OUR 2023 TOUR of Israel featured a visit to Gilgal Refaim, the “Wheel of the Giants” on the Golan Heights. Why did we go there, and why is it relevant to our study of end times prophecy?

We share video of our visit to this fascinating site that some call “Israel’s Stonehenge.” That really does Gilgal Refaim a disservice, because it’s much bigger and much older than Britain’s famous megalith. The most recent excavations at Gilgal Refaim date it to about 3700 BC, but it’s probably older. And it was more than likely used in rituals to summon and commune with the dead, a cult that was expressly forbidden by God. 

We explain the link between the Nephilim (later called Rephaim by the Canaanites and Israelites), the region of Bashan, and end times prophecies in Isaiah 26:13–19, Isaiah 27:1, and Psalm 68:21–22 that foretell the deaths of the giants, their supernatural fathers (the “sons of God” of Genesis 6:1–4), and Leviathan—the spirit of chaos that we believe indwells the Antichrist in the last days.

The death of the pagan gods has been decreed. End times prophecy is about how that sentence will be carried out.

Dr. Michael Heiser, a good friend and excellent scholar who passed into glory February 20, 2023, joined us in the summer of 2021 to discuss the divine council—what it is, where we find it in scripture, and why Psalm 82, contrary to the interpretation of most Bible teachers, is a courtroom scene in heaven at which God passes judgment on the small-G gods.

Here is the link to the episode of Mike’s Naked Bible Podcast where he explains why Jesus quoting Psalm 82 in John 10:34–36 does not mean that the “gods” of Psalm 82 are men. At that page, you’ll find links to Mike’s academic paper and a narrated slide presentation on this topic.

Verses mentioning Mount Hermon and the land of Bashan are sprinkled throughout the Bible. To Israelites during the Biblical Period, they were obvious references to the land of the dead.

Bible scholar Dr. Michael Heiser, who sadly passed away February 20, 2023 at the age of 60, joined us for an interview in 2021 and explained why Bashan and Hermon were important, and why Jesus deliberately traveled there for some very specific events during his ministry—like picking a fight with the Enemy.

Jesus descended into the abyss to declare victory over the spirits who disobeyed “in the days of Noah” (1 Pt. 3:20), a reference to the “sons of God” from Genesis 6.

Bible scholar Dr. Michael Heiser, in an interview recorded in July 2021, explains why this passage in 1 Peter 3 is so profound, why the apostle connected it to baptism, and how it was influenced by the Book of 1 Enoch.

The weird parts of the Bible are important! So says scholar Dr. Michael Heiser, author of The Unseen Realm, Angels, Demons, and Reversing Hermon.

As you know, Mike was called home by the Lord in February of 2023. While Derek recovers from surgery, we’ll feature Mike over the next four weeks from an interview recorded in July of 2021.

This week, Mike discusses the controversial passages in Genesis 6:1–4 and explains why they weren’t controversial at all 2,000 years ago. Jews of the Second Temple period and the early church were in agreement: Giants once walked the earth, they were the hybrid offspring of supernatural beings and human women, and the spirits of those giants, who died in the Flood of Noah, are the demons that afflict humanity to this day.

THE WARS of Antichrist will be fought in the heavens as much as on Earth—and the objective is determining who’s resurrected at the end of the age.

This sounds “out there,” but we have prophecies to back this up: Isaiah 26:13–19 explicitly foretells a day when the Rephaim, the demonic spirits of the Nephilim, “will not arise.” We think this is what Ezekiel meant when he wrote that the Travelers, a word used by the Canaanites for the spirits of the Rephaim, would be “blocked” at the end of the war of Gog and Magog (Eze. 39:11).

We also discuss the saints of Daniel 7:21–27 and a parallel verse in Revelation 13:7, noting that the Aramaic word translated “saints” in Daniel 7 is rendered “holy ones” in Daniel 4:13 and 17 in parallel with “Watchers.” In short, the little horn of Daniel 7, the Antichrist, who “made war with the saints and prevailed over them” is not fighting against humans faithful to God, but to loyal angels as part of this “Resurrection war.”

UTTERMOST NORTH is an English translation of the Hebrew phrase yarkete tsaphon, which actually refers to cosmic north—the location of the palace of Baal.

Mount Zaphon is today called Jebel al-Aqra, a mountain in southern Türkiye near the city of Antakya (ancient Antioch). But given that it was believed to be the home of the king of the pantheon worshiped by the pagans of Canaan, references to tsaphon (“north”) in the Old Testament carry a supernatural meaning.

This is where the army of Gog of Magog will assemble (Eze. 38:6, 15; 39:2), and it’s where the rebel in Eden wanted to build his “mount of assembly” (Isa. 14:13), which is the Hebrew phrase (har moʿed) from which John transliterated the name Armageddon.

So, the idea that Christ’s return may echo the Exodus, coming from the south, may convey a deeper meaning of reversing the evil that came from “cosmic north” in ancient Israel.

A lot of biblical history took place east of the Jordan River. What role does the modern nation of Jordan play in end times prophecy?

This week, we discuss an interesting sequence of events that may unfold during the time of the Antichrist: If Israeli Jews take notice of the references to the “abomination of desolation” in the Book of Daniel (8:13, 9:26–27, 11:31, and 12:11) and they flee to the mountains as Jesus warned his followers to do in Matthew 24:15–21 (and as apparently prophesied in Revelation 12:6), they must return at some point because the House of Judah and House of David are in Jerusalem on the Day of the Lord (Zech. 12:1–11, 14:1–15), when God Himself goes into battle for Israel.

We also discuss whether Habakkuk 3:3–5 is an “already but not yet” prophecy, fulfilled already when the Israelites followed God from Teman and Mount Paran, which are alternate names for Sinai. If the wilderness to which the woman—Israel—flees in Rev. 12:6 is Petra, as some prophecy teachers believe, then yes, Habakkuk 3 may have a “not yet” fulfillment in the future.

We believe Sinai was either near or at Petra, not in Arabia, for reasons we’ll explain in detail another time. So, Habakkuk may have foreseen a future return from the wilderness to Jerusalem by the people of Israel prior to the final battle of the age, Armageddon.

THE PRECISION of prophecy is stunning. For example, David saw the crucifixion a thousand years before it happened.

This week, we discuss the startling connections between Psalm 22, the “crucifixion prophecy” of Isaiah 52:10 (and how it is embedded in the name “Yeshua”), and Zechariah’s prophecy of the Day of Yahweh, when our Lord returns and it welcomed by the House of David in Jerusalem.

ONE OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS places in Israel is the recently identified Serpent Mound of Bashan. It’s three-quarters of a mile long, 20 to 25 feet high, covered with more than 140 megalithic tombs probably more than 5,000 years old, and it’s a quarter of a mile from Gilgal Refaim on the Golan Heights. 

With the release of our book ‘The Gates of Hell’ this week, we revisit our discussion of the significance of this and other monuments to the cult of the dead in the ancient kingdom ruled by Og, Bashan—the “Place of the Serpent.”

We also visited Tel Dan at the foot of Mount Hermon, where we showed how a misunderstood verse in the Book of Hosea reveals that the golden calves of Jeroboam marked a return to the worship of the entity who was believed to live on the mountain, the Canaanite creator-god El—who, as Derek shows in his book The Second Coming of Saturn, was known to the Hebrews as Molech.

And we visit the place where Jesus declared his divinity—literally at the base of Mount Hermon, the Canaanite Olympus, standing in front of the gates of hell.