#6 BONUS: The Watchers and the Holy Ones

Show Notes

Syndicated interview with Chuck from Fire Theft Radio.

How do we bring up the subject of fallen watchers and giants at church?

Why is it even relevant to know about?

Is this at all a subject worth discussing in bible study?

Chuck has an amazing conversation with Pastor, Podcaster, and author Anthony Delgado on why this subject is filled with practical meaning and understanding of biblical history. I’ve always said, “The more you know your bible, the more you’ll know what you're doing here.” We discuss Anthony’s book (The Watchers And The Holy Ones) and how we can use this so-called weird knowledge in church, counseling, and even evangelism. Never be afraid to research biblical knowledge that might not fit your current paradigm. But if you do, ensure it’s grounded in biblical context. Anthony’s book creates that bridge for the evangelical community.

Music: Trap Future Bass by Royalty Free Music

Podcast Transcript

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This light momentary affliction is preparing an internal weight of glory for us. Beyond all comparison, as we look, not to the things that are seen but to the unseen Second Corinthians 4, 17 and 18, in a post materialistic world filled with immense spiritual noise.

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We're here to uncover the ancient near eastern context of the Bible to recover the truly mystical faith of our spiritual forefathers. Welcome to the biblical re enchantment podcast where we bridge the gap between the Ancient Hebrew story and modern insights.

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I'm Anthony Delgado, your host for this journey into the often overlooked mystical dimensions of the Bible. This is episode six titled The Watchers and the Holy Ones.And my listeners may realize that's the same title as a book that I wrote The Watchers and the Holy Ones, an evangelical reading of First Enoch, the book of the Watchers. And this is actually gonna be an interview syndicated from Fire Theft Radio.My good friend Chuck from Fire Theft Radio had me on his show in order to talk about not really just my book but also some of the pastoral implications of the presence of the Watchers. Some tidbits about giants, demons, some good alien stuff, Bigfoot, things like that.

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Uh But really looking at how this stuff speaks into really practical day to day ministry within the church setting. And so that's what Chuck had me on his podcast to talk about. And I thought, you know what, that's gonna be really good for you guys to hear.

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And so I'm gonna play that for you today. So without further ado, we'll jump into Fire Theft Radio's interview with me about the Watchers and the Holy ones.

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All right, folks. Welcome back to another episode of Fire Theft Radio, Anthony Delgado. Can you hear me? Yeah, I got you, man. All right, cool man. Welcome back to the show. It's been a while.

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Yeah, it has been a while. Uh hoping to catch up on some more of your episodes. I drop in every now and then and, and listen to some. It's always good stuff and always good to hear your voice.

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Thank you. Thank you. Um I, like I said, I, you've been busy, man. I saw you, you wrote the book. I had to, I had to read it, man.And you were kind enough to send me a copy the Watchers and the Holy ones, an evangelical reading of the, of first Enoch, the book of the Watchers. And I got pretty excited.I was like, oh, this is good stuff and, and, um, I don't know if people don't know, uh, you know, tell them who you are, what you do.Uh And uh, so they can kind of, uh, get a little taste of, see, sees who you are

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right on. Yeah, for sure. So, I'm a pastor of Palmdale Church in uh Southern California in northern L A county. And uh Palmdale Church is a, a church plant about three years old.And uh we're going for it, spreading the gospel, doing the things that, uh you know, worshiping the Lord Jesus and doing the things that churches need to do according to scripture. So, uh we're doing that.Uh I work as a uh substitute teacher at a local high school and um m married with three kids. My oldest is in uh started college this year and proud of her and proud of my other kids too.And uh yeah, so we uh also I say we, my family, my wife and I, and as my kids get older that them as well are interested in really understanding the scripture from the ancient near eastern perspective.

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And so for quite a few years now, we've been really studying the context of the scripture and that's led us into some writing projects as well as uh so the Watchers and the Holy ones being my most recent one.And then also, uh I started up recently a podcast called Biblical re enchantment podcast. And that's really, and, you know, if you want to sit and listen to me ramble for a while go subscribe to that. It's good stuff.We're looking at how the stories of the scriptures as we understand them from the ancient, near eastern perspective, how they really inform worldview. And so we're talking a lot about storytelling and being honest about the things that are happening in the spirit world and things like that.

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So that's what we're, that's what we're after these days and, and, and that's kind of what I'm, what I'm doing. I'm working on two more books right now as well. So you watch out for those.So,

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yeah. Yeah.Um, well, if I'm not mistaken, you actually also, if people don't know and, and if their listeners of the show, they're familiar with this uh person, uh Doctor Michael Heiser, you, you actually, um, made like a conference like a first official church conference with Doctor Michael Heiser here in California because we, I had one with him, I don't know, 78 years ago, something like that right before he released a book through Canary Cry Radio.

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And, uh, but then later he came back to Southern California. Uh, and I was so surprised that he was gonna do something like that and actually present his stuff at a church or like with church people and that was something that you organized. And I was like, what?

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And that's kind of how I started looking into this person, Anthony Delgado, who's this guy, you know what I mean?And

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then, uh, Yeah, we, we did, we had Mike out and uh he, he was gracious. We had, it was called a Mick Lot conference. So Mick Lot is his nonprofit that now his wife Dinna runs.And uh he did a, a good over broad overview of the unseen realm for our congregate, not just our congregation, we invited a lot of different churches out and uh had a couple of 100 people out to the church and did a, did a conference with him and uh really talked about, it was interesting.

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There was some meetings that framed, coming out of that, you know, off the stage time, they kind of framed some things that MCLA further stretched into. And that Reina is doing a great job of carrying forward today as well.And so a lot of those early ideas that were out there, I met Doctor Heizer's work a long time ago and I gotta be honest with you. I know you want me, you're gonna want me to talk about the pastoral perspective on stuff.And when I first like came across his work was long time ago when he first started at Logos before Naked Bible or anything like that.And I came across some of his articles and stuff on Dr MS H and um saw some short videos he had done with logos and I was like this guy man, he is off the rails, you know, and I just wasn't into it and it was about two years later, maybe a little less.

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My wife came across some of his hermeneutics videos and that's like a soapbox of mine. Like, I'm all about right and wrong ways to take apart the scriptures and, you know, it's funny. So in the, I talk about this in the intro of the book too.But yeah, when she like, you know, it was like, no, you gotta watch some of this guy's stuff and I just like delved in and I think by the time I dove in, he had like, only like, believe it or not five episodes maybe of Naked Bible podcast out.And so I was able to binge those first couple watch all of his new video, new, new hear start here videos and hermeneutic stuff and kind of follow the podcast all the way to the end of it.So, uh definitely thankful to Dr Heiser for his work on that and I'm seeing so much more come out of his work, you know, that other people are putting together now too.

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So,

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and uh it's funny because, you know, you see some of these things and either you're ready for it, you're ready for it or you're not.And, and one of the reasons is because he was an actual scholar and touching on like UFO stuff and, and aliens and things like that. And you're like, what, you know, like, I don't know what's up with that. And um So, yeah, I get the hesitation.I know there's an issue every time I bring up his work, I've tried at church. Um It's been a little bit of a, of an issue and just a fair warning guys.I mean, I do have a, a newborn so you might hear all that ruckus in the background. It's not a big deal. Uh So, uh sorry if it bothers everyone else, but it's, it's just what it is, man. My recording studio is here also in the baby room.

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So, um, but, uh, uh, anyways, other than that, uh, I do want to talk about two things. First of all, uh, here in the, in the, in the Red pill world, in the fringy world, uh, we love to talk about the Watchers.We, we've been talking about the Watchers for a long time now that all of this stuff has really, um, grown, you see often people that don't even believe in the Bible, quote enoch and they quote the Watcher stuff and they're always talking about it.I mean, there's so many podcasts that are, in my opinion, also misquoting, uh, stuff because they want to believe the strange, weird stuff of the Watchers and the holy ones.And so I kind of want to bring to light a little bit as how, how is this useful first of all, uh, within church and also how, how do we talk about it within context for those people who want to believe in this stuff, but also wanna disconnect it from the Bible because they only want to believe it because it sounds cool.

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You know, it's a cool thing to believe in and things like that. And uh so first, uh right on the top of your book, it says biblical reen chantment book.Um You wanna explain what that means re enchantment because I feel like uh I can already hear some people, especially in the evangelical world. Like, what do you mean? What are you re enchanting about the Bible? What's going on here? You know?

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Yeah. And this is controversial. Not everybody wants to hear what I'm about to say, but that's OK. I feel like this is a safe venue for it. I've talked about this pretty extensively on my podcast.Actually, all I really mean by re enchantment is exactly what the word is bringing the enchantment back in. Now don't confuse enchantment with spirituality. That's the problem.And where people get kind of offended by it is to say spirit, something is spiritual is, is to speak of like sort of the metaphysical world. The which means the world that stands alongside the physical.And so we believe all Christians believe lots of things that are spiritual enchantment has to do with the way that God is designed the spiritual world to interface and to come into and flourish in the physical world.

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And to use as an illustration, I think the best illustration we could use is actually sort of like the folklore about fairies and just to see how, like, you know, fair fairies seem to be responsible in folk tales for bringing, you know, flowers onto plants and causing things to grow.

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And that's, that's the idea of enchantment. Now, then you get enchantment with like wizards and stuff like that too where they're casting spells and you could call it enchantment when it's a good wizard or a good witch, right? You know, doing beautiful things.

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You could also call it enchantment when it's a bad witch or a bad wizard doing bad things. And so we get both of those in the scriptures. You get the, the holy ones, remember the book titled Watcher and the holy ones.You get the holy ones of heaven who are really the Watchers who didn't leave heaven. And then you get, I'm just gonna assume that your audience knows a little bit about the Watchers and all of that sons of God type of stuff.So, you know, you get the good ones, the holy ones who didn't leave heaven the two thirds and then you get the third, you know, the ones who rebelled with the devil and all of that. So you kind of get both sides of it.You get the, you get the good magic, the bad magic, you get the good enchantment, the bad enchantment and it has to do, it really has to do with how it comes into the world.

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But I think the evangelical church has done on accident, by the way, nobody's gone. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna disenchant my faith. You know, I don't think that's really what's happened.What I think really happened is that the reformation was built upon textual criticism effectively, it was built upon a grammatical historical reading of the text and a process of determining what the original meaning of the text was. And then rightly returning to Orthodox doctrine based on the text.

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And you go, well, how could that be a bad thing?And it's like, well, it's not a bad thing, but as history has progressed, and we've lost contact with a lot of the ideas of the ancient near eastern world things that really since the development, you know, since the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls forward are really, we're just learning more and more about the ancient near eastern world.

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Archaeologists are constantly discovering new things all across the Middle East that bring this world to life for us and allow us to understand it.So you go back to a time when all of that was lost and the the through the process of, you know, continual reformation, if you will, from the time of the reformers, protestant Christians have effectively deconstructed all of the, all of the enchanted elements of the faith, we've kept the necessary elements, you know, we never lost the apostles creed.

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So we believe in the virgin birth, you know, and the incarnation, we believe in the Trinity. We believe in a lot of the core essentials that are built into the, I guess you could call the essential doctrine of the Christian faith.But some of the more esoteric things that, that are really the beautifying elements of the narrative of scripture because we couldn't really connect with the ideas.You get things like, you know, you get start getting weird humanistic or materialistic explanations for things that God put in his scripture for to be light to us and to be beauty for us.So that's what I mean by re enchantment is getting back to that faith of like the first century church where they still had an enchanted faith and an understanding of all the beauty that God had built into it. Right. Right.

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Yeah, because uh these days, especially as the rise of kind of the new age and all different types of uh religious beliefs. Uh The context that I sometimes have seen that word pop up is um changing. What is.So when you see like biblical re enchantment, you're like, oh, what are you changing about it? There shouldn't be any changes and it could be a little bit of a, a trip up there, but that's not what you're saying.You're just kind of bringing forth the knowledge that we kind of lost in a sense or, or, or we, I don't know, we despirito, I did a whole episode of the Hell Hydra series. We call it the Despirito of Christian Civilization.You know,

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and that's probably the same ideas that you're talking about.Yeah,

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we, we, we, you know, we, um, have very specific spiritual beliefs but we don't, I don't know, extrapolate that further, especially into history. And we tend to forget how, I don't know, mythological, uh, Christianity actually is.And, and I don't mean that in the fake way that it's fake because that's how they use it now.I mean that in the, in the sense of like wonder in the sense of like, whoa this, this is crazy, like a lot of crazy spiritual stuff was happening and it is still happening in my opinion.But um uh we just got to pay attention, we got, we were in the middle of, of this weird interesting battle and, and I believe that your work here is, you know, kind of setting the stage a little bit and uh if someone, well, I

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hope so, I mean, you're absolutely right about that. That's one of the problems is that there is an obvious spiritual movement happening in the universe right now.And I think because we've lost so much of our spiritual understanding of, of the scriptures or I could say our understanding of the spiritual world through the scriptures, we've lost that.Now people are going to sort of ancient paganism, honestly, we're just honest about what it is, they're going to ancient paganistic concepts to go and explore spiritual things for the very specific reason that the church has lost this.And it's like, so that's probably pastorally, the number one reason to bring it back in is to say, actually, we have the answers to these things.

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You know, there's an interesting thing that happens if you look at like ancient paganism and neos spirituality, all of this, you know, kind of stuff that's going on right now is it's always built on like innovation, like the inventing of, of new, of new ways, like it's experimental and all of that.

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One of the misconceptions we have about magic actually is that you get this idea like in Harry Potter movies and stuff like that, like if you say the spell wrong, then it doesn't work. And that's actually not how magic works, especially in the ancient world.

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Uh Ancient magic is all about experimentation and all about innovation and finding new ways to engage and to, and to sort of imprison the spirits to force them to do your bidding and stuff like that. That's what ancient magic really is about.And so a lot of this neos spiritualism, we go, oh well, you know, they're good people and they're doing, you know, no, actually they're, they're binding demons and trying to force them to do their bidding.Like it gives us a context to understand some of these things that are that are really happening in the world. Yeah.

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The and I don't know, this is my opinion here and people might not, might not agree. But I feel like modern day, the modern day understanding of human psychology is basically uh a version of ancient magic totally.And, and let me explain, let me explain myself to you

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guys. I'll let you explain. I'm already with you.

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Yeah, you agreed with me so quick there. I appreciate that. But uh first I started looking into like, who whose psychology beliefs are we believing in?And you look into niche and you're looking on to all these people, all these creators of our modern psychology and you look into what they were into and lo and behold, surprisingly, they had connections to the occult, they had connections, their mothers were occultists, they were conjures all kinds of different things and um their ideas came from ancient pagan sort of beliefs like these, I don't know, um archetypes, but like I, I would say re enchanted but into science, right?

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And we just think no psychology, psychology, it's separate from uh uh the spiritual world.But I think throughout time, what we see as normal science, as normal, like psychology, all these different things, um maybe very occult like and sometimes very overt like has been um um a diluted version of uh using magic to be able to manipulate the masses.

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Now think of it. It doesn't even have to be nefarious. I mean, it could be just simple psychology, like what they use in propaganda to buy food. You know what I mean?Like what they always use, um, aspects of the human brain in order to convince you to buy that product and, and it works. Right.I mean, I got, I got a, I got a Mac mini, I got all kinds of stuff that I probably shouldn't have spent extra money on. But, you know, I was convinced that this is the best way to go.Um, and my will went towards that and I spent this on this thing because that, that's what the propaganda told me to do, you know.

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Yeah, I think you're, I think you're right about that. I think that there is, I wouldn't even say that it's diluted. I just think that master contextually through history. So, like Jonathan Peugeot talks about this, he'll use the Greek word for Watchers Aggregor.

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But he starts to more idealize the idea of the watchers, not because he thinks there are not actual angelic beings. So that's, that's true to historic Eastern Orthodoxy. Jonathan P is an Eastern Orthodox iconography, but he's real smart.He's big in this space and he is, he's really smart. He's way smarter than I am. I have to listen, like, very intently and carefully.But, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about what he says about these things that he, he believes that, you know, he, he'll say that and I'll, I'll make this in my own simplistic terms.Like he'll say that like the, the Watchers and sort of the Old Testament narratives that they're showing up and interacting very directly with people because that's what those people expect.

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Those people have an understanding of the spiritual world and, and therefore they expect to, you know, Daniel expects an angel to show up in his vision because he knows that he's a prophet who has visions, right? That sort of idea.So he'll, he expects to see the Watchers, you know, now he's still terrified when he does, but he, he still expects to, it's part of his world.And so Jonathan Pageau will say things like where, you know, if we don't expect that in our world, but we're interested in things like let's say pharmaceuticals or let's say artificial intelligence or you take it wherever you want. You know what I mean?

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That why wouldn't the Watchers, you know, decide I don't need to go by Azazel or Shim Yaa anymore. How about I go by Siri? You know what I mean?Like they don't need to, they don't need to have the same names and we know the names of the spirits changed throughout ancient history. And I don't think they care about their names.I think they care about their influence and they're happy to take on whatever name in order to shift, you know, society in the direction that they want to shift it, you know, which is usually usually very close to being, hey, look, we're a good thing, doing great things for society.

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We're teaching you secret knowledge that God wasn't gonna, you know, that's in first enoch, by the way, you know, we're teaching you secret knowledge that God was high from you and that sort of thing. We're trying to build society.But really what they're trying to do is build society right over the line where you don't have a need to or a desire to worship you all

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in about, in about, and it would make sense that their names would change uh because their names were probably assigned by God, you know, and maybe they're, they're like, I don't wanna really, and if you know any biblical history, I mean, the, the name that God assigns you has a specific purpose and meaning and I don't know, I just, I would feel like they would change their names through history, which I don't know if you agree with me.

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But uh do you think that this is um where the birth of all the other gods we, we have uh are from, from this rebellion?

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Well, I would definitely say that if so if Jonathan and Peugeot is right, that, you know, the ideas still the, you know, the, that the angelic beings still exist behind all of these societal ideas, then I would say yes, but probably not from the ones of Genesis six.

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So the Genesis six Watchers, they're, they're chained in gloomy darkness we're told in, in the scripture. So not, not those ones, but definitely the ones that came after.If you remember in Genesis six Moses says, you know that they were on the nephele were on the earth in those days. And afterwards that the ones that came after that were under the sons of God over the nations.The Deron, what Michael Heiser would call the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, the sons of God that were supposed to be righteous judges over the nations. But then they fell or you could call them the divine council that fell, that came under judgment.That's Psalm 82 you know, so just throwing that stuff around. But the, those ones, they seem to still be active spirits. Those are the ones that you get in job when it says that the sons of God came into the divine council.

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And then it says by the way, it's like this, by the way, Satan was with them also, you know, and that's in job one. And then you get a different terminology in the New Testament where you start getting this phrase, the devil and his angels.And at some point, the devil was like hanging out palling around with the sons of God.But then as you get throughout history and, and I am one that thinks the devil and Satan Old Testament, New Testament, I think it suits the narrative best for, you know, I don't know if it suits the grammar best, but suits the narrative best to consider them the same person.

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So I know a lot of the, the community is like, no, there's lots of devils and, and Satans and it's like, ok, I understand all that but I think that we're supposed to think about them the same way, at least by the time we get to the New Testament.So now you get the devil and his angels and that's talking about, you know, Satan, sort of like rallying the sons of God to now work against Christ's kingdom.And so I think it's the same group except now the devil's in charge,

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you know.And so, yeah, I, I agree sometimes when I pray or when I speak of the devil, um It's, it's hard for me to speak of it because I know that it's a, it's a layered situation like I know job and Satan probably not the Satan that we're mainly think of.Um But the point is that Satan means the adversary. So it's, he's against you. That's the point, whatever, whichever uh rank he has, that entity is against you. And that is actually more practically the point. It's that it's, it's working against you and God's will.

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So, but uh I like how you set up your book. So you'll, for example, you have a part excerpt here and, and you explain just this, the scene of the Watchers. And you'll explain kind of the verses where it's connected to in the Bible.And then you'll jump over to Enoch and then you'll read a little bit of what first Enoch says. And I'll just read a little bit here. Um, so there wasn't much godliness on earth.Humankind, committed sexual immorality on every, uh, of every kind being led astray and corrupt in all their ways. Shim Yaa taught enchantment and root cutting, which I always as a Mexican wondered, how does my mom know that that plant can fix you because she has remedies for everything.

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You know what I mean? She, she grows remedies and I'm like, dude, there's millions upon millions of plants. How do you know, where did that knowledge came from?And I believe that this was ancient knowledge from the Watchers, in my opinion, you know,

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I think you're, I think you're right.

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And then the next one I thought is an interesting name. Uh Hermione taught the loosing of enchantments and I was like, that sounds pretty close to Hermione, but whatever, you know, uh Barrel taught the reading of lightning flashes, which is interesting.

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Uh, Coco Bell taught astrology, which I believe is where, you know, we have our issues. Now, there was probably, uh, he probably actually re enchanted astrology and created a whole another thing which shouldn't have been. But, um, Ziel taught the knowledge of the clouds, Arctica.

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I can't say that one Atico. W yeah, that'll work, taught the signs of, of, of the earth. And Sam Ziel taught the signs of the sun and sac sacre, the, uh, moon's course, the Giants revealed mysteries to their wives and their Children.And as men perished in due course, um, they cried and their cries went up to heaven and you'll, you'll read Enoch and then right after that, you'll say now the evangelical reading.So the practical, more application or understanding of this, which I really appreciate that you did that in your book. Um Now as far as like uh as far as far as the weird stuff like in uh this is considered weird.So we're admitting these watchers, these heavenly beings said, you know what, we're gonna sleep with women, they look pretty good and we're gonna take some for ourselves. We can find that in Genesis six. Why did you let go of the Seth view? Why did you say?

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No, these, these sons of God are not descendants of Seth. Uh What was kind of like the, the nail, the nail in the coffin for that?

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So I didn't grow up with that interestingly. So the Seth view, I'd never even heard that. I probably only ever, I think I can only ever remember once one of my pastor's teaching on Genesis six. And yeah.So as an as a young adult, uh the pastor of the church that I was going to out in little rock went through Genesis six and I believe he taught that they were angelic beings and giants that, that really is the historic view.And I come from like a Baptist tradition and in Baptist traditions, it's really interesting. Uh they, they can actually be Baptist can be very spiritual as long as they're not along like the neo reformed kind of fundamental Calvinistic Baptist. That group tends to be like, OK, Seth view.

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Here's the nail in the coffin for me on the Seth view because I started hearing that I didn't really understand what the Seth view was saying until I was already knee deep in Dr Heiser S work.So I sort of had an edge on that, but I'm a student of hermeneutics and I cannot find any way to get the Seth view out of the scriptures naturally that it says nothing about Seth or Cain says nothing about human beings.I can't find anywhere else in the Old Testament that Sons of God is obviously a reference to human beings. It's always, it's always more natural, you know, like are we gonna go to job one and say that Satan walked into the divine council with the sons of Seth?

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You know what I mean? Like it's super not the, you know, he didn't care bring a bunch of Seth fights into the throne room of God in the Kingdom of Heaven, right? They're not even, that's not even on earth. So like that it just doesn't make any sense.

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And so I, I just can't find any way to actually get it out of the scriptures. You have to assume it on the text.And so I'm very critical of anything that anybody wants to assume on the text

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that hermeneutic stuff comes into play. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, I mean, I, I, I've always kind of been in the Calvary Chapel world ever since I left my, uh, Pentecostal Charismatic cult back in the day.Um, so it's just been sort of a, a pretty safe place in many ways. But when it's all calvaries are different, I've been to different kinds and some of them touch on this and they're like, yup, uh, the Nephilim were real. Those are demons.The Nephilim will return and you're like, whoa, that's wild. I didn't expect the Calvary Chapel to say that. And then, uh there's other ones that are like, no, that's not it. That's not it.And, and one of the smaller ones, they were like, I brought up Hager's work and they, they, I don't know how, I mean, I think it was God, divine assignment for sure, because I was bringing up all this controversial stuff.

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Kids weren't understanding me because I, I was kind of cole the youth group and then I, I brought up this information to the lead, uh, youth pastor and he was like, that's heresy. Right?And everything I said about Heiser, I was like, dude, he's just trying to sell books. That's crazy. That's heresy. I mean, I, I gave him ancient context, everything I gave him whatever. And he's like, I'm not even after a while he's like, I'm not even gonna read that.

00:32:09 - 1

And it was, it was kind of wild and I was like, oh, well, I was like, oh, my days are numbered here at this church. You know what I mean? And then they made me the, like the lead youth leader. I was like, what's going on here?I'm like, all right, cool. So, so I tried to bring this up at church in a way that the youth could understand. And actually they were pretty receptive because it starts making sense of mythology.It starts making sense of a lot of things, a lot of questions they had about, I don't know, aliens, uh, uh, different things like that. Now, that being said, have you made these connections with ancient mythological gods and aliens?And, and if you have, have you brought that up at church, how do you bring that up if at all at church?

00:33:03 - 0

Yeah, completely. So, I, I think that, well, first of all, I'm a preacher. So, and I tend to, I'm not an expository preacher these days. That's what I used to do for a long time. I'm gonna go through a book of the Bible.I'm gonna go, not always line by line, but I'm gonna go, you know, Pericope by Pericope section by section, I'm gonna talk through the ideas and so that forces you to deal with things when they come up. Um I tend to preach more thematically.So like last year or was it might have been earlier this year? I did a, you know, seven week survey of Genesis where I followed the stories of the patriarchs. But yeah, obviously when I did Noah, like it was there, it was there in the text, you know.

00:33:45 - 0

And so actually I think it was there in every single one of those, I think it was seven or eight sermons and it was, it was there in every single one of them because it's all throughout just Genesis is saturated in these ideas.And so, like, how am I gonna talk about Joseph and his diviner's cup, you know, if I don't have any context for, for this stuff. So, yeah, definitely. It comes up in preaching and teaching uh the small group that I lead at our church.They're the, that's more of the venue for the esoteric knowledge where they're always wanting to know, you know, geek out on, you know, the, the weird stuff, you know.And so then there's a challenge there because they're more, you know, they're more into this stuff, the people who come to my small groups and then there's a challenge to go with them instead of revealing the spiritual world to them because they already get that expect it, want it.

00:34:34 - 0

Now, I'm trying to gear that and direct it back towards what's practical, what's applicable. Where are you saying this and in your life and, and things of that sort. So, yeah, so definitely as a tea in teaching, it's definitely showing up.I think one of the interesting places that it shows up is in, is in counseling and then the other interesting place that shows up is in evangelism. And so one of the places that shows up in counseling is a lot of biblical counseling.Uh the world, you know, people have already explored solutions to their issues in the world. So they've already gone half the time to a secular psychologist.They've already called their doctor, set up the, you know, behavioral therapy meetings and all of that and it's not, and it's not working, they're already on some kind of medication and it's not, you know, and maybe it's tempering the issues but it's not actually working, you know.

00:35:25 - 0

And so it allows a context for that, you know, where I can say, look, there's probably a deeper issue. Now, I'm a both and guy. Ok.So I think that if somebody is, thinks that they're being attacked spiritually and therefore they're being medicated for it and the medication is making, let's say visions or whatever, disappear for them, then I'm a both and guy, I'm gonna say, yes, take the medication because it's making the demon go away.

00:35:59 - 0

You know what I mean? So I, I think that spiritual things are saturated, that there's always a physical and a spiritual side to everything. It's literally what the words, physical and metaphysical mean. The physical universe is the material plane and the metaphysical exists alongside the material plane.

00:36:16 - 0

So every, everyone, every, every pill that somebody takes for a DH D or, you know, bipolar disorder or whatever it is, that's the physical side of the spiritual issue.So I, I think it's a both and now I realize that you might be like, wait a minute, you said you agreed with me about psychology and stuff.What I actually think is happening

00:36:36 - 1

there? Well, I never said it was all bad. You know what I mean?

00:36:39 - 0

Yeah, you didn't, you didn't, you didn't, you didn't. Yeah. Yeah, I shouldn't put words in your mouth. You're right. But let me use this illustration. So in Genesis six or no, I'm sorry, Genesis one and two, right?The creation narrative, Adam and Eve were told, hey, don't eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, right?And the, and the question that you always should ask when you read that is why was it bad that Adam and Eve knew the difference between right and wrong? Like isn't that praised everywhere in, in scripture that we have conscience and, and, and awareness and universal morality?

00:37:10 - 0

So if you ask that question, then it leads you to different, it leads you to different uh different conclusions than good tree. Bad tree does. I think it's actually a good tree and good tree, but not yet.And, and so this is a minority view about the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But I think it's what's really happening in the text is that Adam and Eve were spiritual, emotional, mental infants.You know, even if God created them with fully grown physical bodies, like they're, they're infants intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. And so it's a not yet.I also think that even when the watchers come down, many of the things that they taught humankind, like the mixing of herbs, for example, which we would call pharmaceuticals today.

00:37:55 - 0

I think it was a not yet, you know, not necessarily a never, I

00:37:59 - 1

recently saw, you know, I watch things that I don't like to see, but just to see where the mind is going and where the program is going for a lot of these younger folks.But I saw like a little uh vice documentary about just people's beliefs and an argument that came up a lot was that they don't understand why God stopped Adam and Eve from knowing more things.And that, that was like their, their thing where they were like, oh, that's a, that's a God that is uh restrictive or um he wants to imprison you. He, he doesn't want to let you know.And as a parent and as I start to see the spirituality of what it is to be a parent, you know, that you give your child what they are ready for.

00:38:51 - 1

At least you try, at least you try and if they're not ready for that, you just don't talk about it yet.Now, I know that as a parent, as a human being, we might cuddle them too much and maybe they are ready for something and we don't believe that they're ready, but God doesn't make that mistake. He's sovereign. You know, he doesn't, he knows exactly what we're ready for.

00:39:10 - 1

And that's how I perceived. That story of Adam and Eve is the Yeah, I'm, I'm gonna give you this knowledge just not time for it yet. You know what I mean? It's not time for it. And that's kind of where I was. I still float around there.So I'm, I'm happy to hear someone that's done more research than I, uh, kind of land there. And I'm just not, you know, I don't know, ok with that. I, I've never gone back to research it but I've always like, that's where I am now.I'm like, it's not, I'm not, I don't want you to know good from evil. That, that never makes sense. I'm glad you brought that question up because it doesn't really make sense if you say that.Like, why would you not want to know the difference between good and evil and, but you kind of see or get a hint of that in, in the aspect of, of them losing their innocence.

00:39:59 - 1

Because, uh, that's when, when they realize they're naked and they start throwing this shame, you start to realize it's like a, it's like you can take that archetype and, and, and turn it over to your child and say, whoa, they're not a child anymore. They lost their innocence.

00:40:15 - 1

Something happened. You know what I mean?Something really,

00:40:18 - 0

you're totally, you're totally right. And that's exactly the illustration I use except I'm usually a little more brutal. I usually say, look, you're not going to show your three year old porn.You know, that's what I usually tell people when they say that and because they don't realize that's what's happening, you know, and especially, you know, I'm a big proponent of regardless of what you want to believe, scientifically, don't force your scientific views on the scripture.

00:40:40 - 0

Let the narrative be the narrative. And if you need to, you know, if you need to read Genesis one and two or all of Genesis for that matter, or Genesis one through 11, whichever you pick your segment.But if you need to read it allegorically, then read it allegorically because I don't want you to get rid of the narrative. And I think that's the problem is that people have, you know, more and more common today have evolutionary ideas about how the first humans came about.

00:41:07 - 0

And so they aren't really reading Genesis one as having sort of the, you know, as being actual science and history, which is in some ways the right thing to do. But then they compromise the narrative to make the narrative match their materialistic worldview.

00:41:25 - 0

And that's the mistake is you can't have it both ways, always have to let the story be the story. You know, you can toy around with the how scientifically and historically accurate this is on the side, that's your esoteric knowledge.But the story is why Moses wrote that down. And so so don't mess with the story. And so you can't miss that. It looks like, you know, they weren't in the garden but like maybe two or three days by the time they ate the fruit of that tree.And so let that be what it is, they weren't ready to eat that yet. And, and that's what it is.

00:41:59 - 1

Did I derail you? I'm sorry. You said you use this in counseling.

00:42:03 - 0

Yeah, I use it in counseling a lot because I want to say I want people to understand.So first of all, I want them to understand that whatever issue, whether it's a relational issue, a psychological issue, some sort of, you know, something they actually need a psychotherapist, not a pastor for, I want them to understand that it is actually spiritual, that everything is spiritual.

00:42:25 - 0

And so understanding the Watchers does let us lead lead just down that path. It also lead allows me to safely say, look, you're always gonna hold your faith and the truth of the scriptures as, as higher than what your therapist tells you.But it does allow me to safely take someone who I'm like, I think this person is dealing with some deeply troubling psychological, mental health issues and say, I need you to go see a secular psychologist about this and, and let them assess them as a, you know, as a medical professional, right?

00:43:00 - 0

Because I can believe it's both ends, you know, just because, just because they, you know, sort of throughout human history that, that psychotherapist has learned this secret knowledge through Watchers, doesn't mean that it's in every way wrong, you know, and, and so, you know, the same swords that, you know, the Watchers taught people to use, you know, the Lord used those swords to clear out Canaan in the book of Joshua.

00:43:27 - 0

And so just because it exists, doesn't mean it's not something God's gonna use.And so sort of from a counseling perspective, it allows me to connect those dots because, you know, we have the sort of the fundamentalists don't ever go to a doctor for anything, you know, perspective, you know, especially not mental health, it's a spiritual issue.

00:43:43 - 0

And if you're not getting over it, then you don't have enough faith.You know, it becomes almost this like, you know, faith, you know, faith type of faith healing issue like, oh, well, you have mental health because you don't believe in Jesus hard enough, you know, as if that, like, whatever, believing, hard enough means, you know.

00:43:59 - 0

You know, lets us have that middle ground.

00:44:01 - 1

Yeah. No, definitely. You, we have to pray for some discernment and on what steps to take, for sure.Because in reading some of these, uh, stories in the Old Testament, I was like, dude, some of these, some of these prophets and people that God was using, they, they had some mental disorders, they had some emotional issues and it's probably because of all the trauma they were going through.

00:44:21 - 1

They were, they're human beings. Oops. Did you hear that? I did? Yeah, that is a, that is a phone call coming in. Sorry.Uh I

00:44:31 - 0

thought, I thought the show was over and you were cutting me off. No, no, no.

00:44:34 - 1

Let me disconnect the, the Bluetooth over here. I always forget my phone is connected to this thing. And then um uh here we go. Uh All right.And so, uh but yeah, so, and one thing I also want to bring up is that we naturalize human experience quite a bit, right?Even as Christians, we almost sometimes explain like, well, there's natural faith, there's their natural existence and then there's our supernatural existence as well and they want to separate them in, in a, in a category one is for here on earth and one is for your faith or whatever.

00:45:15 - 1

And I highly disagree with that. It is impossible to disconnect from the spiritual world because you were designed that way by God. And, and sometimes when we see like even a doctor's visit or a psych psychologist visit or our, our US going to school everything.

00:45:36 - 1

If you're paying attention, you're using both your physical and spiritual aspects to aspects of you, to look to, to exist in that moment. It's, it's not possible for you to disconnect. Ok.The knowledge that came from that some of that knowledge that came to that doctor is probably ancient and it was probably handed down by either a watcher or God. You know, and, and you're living it out right now in this modern world. Same thing with technology.

00:46:03 - 1

I mean, we have people in Silicon Valley micro dosing and having visions and they create technology that we use today. OK. So it's, it's not possible for you to live in this physical world without touching some aspect of spirituality, whether you know it or not.

00:46:20 - 1

And this all comes from either God or the watchers. It really is that simple. And so it's impossible for you to be disconnected from the spiritual world.And um I think we, we've de despirito our existence so much that we don't realize that everything that we're doing in some way or another is spiritual. I mean, even the aspect of learning, I mean, come on, where is your knowledge stored in your brain?

00:46:42 - 1

Like how is it, how's like all of that is, is a spiritual thing like the God wants you to learn, uh, you're designed that way. Remember he did design you that way? But it, I think that's the biggest thing.I mean, we're called Fire Theft Radio for a reason. You know, where it's a Prometheus reference. And if you know the story of Prometheus, I mean, it was a problem that, uh, the people received knowledge from Prometheus. It was a problem, right?And, and uh that is like the story of humanity, in my opinion, is, is, is too much knowledge can destroy. I mean, Solomon himself was kind of like a biblical embodiment of that. It he could not handle in many ways, all of the wisdom that he gained.It was

00:47:24 - 0

so at least, at least too much knowledge too quickly, right? Like because I think that there is an eternal, learn, an eternal knowing that happens.Look, I wanted to show you something though, like what you're saying is like purely biblical, literally, Jesus taught this John eight, uh Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me because I came from God and I am here for I didn't come on my own, but he sent me.

00:47:48 - 0

Why don't you understand what I say? Because you cannot listen to my word. You are of your father, the devil and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning. And does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in Him.

00:47:59 - 0

When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature because he is a liar and the father of lies and he keeps going on. But like this Jesus point is that there is a, that you always have a connection, a spiritual connection to your father.And so if we are spiritually connected to God as father, then that's going to influence everything in the material world. And if you have as your spiritual father, the devil, then that is going to influence everything that is happening in the spiritual world.

00:48:28 - 0

And so I think what you're saying is like, like pretty straightforward, you know, biblical teaching

00:48:35 - 1

that I don't want to be a heretic over here, you know.So uh and you said counseling was one way and the other way you said was

00:48:44 - 0

so counseling and then evangelism, oh yeah. Uh so sort of on a superficial level, just the idea that people are actually looking for spiritual things, you know, coming through the period of modernity, people were not really looking for spiritual things.

00:49:01 - 0

There was a lot of uh it was, it was a lot of like philo philosophical material, materialism, but trying to figure out how to have the best life you can have and the most moral life you can have, which is, there's a little bit of an irony in that apart from spiritual things, you know, cause as I say, it's ironic because you can't have morality without spirituality.

00:49:18 - 0

But that was the, that was sort of what was happening through the period of modernity, post modernity brought a lot of that experimentation back where people wanted to say, let's, let's, let's say that everything is at least potentially meaningless and then try to figure out what is meaningful and it's ok if what's meaningful for me is not for you and you, for me, them and you know, all of that.

00:49:42 - 0

And so you get this post modernity and post modernity was too loose, it was too relativistic for people. And so now spiritualism is about a search for the truth. And so I think we're getting, I think we're getting away from a search for my truth, right?

00:49:56 - 0

Like we've been hearing that for a long time now. Well, that's your truth. This is my truth. And no, we're actually getting search for truth. But again, the church doesn't have those answers normally.And so the book I'm working on right now, it's based on a sermon series that I did earlier this year. It's called, uh it's called the Gospel is Bigger than you think.And really what it is on an academic level is an exploration of most of the hi the major historic atonement theories, but it's not presented in that way. It's presented sort of non academically under the thesis that the gospel is not merely that Jesus forgives your sins, right.

00:50:40 - 0

That's not, that's, that's, that's a singular effect of the gospel. It's not, but it's not the whole gospel. Right. And, uh, and so one of the chapters is dealing with the idea of spiritual warfare. Although I think it shows up, it permeates the whole book.

00:51:00 - 0

But the Spiritual Warfare chapter is where I really unpack this idea of the rulers of the nations, which Daniel will call princes. But they're, they're the same characters. They're the Watchers, they're the sons of God, uh that rule over the nations, right?

00:51:16 - 0

And so you've got the the spiritual ruler over the physical ruler, the kings of all the nations. And, and then Jesus comes in, in the Great Commission. He says, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me.What does he mean by authority in heaven and on earth. He means that he has dethroned the spiritual rulers. And that's why Paul in Romans 13 will say that Christ is appointed the rulers of all nations.So we're living in a little bit different world than let's say the second temple Jews were living in. They were living in a world where all of the nations were ruled by fallen angels, so to speak, just to put it in a context that most people can understand.

00:51:57 - 0

There was a fallen angel and a human king that was just atrocious as his fallen angel God. And that's what they were used to. Now. What we have is Christ is the assumed king of all nations.Then it's whether or not the human kings that are appointed by him to those positions of rulership, whether or not they're willing and faith to follow him or not. And so those are, that's sort of a different political arena than we were dealing with in the Old Testament.

00:52:24 - 0

So this becomes an evangelistic. How, that's your question. How does this become evangelistic? Well, it becomes evangelistic because people are trying to figure out now what king they're supposed to follow.And I believe that we're supposed to follow the king who has dethroned all other kings in the spiritual realm. So that, that can come to fruition in the end in the physical world.That's why we get in the very end, the coming down of the, of the, of the holy city of God in revelation 21 and 22.So there's a theological thing that answers the evangelistic question,

00:52:54 - 1

right? Because I mean, man, so much is being reinstituted or re I don't know, consecrated. I would say also uh uh we just re-engineered, redone with the death of death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.Uh It, it just would make sense that everything within the realm of that existence is also being uh renewed. Uh I mean creation itself, right? I mean, we talk about how the world is in entropy and I don't think it was meant to be that way.I don't know, maybe I'm, I'm, I'm reaching there, but I feel like creation itself. You know, it talks about, uh is it in the book of Romans where it, it, it, it's, it's yearning, it's crying. Right.It's, it's, it's not

00:53:40 - 0

what it used to. Revelation of the Sons of God.

00:53:42 - 1

Absolutely. And so, uh that's why there's going to be a literal new earth, a new world uh in, in the future.Uh because all of that has been redeemed uh within creation, all of the things that we experience that we kind of take for granted of the creator died, so that creation can be completely renewed everything in it.

00:54:07 - 0

Right? Absolutely. And that's, and that's it is that when people are just trying to have a spiritual experience, then Jesus forgives your sins so that, I don't know now when you pray, he hears you, I mean, let's be honest, that's what the gospel being preached in.

00:54:21 - 0

So many churches is. Well, Jesus forgives your sins and now he loves you. And so you can pray and he'll hear you. And it's like how materialistic is that ultimately anyway, that you only want to believe in Jesus so that you can ask for stuff.But, but it brings in this grander narrative that says, no, everything is intrinsically spiritual. So now when you've got somebody who uh you know, let's say, so we have a member of our church who, who is a former Buddhist.And it's like, so now you've got a watcher going by the name Buddhism. And, you know, and to go back to our earlier conversation, you know, they're going by a new name and they're doing these things, right?And so this woman in our church, she pursued Buddhism for a while for a long while actually, and kind of just felt like this isn't doing anything, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't leading anywhere good, it wasn't transforming her in any way.

00:55:13 - 0

And then, you know, she had a, somebody knock on her door and is, I'm not a, I'm not a big door knocking Baptist. But anyway, she had a door knocking Baptist knock on her door and start telling her about Jesus.And because she was so primed from years of exploring Buddhism, like she understood on a spiritual level what that meant. And she, she already had a yearning for eternal things because she was already pursuing them through Buddhism.And so like the answers made sense to her and she came to faith. So interesting, more and more and more people like that. It's a matter of finding out which God are you following? And you know what I mean?We're not, I'm not, I don't know about you, but I'm not, I never meet atheists. I don't, I don't, I don't know where this perception that evangelism is for atheists comes from because I never meet atheists.

00:55:58 - 0

I only meet people who are, who are spiritual or religious in some

00:56:03 - 1

way. I think there are, I think they all live around where I live then, you know, because I've met a few.But, uh, but, um, um,

00:56:12 - 0

I mean, I guess I shouldn't say I never meet atheists but, like, I can't remember the last time I actually had, uh, a discussion. I have a friend who was an atheist. So it's like I know they exist.

00:56:24 - 1

No, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. But uh I do have quite a bit of interactions and I think that's just by design. I think God kinda has me talk to people in a, in a certain way, especially in the business that I'm in.It's a very um public business where I'm always interacting with people in different stores. I, you know, I go to different stores like Stater Brothers and Walmart Target and that's kind of where I work and all these things.So II I tend to meet a lot more people, you know, and, and in the midst of those, you do meet these, these atheists and, you know, I have interesting conversations and it's like the same old complaints about God and some of them are actually pretty good where I'm like, all right, you gotta make me think here and, and dig deeper into the Bible so that I can tell you that there's a, there's answers to your questions here.

00:57:08 - 1

But um but yeah, I get what you're saying. It's like, I feel like more and more the, at least the, the nineties, early two thousands atheism that's old hat. You know, it's kind of over the whole, the Richard Dawkins era and all that.

00:57:23 - 0

It was certainly trendy there for a while, but it's not answering people's spiritual questions. That's the same reason that religions die, they don't answer spiritual questions for people. So let's try to think of a practical example. So, I mean, I think the Buddhism situation is a practical example.

00:57:37 - 0

But let's say you're talking to, um you know, and I did youth ministry for 11 years. So, you know, I understand where, where, where you were at doing youth ministry also.But let's say you're talking to like a teenage boy who's addicted to pornography or something like that right now. Let's so, so now you know who their God is, who their watcher is, right? And it's like, well, what do you, what do you do with that?Like, why do you even, you know, you can start to ask some questions like, why do you even want that? And what are you feeling in the moment when you decide to do that? Because, because everybody is ashamed of it.So then they're like, you know, they don't want to do it, but then they do it anyway. And so it's like, how does it, what are you feeling? What are you thinking in that moment and then you tie those feelings and those emotions.

00:58:18 - 0

Well, I feel like, you know, I'm, I'm just feeling like my life is worthless and meaningless and it's like, ok, is your life worthless and meaningless? Well, no, because of this, that and the other thing, well, where do you think those things are coming from?

00:58:29 - 0

And you can start to, through process of questioning, you know, start to lead people to the, to the truth, you know, where they can start to find out. Well, actually, because I don't know, Jesus, my life is actually meaningless and worthless.I can't produce anything lasting and good and universal and eternal. But through Christ, who has already produced everything lasting and eternal and good, I can, I can have an experience of those things.And so you can start to lead people to what their hearts ultimately are yearning for when they search after those other things.And then certainly if you can say, hey, look, there's a, there's, there's a, there's a watcher in Enoch that in that, that exposed humankind, the lust of the flesh by introducing the arts of seduction to human men and women.

00:59:16 - 0

Then you can say, look, there's even an answer for this. Like this isn't a new problem. Like we can see the birth of this happening sort of in, at least in this mythology. I like to use the words.

00:59:26 - 1

I like to joke around. I'm like, dude, even these Instagram baddies and stuff. I'm like, dude, they're doing watcher work, you know what I mean? They're just doing, it's like nothing new under the sun.It's like, uh, because I'm, I'm, if you read first Enoch and that's one thing that I always wondered because you, you, you, you read Genesis and you're like, well, ok, there was sin. God destroyed it. That was done. That's like a done deal.But when you read first enoch, um, it really kind of explains what those sins were and we're talking about, um, you know, magic.I mean, we're talking about like, um experimentation with humans and, and, and animals and, and women and abortions, by the way, there's like abortion started in that. Like, you can read about all kinds of stuff and you're like, wait a minute.

01:00:11 - 1

That seems a lot like the world I live in today, you know, and you're just, and you're thinking about it and you're like, wow. And that's what fascinates me when I watch.Like, I don't know, I was, I was watching, I watch a lot of things for research purposes primarily. And hopefully sometimes it's actually good. Like I was watching the Witcher and uh it was kind of good and then it just went south really bad.Like I like, oh, this is garbage. But um anyways, there's a lot of references there to the Watchers, there's a lot of references there to what's going on in the Old Testament, the, the cosmic geography, right?The, the whole idea that there's these beings in charge of regions around the world and they're supposed to be uh bringing judgment to those areas and also bringing those peoples to God and some of them rebelled, right?

01:00:59 - 1

And you see all that stuff happening all over the place in our media and movies and we're consuming it.And this is amazing and it's some of the most popular video games is those kinds of games like the, the Witcher, the, the whole the Skyrim and all these things. And you're like, bro, you're, you're just like digitally living out the Old Testament.And it's like, I feel like it's on purpose, right? Because it kind of gives you this fake sense of accomplishment like you're battling evil. Well, it's best to battle evil, digitally fake instead of doing it for reals, right?I almost feel like it's a distraction, you know, it's like uh fulfilling uh digital fulfillment, especially for men, the sense of journey, the sense of, of accomplishment, the sense of ascending to higher levels, all that can be found uh in video games.

01:01:53 - 1

And, and meanwhile, um these watchers and different things actually take over the world because you have that aspect of yourself satiated in, in a, in a, in a digital world, you know, it's, and so I think it's so, I don't know, uh dangerous to, to be a part of that.

01:02:08 - 1

And I don't know, I'm just babbling, sorry, I kind of derailed it there.

01:02:11 - 0

No I don't, I don't think you're wrong about it. I think that it's something to watch because again, you know, the, the Watchers, the Aggregor are taking on all new names, you know, and if that name is, you know, I don't know.Call of Duty, I'm not a gamer. I don't know what's out there but like, whatever the name of that is right.If that's, then, then you might be getting absorbed into that God's world, then, you know, the, the witcher reminds me of because there's some good themes like he's actually he is, he really is battling monsters.And so you wanna say that he's the Christ figure, except the problem is, is he's not the Christ figure because he's just broken, as broken as the monsters, he's killing. And so I've seen a little bit of it too and, and I think it's rather interesting.

01:02:53 - 0

I think he's, I don't think he's Christ. I think he's Hercules. You know, because if you, you know, if you read Hercules against the backdrop of the Bible, like he, he's a nephling and, and so then you watch like, go Goliath, he's the hero of the Philistine armies.

01:03:10 - 0

He's the, their champion, their hero, you know, Goliath is Hercules, you know, and, and that's what Hercules is doing is he's just as broken as everybody else in that world, but he's protecting, he's the hero of his people.So the demon of the, the demon of the Israelites is actually the hero and I'm not saying that Hercules is literally Goliath like same dude. I'm just saying like they're the same, they're the same type of character in the story.He's the, he's the hero of his people, he's defeating his people's monsters. Um But he himself is no less a monster of God. And so, or a monster in God's eyes is how I should say that. So I, I think, I think you're right on.Actually, there's one thing I wanted to, I wanted to, to say if this is a good time for it.

01:03:52 - 0

Um The, the, if you look at the giants, I think there's uh something that's theological and evangelistic in the character that shows up in the book of the Watchers that is the Giants or in the Bible, the Nephilim or the Refa or whatever.Uh And as, as a kid, I remember growing up in the church and I was taught that demons were fallen angels. And then I got into this world and I was told that demons are the disembodied spirits of the nephele or of the giants.And when I started studying first enoch, I actually kind of learned something a little bit more comprehensive. I should say that demon is used in two different ways in the New Testament.So for example, uh the apostle Paul in First Corinthians quoting Deuteronomy 32 says that the gods of the nations are demons that what they worship are demons. And so both Moses and now Moses uses the Greek or the Hebrew word shade.

01:04:58 - 0

And uh you know, Paul is gonna use the word demonia, which is, which is the word for Demi God or lesser God in the Greek language.And, and so he's talking about something a little bit different than what Jesus means when he says demon because when we talk about the Watchers, the Aggregor, right?We're talking about very highly intelligent spiritual beings who don't normally and and I'm not gonna say ever but don't normally manifest materialistically.So certainly, you know, you, we may entertain angels unaware that like angels might take on a physical appearance and appear among us in a sense as humans. So if angels can do that, sure demons can do that too. Like the Watchers could do that too, the fallen angels.

01:05:50 - 0

But, but I think normative, we're talking about spiritual forces that are operating in the world. I mean, what is the divine ruler of a nation, if not a spiritual being who is operating in the world? Right?And so then that's how you make that connection to things like artificial intelligence, to video gaming and to all of those different things is like they're gonna take on what persona human, you know, makes sense for the current society.It doesn't make them any less AAA Watcher, it doesn't make them any less one of the sons of God that's fallen. But, but they're taking on that persona and using their influence in different ways.And so there's a difference between that being and the chaotic demons that show up in the gospel accounts and enacts those demons were, we learn in the book of Enoch are f are the spirits of the nephele, they're the spirits of the giants.

01:06:44 - 0

They, and so that's gonna be for anybody who has the book. Chapter three, I think the third section of chapter three under the heading, the origin of the demons.And one of the, and you mentioned the structure of the book before, but one of the things is this gets cloaked in English. So for example, in Job 26 verses five and six, it says the departed spirits tremble beneath the waters.Well, that word departed spirits in Hebrew is refa which is the normal term in the Greek language across all Greek literature for Giant. Oh, I'm sorry, that's I'm sorry. I said that weird in the Hebrew literature, that word means giant.And in all of the Greek literature translated from the Hebrew, it's Gigante, which is giant. And so everything points to that word talking about giants.

01:07:33 - 0

But because the context of of job is talking about something, a dead spirit like the spirit of something dead, then they say the departed spirits, but it's actually the departed spirits of the giants is really what it's talking about.And then you read about who the giants are and in enoch especially, but you can even see shadows of this in the scriptures. They're aggressive, chaotic, violent warrior people. And I don't care how big you want to make your giants, you know.Um, I know there's arguments about exactly how big they were, make them as big or as small as you want. It doesn't change their nature there as chaotic violence. And so then what are their spirits? Not chaotic and violent spirits?And that's what we see like, what, what kind of like, what is the, what is the, what does a watcher have to gain from possessing a child and throwing it into the fire? You know what I mean?

01:08:27 - 0

There's nothing to be gained there from a strategic point by the watcher, but a chaotic spirit who is just in every way trying to do what is an atrocity and an abomination in God's eyes. Yeah.They're gonna go and throw a child into a fire or try to drown him in the lake, you know, and so what we have with demons is a little bit different than what we have with watchers.And so I think that that answers a, a big question, pastorally, theologically and evangelistically. And that question is why are there good people in the world?And that's the big, that's the big thing that I, that I, that I find is most people want to believe in spiritual things, but they want to be universalists. They want to believe that whatever pathway leads you towards goodness is what is going to ultimately save you.

01:09:17 - 0

And I'll tell you this right now, there is nothing more demonic in our society than universalism. That is the absolute most demonic teaching right now because it is leading masses of people away from fidelity to Christ and therefore away from the Kingdom of God.

01:09:34 - 0

And it's right where the devil and his angels want you. They are strategically putting people right outside the kingdom of God by, by having them deny Christ as the way the truth and the life, the only way to the Father and, and it's just keeping them there.

01:09:53 - 0

So we've got all of these very moral people in our society, what we call good people who are standing right outside the gates of the Kingdom of God and will be eternally condemned before it. And so that's one of the things.So I wanted to point that out just because you wanted to talk about like pastoral things that people learn the difference between the demons and the watchers. They're not the same thing in the scriptures.They're not the same thing in Enoch, they're not the same thing in the world today.So,

01:10:17 - 1

yeah. And um I mean, I'm glad you brought that, that distinction. I was gonna ask you about that. And so you just answered it right on.So um uh the, the other question

01:10:27 - 0

might be the most interesting thing in the book

01:10:30 - 1

Well, this is not in the book, but I, I don't, well, I don't think so. Maybe I have a few pages left. But, uh um I'm wondering, has your congregation ever brought up the question about extraterrestrials? That's a huge thing that is coming up right now.

01:10:45 - 1

It's so public now. Um It's on huge podcasts and it's just kind of tongue in cheek like, oh, yeah, they're real. Um And the, the understanding of this now is can go in many directions.And I feel like since you kind of dabble in this weird realm sometimes, um has that ever come up and have you ever made any connections there yourself between uh what you have in the book and uh aliens?

01:11:11 - 0

So I joke about it um from time to time because, because it's not something I can be dogmatic about, but I do want people to think about it. Yeah. And actually bridging from the conversation about the difference between the watchers and demons.I actually think that uh I think that the alien conversation, it just patterns right on top of the conversation about the demons and the aliens because think about the different. So I'm, I'm a big fan of, it's a newer podcast called The Haunted Cosmos.

01:11:42 - 0

And so I've, I've listened to a handful of their episodes and one of the things I immediately noticed about the, some of their deep dives into like some of the spiritual thing, the, the stories of spiritual things happening.They're not teaching what's true, they're teaching about, they're, they're sort of documenting and bringing together into one location, all of the stories.And so one of the things I've noticed is that a lot of times the, they're just chaotic, they're just absolutely chaotic spirits and like the demons and that's how aliens are sometimes portrayed.And aliens come up in so many of these like abductions and things like that, they show up in so many of like all throughout history of like the folk folklore of different civilizations.

01:12:27 - 0

They're not usually called extraterrestrials, but it's from our perspective, like it's pretty obvious that that seems to be what's going on in these stories. And so they show up all the time, but sometimes they're chaotic and sometimes they seem benevolent.

01:12:41 - 0

Um And so I learned some things about Bigfoot that I, you know, I've always thought Bigfoot was just ridiculous.It's just an, you know, but then, you know, you start to dig into some of the stories that are out there and sometimes Bigfoot is like a demon, just chaotic. They're, they're hunting and tracking people in the forest and killing people.And then sometimes Bigfoot is just scarce, trying not to be seen and then sometimes Bigfoot is, is seemingly benevolent. Um And yet also in some ways deceptive. And so there's really, and that, that just patterns right on this picture of the spirit world.

01:13:19 - 0

Sometimes the spirit world is chaotic sometimes and, and violent and sometimes the spirit world is very, you know, it's, it's hard to see it. We, we're not sure where it is. It's, it's hiding from us, but we seem to think it's there but it's hiding from us.

01:13:35 - 0

And sometimes the spirit world seems very benevolent, although, like we talked about with the Watchers benevolent, but just keeping you just to the side of Christ to keep, you know, to thwart the progression of the Kingdom of God.And so I think that probably, and this is probably a gross overstatement, but I think probably, I don't care if you want to talk about aliens or Bigfoot or anything else.I think that in a, at least in a narrative way, we're talking about the exact same things, whether we want to say aliens, whether we want to say demons, whether we want to say Watchers, whether we want to say, you know, Bigfoot or Skin walkers or anything else.

01:14:15 - 0

I think that in a, in a narrative way they're all telling the exact same story. Yeah.

01:14:21 - 1

Yeah, you definitely can't disregard it. I mean, there is a lot of uh um we've, we've spoken about it on the show.There is a lot of people who, who have been in abductions and they seem to stop when they pray to Jesus specifically because there's people that have prayed to other, other prayers and it doesn't work. But for whatever reason, they don't like the name of Jesus.

01:14:42 - 1

And the abduction process stops when they, when they invoke the name of Jesus. And uh the episode we talked about that was with Jim Wilhelmson.And he's also a pastor and his ministry is dedicated to the abduction phenomenon and he deals with a lot of people that were abductees. Um him being himself one.And yeah, I feel like he, he just felt, he also worked with Heiser and he just felt like there's a spiritual connection here. And of course, it leads to the demons or de manion, the shade the Giants, uh which leads to the watchers, which leads to the rebellion.

01:15:16 - 1

So it's not a far stretch here. I'm not the, the, the crazy guy with the red string in the basement. It's pretty close.It's like right there, if you just look a little bit deeper and I just don't want

01:15:28 - 0

you think about, I think everybody knows this is true anyway, like maybe people, I don't want to admit it out loud, but I think everybody knows this is true. Think about like, I think you and I are about the same age.I think I'm a couple of years older than you. But think about the alien movies when we were kids. So I'm thinking like, et Mac and me um Close Encounters of the third kind, stuff like that.Like we have like a number of movies that are like portraying aliens as simultaneously weird and like like, they're, it's s, it's a super weird thing, but they're ultimately good and benevolent.And then we have like, alien and Predator movies where the aliens are absolute just chaos, monsters and like, why? And, and, and here's, here's my point. I wanna make, we didn't question that. We didn't say, wait, this alien movie is so stupid.

01:16:24 - 0

It's so unconvincing because et was nice and we all know that aliens are nice, right? Like we, we never create those. We never like had that conversation about why there's good and bad aliens.And it's because we know that otherworldly things are going to manifest in different ways because human history has been experiencing otherworldly things in different ways throughout all human history.

01:16:52 - 1

When we look at the, the holy ones, the ones that aren't fallen or, or angels and different things like that or different classes of beings that are not fallen. Uh Those can and are literally considered extra terrestrial. They're not from here.So, so our experience with them cannot be, could be good too. I mean, I don't, I'm not uh I'm, I'm very skeptical about people's spiritual experiences, but I don't disregard them in saying that's not possible. People can't see angels or nothing like that.

01:17:21 - 1

Um um I myself, I mean, we used to have so much paranormal activity at the house because we were practicing witchcraft before we became Christian and it was absolutely wild. I mean, it was like a paranormal activity movie um in my house.And so, um I don't disregard that that can happen also in, in, on the good side of things, you know, people can have experiences. Um But, um, that being said is, it's just we, uh I guess we lose that enchantment, right?We lose that ability to believe that we can interact with the spiritual world. And I think that's what people are really thirsty for.And, and II, I believe that your book is really doing that where it's bringing people back to understand that the world, the physical world is much more spiritual than you might think. And we need to interact with that um More.

01:18:11 - 1

Um Now, is there an aspect of your book that I didn't bring up? Uh And then you're like, dude, I wish he asked me this but he didn't ask me, I really want to share that part. Um And uh and, and I just didn't get there.

01:18:23 - 0

Well, I would say that that was the demons and uh you know, the demons and giant connection.That was one of the things I was on another podcast a couple of months ago and, and I was like, dang, that was the one thing I wanted to bring up, but it didn't come up, you know, so I was like, I'm gonna work it in but, but the other thing is, so you brought up a couple of times, like how to use sort of like Heizer's work, the idea of the Watchers, the Deuteronomy 32 world.

01:18:45 - 0

But how do we use that? How do we use the first Enoch in an evangelical church where most people are gonna think it's, they're gonna see, it's not the Bible. And therefore, you know, we need to, we need to stay away from it.And how do we use it? It's actually the point of this book. I noticed when I started talking about these things that people were rightly skeptical in our church and they wanted to know well, where are you getting this from?And so as much as I could show them out of the scripture, I did, but I wanted to give them something specifically this first, this book of The Watchers, this first part of first enoch, I wanted to give them something that they could understand and see how it speaks into that context.

01:19:27 - 0

And so that's really what the book is. There's not a lot of commentary um in it, it's mostly just like Bible verses and the translation of the book of the Watchers. And it's just the two things and, well, it's really not a translation.It's a theological paraphrase, I think more technically, but that's what it is. And so it's a way for evangelical Christians to kind of safely read it and see where the connections might be and to make their own conclusions about it.And so I think it really might be so like if any of your listeners are having this trouble, like you mentioned, like they're talking to their pastors at their church and they're not interested in it. This might be an entry point to say, hey, let's look at this.

01:20:08 - 0

I think there's more connection points than, than you're, than you're seeing. And just to kind of cause that's really what this is. It's just to say these are more related than you think.And so that might be the last thing that I wanna say, um say about it and I didn't write this book to make money. So I'm not here to like, try to, you know, to try to make book sales.So I'll say this also, if anybody actually wants to use this in their church, I can work, I can, I can finagle a, a bulk order that will be a special deal for people that I don't need to make money off of.So you can contact me through my website and I'd be happy to do that. This is a work, this will work for the church. It's for you guys to do whatever you want with. Awesome.

01:20:47 - 1

That's, that's great. That's appreciate that, man. I really, I think it's necessary um The, the more information on this that we can practically use in church, uh the better in my opinion. And so what, what is that website? Where can people find your work?

01:21:02 - 1

And also where can people find your new podcast and what you're doing with that. Yeah.

01:21:08 - 0

So the podcast is everywhere. Uh Search for biblical re enchantment and you will find it. It's, it'll say Anthony Delgado biblical re enchantment. So re enchantment is a long word. Um It is un so ree enchantment. Um And so that's where you can find the podcast.

01:21:27 - 0

You can also find links to it on my website, which is Anthony delgado.net. So a nthonydelg ad o.net and that's a hub for everything.You can get my book links on there, there's a contact email listed there and so you can get a hold of me through that for anything else. The book is everywhere. If you just want one copy, it's kindle, it's, it's everywhere but audio right now.And hopefully that's gonna come before too much longer.So nice,

01:21:55 - 1

cool man. Well, this was a great conversation folks as always, if you have questions, reach out, I'm gonna put his website, the hub link in the bio so that you guys can continue your research and maybe have these conversations in Bible study.Um That was the purpose of this episode. Um because we just speak about watchers and demons like it's normal business here.Um But I have noticed that I've gotten a lot of new listeners that are just like landing on fire Theft radio and they're saying, you know what you guys are making, let me ask a lot of questions that I didn't think about before.So I wanted to go back, go back to our roots to the early content that we had that maybe you haven't gone back all the way to those older episodes, like episodes, I think in between one and 15, we, we speak about Nephilim demons and pretty early we had highs on two and um had him on a couple of times.

01:22:51 - 1

We did actually an episode specifically about demons, uh which is one of our most viewed, um, and downloaded episodes to this day.Uh But that one was before he passed, of course, now the late doctor Michael Heiser, um, and so, uh if you want to know where uh Anthony Delgado is getting his information from, I mean, it's scholarly stuff.It's not just uh podcasters to figuring things out, like it's not like, like spitballing stuff like Sam Tripoli sometimes says about the Bible and I'm not talking crap, but it's just sometimes all these people just say stuff like, oh, yeah, well, the Bible says, and, and enoch says, and, and there's no real context for it other than it's uh bolstering up whatever claim they're talking about.

01:23:38 - 1

And so I feel like this is a good episode for two reasons to introduce it into church and have these conversations about, uh you know, biblical theology, uh actual, you know, near Eastern um context of, of the Bible and to put context into the fringy stuff where people can kind of go off the rails there and just start quoting a bunch of stuff and, and uh, we need to bring you back.

01:24:06 - 1

That's what we do here at Fire Theft Radio. We want to bring you back with the knowledge into the Bible, even if it's in the weird stuff. So that's what we're doing here. So, um, that's all we got for you today, folks.Um, again, links in the bio and as always, don't forget to spread the fire.