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. Today, Micah Van Huss continues unpacking his brand new book, Mythologies Decoded: Echoes of the Bible.

Three days, three completely different themes, one can't miss conference. It's Prophecy in the News Live, and it's coming to the Delta Hotel in Bristol, Virginia, October 22nd through the 24th. Thursday is Apologetics Day. Dig deeper into your faith with Dr. Kenneth Hill, Lonnie Shipman, Josh Davis, and Mac Dominick, with topics like the intersection of apologetics and Bible prophecy and Bible understanding and Bible proofs.

Friday, it's Bible Prophecy. Josh Davis examines why the pre-tribulation rapture makes sense. Larry Stam exposes Satan's long war on Israel. Mark Linstedt examines the end times from Jewish, Muslim, and Christian perspectives, and Mac Dominick takes us into the coming kingdom of God.

Then Saturday, things get really interesting with Mysteries of the Bible. Micah Van Huss explores angels, eternal realm of the dead, and mythologies decoded. Greg Patton examines the powerful unseen world. Doc Brown tackles biblical Bigfoot and feral giants, plus Tyler Gilreath, Mac Dominick, and more.

Three days for only $50, or come for one day for just 25. But space is limited and October is coming fast. Don't wait until it's too late. Register today at swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. October 22nd through the 24th in Bristol, Virginia. swrc.com to register. Do it today.

God's giants, the Watchers, the Nephilim. Why do similar stories appear across civilizations separated by thousands of miles? Today, Micah Van Huss takes us deeper into his new book, Mythologies Decoded, as we examine whether these ancient legends preserve echoes of events recorded in the Bible.

Southwest Radio Ministries: Hello friends and welcome again to our continuing discussion with author Micah Van Huss, who has created a fascinating new book, Mythologies Decoded. We would encourage you to take a look at the wonderful work that he has done. You can order yourself a copy today, right now, by calling 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144 or visit the website at swrc.com.

Micah and I have been talking about a number of elements and there's so much to this. First of all, today, Micah, this is bound to be something that is on the minds of many people today. Why should a Christian study mythology, and perhaps some would call it pagan mythology? How does it help us?

Micah Van Huss: We should study mythology because the Bible was written in a world filled with this stuff, with pagan gods, sacred mountains, chaos serpents, giants, temples, and competing creation stories. Knowing that background can make these difficult Bible passages easier to understand, and it also shows how the nations kept pieces of the truth while still turning away from God.

As we talked last time at Babel, the languages were divided. People went off and worshiped Molech, all kinds of different entities, and it shows these echoes that they're telling little bits of the truth because that's how they remember it, or purposely distorted it. It is important. Not everybody likes to study the mythologies and that's fine. I do, and obviously the folks who are interested in my writings do as well. The Bible was written in this medium.

Southwest Radio Ministries: Is there any warning or worry that studying mythology could possibly become dangerous to a believing Christian?

Micah Van Huss: Anything can become dangerous, especially if you lose focus of Christ. But if curiosity of these mythologies turns into fascination with the occult, or if pagan sources start carrying more weight than scripture, then they can be dangerous. We have a lot of mythological stories told on the television from Hollywood, especially with the Avengers and all this stuff.

My son has a Captain America outfit, so I'm not saying that you have one, John. Did you wear a Captain America outfit?

Southwest Radio Ministries: I used to, and a Batman helmet. Yes, Batman.

Micah Van Huss: As long as you are keeping this in focus and not making an idol out of this stuff, or maybe not being consumed. As I've gotten older, I've found in life moderation in everything, that saying is true. I study the mythologies as history and evidence, not as spiritual instruction. The focus has to stay on Christ and not the darkness of the gods of mythology.

Southwest Radio Ministries: One of my personal favorites was an old fellow who got to be the President of the United States after having served his country with distinction. In the summer of 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was speaking to the graduates at Dartmouth College, and one of the things that struck me so important, he beseeched them, and I can't quote it exactly, don't join the book burners. How can we hope to defeat an enemy unless we know what it is? Of course, communism was the enemy of that day. But I've always thought that that was such an interesting and well-spoken thing, which comes directly from the admonition of the Apostle Paul to his protege in the faith, 2 Timothy 2:15: "Study to show thyself approved unto God." He didn't say me, "unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

Micah Van Huss: It's similar to another question that I deal with. Why even study the weird stuff at all? Obviously, Jesus Christ is the central point of history and the central point of scripture. I believe that God has called me to study the weird stuff, the mysterious stuff of the Bible. I do get that question a lot as to why does it even matter. It's the glory of God to conceal a thing, it's also the honor of kings to search out a matter.

Folks don't have to be interested in the weird stuff of the Bible, that's fine. But as far as I'm concerned, I would rather talk about this type of stuff than I would about the latest football game. People say this doesn't honor God to talk about this. Well, neither does watching football and talking about it. That's my answer, so I really enjoy doing it.

Southwest Radio Ministries: Do you think that while there might be some overlap, the biblical writers in your opinion did not draw from pagan mythology or whatever? It was actually the other way around, whether we're talking about going back to the Old Testament or even to more modern mysteries or mythology. The scripture stands true through time.

Micah Van Huss: Scripture is the foundation again, as a Christian for the last 40 plus years now. God has proven himself to me to be faithful and scripture is correct. It is God's Word from cover to cover and I take him at his word. Evolution is probably the biggest challenge when you get these types of questions. The world wants to tell you you're stupid. You're stupid for believing that mankind and dinosaurs coexisted.

I am a Christian. I believe God when he says something. People say the Bible was written by men, you can't trust it. If I believe that God is powerful enough to create the entire universe out of nothing, then he is surely powerful enough to preserve his message for us in whatever way he deems fit. Folks will say those Christians, dinosaurs and men coexisting, oh no, we came from monkeys. I'm sorry, this is the same science that can't tell you what a woman is. We can't even talk about that.

Southwest Radio Ministries: Why do you think so many creation stories begin with darkness or deep water?

Micah Van Huss: First of all, because it's the truth, that's kind of what the Bible talks about. But let me give you a little more detailed answer. It's an echo of the world described in Genesis 1:2 when the Earth is dark, unformed, and covered by the deep. The pagan stories turn these waters into gods and monsters like Tiamat, but Genesis does the opposite.

In these creation accounts, whether it's Typhon, Tiamat, the Greeks, the Romans, the Hindus writing about the creation story, we're finding these primordial dragons in the dark water. The gods in Norse mythology, it's not necessarily the water and the dragon, it's the giant Ymir, but the gods have to defeat this monster to start the human creation, the chaos monster.

But there's a difference. In Genesis, God doesn't fight the monster. The monster hears and obeys. When I say monster, the void, the chaos. Void is chaos, the word used in the King James. The void of Genesis 1:2, void is chaos. In Genesis, there is no monster.

The biblical account does have monsters when you go over to Psalm 74, Leviathan, other passages, Rahab is the chaos dragon. Psalm 74 is actually cosmic creationist in scope because there are other verses right after it mentioned God fighting, breaking the heads of Leviathan in the waters, because then it goes on to talk about the other parts of creation. While Genesis is void of fighting this monster, the other portions of scripture are not, specifically Psalm 74.

I believe that the pagan mythologies are echoes of the truth. There is this chaos that God subdues at the beginning of creation. Whether that was Satan or the evil serpent, overall serpent, it's here. Then you'll notice in Revelation, there is no more sea. Now whether that's literal and there's no more seas, or whether that's the chaos monster finally being judged in Revelation, I am not sure, but we speculate about both of those outcomes in the book in the last chapter titled Ragnarok. It's definitely a fascinating study.

Southwest Radio Ministries: How do you think the Exodus story in its totality there might replay the creation story?

Micah Van Huss: It does. At creation, God divides the waters and brings dry land and life out of the deep. In Exodus, he divides the sea again at the Red Sea. He defeats Egypt and brings his people safely through the sea, and it's another picture of creation ruling the waters and using God's power to save his people. Absolutely, the story of the Exodus, at least the crossing of the sea, is another picture of the chaos at creation.

Southwest Radio Ministries: Do you believe there was a gap in time between or after creation as recorded in Genesis?

Micah Van Huss: I do, but do not mistake that as evolution. A lot of Christians when they hear that you believe there's a gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, they'll think that you're talking about evolution, that God used evolution to create the Earth. Absolutely not. Evolution is a moronic theory.

To me, it's obvious that there is a gap of time. God moved on the face of the deep and so what I speculate about, not just in this book, but in my last book, Angels Eternal, in my book two books before that, The Earth As It Was, is that there is this gap of time in scripture. The water is here and that's obvious, but God created that water at some point in the distant past.

I believe there is land inside of that water because if you go through the days of creation, God speaks and light happens. God speaks and animals, birds, plants happen. But God doesn't speak the land into existence. God divides the waters and the land appears.

That tells me that the Earth before the six days of creation, that God at some point in the distant past had created an orb of water with land inside. I also speculate, again I'm speculating, that God has millions or billions of these orbs of water with land in them that he goes around and creates creations on. I'm not pulling this from scripture but from my mind and my thought process. It's an awful big universe for God to have created it just for us to sit here and look at.

Along those lines, there are angels before the Earth is created and there are angels created during the seven days of creation. That's Genesis 2:1, I believe, the host of heaven glorified after the six days of creation. But also in Job chapter 38, I believe the sons of God sang for joy when the foundations of the Earth were laid.

I have more of a cosmic scope of creation, a cosmic scope of God's universe. The idea that there are other intelligent beings that God has his own stories for. Jesus Christ came to the Earth to save mankind from their sin because Adam sinned. Other creations may not have done that. I mean, I can't conceive of how God would create an intelligent species with free will and them not choosing sin at some point in their history.

Free will is something that God gave both mankind and the angels. It's obvious. God created Adam and Eve and he put them in a garden and put a tree right in front of their faces and said, "Don't eat of this tree." That is the perfect example, well, the second example of free will. The other, the most perfect example of free will is God putting our salvation in our own hands. My Son has come to die for your sins and it's up to you to freely choose me or to choose yourself.

We are beings of free will and it's obvious that the angels had free will. Lucifer chose to rebel. He chose to become more proud than God. Let me wrap up the whole cosmic thought because I talk about it in a few of my books. The Great Day of Judgment, I speculate not only are humans and angels at the Great Day of Judgment being judged, but I think all of God's creations.

The Great Day of Judgment is all of God's creations. Who knows what kind of intelligent beings are out there. What are the cherubim? What are the angels? The different types of angels, we have serpent angels, the Nakhash, which is the serpent in the garden. Satan is obviously a Nakhash that rebelled. We have angels that have six wings, we have angels that have four wings, angels that have eyeballs, angels that have bull heads, lion heads, eagle heads, human heads. We have all kinds of weird looking angels. What if they were creations on other planets that are now angels? Because God says we will one day rule the angels.

We will one day rule over the angels. So what if these creatures that are in heaven, the living creatures and things mentioned in Isaiah, what if they're God's other creations from the past that are now serving in heaven and one day we will do that. I have a little bit more of a cosmic view, but back to the chaos before creation, that's the second chapter of the book, the waters that were here. Yes, I do believe that there is a gap between the waters and then God coming and bringing light on the first day of creation. It has nothing to do with evolution. It's obvious to me that scripture says there's a gap.

Southwest Radio Ministries: But it ties very closely to the thought that evolution is not heresy or a terrible thing. We've all seen an evolving process even in our own lives, some change, but we know that the Bible tells us that a day is as a thousand years or a thousand years as a day with God, if he wants it that way.

Micah Van Huss: I don't want to confuse macro and microevolution. Macroevolution is the changing from a rabbit to a horse. That is nonsense. Humanity has never seen that happen. The magic wand is time, saying, "Oh, time, and all of a sudden we get to believe that monkeys became humans." Microevolution is adaptation, which is part of God's creation. We adapt to our environments. Dogs all come from one common ancestor and they adapt to their environments. Don't mix micro and macroevolution.

Macroevolution, absolutely not. Changing one kind to another is antithetical to what God says in scripture. As far as the day a thousand years, God exists outside of our time. He's not bound by our time. He created our time. But I have no reason to believe that God took longer than six days to create the Earth. First of all, I'm not going to say he's not powerful enough to do it. Second of all, Exodus chapter 20 verse 11 says that in six days he created the Earth. Maybe it wasn't literal days, but I'm not worried about that because God's powerful enough to do it and that's what scripture says, so I'm okay with six days.

Southwest Radio Ministries: We're talking today with author Micah Van Huss about his brand new book, Mythologies Decoded. We would encourage you to get yourself a copy and you will be so glad that you did. You can visit the website, swrc.com, or you can call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144, swrc.com if you choose to go online. We thank you again for being with us today. Micah, this is a little bit of a tough question, I guess. Do you believe that there was indeed a pre-Adamic civilization, that there was an entity or some entities before God created life? He created this planet, life on this planet the way he wanted to do in those six days as described.

Micah Van Huss: It's not a tough question because I've studied this for this book. If I hadn't, maybe it would be a more tough question. A pre-Adamic civilization, there are folks who have written books that talk about what could have been before the six days of creation. I'm going to say no, I don't believe that. I always leave an open mind that God can do whatever he wants.

We also have to understand the different dimensions. There's angels on our Earth right now but we don't see them. They're in a different dimension. Who's to say there's not 10,000 dimensions and that there was something in a different dimension before Adam and Eve were created?

I guess the reason why this question comes up is because Jeremiah chapter 4. It talks about a time when there were cities on the Earth but no birds or no men. I think Jeremiah chapter 4 is being a metaphor and it's talking about the reign of one of the Old Testament kings. But it is fascinating wording in Jeremiah 4 where there's no birds or men, but there are cities.

One of the most in-depth studies that I've seen on this is Donna Howell and Tom Horn's book, Before Genesis. There's a lot of Christians who believe that Satan had dominion of the Earth before God created Adam and that explains why Satan hates humankind so much. I'm not saying I adhere to any of those. I haven't seen enough evidence for me to say that there was something before the six days of creation other than the water and land that was already floating here in Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 before the six days of creation. No, I don't believe there was, but I'm open to possibilities.

Southwest Radio Ministries: You've already talked a little bit about the giants and some of the interesting things that have happened, the creations that have evolved. Tell us a little bit about the Watchers.

Micah Van Huss: This gets into chapter three of my book, A Clash of Titans and Giants, and the Watchers, the sons of God in Genesis 6. I won't give a ton of detail on these answers because my last book, Angels Eternal, very much in-depth dealt with the Watchers and their offspring, the giants. All of my books do at some point come around to the Watchers because they're such a big part of the Earth's history and the reason why we war today.

The Watchers in Genesis 6 were these sons of God in scripture and they are the heavenly beings who descended, took human women as wives and sired the giant offspring, the Nephilim. The Watchers are the angels in Genesis 6 who rebelled against God.

Southwest Radio Ministries: And the connection between that entire scenario and Greek mythology is very strong, yes?

Micah Van Huss: Very strong. Kronos being the leader of them. But Greek mythology and scripture says that these angels were cast into Tartarus. The only time that the Bible mentions Tartarus by name is in 2 Peter where it says the angels that sinned were cast into chains.

Jude verse 6: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness." Also 1 Peter chapter 3 verses 18, 19, and 20. Jesus goes down into the abyss and he proclaims his victory over the spirits made trouble in the days of Noah.

Let me get on one of the bigger theories and arguments against the stance I have taken. A lot of folks will say that the sons of God in Genesis 6 are not angels sleeping with human women and having giant offspring. That's too weird for Christians to believe. That these sons of God are actually the human bloodline of Seth, a good bloodline.

There's a number of issues with that and I'm going to state the first three primary ones. First of all, if these are actually humans who are sleeping with women, it does not explain the giant offspring in the exact same verse, Genesis 6:4. It doesn't explain how human and human can have giant offspring. Second, it doesn't explain why God would send a global flood to wipe out the corrupted Earth if godly men are sleeping with women and having children. And third, scripture goes on in many passages to describe the angels that sinned in the days of Noah.

We're talking Isaiah chapter 24, we're talking about 1 Peter, 2 Peter, Jude. The angels that sinned in the days of Noah have been reserved. If someone believes that the Genesis 6 sons of God are human, then you tell me where these angels that sinned are in the Bible. If you throw that out the window, there's no other place where these angels sinned. Isaiah, Peter, Jude, 1 and 2 Peter, they're talking about some angels that sinned in the days of Noah and here we have it. That's fine, there are some Christians who just are like I just can't believe that and that's fine. Folks are allowed to believe what they want.

Southwest Radio Ministries: Would you give your precise explanation for the difference between an angel and a giant and a demon?

Micah Van Huss: The terminology is important because a lot of folks get confused with the sons of God in Genesis 6, the Nephilim, the giants, the demons. As we've said, the Watchers are the angels, the fathers of the giants. The giants are the Nephilim, the Rephaim, the Anakim, we see a number of names for them in scripture.

So who are the demons? Demons and fallen angels are two different entities altogether. Acts chapter 23, I believe verse 8, hints at that saying that the Sadducees don't believe in angels or demons, spirits, but the Pharisees do.

What demons are is according to the non-canonical writings, which I don't take as inspired but I believe some of the non-canonical writings are correct history and many of them contain correct history. The non-canonical writings say that when the giants died, we're talking about before the flood, there was the gigantomachy, which we get into in Mythologies Decoded. We get into the titanomachy, which was the war between the Olympians and the Titans, the Watchers and God, and then later the gigantomachy, the war of the giants.

According to non-canonical writings, Gabriel the Archangel caused the giants to go to war among themselves before the flood and they killed each other off and any giants that lived were killed in the flood. The demons are the spirits of those giants. In my book, Angels Eternal, and presentation, Realm of the Dead, we look at the number of scripture passages that talk about the giants that are in hell.

There are three scripture verses that mention giants in hell, which is fascinating because even before I wrote that book, I didn't know. It was fascinating and Derek Gilbert's book, The Second Coming of Saturn, has a lot to say about it and it's fascinating. These giants in hell, they're actually demons that will come out of hell for the future Revelation Armageddon scenario. But we get into that in Angels Eternal.

Demons are the disembodied spirits of the giants because the giants were half angel, half human, there was no place for their spirits in Abaddon, in Sheol, or in heaven, according to the non-canonical writings. They're doomed to roam the Earth and cause trouble among mankind. In fact, we don't see demons in scripture until Jesus comes to cast the one out at the synagogue. Jesus is the first person to cast out a demon in scripture and so that would be the difference between the angels, giants, and demons.

Southwest Radio Ministries: We're talking today with author Micah Van Huss and so happy to have you join us today. We would encourage you to get a copy of his new book, Mythologies Decoded. You can do so by calling 1-800-652-1144. Again, that's 1-800-652-1144, swrc.com if you choose to go online. We thank you again for being with us today.

Guest (Male): Giants, demi-gods, Titans, beings descending from the heavens. We call them mythology, but then you open the Bible and suddenly some of those ancient stories don't seem quite so strange. In Mythologies Decoded: Echoes of the Bible, Micah Van Huss takes you deep into the mysterious world of the Nephilim, the rebellion of the Watchers, the flood, and the supernatural events described in Genesis and beyond.

Then he compares the biblical record with stories preserved across ancient civilizations. Could the gods and heroes of mythology actually be distorted echoes of something humanity once remembered? This isn't about making the Bible fit mythology, it's about using scripture as the foundation for understanding what those ancient cultures may have been remembering.

If you're fascinated by the supernatural side of scripture, you'll want this book. Mythologies Decoded, yours for a gift of $27 or more today. Order now at swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. Mythologies Decoded: ancient mysteries, biblical answers. What happened in the ancient world before and after the flood? Could those events explain some of humanity's oldest and strangest legends? We'll find out when Micah Van Huss returns tomorrow on Watchman on the Wall. 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.