ever before. Matt 7:15, Matt 24:24, Ezekiel 13:9, Jeremiah 23:16, Luke 6:26, Matthew 16:11-12, 2 Timothy 4:3-4, Acts 20:28-30, 2 Peter 3:14-18, 2 Peter 1:12-21, Titus 1:6-16, 2 Peter 2 & Matthew 23:1-29
  • There is a great falling away happening in the church.  Specifically the church has become politically correct rather than Biblically correct. Furthermore, the ecumenical movement is springing up promoting false gospels and many different ways of salvation.
  • The Days of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah are once again in full swing. Like 17:28
  • The most controversial passage in the Bible, which is in Genesis 6, is happening again through modern technology known as Tran-humanism.  Human DNA is being tampered with and this will result in a new species of mankind that will have the super-human abilities similar to the Nephilim that are described in the Bible. The information that God wrote down in our DNA is being changed. The new humans will have a different image than what God originally created.  Their obvious superiority will create the “war of the seeds” prophesied in Genesis 3 and is later to be fulfilled in the final “divided kingdom” found in the 2nd chapter of Daniel between those with regular seed and those with “mingled seed.” Once the modern Nephilim begin to intermingle their seed, the DNA of all humanity will become corrupt within 3-4 generations and God’s creation will be utterly destroyed.  

The Mark Of The Beast Is The Game Changer

  • Revelation 13:16-18 – And he (one of the Beasts) causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

In order to give a brief overview of what we know about the mark of the beast, we will cover the few scriptures that actually talk about it.  Frankly, the mark of the beast is one of the most interesting points of Bible prophecy because it is so specific. I have always been intrigued by the whole idea, but I have also realized that I might actually live in a time where this actually happens. In the same way that Israel becoming a nation in 1948 changed my dad’s life by making him realize that the return of Christ was near, so too the mark of the beast has had a similar affect on my own life.  To think that a 1900-year-old prophecy about sophisticated technology could actually come true is nothing short of astonishing! There is no way that the apostles and prophets could have known this without real supernatural power. How could they have known that one day a simple mark could identify someone and provide all the details of their life? How could this mark verify how much money someone had? The mark of the beast is a perfect example of how and why prophecy is so powerful.  Prophecy is the calling card of God and it proves that He is the real author of human history. Most people do not know that Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was the Messiah. So why are there are almost 8 times as much said about the 2nd coming of Jesus?  Because the deception is going to be just that good, so we need to continue to share the warning of what is to come.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, the mark of the beast is already here, at least in some form or another.  In fact, hardly a day goes by where we don’t buy something with a similar mark. Of course I am talking about a bar code. A bar codes is actually two sets of numbers that are divided by small sets of double lines.  Each number in a bar code is represented by a different set of lines that run up and down in a vertical direction. The first set of lines tell the machine to start reading the first set of numbers. The second set of lines tell the machine to move on to a second set of numbers, while the final two lines tell the machine to stop reading altogether. The first five numbers of the sequence identifies the manufacturer and the second set of numbers tells us what product they are selling. If we look at the second set of numbers in the bar code, I want you to notice the type of lines that are above the number 6. These are the same marks, just slightly shorter, as the ones that appear in the beginning, middle and end of the bar code.  This means all bar codes currently being used are based on the numbers 666. Because of the almost universal use of bar codes, this also means that the global system that will one day become the beast is also already here in some form.  

 

 

 

There is another part of the above passage that is quite noteworthy because it says, “and he (one of the Beasts) causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead.” So we must consider all of the possible causes that Satan might use to deceive and manipulate people into taking this mark.  Most people believe that the “cause” talked about here is lethal force and that certainly may be true. However, I want us to entertain another possibility as well, because I believe that it may be entirely probable that whatever this mark does or represents will be so popular and desirable that people will be lining up to get it.

  • Revelation 14:9-11 – And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”

This verse reveals just what a game changer the mark of the beast really is.  The reason that the mark of the beast is a game changer during the “end times” is because the power of the gospel to save people is useless if they have already taken the mark of the beast.  In other words, once someone takes this mark they can’t be saved. “Why,” is a question that I have struggled with for years because it seems like such a simple thing. How can a random mark keep us from being saved?  After all, just look at how prevalent tattoos have become. Not to many people are suggesting that someone with tattoos can’t be saved. If murderers, adulterers and thieves can be saved, then why does a simple mark change either God’s ability or mind with respect to forgiving someone’s sin? Of course, many of us know that there are other “unforgivable sins” in the Bible and so we will briefly discuss them.  The question is, is there a correlation between the mark of the beast and some of the other unforgivable sins? I believe this study will answer these questions and reveal their connection to an astonishing development in technology, but before we do that, here are some other verses about the mark of the beast.

  • Revelation 20:4 – Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
  • Revelation 19:20 – But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur

As we can see, the Bible clearly and repeatedly says that if we take the mark of the beast, then we cannot be saved. It even goes on to talk about how many people are killed because they didn’t take the mark. In fact, the persecuted Saints are rewarded for their sacrifice by reigning with Christ for 1000 years.  What this also means is that the power of the gospel to change lives and save souls in the end times has ended unless they have refused this mark. In effect, the church may soon be facing a complete change in what it is preaching because convincing someone not to take the mark of the beast may very well be the equivalent of salvation. Unless the church is able to convince people not to take this mark, they will have no chance to ever be saved. Of course, this does fly in the face of how some churches teach the doctrine of “Eternal Security.”  While I do not want to get into that debate, I do believe that when it comes to the mark of the beast, a true believer will not take the mark. For myself, although I believe that God is faithful even when we are not and that God knows who are His, I also believe that the ones who will be saved are the one’s who will reject this mark. (2 Timothy 2: 13 & 19) It is as simple as that. No matter what side you are on with the idea that “once saved, always saved,” most of us will at least concede that come judgment day, there will be a lot of people who have deceived themselves into thinking they were saved when they were not. This is what we do not want to happen. So all believers must be willing to examine themselves to see if they are in the faith and teach others to do the same. (2 Corinthians 13:5) This also means that if we examine the scriptures and ourselves we can be “confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” In this case, the word of God has been trying to prepare us for this moment for 1900 years. So when it comes to a direct commandment regarding salvation, I believe we cannot afford to be wrong. We must warn people not to take this mark! Especially when we are facing a direct imperative from God’s Holy Word.  Yet, the idea that we can take this mark and still be saved is gaining momentum even among conservative Christians such as John MacArthur. While I can honestly say that I have enjoyed many of his sermons, this is one area where I am in complete disagreement with Him.

When it comes to the technology that is required for the mark of the beast, the RFID chip more than meets the requirements. If you are not familiar with an RFID chip, here is how Wikipedia defines it.  “Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. The tags contain electronically stored information. Passive tags collect energy from a nearby RFID reader’s interrogating radio waves. Active tags have a local power source (such as a battery) and may operate hundreds of meters from the RFID reader. Unlike a barcode, the tag need not be within the line of sight of the reader, so it may be embedded in the tracked object. RFID is one method for Automatic Identification and Data Capture.”  This is the most obvious choice of the technologies that would allow a one-world government to accomplish their goals of total control with the mark of the beast.  We will cover other technologies when we get to what has been called “Beast Technology.” In fact, Terry James has written a whole book about it. The sad truth is that the United States government is developing most of these hidden technologies.  Consider this quote by Paul Hellyer, who is the Former Canadian Defense Minister. “It is ironic that the U.S. would begin a devastating war, allegedly in search of weapons of mass destruction when the most worrisome developments in this field are occurring in your own backyard.  It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects which both congress and the commander in chief know nothing about.” The amazing thing is that the NSA, DARPA and even Google are all providing different parts of what is becoming a puzzle with a clear picture of what is to come.  The above quote comes from an article written in 2014 about how a DARPA / Google executive brags about being implanted with a chip or as she calls it, a “wearable” or an electronic tattoo.

Many companies around the world are requiring this mark in order for someone to work in their company.  This invasion of privacy is all being done in the name of heightened security and the inconvenient and tedious task of authenticating oneself.  Unfortunately, terrorism is now being importing around the world so that the ensuing chaos can justify the extreme means that a chip inherently demands.  This is all part of the oldest strategy in the book, which is often called the Hegelian Dialectic. Whatever your goal is, create a problem where what you want to do would actually be the most natural and logical solution to the problem that you have created. Given the scenario that seems to be developing, I believe that one of the most important things that we as the church could do is to share about how a one world government is coming to assimilate us all and forcing us to take this mark.  Talking about how and why we must not take this mark could literally save someone’s soul? If we really knew what the mark of the beast was and we were out in front of it and warning people ahead of time, then it could very well be possible to save millions of souls. While they might think we are crazy at first, once the rapture or some of the other end times scenarios happen in front of their eyes, they just might wake up to the fact that the God of the Bible knows the future. Whether Christians are still here or not, the lost have no hope unless we tell them about what is coming.

If the “end times” really is the ultimate peer pressure situation, then one has to wonder exactly how are people going to survive it.  Yet we know that a great innumerable multitude from every nation will be saved in the tribulation, which also happens to be a lot more than even the Jews. (See Revelations 7:9-17) I believe that this is because of the warning that is given through prophecy about what will happen during these last days.  Speaking of peer pressure, I love to tell the story that James Dobson tells about how to get your children to survive peer pressure situations. The illustration is all about how your child is going to get into a car one day and they are going to be offered a cigarette. These days it is not a matter of if, but only when.  This is when Dr. Dobson makes some startling remarks. He says that if your child is offered a cigarette in a peer pressure situation, then your child will take that cigarette unless two things have already happened. 1) He has been told that he will one day be offered a cigarette. 2) He has already decided ahead of time what he will do when that happens. Why am I bringing this up?  Answer: because unless we tell the world about the mark of the beast, they have virtually no chance of getting saved.

Now let’s reverse this story.  What if a trusted spiritual adviser or pastor told someone that that they could still be saved after they take the mark of the beast?  What if they were told that they would never see any tribulation or be forced to make a lethal decision in order to avoid this mark? How do you think that would make them feel if they found out the hard way that their leader was wrong?  We know that when someone’s personal expectations are not met, they usually become depressed, disillusioned and defect to the other side. After all, if their spiritual leaders were wrong about that, then why aren’t they wrong about everything?  This is how lies produce a whole lot of horrible life changing decisions, and this is why Satan is the father of lies. Very few Christians debate about whether Jesus will return and take us to be with Him, but many groups argue about the timing of that event. The main thing is that it will happen and that we should be prepared for the worst. Even though I favor somewhere between a Pre-tribulation or Pre-wrath rapture, I am not willing to tell someone that they will never face some kind of tribulation or be put to death over not complying with the Mark Of the Beast. After all, this is actually happening every day.  Besides, the destruction of America could very well happen before the rapture no matter what we think our departure date is. If Jesus didn’t know the day, or the hour, then how can we get so incredibly opinionated about these events as if we are 100% sure?

The point that I am trying to make is that the Bible is doing exactly what Dr. Dobson says is necessary to survive the ultimate peer pressure situation.  The Bible is telling us that one day we could see great tribulation. The Bible is saying that one day we could be forced to make a choice whether to take this mark of the beast or face being beheaded.  The Bible is warning us that we need to stand firm and realize that we cannot be saved if we take this mark. So while the rapture is in fact our “great hope,” the timing of the event can also prove to be a stumbling block if taught improperly. The general apathy about the fact that the mark of the beast is actually here seems rooted in our 100% certainty that the rapture will happen before we are ever put in a situation where we have to say no to the mark of the beast.  Sadly, nearly every prophecy class I have taught has had someone basically ask, “Why do I need to know all of this if I’m not going to be here anyway.” The fact that something that is just like what is described as the mark of the beast is already and being implemented has not even caused any real alarm. The fact that it could be here has not made us question just how “pre” our “pre-tribulation” rapture theory really is. Even if the rapture does happen shortly, those who have been left behind have no chance of surviving unless some of us who will soon be gone get busy telling everyone around us to get ready because they just may be in such a situation.  Even now up to 42% of the people in the United States are willing to take this mark. This statistic represents the complete failure of the church to preach Bible prophecy. If the warning is never preached, then people will be at the complete mercy of the lies that are being told. This is why the “mark of the beast” is the ultimate game changer. When was the last time that you heard a sermon about the mark of the beast? If the church itself is unprepared, then what chance do you think the world has of saying no to something that the person next to them has just lost their heads for? The more we are silent and the more we continue to just let life go along without any warning, the more the next generation will be lost.  This is why the Bible says, “my people perish for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)

Another thing that I find amazing about how the Bible says that this goes down is that apparently, everyone has the right to say no to this mark.  Sure they can threaten us with death or with the death of those we love, but they can’t actually just force us to take the mark. Why? If I were an evil dictator, I wouldn’t care if someone didn’t want to do something because I would just make them do it.  In fact, I might get more joy out of forcing someone to do something that they didn’t want if I just killed them. Why does it have to be our choice? Isn’t it interesting that even the Anti-Christ and his kingdom have to live by the laws of God. In this war for the souls of mankind, the individual must be given a choice if they are to be won to one side or the other.  They can’t simply be held down and marked. They must do this of their own free will. This whole scenario is astonishing to me and we would do well to remember that the entire universe truly does run on the laws of heaven. So, to summarize what we have learned so far about the mark of the beast, here is what we know.

  1. The mark of the beast is associated with the number 666, which is just like a Bar Code.
  2. The Anti-Christ / Beast causes everyone to take it.  
  3. No one can buy or sell without it.  
  4. The mark is a form of identification and verifies how much money we have.  
  5. The mark is taken in the forehead or hand.
  6. One of the main consequences of not taking this mark seems to be beheading, which is currently part of Muslim traditions.
  7. The mark of the beast cannot just be forced upon us.

While this is surely a lot of information, the truth is there are many things we still do not know about this mark. Certainly, there have been many books that have talked about the mark of the beast, but I have always had one major question about what this mark really is.  How can taking a mark keep someone from getting saved. After all, the blood of the risen Lord is the most powerful thing in the universe. Remember, “God is not willing that any should perish,” so how does this still happen because of a mark? (2 Peter 3:9) Moreover, the Bible is full of stories about people that God loved and even used to accomplish so many great things, and yet they were horrible sinners.  David is a prime example because he was a man after God’s own heart, but he was also a murderer and an adulterer. Still, God used David. In fact, only under David’s reign did the children of Israel ever take over all of the land that they were promised in the Bible. What I love about the Bible is that it does not hide the sin of its fathers in the faith and David was no exception. Instead, God exposed him and judged him.  The lesson I have learned about God is that there just aren’t too many sins that He can’t conquer. Then comes the mark of the beast and suddenly it changes everything, or did it? Over the years, I have always been looking to uncover something more about how a simple mark is such a big deal to God. What strikes me as odd is why something that is “wearable,” such as a chip or an electronic tattoo, couldn’t just be removed. One might think that the worst-case scenario would be to just cut that hand off right and the problem would be fixed, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.  For some reason once someone takes the mark of the beast they cannot go back. How cans a simple mark on our hand or our forehead end up marking every cell in our body? Many people have attempted to answer this question with another question, which is “how can someone eating a piece of fruit start this whole mess to begin with?” While the answer could just be “because I said so,” it hasn’t stopped me from asking why and this is where it has led me.

Skipping to the punch line, I now believe that while an RFID chip may be part of the mark of the beast, I believe the mark of the beast is actually a genetic marker from “the beast.”  The mark may even have some DNA derived from the beasts of the field. I first really entertained this idea after listening to Tom Horn as he related a conversation that he had with His wife Anita. The best I can recall, his wife Anita says to Tom, “what if it was not just a mark, but a genetic marker?”  Boom, a nuclear explosion went off in my head and I had to turn off the radio. Within a few hours the puzzle just started falling in place! One of the first big clues that this may be the case is found all the way back in the 2nd chapter of Daniel where he talks about the statue with the “head of gold.” At the bottom of that image is the final kingdom that would be in existence right before the return of the Messiah. This final kingdom was different than any of the others because it was the only one that was divided into iron and clay. Daniel describes these two ingredients by saying that, “they mingled themselves with the seed of men and the two would not cleave together.”  In other words, this kingdom had two kinds of people in it.

The first kind of people had “mingled seed” and the second kind of people had “unmingled seed.”  When we talk about seed, we’re referring in modern terms to what we would call DNA because this is the part of the seed that is necessary if anything is going to grow.  We also know that these people who had “mingled seed” are represent by clay, which was the most inferior and weakest substance found in the image as a whole. This idea of “mingled seed” seems to have a connection to what happened in Genesis the 6th chapter, which also happens to be the Days of Noah.  If you have read the last article, then you know I believe that the “Days of Noah” were the days where human DNA was being tampered with by fallen angels. This tampering resulted in a new species of mankind called the Nephilim. This tampering is made much more believable now that we can literally take a swab of someone’s DNA and do the same thing. The Nephilim were very different from ordinary men, but they are very similar to the “super soldiers” that our government is currently trying to perfect. Our government is using the science of Trans-humanism to alter mankind and design new life forms.  They are disrespecting God and His creation by changing what God created to suite their own agenda. The obvious superiority of this new breed of mankind will create a new level of racism between those who are modified and those who are not. This fulfills what the Bible prophesied in Genesis 3 regarding the “war of the seeds.” It also fulfills the idea put forth in the 2nd chapter of Daniel that these two people groups would be at odds with each other. Recall that Daniel says about them, “they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.”

I believe that what this verse is telling us is that in the last kingdom it will be divided because there will be two types of people in this kingdom. Some will have un-mingled seed and some will have mingled seed, which means that they have been genetically modified. This “divided kingdom” will be the last kingdom to rule the earth before Christ’s return, which also means that this is the same kingdom as the “Beast” of Revelations. Just like the Divided Kingdom, the Beast Kingdom will have two types of people.  There are those who have received the mark of the Beast and those who refuse this mark. Maybe this is not a coincidence. Maybe the people who take the mark of the Beast are the very one’s who have tampered with their DNA. Can it also a coincidence that this technology exists today through Trans-humanism? How about the fact that Trans-humanism is literally blending mankind with the beasts of the earth? Is this also a coincidence? Maybe this mark is not just a mark at all, but a genetic marker that literally has some of the beasts’ or Anti-Christs’ DNA mixed into it. This would make him the father of all those who take this mark, thereby changing the fatherhood of men from God into Satan.  

End of Part I:  Part II will be posted in a few days!

Be sure to read Dr Kevan Kruse’ articles that are archived at  www.allpropastors.org 

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The Iniquity of the Amorites

In a previous article in this series, we mentioned an odd comment that God made when He gave Abraham a glimpse of the future:

As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.“

Genesis 15:7-16 (ESV), emphasis added

The obvious questions that come to mind: Who were the Amorites, and why was the timing of the Exodus linked to their iniquity? What was their iniquity? What could they have done that was so bad that God made it a signpost on the road to Revelation? Whatever it was, the evil of the Amorites was legendary among the Jews:

And the Lord said by his servants the prophets,

“Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations and has done things more evil than all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols, therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.

2 Kings 21:10-12 (ESV), emphasis added

Manasseh was king of Judah about seven hundred years after the Exodus, nearly 1,200 years after Abraham was first called from Ura, near Harran. Whatever the Amorites did, it was bad.

The Amorites were incredibly resilient. They hung around, and dominated for a long time, a part of the world where people have been fighting each other since the time of Nimrod. They were a Semitic speaking people who occupied nearly the entire Near East during the first half of the 2nd millennium B.C. According to the Bible, the Amorites descend from Noah’s son, Ham, by way of Canaan. However, even though Ham is considered the progenitor of various African races, Egyptian artists usually represented Amorites with fair skin, light hair, and blue eyes.

The Amorites were first mentioned in Mesopotamian records around 2400 B.C., just before Sargon the Great turned Akkad from a city-state into an empire. They were known to the city-dwelling Sumerians as the MAR.TU, who considered them savage, uncouth, and generally unpleasant.

The MAR.TU who know no grain… The MAR.TU who know no house nor town, the boors of the mountains… The MAR.TU who digs up truffles… who does not bend his knees (to cultivate the land), who eats raw meat, who has no house during his lifetime, who is not buried after death[.]1

Scholars haven’t reached a consensus over just where the Amorites came from. The Ebla texts refer to an Amorite LU.GAL, or king, named Amuti, in the 2300s B.C. The Amorite kingdom, MAR.TUki in Sumerian, seems to have been centered in Syria around Jebel Bishri, a mountain on the west bank of the Euphrates about 30 miles west of Deir ez-Zor. The mountain of the Amorites, called Bašar back in the day, was the site of a military victory led by the Akkadian king Narām-Sîn, grandson of Sargon the Great, over a coalition of Amorites led by Rish-Adad, the lord of a small city called Apishal.

Evidence uncovered by a team of Finnish researchers who began work at Jebel Bishri in 2000 indicates that the main urban center of MAR.TUki in the third millennium B.C. was Tuttul, a city on the Euphrates near the modern city of Raqqa. Tuttul was settled by the 26th century B.C. and was sacred to Dagan, chief god of the local pantheon. A second temple of Dagan was built later at Terqa, south of Tuttul on the Euphrates about halfway to Mari, which was near where the Euphrates crosses from Syria into Iraq.

This leads to a bigger question: What exactly was the religion of the Amorites? Might that shed some light on why Yahweh called them out when He made the covenant with Abraham?

Judging by personal names in the earliest records, it looks as though there were originally only two main gods of the Amorites—the moon-god, Ereah or Yarikh (from which Jericho, a center of moon-god worship, got its name), and “the” god, El.

That should interest anyone who’s read any of the Old Testament. Besides being the name of the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon, El was one of the names the prophets applied to Yahweh. Remember that El was the only name by which Yahweh was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That’s significant because they lived during the time the Amorites controlled the Near East.

Meanwhile, the moon-god, while not as well-known as Satan, Baal, or Marduk, enjoyed a long run as one of the most influential gods of the Near East. After the defeat at Jericho, Yarikh (called Sîn by the Akkadians and Nanna by the Sumerians) reemerged as the chief god of Babylon nearly a thousand years later under its last king, Nabonidus (reigned 556-539 B.C.). And you can make a strong case that the moon-god today leads what may become the largest religion on the planet within the next half-century.

However, as they gained political control over regions previously governed by the Akkadians and Sumerians after 2000 B.C., the Amorites began adopting the gods of their subjects. A classic example is the Amorite chief, Šamši-Adad I. His father, Ila-kabkabu (possibly “El is my star”), had been the king of Terqa. After being forced to flee to Babylon during the reign of Narām-Sîn of Akkad, Šamši-Adad eventually returned home, overthrew Narām-Sîn’s successor, and became the first Amorite king of Assyria.

Šamši-Adad, whose name includes that of the storm-god of Aleppo, named the son he placed on the throne of Mari, whose territory bordered on Yamḥad (Aleppo), Yasmah-Adad. The son who governed the Akkadian part of his realm was named Išme-Dagan. Both names mean “(deity) hears,” but presumably Adad and Dagan were more acceptable to the subjects of their respective parts of the realm than Amorite gods like Ilu (El) or Ereah (Yarikh).

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The Amorites, like the later Israelites, were subdivided into tribes. By the time of Abraham, the Amorites were divided into two main groups—the Binū Yamina (“sons of the right hand”, or “southerners”) and the Binū Sim’al (“sons of the left hand”, or “northerners”). The division seems based on an ancient agreement over pasturing rights: The Bensimalites took their herds to the Khabur River triangle in what is today northern Syria, while the Benjaminites pastured their flocks in the territories of Yamḥad (Aleppo), Qatna, near modern-day Homs, and Amurru, the mountains of northern Lebanon to the southeast of Ugarit.

Sometime around the end of the third millennium B.C., the Sumerian dynasty of Ur collapsed under the weight of intrusions by Amorite tribes and invasions from Elam. The century beginning about 2000 B.C. is hazy, a period of history that we’ll probably never decipher. When the fog lifted around 1900 B.C., Amorites ruled nearly all the power centers in Mesopotamia and the Levant. They’d spread out from their traditional base on the steppes of northern Syria and Iraq to as far as the Jordan River in the southwest, southern Turkey in the north, and as far southeast as an insignificant village on the Euphrates that would soon play a major role in world history—some of which hasn’t happened yet.

Because of their association with Jebel Bishri and the steppes of Syria, west of Sumer, the Sumerian word for Amorite, MAR.TU, became a synonym for the compass point west, just like the Hebrew link between Mount Zaphon and tsaphon, the compass point north. However, there was another area occupied by Amorites. Northeast of modern Baghdad, around the Diyala River valley, an Amorite tribe called the Tidnim, Tidnum, or Tidanum was a major source of trouble for the Sumerians at least as far back as 2800 B.C., when the first mention of a “chief” or “overseer” of the tribe is found at Ur. (However, one of the peaks of Jebel Bishri was called Jebel Diddi, or Mount Diddi, which may come from Didānum—same name, different transliteration—so the tribe may have history there as well.)2

The Tidnum of northeast Mesopotamia were so troublesome that the last Sumerian kings of Ur built a wall, possibly 175 miles long, from the Euphrates across the Tigris to a site along the Diyala. The project was called the bad mar-du murīq-tidnim, or, “Amorite wall which keeps the Tidnum at bay.”

Areas under Amorite control circa 2000 B.C.

It may have been more of a border fence than a Great Wall of China-type structure. The only mentions of the wall are the names of the fourth and fifth years of king Šu-sin’s reign, and that there are no mentions of it at all among the piles of tablets that recorded the king’s business in Ur.

However, what Šu-sin’s building project did was firmly establish the link between the Amorites and the Tidanum. And that’s important. We’ll explain why next month.

 

1 Chiera, Edward & Kramer, Samuel Noah & University of Pennsylvania. University Museum. Babylonian Section.  (1934).  Sumerian Epics and Myths, Chicago, Ill :  The University of Chicago Press, Plate nos. 58 and 112.

2 Bodi, Daniel. “Is There a Connection Between the Amorites and the Arameans?”, Aram 26:1 & 2 (2014), p. 385.

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