Watchman on the Wall

Guest (Male): Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com. God is still on the throne, and prayer changes things. This week is jammed with exciting topics and information that will bring clarity to the chaos. Bob McGinnis will reveal the new AI Cold War. Josh Davis will share the latest headlines from the end times. And today, we begin a two-day conversation on the ancient origins of secret societies with bestselling author Micah Van Huss.

Friends, as we approach the end of March, we have a problem. Giving this month is currently running $25,000 behind budgeted expenses. So we need your help. Please pray and support Watchman on the Wall with a gift today. Visit swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. Please give your best gift today. Swrc.com. Thank you. Now it's time to explore the ancient origins of secret societies. Here are Clayton and Micah Van Huss.

Clayton Van Huss: I'm so glad you joined us today on the Watchman on the Wall program. I'm Clayton Van Huss and I am joined in the studio with one of my absolute most favorite people in the world, my brother Micah. Micah Van Huss, welcome to the program.

Micah Van Huss: Clayton, it's so good to be on with you and I hope the listeners are all doing well and I look forward to having a good discussion with you today.

Clayton Van Huss: Yeah, we like to talk about some weird, wild, and fun stuff. So I think we're going to enjoy this. You are known here at Southwest Radio Ministries as the marginal mysteries guy. You're the one who talks about all the strange things—the things that your Sunday school teacher didn't talk about, right?

Micah Van Huss: That's absolutely right. This is the best job I've ever had. I thank the Lord for the opportunity to study his mysteries. So we study the weird stuff from a biblical perspective, and that's important because there's a lot of weird stuff out there and people just don't filter it through the lens of the Bible. And that's what we do here.

Clayton Van Huss: Right. So much of this weird stuff goes back, it's in the Bible, and our worlds intersect in some places, so it's always fun to banter back and forth on a lot of this stuff. You've written a number of books for the ministry now. I know you're working on one. How many have you written? How many do you have planned?

Micah Van Huss: So we have four books published. My first one was Ancient Cities and the Gods Who Built Them. Second would be The Earth As It Was, about the world before the flood of Noah. My third one was Secret Societies, which we're going to talk about today. It is available on Audible; that's one of the things we're talking about.

Angels Eternal was my book last year, War of the Princes. And as you mentioned, I am currently working on my book for this year, which is Mythologies Decoded: Echoes of the Bible. I'm full right now of Norse mythology, studying it all and filtering it through God's word, and so that'll be coming for folks so they can listen for that.

Clayton Van Huss: Yeah, and so things don't happen in a vacuum. The things around the world, the ancient mythologies, those come from something in our past—cultural memories, things when mankind spread across the earth. They carried with them the memory of the God of Adam and Noah and Shem and their forefathers.

Micah Van Huss: That's why the subtitle of my upcoming mythologies book is Echoes of the Bible, because there are so many stories from the mythologies that are so close to the truth or even hints of the truth. But that's all coming from somewhere because cultures all over the world, as you said, talk about the flood. They talk about the gods, some of whom take a human form, some of whom don't.

But there are so many echoes across the world. They're all pointing to something. And what my upcoming mythologies book is, is they're pointing to the truth—the Bible being the true story of history—and those mythologies are echoes of what's really going on.

Clayton Van Huss: Right. And I know like a lot of missionaries will use that sort of... they'll go into an unreached culture who has these stories and they will relate when they see a biblically grounded story there and say, "I can tell you the true story behind that."

Micah Van Huss: Yeah, there's a lot of cultures in the world—not in America so much—but there's a lot of cultures that still cling to those mythologies. India would be at the top of my brain on that; we're studying the Hindu mythologies and writing about that, that's a fun study. So yeah, there's so many cultures that are entrenched in the mythological gods, the pagan gods, whatever you may call them, and so it's definitely an important study.

Clayton Van Huss: Now the pagan gods, they tie in to your book on Secret Societies. That's an interesting thing. In fact, you have an origin for the secret societies of the earth. Where does your origin trace back to? What does it go to?

Micah Van Huss: The direct answer is it traces back to the knowledge of the Watchers—the Genesis 6 angels that rebelled and descended to the earth and fathered the giants of old. We get this from Genesis 6:1-4 and then corroborated by over two dozen verses throughout the rest of scripture talking about these angels who sinned.

Second Peter 2:4, those angels are cast into Tartarus. Jude 1:6 talks about the angels that left their first estate. So yes, the secret societies root in the knowledge of the Watchers. So in secret societies circles or studies, you will hear two terms: Ascended Masters and the Great Arcanum.

Clayton Van Huss: Can you tell us what a secret society is, kind of define that for us?

Micah Van Huss: It's a group that's secret. So I like to make the distinction like the Boy Scouts are a group, but I wouldn't call them a secret society. So when we're talking about the secret societies, obviously in the book we focus on the most prominent and popular ones, the ones that are the most interesting and entwined in the knowledge of the Watchers.

We're talking Freemasonry, Illuminati, the Ancient Egyptian Solar Brotherhood, Rosicrucianism, the New Age movement, Theosophy, the Hermetic philosophies and religions—Buddhism, Hinduism—just these ideas teaching you that you don't need God, you are a god yourself. That's what these Hermetic philosophies and religions teach you.

But that is actually an ancient message: you can be as God. Where did we hear that? It was the serpent in the garden who told Eve that if you eat this fruit and gain the knowledge, you will be like God. For a long time, the spiritual powers behind the scenes have been warring against God, have been trying to corrupt his creation. And so that's kind of the overview.

But as far as the genesis of it, Genesis 6, the Watchers come down and they sire giants. That's what scripture tells us: the sons of God come into the daughters of men and they have children with them and they become the giants of old. We step out into some non-canonical writings to fill in some of the gaps.

Scripture gives us the most important message and that is Jesus Christ—that he came to earth and the story of him. Jesus Christ is the central point of history and of scripture. And again, we study the weird stuff. I'm not an evangelist. I do try to show Christ and obviously in what we're saying, that Christ is the center of everything. So yes, let's not forget that Jesus Christ is the center.

Now when we get to studying the weird stuff—the angels, the giants, the UFOs, different things—a thing is a mystery because the answer is not readily available. And scripture does not give us the whole picture of most of the weirder stuff. And so we have to look at archaeology, which you specialize in. We have to focus on ancient writings outside of scripture. And again, we don't take these as authoritative; we take them as possible fill-ins.

So I believe that the 66 books of what we call the Christian canon of the Bible, I believe that is the inspired text. I study the book of Enoch, I study Michael Heiser's writings. What's the difference between Michael Heiser's writings and the book of Enoch? These are people saying things that we don't consider inspired. So hopefully I don't offend you by talking about any ancient writing. Josephus is one of our greatest historians; I talk about Josephus's writings, which is very much intertwined.

Clayton Van Huss: Right. And I will say as a historian, you take things like the writings of Josephus and you say, "Wow, there's really good history in here," but you take it with a grain of salt because a historian is not always correct. He quotes other historians or he talks about things where he's fallible; he's human. And so these extra-biblical, extra-canonical writings, they are not scripture.

They are useful for study, and we see that with the authors of the New Testament because we have a lot of interesting writings that took place between the testaments. A lot of the things that came out of the Dead Sea Scrolls where we look at those were, of course, most of those date to around 200 years before the time of Jesus.

And so we can see what Judaism at the time of Jesus, the things that influenced it and the things that were popular and taught. And those things are incorporated—and I'm not saying any false teachings—but ideas and certain illustrations, just like you would hear a pastor today maybe use Star Wars as a sermon illustration. You see these things in the writings of the New Testament. You see a color, you see an influence. And so we've got to be very careful that we don't equate it with scripture, but we do understand where it fits, and I like how you do that.

Micah Van Huss: Yes, and we have an explosion after Christ, the spread of Christianity. Just like we have denominations today, you have an attempt for the next 2,000 years of people trying to come up with new writings, new ways of interpreting things, just like I do. Take my books with a grain of salt. What I promise you is that I will filter what I write through the word of God. I won't make any claims that are contrary to the word of God.

But again, at the same time, there's a lot of things about the mysteries that the Bible just doesn't give us a lot of details on. And you're very open about speculation. You're very honest about that. When it comes to the Dead Sea Scrolls, again, I don't consider them inspired. I do give them a little more credence than some of the Middle Ages writings because the Dead Sea Scrolls are old. Most of them are from before Christ, and so it's definitely a fascinating study.

The knowledge of the Watchers. So Genesis tells us that the sons of God, the B'nai HaElohim in the Hebrew, they come down to earth and they have children with women. Now one of the biggest sticking points is folks will say, "Well, these aren't angels coming down. These are the godly line of Seth." Well, I respectfully disagree for a couple of reasons.

First of all, the sons of Seth having children with the daughters of men does not explain anything about having giant offspring. It also doesn't make sense why God would send the flood if good men are having children, the heroes of old. So there are also other places in scripture—the B'nai HaElohim in the Old Testament are angels. We're talking about Job chapter 38, the sons of God sang for joy at the foundations of the earth.

In Job chapters 1 and 2, the sons of God are in heaven talking about Job, talking about the earth. And so this term, the B'nai HaElohim, is actually referring to angels. Some people do get confused. In the New Testament, we are now the sons of God, but that changes through Christ's relationship with us and God. But in the Old Testament, the sons of God are the angels.

Clayton Van Huss: And as a historian, I can tell you that yes, that phrase is used not only in Hebrew, but it's used throughout the ancient Near East, and it's always talking about the gods. That's what it's talking about.

Micah Van Huss: Genesis 6, where we get the inspired text, the angels coming down and having offspring with women. Now we go to some non-canonical works that talk about the knowledge that those angels taught to mankind when they came down: alchemy, astrology, astronomy, abortion, writing, weapons and armor, makeup—all kinds of different things happening that they taught to us.

Now again, we go into the mythologies. We talk about the Sumerian mythology where Oannes, the half-fish, half-man, walked out of the water and told the Sumerians, "I'm going to teach you the alphabet, I'm going to teach you this different knowledge and you're going to worship me as your god." And so we see even in the archaeology of Sumeria, the ancient mythologies, we see these echoes of these gods (lowercase "g") who came down and taught knowledge.

The American Indian tribes, the Aztecs, the Mayan talk about Quetzalcoatl, the gods who descended to the earth and taught them all kinds of knowledge. They brought fire from heaven, such as the Prometheus mythology. So there's all kinds of echoes. But back to it, they teach this knowledge to mankind—forbidden knowledge that mankind was not supposed to discover overnight. That is what is called the Great Arcanum in the secret societies.

Clayton Van Huss: So this is a foundation. And I want to take just a moment here. If you're listening, we're talking about secret societies, Blood Never Sleeps, the book by Micah Van Huss. And the Audible version is available now. So if you're interested, give us a call at 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Visit us online at swrc.com.

Brother of mine, you are talking about something very interesting here. We've talked about a basis for where these secret societies are coming from, this hidden knowledge. And this is huge throughout history. People want to have the hidden knowledge and have something over on everyone else. Is that what's going on here?

Micah Van Huss: Even Eve and Adam, they wanted to take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Obviously to back up these claims through scripture, there is one instance in scripture where it says that the angels taught knowledge to mankind. And that is Revelation 21:17. John is having a vision of heaven and a man is measuring heaven and he's using the cubit, the ancient unit of measurement from the tip of the finger to the elbow.

And Revelation 21:17 says that is the measure of a man, that is of the angel. So that right there, in my opinion and other scholars I've asked, yes, it seems that the angels taught the cubit to mankind. In scripture, in inspired text, that's the only mention we get. We have an echo of that in Genesis chapter 4. The first time in the Bible that we start to see technology with mankind is the sons of Lamech.

Three of them and a daughter is mentioned, too: Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain in Genesis chapter 4. One is an animal husbandman, which is taking care of animals, breeding animals, capturing animals, and just making animal husbandry. The next plays the harp and organ, plays musical instruments. And then Tubal-cain is an artificer of metals.

What kind of technology did they have before the flood? Well, they were definitely mixing metals. And we talk about the Iron Age, Stone Age, Bronze Age, all that, which is all post-deluge, all after the flood. So here in Genesis, we have the story of the sons of Lamech who have some sort of knowledge. There are over a dozen writings outside of scripture that talk about these sons of Lamech.

Josephus writes about them, the Arab mythologies, the Arab writings talk about them. And they say that the sons of Lamech had the knowledge of the Watchers and they knew that the Creator was going to destroy his earth with fire or water; they just weren't sure which. So the sons of Lamech carved the Great Arcanum, the forbidden knowledge, on two pillars: one that would survive fire, one that would survive water.

So we have over a dozen ancient texts giving that story—non-inspired texts from all kinds of sources. The three Arabic accounts, it's not two pillars, it's one emerald tablet. So if you hear the legend of the Emerald Tablet, that is the Arabic accounts of what we're telling here. According to these sources, after the flood, someone finds the knowledge of the Watchers on one of these pillars, and that is Hermes.

According to those writings, Hermes finds that knowledge and he shares it with somebody. He shares it with Nimrod. And in the Bible, Nimrod is a great rebel against God, a mighty hunter against the Lord. Nimrod gets this knowledge from Hermes. And Nimrod is considered by Freemasonry to be the first excellent Grand Master of Freemasons.

Now you will have a sect of Freemasonry who says that Solomon is the first Grand Master. But the Regius Manuscript is the oldest known Freemason document as far as one of the founding documents, 1390 AD—it's around the 14th century. The Regius Manuscript gives the poem about how Nimrod used this knowledge, the Great Arcanum, to build his ziggurats.

Scripture never says that Nimrod builds the Tower of Babel, but there are a lot of ancient accounts that do say Nimrod built the Tower of Babel, including Josephus. So Nimrod uses this knowledge to expand his empire. And what do we see throughout most of the Old Testament? Babylon is like the enemy of Israel. Babylon is where a lot of the false gods, a lot of the devil worship, the child sacrifice—all this evil and wickedness coming out of Babylon. And of course this roots from Nimrod.

So Nimrod has his own story, his wife Semiramis. After the Tower of Babel, God confounds the languages. Well, Nimrod is kind of the man-god on the earth at that time, and everybody, not followers of Yahweh, they're following Nimrod. Nimrod has a name. But when you divide the earth into 70 languages, instantaneously you have 70 different names for Nimrod and his wife Semiramis.

And so Semiramis is basically, when you see an ancient goddess statue of Ishtar, Inanna, Isis in Egypt—these are pretty much all the same being, stems from Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod. But Nimrod becomes a number of different gods throughout cultures, Cupid in Rome, but the important one is Osiris in Egyptian mythology. And Osiris is the first Egyptian to undergo the process of mummification.

And he said, "I will be born again." We see in all kinds of Freemason documents—we're talking about Albert Pike, Manly P. Hall—they write about Freemasonry looking forward to being reunited with Osiris. They talk about the spirit of Osiris dwelling in Masonic lodges. When we come back tomorrow, we're going to talk about this spirit of Osiris as we see him coming towards the end times and what Freemasonry wants to do.

But it's a fascinating study with all kinds of ancient writings. Even the Egyptians talk about Osiris, who will be resurrected again. The Bible talks about a beast who was, who is not, and who will be again. This is fascinating. But again, we put the Secret Societies book on Audible. If you search Micah Van Huss on Audible, you'll get the three books I've put on Audible.

You can go to marginalmysteries.com, there's links to Audible there. But if you go in to look for Secret Societies, you actually have to put in the full title because there's a lot of books on Secret Societies and it's kind of a generic name. So put in Secret Societies: Blood Never Sleeps.

Clayton Van Huss: Secret Societies: Blood Never Sleeps, now available on Audible. You can give us a call at 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Visit us online at swrc.com. We're talking today with Micah Van Huss, the author of Secret Societies: Blood Never Sleeps. Micah, thank you for joining us. We look forward to getting into some deep stuff tomorrow.

Micah Van Huss: Always a good time to be on the program and look forward to talking more about it tomorrow.

Guest (Male): Secret Societies, the bestselling book by Micah Van Huss, is now available as an audiobook. Where did secret societies originate? What role do they play in the end times? Find out in the new audiobook Secret Societies. Order Secret Societies book and audiobook today when you call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Or order Secret Societies on our website, swrc.com.

Since the days of Nimrod, rooted in the knowledge of the antediluvian Watchers, secret societies have been working to usher in human enlightenment, ascend humanity into godhood, and provoke a final battle with the Creator. They will get their battle of Armageddon, but they will not win. In the new audiobook Secret Societies: Blood Never Sleeps, you'll study history's most prominent secret societies and their lasting effects on our culture, religion, government, and laws.

Join Micah in exploring the answers to the questions that we have from a biblical worldview and discussing the topics your Sunday school teacher didn't talk about. Secret Societies. Order your copy of the book and download the audiobook today when you call 1-800-652-1144.

Why hasn't the rapture happened yet? If God is coming, what's he waiting for? Josh Davis is here to open God's word and reveal the answers to these questions.

Josh Davis: If the rapture is going to happen, what is God waiting on? Why hasn't the rapture happened yet? Have you ever pondered that question? Have you had somebody ask you that question? Maybe you believe in the pre-tribulation rapture like I do, like our ministry reinforces here. You've had people ask you, well, if the rapture is going to happen, what's God waiting on? How bad do things have to get before the rapture of the church, before all these cataclysmic events that you guys talk about?

What is God waiting on? Well, the Bible provides the answer and Bible prophecy gives us clarity to answer this kind of question. And we find that answer in the book of Second Peter chapter number 3, starting in verse 3 down to verse number 9. Peter admits that there are going to be people who have this view. He says, "knowing this first"—this is the first thing you need to know about answering that question—"that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.'"

In other words, there's going to be a self-centered generation that just says, "Where's the promise of his coming? Things are just continuing on as they always have been." Doesn't that sound like many people alive today? And he says in verse 5, "for this they willingly are ignorant of"—it cuts right to the quick, does it not? "For this they are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that was then, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."

Now, I know that's a mouthful. I know this is a short segment. And so what is he saying there? In a nutshell, he's saying, remember the flood. Remember the attitude of the people in the pre-flood world. How that they often said, "Look, rain? What's rain? It's not going to happen. This guy Noah's crazy. He's lost his mind. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's so out of touch. He doesn't know a single thing about what's going on."

They scoffed at him and the rain came and the water washed them away in God's judgment. They perished in that flood. He says right now, we see that the earth is going to be judged by fire the second time, and he says that people still have that same mindset that the pre-flood world had that we see today. And he said the judgment is kept in store, it's reserved, and God is just holding it back, holding it back.

And he says this in verse 8, and we're hitting at the heart of his explanation and his answer to this particular question. He says, "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Just to offer a simple explanation of what this verse is saying, he says, God doesn't count time as we count time.

In other words, God is more concerned with timing than he is with time. And everything that God does is in the precise, correct timing. Mark it down, every single time. He is always on time and always acting with a perfect sense of timing. And then he gets to verse number 9. "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness."

In other words, he's not late. He's not delaying. He's not lazy. He's not forgotten his plan. It's not like he's like, "Oh man, I meant to rapture the church six months ago. I knew I forgot to do something." That's not God at all, dear friends. You can bear up through a difficulty. But when you're patient with people, the Bible often translates that as being long-suffering.

And God has been very long-suffering with us, has he not? He has given us another day, another opportunity. And so we see, what is God waiting on? He's waiting on you. He's waiting on people to repent of their sins, to turn to faith in Jesus Christ. Every beat of our hearts, every breath of our lungs, every moment that we're allowed to continue living in earth is a gift from God's grace.

And that gracious gift is given to all humanity at this present moment that we are allowed to live on this planet. And so God has given us more time, an extended window of his grace. And make no mistake, the prophecies will be fulfilled precisely when God has ordained that they will be fulfilled. Until that time, let's get right with him. Let's live with him and walk forward by faith, knowing that God knows what is best and that God has given a window of grace so that the good news of the gospel can continue to go forward and so that people can repent of their sins and turn to their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): Secret Societies, the bestselling book by Micah Van Huss, is now available as an audiobook. Order Secret Societies the book and audiobook today when you call 1-800-652-1144. You can also order Secret Societies over at swrc.com.

In the new audiobook Secret Societies: Blood Never Sleeps, you'll study history's most prominent secret societies and their lasting effects on our culture, religion, government, and laws. Secret Societies. Order the book and the audiobook when you call 1-800-652-1144 or simply visit swrc.com. More exciting information on the secret societies of the world coming up on tomorrow's program. So be sure to tune in. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and is supported by faithful listeners like you. Visit swrc.com.