Watchman on the Wall

Southwest Radio Ministries: 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 we're going to learn how to resist global control and the realm of the dead will be revealed.

What is the longest continuously running radio ministry in the country? It's Southwest Radio and Watchman on the Wall. Do you know how that's possible? You. SWRC and Watchman on the Wall are completely listener and supporter-funded. If we have running water, it's because of you. If you're listening right now, that's thanks to your investment in our mission and growth. We can't spread the word without you.

Please call today and become a monthly partner. 1-800-652-1144 is the number or simply visit swrc.com and click on the donate button. Author and speaker Micah Van Huss was one of the featured speakers at last October's Prophecy in the News Live event. There he gave an excellent talk entitled The Realm of the Dead. Today and tomorrow, we're going to listen to this outstanding presentation.

Micah Van Huss: It's wonderful to be here again with you folks today. I want to start today by recognizing veterans. If you served in the Army, would you raise your hand? We have a couple of soldiers. I'm not going to make fun of anybody today. How about Air Force? A couple of airmen. How about the Navy? Any sailors? We have a sailor-marine combo right here. Marine Corps as well? Me and you. What about the Coast Guard? Space Force? One day.

I appreciate you folks showing up and I appreciate your service in the military. Your generation of veteran for many of you was not thanked like my generation was. So, thank you. We have a handout with every single verse listed that we're going to be going through on the realm of the dead as well as a chart of my interpretation of the underworld.

You've seen the kids' books in the back. Our kids are being inundated through social media or Netflix and Disney with all kinds of values that are not Christian values. If you believe as I do that God created dinosaurs and humans on the same day, get one of these books and share it with your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Show them that God's word is true.

These are my other three books. We had a good time with Secret Societies yesterday. I am currently working on Mythologies Decoded and we look forward to, Lord willing, releasing that book next year. This is what it looks like when your pastor is preaching a conviction message but keeps looking at you.

Let's start by asking what your world view is. What is your foundation for what you believe when you come across a challenge or something that you don't know? As we've said every single day, I recommend that what you believe is based on one thing primarily, and that is the word of God. I like to talk about the weird stuff. I recommend that you filter what I say through your knowledge of the word of God.

I also want to challenge Christians to value the text over tradition. As we study the weird stuff, let's not forget what Jesus Christ did on the cross at Calvary. It is my hope that every single human on this planet come to know Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Today's presentation is Realm of the Dead. If you were here on Thursday, I had another Angels Eternal presentation, War of the Princes, which focused on the three reasons that Jesus came to the earth.

The fallen angels are the gods of old. Not only do the ancient mythologies and ancient people call them their gods, but God in Scripture, in a number of instances, calls these fallen angels gods. I will reference some historical sources outside of the canon of Scripture. I do believe that the 66 books that we have are the inspired word of God. We study other passages and other teachers, but that does not mean that we believe they are truth unless they line up with Scripture.

Keep in mind that demons and fallen angels are not the same entity. They are two separate types of entity. Also, as we go throughout Scripture and non-canonical texts and other works, there are many different names for the giants: the Gibborim, the Anakim, the Emim, the Zamzummim. Let's get into the realm of the dead.

Guest (Male): In an age long past, 200 angels led by Shemyaza defied the Most High and transcended the veil. Their offspring were the Nephilim: giants, tyrants. But when men could no longer sustain them, the giants began to eat men and drink their blood. The cries of man found their way up to the gates of heaven.

This is what he commands. Gabriel, make the giants war among themselves. Raphael, find Azazel and cast him into the pit in Dudael. Chain him there until the judgment. Uriel, give this to the son of Lamech. Warn him of the coming flood. Understood.

Shemyaza and the fallen are to be bound. In fire and flood, the judgment would come. But the enemy is patient and the war for the hearts of men had only just begun.

Micah Van Huss: Today's presentation will be most of the other half of the book. There are a number of topics we cover in the book that I don't talk about Thursday or today. I have had a few conversations over the last couple of days of what I used to do this artwork. It is AI, almost all of it. I use a number of different programs for images, for videos, for voices. That two-minute video is not just straight AI. I have literally put 90 hours worth of work into making that two-minute video combining the AI and Photoshop and video effects.

Angelology is a neglected area of scriptural study. Many Christians and many preachers shy away from talking about angels. I'm not going to fault preachers for shying away from some of this weird stuff because they have flocks of sheep that they lead. If a church gets upset about what a preacher's talking about, I understand preachers may not want to get into some of the weeds that I get into.

By ignoring angels, we are ignoring a big part of Scripture and a big part of what God teaches. This study of angels is important because it magnifies Jesus Christ. Because not only is Jesus Christ our savior, he is the king of all of these beings. I hope that you will see Jesus Christ magnified in our study of angels.

We're going to start today with the underworld. Few topics in Scripture are more misunderstood than the subject of hell. That confusion doesn't come from the Bible itself but from the English language. When we open our Bibles, we see the word hell on the page and we tend to imagine a singular place: a fiery underworld of punishment for the wicked, ruled by demons and lasting forever.

The original languages of the Bible, Hebrew and Greek, paint a far more nuanced picture. The reality is the word hell does not exist in the original Hebrew and in the original Greek manuscripts. Instead, we find three distinct words, each with their own historical meaning and theological weight: Sheol, Tartarus, and Gehenna. These are not three different levels of punishment. These are three different locations in the underworld. If you count the two separations in Sheol, it becomes four locations.

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word Sheol refers broadly to the realm of the dead. It was the underworld where both righteous and unrighteous humans went after death. Hades is the Greek word for Sheol used in the New Testament. In Luke 16, Jesus describes the rich man suffering in Hades while Lazarus rests in Abraham's bosom. The beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried, and in hell he seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom.

Between us there is a great gulf fixed: they which would pass from hence to you cannot. From Luke chapter 16, we understand that there are two sections in Sheol: one for the righteous and one for the unrighteous divided by a great gulf. This section of Sheol reserved for the unrighteous is called Abaddon elsewhere in Scripture. The section reserved for the pre-Christ righteous is called Abraham's bosom.

This is where the prophet Samuel was after he died according to First Samuel chapter 28. The woman said unto Saul, "I saw gods ascending out of the earth." An old man cometh up and he is covered with a mantle. Saul perceived that it was Samuel. Samuel said to Saul, "Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?" This is the account of the witch of En-dor and Samuel is summoned up from Sheol by witchcraft.

We do see humans being able to, through God's power, transport back and forth from Sheol. We're going to get into the demons' ability to do that also. Is Sheol a physical location? In other words, if you put on your spelunking gear and explored, would you be able to actually touch Sheol yourself? I think it's a possibility because we find a strange passage in Scripture in Numbers chapter 16. The ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses. They went down alive into the pit and the earth closed upon them.

This is in the time of Moses. This is the rebellion of Korah. Here the word for pit is Sheol and God makes it a point to say that these rebels against Moses were alive when they were swallowed up into Sheol. It actually makes you wonder how physical this location actually is. Spiritual warfare is a lot closer than we like to think.

Some demons also reside in Sheol. As we prefaced, demons and fallen angels are two separate entities. When we talk about fallen angels, this will bring us to the next section of the underworld: Tartarus. In non-canonical writings, this is referred to as the end of heaven and earth. It's where the imprisoned rebellious angels walk among the burning mountains. In Scripture, I believe these burning mountains are in Ezekiel described as stones of fire, the same ones that Lucifer walked among.

The word Tartarus appears only once in Scripture and it is the prison for rebellious angels. Second Peter chapter 2 verse 4 says, "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." Here in the Greek, hell is Tartarus and it's the only place in Scripture that we have this word.

These angels are the watchers of Genesis chapter 6, the rebellious pre-flood angels who took human women and sired the Nephilim, the giants of old. We won't take the time today to study the two dozen plus Scripture verses that corroborate the sin and judgment of the watchers. The Greek Titans are mythological echoes of the watchers and they are recorded as being cast into Tartarus. It's a place of holding for the fallen angels. It's also referenced in Scripture as the abyss and the bottomless pit.

Tartarus is also located inside the earth. Revelation chapter 9 verse 1 says, "I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit." In a few minutes we're going to study this passage and the ancient evil that rises from Tartarus.

While Sheol appears to be a more accessible realm from which demon and human spirits can be summoned, Tartarus is sealed shut, only able to be opened by the key mentioned here in Revelation. The third section of the underworld is Gehenna. It's the lake of fire, the place of final punishment. Matthew chapter 8 verse 12 says, "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

I believe that this outer darkness is symbolic of spiritual separation from God. What was the light that God created on day one of creation? It wasn't the sun because that was day four. Jesus says in John 9:5, "I am the light of the world." So Gehenna's outer darkness is destruction from the presence of the Lord. Jesus uses the term Gehenna frequently to refer to the Valley of Hinnom, a literal place outside of Jerusalem that became infamous for the worship of Moloch where children were sacrificed by fire.

Over time, Gehenna became a symbol of final judgment and destruction. When Jesus warns of hell fire, he is saying Gehenna, a place of ultimate accountability, not Sheol. On our current earthly timeline, this lake of fire is empty. It won't be until after the great day of judgment that unrepentant humans, Satan, and the fallen angels will be cast here into the lake of fire. Revelation chapter 20 verse 15 says, "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

The point isn't to terrify but to call all people to repentance and faith in Christ, who alone can rescue us from the second death. What about the demons? In general, we as Christians have been taught that the evil spiritual beings against which we war are demons, that Satan himself is a demon. But that's not true. Satan is a fallen angel. Demons and fallen angels are not the same thing and Scripture indicates as much.

Acts chapter 23 verse 8 says, "For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both." Here the Bible separates angels from spirits showing that they are different entities. We find more scriptural evidence to back this up in Matthew chapter 12 verse 24. They said, "This fellow doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebub the prince of devils." If they're not angels, then what is the origin of demons?

I've never met anyone who believes that demons were created by God at creation. That means that in the last several thousand years, demons got here somehow. So where did they come from? The giants are the children of the watchers. That makes giants 50% angel and 50% human. In non-canonical writings, Gabriel the archangel causes the giants to go to war among themselves. This is known as the War of the Giants. In Greek mythology, this is the Titanomachy.

The giants were eradicated in that war and any that were left, the flood of Noah cleansed. In the New Testament, Jude quotes from a non-canonical book and that book records that the demons are the disembodied spirits of those giants, the Nephilim. If this is to be believed, and I do believe that this is an accurate account, demons appeared on the earth when the pre-flood giants started to die off.

But there was no place for their spirits in heaven so they were damned to roam the earth. They work destruction on our planet. They take no food, but they do hunger and they do thirst and they oppress humankind. One of the non-canonical writings says that they cause diseases among humans, they cause war, they cause destruction. Scripture records a boy who is thrown into fires and thrown into water by a demon. It also describes a woman who was crippled by a demon. It also describes a multitude of people who were sick because of demons.

Luke chapter 11 verse 24 reads, "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and finding none." Imagine being hungry and thirsty for thousands of years. This is part of the fate of the demons. Also note right here in this verse that demons do not appear to like water. During Noah's flood, there wasn't a dry place to be found on the earth and that's important.

In Leviticus 16, we find the fallen angel Azazel. In that Scripture, the children of Israel send a goat into the desert to Azazel, symbolically carrying away Israel's sins. Azazel also appears in non-canonical writings as having taught forbidden knowledge to mankind. He is a prince of demons. Scripture tells us that not only do demons roam the earth, but they also inhabit Sheol.

Isaiah 14:9 says, "Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth. Art thou also become weak as we? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave." There's three things of importance to unpack in this passage. First, the Hebrew word for dead here is Rephaim, the mighty giants of old. These are the demon spirits of the Nephilim in Sheol.

The second thing to note here is this phrase "chief ones." It translates from the Hebrew "attudim" meaning male goats, the demons associated with Azazel, the scapegoat. The third thing to notice in this verse is that these demons are welcoming a fallen entity into Sheol. They mock him as once powerful but now reduced to weakness.

This isn't the only place that we find these giants in Sheol. Ezekiel chapter 32 verse 21 says, "The mighty shall speak to him out of hell which caused terror in the land of the living. The mighty that are fallen are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads. They were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living." What a fascinating piece of Scripture.

The Hebrew word here for mighty is Gibborim. Where else do we see Gibborim in Scripture? It's the word used for the giants in Genesis chapter 6 to describe the Nephilim. Ezekiel isn't simply listing fallen warriors, he is drawing a direct line back to the hybrid giants of Noah's day. Though their bodies lie in Sheol, their spirits are not at rest. Why do they have their weapons with them? These disembodied beings, the demons, will at a future point wreak havoc on the living and that will lead us into the rise of Apollyon.

Revelation 9 reveals a terrifying scene. An angel descends from heaven to the earth to unlock the bottomless pit and release an ancient enemy. I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

The bottomless pit is Tartarus. What entities are bound in Tartarus? Fallen angels are found in Tartarus. But which one is evil enough to be the king of Tartarus? It's not Satan because Satan is currently roaming the earth as the prince of this world. This figure goes way back. The archaic Greek work Theogony tells of the Titans that were bound in Tartarus. It quotes, "They overshadowed the Titans with their missiles and buried them beneath the earth and bound them as far beneath the earth to Tartarus."

In Greek mythology, it was the king of the Titans who was the king of the abyss. He is known in Greek mythology as Cronus, as Hades. To early Christians, he was the Roman god Saturn, the ruler of demonic powers. In Scripture, he is Lucifer, the son of the dawn. Lucifer is not Satan but an older rebel. Here the veil lifts. Ancient writings outside of Scripture speak of a figure who led a rebellion before the flood of Noah, descending to corrupt the bloodline of mankind.

Southwest Radio Ministries: Micah will continue his presentation on the realm of the dead on our next program. Micah's presentation is based on his new book, Angels Eternal, and the presentation we've been listening to is available in its entirety right now on DVD. Order both the book and DVD today when you call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144 or order online at swrc.com. Angels Eternal, the book, and Realm of the Dead, DVD. 1-800-652-1144.

Tomorrow Micah Van Huss will continue to share insight and details into the realm of the dead. Be sure to tune in on your favorite radio station or by downloading our free SWRC mobile app. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and is supported by faithful listeners like you. Visit swrc.com.