The Ancient Book of Gad the Seer

Gad the Seer is a prophet mentioned in the Bible. And here to talk with us today about Gad the Seer is Ken Johnson. Ken, welcome back to Prophecy Watchers. Thank you for having me back. You know, Ken's been with us many, many times in the past. He's written a new book, the ancient book of Gad the Seer, and we're going to be talking about this little-known prophet. But before we speak of Gad the Seer, I just want to read the end of the book of 1 Chronicles. Verse 29 of chapter 29 says, first and last, they're written in the book of Samuel the Seer, in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the Seer. So Gad the Seer is actually mentioned in Scripture and lo and behold, the prophecy of Gad the Seer has come to light. It can now be read and studied, and that's exactly what you've done and written a book about it. And I think this is amazingly interesting. Yeah, me too. I'm very, very excited to finally get a hold of these things. The history behind it is amazing, the prophecies that are in it are amazing. And then just the theology that David teaches about it, it's just, I can't say enough good things about it. Well, I've got to tell you, I've read the book. I'm very excited about what's in the book because it confirms so many other things that we already know about Bible prophecy, and it adds an interesting step or two beyond which we'll be talking about today. First of all, let's talk about the history of the book. The history, the authority, the canonicity. Why has this book not been around for the public to read, say for the past 500 years or even longer? Well first we need to understand that the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of the Bible, so we should have our 66 books. We don't intend to write any others, add anything to the canon. We don't want to do that. However, when the canon itself, those 66 books, recommend that you read a book of a prophet, a book of history, those type of things, we want to follow directions. We've already seen that with the book of Jasher, with the book of Enoch, and now we have the book of Gad. The history behind it is amazing, actually. When the king of Assyria was coming in to take the ten tribes, this would have been about 720 B.C. more or less, we have a group of 460 Jews that decided, or decided to be put in captivity. So they actually fled to Yemen and was able to be there for several centuries until Muslim problems arose and persecutions. And they picked up and actually went to India and settled eventually in what's called Cochin or Kochi, India. It's right at the very tip of India. This particular group, they're Orthodox Jews, not Christians, so it's an interesting group that is basically Orthodox Jews, non-Trinitarians, want to be bluffed by themselves. Their canon, their Tanakh, is not even quite the entire Old Testament because they lost contact with everybody about 720. So what happens is it's really interesting, in the 1600s, one of the Jews converted to Christianity, decided that the book of Gad needs to be published. And rumor has it that they have what's called the lost five. During the time of Samuel the seer, there were five other prophets mentioned in Scripture that actually wrote prophetic or history books. And that would be Gad, Nathan, Itto, Shemiah, and Ahijah. So supposedly they have those, so we want to try to get those. Their tradition is that it's only for the elect, only for the Jews, it shouldn't be published, made known. As Christians, though, we want all the information that the Lord would have for us. And again, if the Bible says that we should read it, we probably should. But the history goes on, it's really interesting. He translates this into Dutch and then in 1786, just ten years after the USA became a nation, it was translated into German. And so then another Jew took a hold of it, translated it back into Hebrew with Hebrew commentary. And from then on it went several places. About a century later, a whole copy of it was found from Hebrew, supposedly leaked from the Vatican archives, which was pretty interesting. But still people thought, well if this came from Hebrew and to Dutch and to German and then something from the Vatican archives but you can't verify it, it's kind of iffy, that type of thing. So it was kind of ignored for a long time. Then recently some fragments have been found in Israel that are just small quotes, but it shows that the whole text is still the text. And so now several people are trying to get people to pay attention to it. The University of Bar-Ilan has produced a Hebrew copy of it with commentary and for the last five years or better have tried to get scholars and other people to pay attention to the scroll. And nobody seems to care about ancient scrolls anymore these days. But we do. Indeed. Now let's talk about the scriptural authority of this ancient scroll. How should this be viewed relative to the Bible? We have the 66 books of the Bible which we regard as divinely inspired, God-given, and infallible. How should we look at the manuscript of Gad the Seer? In other words, where do you place it in terms of credibility and so forth? Well we have ancient church fathers which are just people that knew the apostles so their authority is a little higher than others, but still they could be wrong. Anything outside of the 66 books of the Protestant canon we should hold as possibly suspect. And even if it's the exact book of Gad the Seer and even if it's contained prophecy and these kind of things, we don't know that it hasn't been tampered with over the years. We don't know that the translations have been absolutely 100% accurate. So we treat it the same way as we do with the book of Jasher, the book of Enoch. They've been preserved by people from around but they need to be judged by the Bible. And there's a couple places in Enoch that when you compare Bible theology to it, it looks like it's a Gnostic insert. But it also contains prophecy that looks like it's being fulfilled in our lifetime. So Gad is exactly the same way, only I don't see one single thing in the book of Gad that would be non-biblical, which is kind of unique. In other words, nothing disagrees with what we know from the canon of Scripture. Now I can tell you personally that Ken has been very very excited about this book. I haven't seen him this excited in a long time, and I've seen him come out with many other books. In fact I have six of his books right in front of me. They're called The End Times, The Ancient Messianic Festivals, The Epistle of Barnabas, The Book of Jasher, Ancient Church Fathers, Ancient Prophecies Revealed. As you can see, Ken specializes in delving into places where other people do not look, or seldom look. And he's bringing them into the modern vernacular for people like you and me to read them. And what this has done for me, what it'll do for you, is expand your knowledge of the Bible. Your perspective of the times, the places, the history, the spiritual, if you will, sense that flows through Scripture I think will be enhanced when you read these other books. And I know you personally have had that experience when you wrote about Gad the Seer. That is, it added a great deal to your sense of prophecy in general. Tell us about two or three things that you discovered in the process of looking over Gad the Seer that were surprising to you. Well several things. Actually starting with the text itself, the Hebrew in it is old. You can look at the way they use words and certain words come in and drop out in certain centuries. And this is actually very old. And that was surprising, so it hasn't been retranslated, at least not much anyway, over the centuries. It's amazing in the way it has. It's got sermons of David in it, and it'll mention things like the new Jerusalem, it'll mention several things that, in different words, it'll describe the trinity for instance. And again, since this was kept by Jews, not a Christian church, that's pretty interesting. But it describes the trinity as if you know God intimately, you know Yahweh, the image, and the presence. And there's just a whole lot of things we could talk about in there. It's got a lot of things in it. It's got two sermons, not sermons, but psalms of David. Psalm 145 and 144. It's identical to what we have, only there's an extra verse or two. And there's headings for them. So in our Bible we don't really know who wrote them for sure or why, but Psalm 145 was written about King Hiram becoming a believer, wanting to help build the temple. And Psalm 144 was actually written when David conquered and killed off some of the last of the Nephilim, the giants in Canaan. It's pretty interesting. little insights that you gain, just things that you never expect to find, and there they are. And that's got to be exciting. Now Gad wrote about some things that, let's put it this way, he shouldn't have known about them as early as he lived, as early a time as what, the 8th century B.C. approximately? About 1000 B.C. in the time of David. Talking about things like the trinity, the triune aspect of God, that's something you wouldn't expect to see coming from that era at all. Yeah, you wouldn't think so the way we talk about it today. But if you go back through just the Bible and the Old Testament you constantly see that we worship Yahweh and there's this little Yahweh that keeps appearing, which we call a Christophany. And sometimes it's like an angel but sometimes it's different. And if you look very careful you see this whole concept of God saying let us go down and make man in our image. There's little hints at it all the way through Scripture. And you know Scripture says that David was a man after God's own heart. So you would assume if he was really that close to God, really loved God, he probably would know a few things about God that the average common person wouldn't. Now let's talk about your chapter 8 here. And there's so many things that we can talk about from chapter 8, David's sermon. Let's talk about some of the things that are revealed in this. It's really amazing to have him back at that time know God that well and just give a synopsis of Bible theology in one chapter. It's just truly amazing. He talks about the fact that there's only one God. But then again he talks about that God's oneness is in the same way that our fathers and our mothers are one. So that's pretty amazing. So you see a unity, and of course it uses the word echad instead of yachid, so we're not talking about a single one but a unity of one. So we have hints at the trinity. He talks about how God is everywhere at all times, He's omniscient, omnipotent, but He's separate from creation. So no pantheistic Hindu type theology. God is invisible, He's all-knowing, and He reveals the future through prophecy. So many of these old scrolls actually will come out and tell you it's a serious sin to ignore prophecy or set it aside and just focus on other things. It's really amazing. It says that man has free will. So much for Calvinism. The whole idea that you would be wise if you accept God's grace and forsake sin and follow God's law. It's really amazing. It says that we should be studying history and prophecy with our fathers. It shows the whole concept of a family, the whole family being involved in the study of the word. So many people want to leave their kids to the church and hopefully the church will take it because they're too busy with things. He mentions, for instance, you need to prove your faith by your actions. And you can't love God without loving your brother. It's exactly the same thing we see in 1 Peter and in John, epistles of John, Jude. It's just amazing to me to see all these things. the one that got me in that list is that we are castigated if we drop the study of prophecy. We move away from it and just forget about it. He's censuring a people who forget prophecy. And it occurs to me that our era is exactly like that. There are a lot of Christians that are interested in prophecy, but I'd say the vast majority of Christians worldwide are not interested in prophecy per se. They have their mandates for church worship of various kinds and most of which do not include the study of prophecy in most churches. Right. And it's a shame too because we have at least a third of the Scripture is prophecy. A lot of it's fulfilled but a lot of it's not. And the church fathers, even Barnabas and several of the other guys mentioned that you need to know fulfilled prophecy in your lifetime to be able to witness. And that's very powerful. So Jesus died for me and if I accept Him, that's a nice story. Why would I assume that's true? Because of all these prophecies that have been fulfilled in your and my lifetime. Now you have a little footnote in the title on the cover of your book referenced in 1 Chronicles 29.29 which I read at the beginning of our program today and alluded to in 1 Corinthians 12.12 and Galatians 4.26. How do these New Testament verses allude to Gad the seer? Well in David's sermon it's pretty interesting. He'll mention that when we are in the resurrected form in the kingdom of God when it's on Earth, we will see God face to face. And we're not able to do that now, at least we die. And when Paul uses that in 1 Corinthians 13 that when that which is perfect has come, we will see God face to face. And I know some people have tried to say that was the New Testament canon back in the first century. But none of the fathers taught that, the church fathers. And Gad definitely doesn't teach that. And then of course Paul mentioning in Galatians, he mentions the new Jerusalem. And I thought that was interesting. In David's sermon he basically says that if you're saved then you will end up being part of the redeemed and God will bring that new Jerusalem, we will live in that. It's the Jerusalem that is now concealed in his day. And so the language is just slightly different, but you know what we're talking about. It clearly refers to what we call the new Jerusalem at the end of the book of Revelation. Wow. That's fascinating. And what's fascinating about it is that when we think of the Jews in Jerusalem, we think of the earthly Jerusalem, we think of the thousand year kingdom centered in and around Jerusalem with the presence of Christ being an actuality at that time. But we don't think of the new Jerusalem, and yet all those years ago Gad the seer mentioned it. Mentioned several other things too, but again it's just amazing. There are a couple of things that I would like to touch upon, and we don't have time to really get deeply into them on this program, we will on the next. But the vision of God as a triune God, and the fact that God might have a son is actually alluded to by Gad the seer. Yes, actually you see that if you look very carefully through the Old Testament you see what we call Christophanies. But the language is amazing to know that there's one God and the Father and yet there's this little Yahweh that comes occasionally and talks to the prophets and called the Word of God, the one that created everything. In the book of Gad it's kind of interesting, it says that you know God more intimately if you understand that there's Yahweh, there's His image and His presence, which is a very clear indication of a trinity. Yahweh image and presence would be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's kind of interesting, you and I were talking about the whole idea of the tabernacle. We know that Jesus is the light of the world so the menorah represented that. But the table of showbread actually in Hebrew is called the bread of the presence. And if the presence in Gad of course is referring to the Holy Spirit, you've got this table representing the table of the Holy Spirit. So you can see God the Father and the Holy of Holies and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It's just all over. Ken's latest book, the ancient book of Gad, the seer. He goes into shall we say undiscovered corners of Bible study and brings out these gems time after time after time. How many books have you done now? I can't even...24 I think. I lifted about six of them here a minute ago. They're all books that bring out factors and features of Bible prophecy that you've really never heard about. It's your calling, I think. And what a calling to look in dark corners and bring things out that have not been brought out before. There is a camel and a donkey in Gad the seer. And we're not going to have time to talk much about this program, but give us a little foretaste of that imagery in Gad the seer. Well he has this image that there are these religious systems that are anti-Semitic, that are replacement theology, that are a problem with Israel. And we can't get rid of them, it has to be the Messiah coming at the second coming that does. And it's amazing the way it's described, how you can figure out what it is and then see it in the world today. Now when he talks about the Messiah coming, how does he phrase it? What visualizations does he have? In the vision it's a lamb. And the lamb comes and probably dies or something bad happens to it, but it's all part of God the Father's plan. And somehow through this there is the redeemed. And these are people that have sinned but want to serve God and are forgiven by the lamb. And we see that there's a song of the redeemed, and they're very similar in the book of Revelation, only longer. There's a lot of detail in that. So he sees a redeemed people, which we would think of as the church, naturally. He's looking ahead at it. We're looking back at the church age, but seeing the same thing. Yeah. It's not so much the church or Israel, but it's those that believed. Like Paul quoting Habakkuk all the time about how to just live by faith. It's always been that way. You're saved if you believe on what Jesus did, or if you're way back then what the Messiah will do when He comes. That's amazing. Now let's talk a little bit more because there is some really fascinating prophecy in Gad the Seer. Imagery that seems to suggest a few things we're seeing in our own era right now. Yeah, several actually. Give us one or two. Well the whole concept of Islam being an evil religious replacement theology system that wants to come along and destroy Israel. That and we see some other things in there like that at the same time, but the whole way it's beginning to shape up is pretty interesting. And Islam is given a symbol. Yes, a camel. Which makes sense. A camel is a desert creature, so the people that live in the desert. In fact what do we think of when we think of Islam? We think of those camel caravans out on the desert. I'm talking about the Middle Ages. The people who live in tents on the deserts. And they're called dwellers in tents actually in the Bible. So the camel would be a terrific emblem for Islam. Yeah, and the fact that we have the moon representing the kingdom of God, but it's overshadowed by an evil presence, the camel and the donkey. But it's interesting that when it's overshadowed we see a crescent moon. So again the symbolism is all the way through there. So basically he's talking about things that are 1500 years ahead of his time. Yes. And beyond that. And he is seeing the outcome of wars and conflicts of various kinds that we're seeing today. And what a time for this book to come along. What are the odds that you would decide, well I think I'm going to write about Gad the seer, and what a time to be doing it. Because all of these conflicts we have the European church, we have the Islamic powers, all of which are battling for position right now in the global political structure that we see developing right now. And therefore what he wrote about wow, so long ago in his terms is becoming very clear to us now. Yes. And things that we wouldn't think would happen. Things that I've been guessing at by reading the church fathers and almost figuring out he comes right along and says this is the way it's supposed to be. Let's talk about chapter 12, David's deathbed sermon. God hears the prayers of every person. Let's go through some of the items here. Well it says that he hears the prayers of all the people but he focuses mainly on answering the prayers of the holy. And of course you don't know what holy is in this case until you read the entire thing, but it's someone who has a heart holiness for the Lord, not necessarily sinless perfect but you're trying. You want to know about God, you want to try to follow him. Those are the people that he loves and tries to take care of. They actively serve and worship God, they love one another God will save every one of his holy people. I thought that was pretty interesting. Just like Jesus said, I won't lose any that the father has given me. They believe in the unity of God and again he says in the sense that our fathers and our mothers are one. So he references the trinity in that. We avoid all idolatry, we pray only to God. God actually protects and avenges his holy people. I thought that was pretty interesting. Again this is David's deathbed sermon as recorded by Gad. And do you get a sense of how Gad came about this information? Does he give us context or does he just say David's deathbed sermon? What's the context here? Yeah he goes through a lot. In context we go through a lot of those things. He starts out in chapters 1 and 2 with this amazing prophecy and ends in chapter 14 with another amazing prophecy. But through the basic part there are stories about David's judgment, people that want to convert to Judaism, the covenant, David's sin of counting which he got in trouble with. There's times when the Philistines were almost ready to destroy Israel and God sent an angel to wipe out a large regiment. There's just all these historical stories and in the midst of them are two major sermons that David gave that are perfect theology. The ancient book of Gad the Seer has two pictures, or two symbolic if you will, emblems. One is God holding a child, I suppose. The other shows a crescent moon, a camel, and a donkey. Very interesting symbology. Let's begin by talking about those symbols. Well in the first and second chapter we have this vision that Gad sees and he starts out seeing what's Israel represented by two oxen. And they're being led by a camel and a donkey. And these are some sort of evil presidencies. And so they're led up and then something happens and the camel and the donkey go to the moon. When they go to the moon it quits being a full moon and it's actually a crescent moon. And it becomes a little bit of light but mainly darkness. And then he looks at the sun and he sees in the sun what ends up being interpreted as God the Father with a lamb on his shoulder. And the lamb actually comes to earth, probably dies or does something very serious, and in so doing he creates a group called the redeemed. And the redeemed enter heaven. And it talks about how there are these two groups, the camel and the donkey. And basically as the description goes on we're learning that there are two separate religious groups. One is anti-Semitic but is completely monotheist and it's called Edom. And of course Edom is in the area of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. So we're talking about Islam in the last days because this is all last days prophecy right before the Messiah sets up a kingdom. The other one is called another Edom or a secondary Edom and it specifically says that this Edom is a group, a religious group that is headquartered in Shittim or Rome and it's the Rome that's in the middle of the north part of the Mediterranean Sea. So we're talking about Rome, Italy. This group actually is Trinitarian but it is also replacement theology. And that's not necessarily the problem but in the last days these two groups kind of come together which to me I've always wondered how that would work because it sure seems like it's beginning to. And it doesn't seem like it could but Gad says they actually come together to the point of trying to destroy Israel. Well the Roman church is Trinitarian and it does follow a replacement theology as it teaches that the church will rise and eventually make its capital in Jerusalem, Israel and initiate the kingdom so that would be replacement theology. So that is actually mentioned in 1000 BC in a vision? Wow. That's truly remarkable. Another thing I thought was interesting is when we look at the Gog-Magog war out of Ezekiel 38 in verse I believe 17 God says aren't you the kingdom, talking to Rosh which we know is Russia because of the book of Jasher and some other church fathers make that very clear. But aren't you the one that my old prophets have talked about? And I used to read that and think not really because this is the first mention of it in the Bible in Ezekiel. But Gad actually mentions that. He says that when these two religious powers come together they kind of draw the group down to attack Israel and their corpses fall on the mountains of Israel. Well today there's a lot of discussion about Gog, the land of Magog in particularly the prophecy of Ezekiel 38 and there's discussion about who that is and where that power is located. There's sort of a dialogue if you will between those who say that it's in Turkey and those who say that it's in the steppes of Russia. But Gad the seer would seem to indicate that it's not in Turkey. And then Jasher, the ancient history book recommended by Scripture actually comes out and says that. He will tell you the Magogites, where they settled. A small group of them did go to Turkey and most of them are in what's called Scythia or southern Russia. But when you're talking about Magog as a group, we're talking about the Scythian kings. And it actually mentions the first three Scythian kings by name. So you know for sure which group we're talking about. So let's go back now to the camel and the donkey and the crescent moon. We think of a camel, we think of camel caravans out on the deserts of Arabia and I mean that's an emblem if ever there was one of a particular people. The Bedouins, the Arab traders and so forth. And then to add the crescent moon to that just pretty much certifies that this would be talking about Islam. Where does the donkey fit in? The donkey is the secondary Edom, the Edom that is actually in Rome, Italy. And according to the prophecy they're not monotheists, they're Trinitarians. But they both have this replacement theology, probably different forms. But the point is in the end times they somehow come together to try to attack Israel. This is fascinating to me. And again we're talking with Ken Johnson, his new book, the ancient book of Gad the Seer. In fact the word seer there is sort of an early word for prophet as you explained it to me. Yes it is. That's one more example of the language being really ancient Hebrew. So let's talk then about the prophecy. And I'm going to page 93 of your book in chapter 14, the great tribulation. We in the 21st century Christian church have a very clear image when we talk about the great tribulation and what we're talking about. What did Gad the Seer see? Well it's interesting because back in Leviticus we're given the festivals. And the festivals are very clear in their teaching. We have the festival of trumpets which is a two-day festival. It teaches about the resurrection of the dead. Paul says the rapture happens in the twinkling of an eye with that. And then the second coming is foreseen in the Yom Kippur Day of Atonement festival and the death of the anti-messiah and those things. The days in between those, there's seven days and they're called the yamin norayim, the time of Jacob's trouble or the terrible days. So in the festivals we see a picture of a pre-trib rapture, a seven year period, and the second coming. So with that in mind when you go read the great tribulation chapter, chapter 14 of Gad it's an amazing prophecy. It starts out saying that it's New Year's, it's Yom Torah, the time of the dead and the resurrection, the time of the judgment. And the books are brought to God. The first book is the book of those that are just. And he says these people have eternal life starting today. And Satan interrupts and says they're not really just and he's told to shut up. And then we go back, so in other words we're seeing that the messiah did something with unjust people and somehow made them just. So it's amazing. But they get resurrected, raptured, whatever on that day. Then he says bring me the second set of books, there's three. The second set are those that haven't made any decisions about God. And he says I'm going to set those aside until one-third the time passes through the month. Well one-third through the month of Tishrei is Yom Kippur. So it's very clearly that these people are set aside, the judgment is set aside until the second coming to see what they will do. And then the evil people are judged, God gives them over to Satan to do with as he pleases. Satan takes them out into the wilderness to some sort of a great battle, basically so that they're destroyed. And the language all the way through here, the angels talking sound like a trumpet talking with them. There's a lot of language of the rapture. So looking at those, knowing that Gad would have known about the festivals and what he saw, it's very obvious that we're talking about a rapture resurrection, a seven-year period of testing of some sort. Some sort of a large battle at the end and then the establishment of a messianic kingdom. So again it's a very clear picture of a pre-tribulational rapture. And the opening of the books on Tishrei I in fact is accompanied by a greeting. To this very day the Jews wish each other a good inscription in the book of life. Or may you be inscribed for a good year in the book of life. Something to that end. And that's the word that's given, that's the greeting that's common in the ten days between Tishrei I, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur. May you be inscribed for a good year in the book of life. This goes all the way back then to the days of King David. And it's recorded by Gad the seer. That's really amazing. Now let's talk more about this model that you lay out. The idea that there will be seven years preceded by something that you're identifying as the rapture of the church. How exactly does that appear? Well in Scripture we have Daniel giving us the 70 weeks prophecy and then the gap between when the Messiah dies and the second coming and there's that seven year period. And we're told in Thessalonians and in Daniel 12 that there is this time when the rapture resurrection happens and in the so many days. So it's very clear in Scripture of a pre-trib rapture. But then in the book of Gad we have him basically saying that these people that were evil or sinners that are now redeemed having eternal life today. And then that seven year period where the rest of them have to wait to see what they do. And then an establishment of a kingdom. So it's a very clear pre-trib rapture passage like a lot of the ancient scrolls I'm looking at. So you really see this as a pattern. Long before they had any way of knowing exactly what they were writing about, they were all writing about this particular pattern of events. Yeah, same in Daniel and in Isaiah and other passages in Scripture. But you see the same pattern. So, and I'm looking here at kind of a prophetic outline of 15 points that you have in the book. Starting with old Edom becomes anti-Semitic, the Messiah pays for our sins. You've got an outline of Bible prophecy through the eyes of Gad the seer. And I think the first criticism of somebody reading this book would be are you sure you're not reading something into Gad the seer that's not there? How are you certain that this is the layout? And that might be a legitimate criticism. So I'm going to give you the opportunity to talk to that. To that I would have to say get the book and find out. No, honestly, it's very clear. Like we talked about the donkey and the camel, they're obviously religious systems. And then in chapter 2 we're told where they're from. We're told about certain wars that happen between that and Persia and the establishment of a new system that happens twice. And it's just, you look at history and you see the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the birth of the Ottoman Empire, it's just what we thought was its destruction. But all these other things that keep coming back and the symbolism of the crescent moon and the whole point that these groups are anti-Semitic to the point somewhere along the line in the end times they join forces to try to destroy Israel. And you're told the location of one and the symbolism for the other. So yeah, it takes time to pull them together but if you ruled out, for instance, Islam and Roman Catholicism and Christianity in general what kind of large religious groups are there that pulled the strings to pull Russia down? I mean we've seen World War I and World War II with Nazism. Nazism is one thing, but there were large ranks inside of Nazism that were Muslim. And it's just you just look at all these things and you couple it with Zachariah and with John's prophecy and revelation, it just all makes perfect sense. And so logically approaching the work of Gad the Seer, you come up with an outline. A prophetic outline. Old Edom, anti-Semitic. Well that's a big part of the Bible story of the Old Testament. And by the way that comes right into the New Testament because the Edomites controlled Jerusalem when Jesus was born. And the Messiah pays for our sins, the Roman church arises, Western Rome becomes Roman Catholic, the Byzantine Empire arises, and you know we kind of forget about the Byzantine Empire in our history studies. But it was a big big event. Byzantium was a Christian stronghold until it was wiped out by the Muslims at a certain time. The Western Roman Empire falls, Islam arises, the Byzantine Empire falls to Islam. So you're seeing all of this outlined in Gad the Seer. And when again did Gad write? about 1000 BC. He really was a seer. He would have been the first one to have an outline like this. But we see it amongst the church fathers and several other scrolls. And it's interesting to see the church fathers actually quoting these scrolls. Now we have Rome and Islam joining together in a joint hatred for the Jews, which is historical. And you see evil alliances being made in the Middle Ages as well as factions fighting each other, tumult of that time. Roman Islam then provided what you're calling the setup for the latter day wars, the Gog Magog War. Which by the way we're watching today, it's really interesting to see Rome, if you will, the Western Empire to see Islam and to see other groups jockeying for position in the upcoming Gog Magog War. And to see it through the eyes of a man who wrote in 1000 BC in the reign of King David is quite another thing. Yeah, I think we mentioned in the previous thing that we did here that in Ezekiel 38 it actually says, I think in verse 17, that aren't you, Rosh, the one that my prophets talked about from before? And there are no other prophets talking about Rosh or Magog from before Ezekiel 38. So we're talking about Gad and other prophets like that. Other, if you will, seers as they used to be called in the old days who are now being recovered. And you know the thing about the latter days, and I believe we're living in the latter days of Bible prophecy. Israel rising once again, the nations taking their respective places that very much resemble the picture given in the Bible for the latter days. We're there, we're watching all this. But to go back to 1000 years before Christ and see the same thing reflected in the viewpoint of an ancient looking ahead in time is really startling. Yeah, Christianity didn't arise until 1000 years after Gad, and Islam didn't arise until 1600 years after Gad. So really amazing. Now we have item 11 in the outline, Michael warring with Satan. Well, we read about that in Revelation. And of course Satan is defeated, comes to Earth and persecutes Israel at that time. And let's talk about the tribulation. Because when we think about the seven year tribulation, we go back to Daniel chapter 9 and we begin there and we sort of work our way forward and we read what Jesus said about the great tribulation. Matthew 24 and so forth, we go to Revelation. But here we've got some information that comes from an entirely different source. And references the tribulation. Tell us about that. The outline is that there's going to be this time of trouble and it begins with the time of the rapture resurrection or the resurrection of people. They're given eternal life on that day. And we see this through chapters a little bit in chapters 1 and 2 and a great part in chapter 14. It's just really amazing that those things could be recorded that long ago. We see in Daniel 12 I think Daniel 12 is probably the key to that. We see the rapture resurrection, we see so many days and then we see the abomination of desolation and we see so many days further and then there's an establishment of a kingdom. So as far as an outline I think it's really clear. I want to bring us back to the idea of the pre-tribulation rapture. That's going to raise eyebrows as people read this book to think that a thousand years before Christ somebody was writing about a prophetic outline that included the church, the body of Christ. Without calling it the church but you can infer that it's the church. And then a, if you will, rapture. How is that expressed through Gad's eyes? The rapture prior to a seven year time of trouble. We have the time of, we know the rapture happens when the twinkling of an eye with the resurrection. So when we have the day of judgment which is the day of resurrection and God saying that these people receive eternal life today. And then another group of people that have to wait until the Yom Kippur, the second coming, and we see that seven year period. So I think that very clearly shows a pre-trib rapture. And so Gad specifically talks about these people being made righteous. Right. Yeah, they were not righteous but somehow because of something that the Lamb does they are now righteous. And then he talks about resurrection. And then he talks about a time of trouble. So you put it all together, you've got a pre-tribulation rapture of the church. Yeah, I don't see how you can interpret it any other way. That is amazing. Now, when you first saw this, I'm sure you were excited about it, right? Yeah, it jumped right out at me when I read chapter 14 and I said to myself, yet another one. There are so many old scrolls that have the same pattern to them. So many church fathers. How many scrolls of this type would you estimate there are that would demonstrate this sequence of events? A righteous people resurrected preceding a time of trouble. How many scrolls would you find that picture? Well, there's at least three scrolls. And amongst the teaching of the church fathers, the second and third century fathers, probably a good four or five other people giving a pre-trib rapture idea. Matter of fact, in the rapture book that I wrote I've got probably at least six quotes from some of the early church fathers on a pre-trib rapture. Same basic idea, they don't call it a pre-trib, just the idea that if you are holy, then you will be afforded a way out of this before judgment comes. In other words, instead of giving it a name like pre-trib, you just describe what's going to happen. And those declared righteous prior to a time of judgment, and then prior to that time of judgment they are resurrected. Yeah, those that believe in what the Messiah teaches or something about the Messiah are actually taken away. Then some sort of judgment falls and then they're brought back. A lot of times we don't have numbers attached. A lot of people argue against the pre-trib rapture on the basis it's a late idea. It was only discovered really and preached in the 19th century by a group of men who got together just before Israel became a nation back in the late 19th century. And before that nobody was really teaching it. That's what you hear from a lot of critics these days. It was made popular or reinvented, so to speak. But there are people all the way back in the 17th, 16th, a lot of them in England. You go all the way back to the early church fathers who were pretty clear. That's a wonderful idea. We're talking about Ken Johnson's latest book, and I'm going to hold it up here for you. It's got a picture on the front, a vision if you will of a father and son being God the father and God the son. And then we have a crescent moon, a camel, and a donkey. What a set of just wonderfully evocative symbols. You've got to read the book. The Ancient Book of Gad the Seer. And by the way, we are offering with Gad the Seer what we're calling the Ancient Mysteries Package. Ken, you mentioned your book on the rapture a minute ago, we just happen to have it in this package. The Rapture, The Ancient Book of Enoch, Seder Olam, how about that? The Ancient Seder Olam, a translation of a scroll that's 2,000 years old. The Ancient Book of Jumilees, Ancient Post-Flood History, and the Ancient Book of Daniel. Ken's special way of looking at ancient manuscripts I think is gaining a lot of popularity now as people begin to find out what Ken is doing. He looks into places that nobody else looks and brings out some really wonderful truths. Gad the Seer, we're offering to you for $12.95. The six books, the Ancient Mysteries Package, $75 if you buy the Ancient Mysteries Package we'll give you this book, Gad the Seer, absolutely free. Because we really want you to get to know how Ken thinks, how he's looking at things, what he sees if you will. He's kind of a seer himself, that other men have not seen. How to wrap this thing up today, to me the encouraging part of your book, Gad the Seer, is that it confirms what we all refer to as the blessed hope, resurrection. And by the way, a resurrection that's coming in a moment, a twinkling of an eye without any forewarning, foreshadowing of any kind is called imminency. It could happen at any moment. And the ancients looked at this thing I suppose in a very logical, sequential way from their perspective. We live in the moment. Jesus could come at any moment for us, we believe. They laid out a kind of a developmental chart. And Gad the Seer is exhibit A, right? Absolutely. To me it's just amazing that the Lord keeps slowly bringing these things out. Enoch was not known for several hundred years, then the Dead Sea Scrolls came out, mainly showing us Scripture and then other things too, and then now Gad the Seer has been brought out. I remember when the book of Enoch was seldom seen. It was published, I happen to have a copy, I believe it was published in 1923 or something, 22. Very old copy of the book of Enoch, and at that time it was printed but not circulated very widely. And then it's been reprinted, reprinted, commented upon, and now everybody knows about the book of Enoch. And the ancient prophets, if you will, are really coming to light in our day, which kind of tells us what time it is. Ken Johnson, thanks for being with us today. The book, the ancient book of Gad the Seer. You need to read this one, this is fascinating. I'm Gary Stearman. Keep watching, everybody. We are. You can find us on the web at prophecywatchers.com where you can sign up for our free email newsletter. In the meantime, keep watching, everybody, and we'll see you soon!