Discourse 128 – The real Extraterrestrials who rule our World.

Is there such a thing as a "pre‒Adamic period"? / Commentary by HU 00, 2017-12-07

The Battle in Heaven.

Table – The Creation – UNIVERSE and EARTH.

The pre‒Adamic era.

Who are the real Jews?

The eternal existence of every human being.

The glory of Trump’s being elected President should be given to God. / John S. Torell

Are the "spirits" that show up in seances the fallen angels of the Bible? / Commentary HR 00, 2018-01-29

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

Thank you very much for visiting Immanuel.at, and for your comments.

After a first look at John S. Torell’s website, I saw that it would be worth taking the trouble to make a close scrutiny of his other statements as well, before I state my position in relation to your question about the "pre-Adamic period".

Of course it is also a matter of taking something of a look at all the statements of this author, with a view to seeing whether this "pre-Adamic period" amounts to an isolated assertion in the context of the rest of his quite copious interpretations of the Bible, or whether it is a concept that can be traced throughout his biblical commentaries.

And here, first of all, we can comment favorably that Torell works much of the time with biblical texts, and frequently, too, gives the text in full rather than just inserting a reference. But like the majority of American biblical commentators, he focuses for the most part – at least in the link you sent me – on the Old Testament (Genesis, Job, Kings 2, Ezekiel, Isaiah etc.), and then he does fall into some contradictions.

So he quotes Job 38,1-7, for example, and then asserts:

"ALL ANGELS ARE HOLY AND CREATED WITHOUT SIN"

and then, just a few lines further on, arrives at what is more likely to be the biblically accurate statement that

"NOT ALL ANGELS ARE ALIKE"

Now the angels were created "holy" and without sin, just as the human beings Adam and Eve were. But since both classes – angels and human beings – were created with free will, it is very unlikely that this would remain the case in the course of their further existence in all cases. Every angel and every human being has received from God the freedom to make their own decisions, also including the most important decision of all – where they choose to confess this God, their Creator, or not.

The Battle in Heaven.

It was the "battle in heaven", as Torell quite rightly recognizes, where the angelic world – though this happened two thousand years ago, and not, as Torell thinks, in "pre-Adamic times" – took this decision. A third of all the angels decided for the tempter Satan and so against God. There then followed a battle in heaven, in which Satan and his angels fought and lost against the remaining two thirds of the angels, under the leadership of the Archangel Michael. Satan, the "dragon" was then thrown down to the earth, where the fallen angels continue to exist – though invisible to human beings – in the spaces of the air.

The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and were thrown down to the earth.

Rev 12,7 And there was battle in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, 12,8 and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven.

12,9 And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Rev 12, 7- 9;

(Astronaut John Glenn speaks of "myriads of stars" / Italian version).

The biblical fact that this battle in heaven took place when our Lord Jesus Christ was still alive is confirmed by numerous passages in the Bible:

I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Lk 10,17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name." 10,18 And He said to them, "I saw Satan fall  like lightning from heaven. Lk 10,17-18;

Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath.

Rev 12,12 "For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time." Rev 12,12;

How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning.

Isa 14,12 "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! Isa 14,12;

And the tail of the dragon swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.

Rev 12,3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. 12,4 And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. Rev 12, 3- 4;

Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out (from heaven).

Jn 12,28 "Father, glorify Your name." Then a voice came out of heaven: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." 12,29 So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, "An angel has spoken to Him." 12,30 Jesus answered and said, "This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes. 12,31 "Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out (from heaven). Jn 12,28-31;

I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming.

Jn 14,28 You heard me say to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. 14,29 And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe. 14,30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; 14,31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go hence. Jn 14,28-31;

He will convict the world concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

Jn 16,7 "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 16,8 "And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; 16,9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; 16,10 and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; 16,11 and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. Jn 16, 7-11;

(See also Excursus 06: "From the face of God into the lake of fire – the four stages of Satan.")

And the information that Satan and his angels continue to exist in this world today in the spaces of the air, and that God has given Satan power over the kingdoms of this world, has been handed down to us by the apostle Paul.

The prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

Eph 2,1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2,2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Eph 2,1-2;

The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.

2Cor 4,3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4,4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God. 2Cor 4,3-4

The world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the places under the sky.

Eph 6,12 For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the places under the sky. Eph 6,12;

If the head of the house (Satan) had known at what time of the night the thief (Jesus) was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house (the world) to be broken into.

Mt 24,42 "Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. 24,43 "But be sure of this, that if the head of the house (Satan) had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house (the world) to be broken into. 24,44 "For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. Mt 24,42-44;

(See also discourse 1042: "Are all governments of the world ordained by God?")

So it looks as if God created Satan for this purpose, or else from a certain point of time, in the development of this angel, assigned him the role of tempting human beings – from Adam and Eve right through to the Last Day – and so giving them the possibility of using their God-given freedom of the will in order to decide for or against God. Satan was thus intended to separate the "chaff" from the "wheat". And just that was the purpose for which God actually gave him, two thousand years ago, power over "all the kingdoms of the world".

Consistently enough, he at once proceeded to try to lead astray his greatest antagonist, the Son of God, who was living as a human being on earth, and offered him "all this authority" provided that Jesus would worship him, the devil.

To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me.

Lk 4,5 And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 4,6 and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 4,7 If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours." 4,8 And Jesus answered him, "It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’" Lk 4, 5- 8;

But yet another consequence of this text should not be overlooked. The fact that Satan points to here – that all power over the kingdoms of this world had been assigned him by God – was not called in doubt by the Son of God. As with the other temptations, here too the Lord only referred to the relevant biblical commandment: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve". If the devil had been lying here – and it is his job, after all – the Lord would undoubtedly have refuted him.

But this makes it clear that the world has been directed by the devil for two thousand years. As we can understand from this biblical passage, it is he who appoints all the governments of nations – including the Vatican State. Since the Roman empire all those exercising power – whether they are emperors, kings, Popes or dictators (and democratically elected statesmen and stateswomen are no exception) – have been influenced and kept in leading strings by the devil.

It may be that some of these people were able to withstand Satan’s influence, but then they cannot have remained for long in responsible positions. And when we look at world history over the last two thousand years – from the emperor Nero, through the sinister Middle Ages to Hitler, Hiroshima and Nagasaki – we can see that this biblical prophecy has come to pass indeed, in all its tragic aspects.

But in the end Satan will take large parts of the human world into damnation in the same way – just as he seduced and led astray a third of the angels and led them to perdition. And we have reason to fear that in the human world – by contrast with the angelic world – less than two thirds will escape the clutches of the devil. The Bible speaks of some four billion people who will be destroyed by the wrath of God, on the Day of his Wrath alone (Rev 6:8; Rev 9:15).

(See also discourse 65: "The two men in the field (Mt 24,40): who will be taken, and who will be left?" )

So that is the biblical reality of Satan and the angels. And as we can see, all this started with the battle in heaven in Jesus’ lifetime (Rev 12:7-9), seeing that he, after all, was the one who said:

Lk 10,18 "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

And as we have likewise seen, there are of course prophecies which point to this unique event in heaven (e.g. Isa 14:12; Rev 12:12).

But unfortunately Pastor Torell has failed to recognize the further implications, and relocates this war to the "pre-Adamic period". And here he gets carried away, in his biblical interpretations, into elaborate fantasies of science fiction, involving "space wars", "space ships", "energy weapons" and "destroyed planets":

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitorsto this site or from other authors.)

But this last statement of Torell’s above – "Certainly God did not start out creating the earth in chaos" – is in my view completely correct – even if not in the sense in which it is evidently meant. The Hebrew text here, in Gen 1,2, speaks of "tohuwabohu" (Hebrew תהו ובהו, tōhū-wā-vōhū, generally translated as "formless and void").

Gen 1,2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters (NSAS95)

"Tohuwabohu" designates a hopeless confusion, and has also been modernized as "confusion" and/or "chaos". Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig "Germanized" (Buber’s own term) the Hebrew Torah (the four books of Moses). They wanted to stay as close as possible to the Hebrew original, and did not mind if this sometimes involved having to invent words of their own in German. And they translated this Hebrew term very accurately as "error and confusion". The following half sentence of this verse was translated by Buber and Rosenzweig not as "and darkness was over the surface of the deep", but as "darkness over face of primeval whirl".

As Torell also writes above, the traditional translation – "formless and void" and "darkness over the surface of the deep" – was actually hard to make sense of as a reference to the planet earth. "Error and confusion" and "darkness over face of primeval whirl" make it clear to me that this description must relate not to the creation of the earth – much more likely it points to God’s very first act of creation, the creation of the universe in the Big Bang. And there we can most definitely speak of the chaos of the beginning, of a "tohuwabohu" and "primeval whirl".

The Creation – UNIVERSE and EARTH

(See also excursus12: "The Creation.")

With reference to Torell’s other statements and assertions above, we have to say that the dimension of God – by contrast with our universe of space and time – is beyond space and time, and immaterial. All angels are, just like God himself (Jn 4:24), spiritual beings and can for example penetrate the spirit of a human being, if the latter allows it. Of this we have sufficient examples in the Bible, where angels who have fallen from heaven with Satan in the time of Jesus (now no longer angels but demons) penetrated the spirit of human beings and were expelled thence by Jesus, e.g. Lk 8:26-33 (a Roman legion, please note, had at the time around 6000 men).

So this battle in heaven was not an affair of "space ships" and "energy weapons", but took place on a spiritual level. In the process no planets, let alone our whole universe of space and time, would have been damaged. And the craters on the moon and on Mars, similarly, are naturally not attributable to "ray guns" from a "space war", but are purely and simply the result of impacting meteors and small asteroids.

The pre-Adamic era

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

As already mentioned, Torell is quite correct here in recognizing the immediate circumstances of this battle in heaven from the Revelation of John, which is rather unusual with American biblical commentators. The Baptists in particular, of whom Torell is one, for the most part prefer to get to grips with texts of the Old Covenant, like Daniel, Job, Ezekiel etc., because they see their own nation as the "New Israel" and consequently refer the Old Testament prophecies relating to Israel to themselves.

At the same time, he regrettably relocates this battle in heaven, which in the light of biblical statements took place in Jesus’ lifetime, to the time before the creation of human beings. But it is interesting, in this connection, that he quotes this very same scriptural passage (Rev 12,3-4), which as we can see is just another confirmation that this war took place in the time of Jesus. Torell comments on the first verse, Rev 12,3, dealing with the expulsion of Satan and his angels from heaven, but about the second verse, Rev 12,4, he has nothing at all to say. There we are told:

And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth.

Rev 12,3 And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. 12,4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; Rev 12, 3- 4;

The "woman who was about to bear a child" is of course Mary, the mother of the Lord, biologically speaking. In prophetical terms, however, Satan stands here before Israel, the "wife" of God (Hos 2,16: "And it shall be at that day," saith the LORD, "that thou shalt call Me ‘Ishi’ that is, My husband, and shalt call Me no more ‘Baali’ that is, My Lord" / KJ21). The prophecy relates not just to the persecutions which Mary and Joseph would have to suffer up to the birth of Jesus (Mt 2:13-18). Along with the later temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, referred to above, Satan also manifested in the high priest Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin of those days, whose members declared, by a large majority, "He deserves death" (Mt 26:63-68), not to mention the large sectors of the population of Jerusalem who cried "Crucify him" (Jn 19:15) and "His blood shall be on us and on our children" (Mt 27:22-25).

With the last part of this blood oath, the Jews of that time pronounced a curse on all their descendants right up to today and on into the Millennium. Seeing that they rejected and put to death the Son of God who had come to them as a Savior, they broke their covenant with God, and God dissolved this covenant.

For this breaking of the covenant two thousand years ago, God punished the Jews severely. In the course of the First Jewish War (66-74 AD), in the year 70 the Temple and the entire city of Jerusalem were leveled to the ground by the Romans under Titus (Josephus, Bell, 6,254-259). Sixty years later, in the Third Jewish War (the Bar-Kochba rising, 132-135 AD), the entire region settled by the Jews in Judea was destroyed, and all Israel was driven out into the diaspora. Only in our own time – in the year 1948 – did the Zionists of Theodor Herzl succeed in bringing about the illegal occupation of Palestine (Israel) by the Jews.

As a result of the destruction of the Temple along with the altar of burned offerings in the year 70, the Jews have had no opportunity, right up to the present day, to make the Mosaic sacrifice for sin, which they were permitted to make only on this altar, and only in Jerusalem (Deut 12:13-14). Consequently all Jews since that time have died without forgiveness of their sins, and in the General Resurrection will be condemned to eternal damnation. This was actually prophesied to them by our Lord Jesus Christ, while he was still among them:

Unless you believe that I am He (the Messiah), you will die in your sins.

Jn 8,22 So the Jews were saying, "Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?" 8,23 And He was saying to them, "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. 8,24 "Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." Jn 8,22-24;

But seeing that the sacrifice for sin has been offered up by the Son of God on the cross for all human beings, Jews too can be saved if they convert to Jesus and appeal in prayer to this redeeming sacrifice for the forgiveness of their sins. This is what "believing in Jesus Christ" means: faith in his saving death, belief that his vicarious sacrifice releases us from sin. This is what "being saved" means – that is the "Good News", the "Euangelion" (εùαγγέλιον) in Greek. As we can see, it is all quite simple and logical. This is Christian biblical doctrine.

Dee also discourse 111: "The pseudo‒Christian betrayal of the Israelites.")

American Baptist preacher Pastor Steven L. Anderson comes to similar conclusions – though explained from a different point of view – in his sermon against Zionism. Here is an extract from it:

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

But Pastor Anderson has yet another "leaning": he teaches that God has rejected Israel. That is correct, to the extent that God dissolved the covenant with Israel, when they broke the covenant and handed his Son over to be crucified. Since then Israel has been a God-less people. But the descendants of today’s godless Israelis (Rom 11,1-10), after the catastrophes of the Day of the Wrath of God, at the start of the Millennium, will convert to Jesus Christ and come back to their and our God (Zech 12:9-10). And God will forgive them their frightful sins on one single day and they will again constitute – along with the Christians – the People of God (Rom 11:25).

The remnant of Israel will return to the mighty God.

Isa 10,20 Now in that day the remnant of Israel, and those of the house of Jacob who have escaped, will never again rely on the one who struck them, but will truly rely on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel. 10,21 A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. Isa 10,20-21;

I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant.

Jer 50,19 And I will bring Israel back to his pasture and he will graze on Carmel and Bashan, and his desire will be satisfied in the hill country of Ephraim and Gilead. 50,20 ‘In those days and at that time’, declares the LORD, ‘search will be made for the iniquity of Israel, but there will be none; and for the sins of Judah, but they will not be found; for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant’. Jer 50,19-20;

The LORD pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession.

Mi 7,18 Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in unchanging love. 7,19 He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins Into the depths of the sea. 7,20 You will give truth to Jacob And unchanging love to Abraham, Which You swore to our forefathers From the days of old. Mi 7,18-20;

And Steven Anderson also has "positioning problems" in relation to the time scheme. He places the General Resurrection before the Millennium, instead of at The end of the world. He may confuse the Millennium with the new Heavenly Jerusalem, in the New Creation (Rom 10,1).

But then he again gives the "Friends of Israel" in the Evangelical congregations an appropriate answer to their request that people "pray for Israel", when he says:

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

And now to come back to our other American Baptist preacher, John S. Torell. He seems to be less well versed in the Bible than his younger brother in faith. In spite of all the biblical proofs adduced above, showing that the battle in heaven must be assigned to the time of Jesus, he relocates this event to the pre-Adamic period. And that is all the more astonishing in view of the fact that we actually find no statements in the Bible whatsoever referring to this time before the creation of man.

But to give a concrete answer to the question asked by our visitor HU, "Is there such a thing as a pre-Adamic period?", we are justified in making the following statement:

Yes, according to the Bible of course there is a time before Adam, the first human being.

God created human beings on the sixth day of creation. In the five preceding days of creation, God created the universe on the first day, the earth with its atmosphere on the second, the oceans and plants on the third, the sun and the moon on the fourth day, fishes and birds on the fifth, and finally on the sixth day he created animals and human beings.

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

1Mo 1,26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 1,27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Gen 1,26-27;

That is the "pre-Adamic period", according to the Bible. Anything else interpreters assign to this period is either pure invention, or else (as in the case of Torell here) is in the wrong time frame. The "angelic civilizations" mentioned in his sermon might however be identified, by some stretch of the imagination, in another part of the Bible.

In Gen 6,1-8 we are told about the "sons of God", who came in to the daughters of men.

The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.

Gen 6,1 Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 6,2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 6,3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."   ¹⁾

6,4 The giants were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 6,5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6,6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

6,7 The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them." 6,8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. Gen 6, 1 – 8;

(See also Table 01: "Chronological table from Adam to Jacob.")

As verses 4 and 7 tell us, this is the "former time", the time before the Flood, when the sons of God took wives from the sons of men and had children with them. This process of generation by spiritual beings, such as the sons of God are, should not be understood as being of a human and sexual nature, but must have been by spiritual means, in the same way as God himself engendered his Son Jesus of one of the daughters of men. But as we know, God (by contrast with the sons of God) was not so much interested in beauty, but rather in the physical integrity and unspoilt character of this young woman.

And it appears that God had good reason for reserving this kind of engendering to himself, as the descendants of this coupling of the sons of God with the daughters of men were not normal human beings but giants. These giants had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. They fought with the Philistines against Israel, and were armed with bronze spears weighing around 50 kilos. They are actually referred in many biblical passages (e.g. 2Sam 21:20; Num 13:33).

Their fathers too, the sons of God, are also frequently mentioned in the Bible – for instance in Job 1:6 and Job 2:1. And here we can recognize that they appeared regularly before God, the Lord of Hosts, and were obliged to report back on their activities. And when the presumption that these sons of God were angels finds confirmation in the next biblical passage (Jud 1,6), we can surely conclude, from the fact that they regularly gathered in God’s presence to make their report, that it was not the entire host of normal angels who took part in these assemblies, but only selected ones – archangels or angelic princes like Michael (Dan 10:13).

And here, in Jud 1,5-7, we also learn that those of them who broke this taboo and went in to the daughters of men have been "kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day" (The Last Judgment).

And angels who did not keep their own domain (or their rule), but abandoned their proper abode

Jud 1,5 Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. 1,6 And angels who did not keep their own domain (or their rule), but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, 1,7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Jude 1, 5- 7

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;

2Pet 2,4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; 2,5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 2,6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; 2,7 and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men 2,8 (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds); 2Pet 2, 4- 8;

To understand this text correctly, you need to know that the text here refers to four separate events where God intervened.

1 God’s saving the people of Israel from Egypt – the Exodus (Ex 12:37-42).

2 The punishment of Israel, because of their unbelief, with the 40 years of wandering in the desert (Num 14:21-23).

3 The punishment of those angels who went in to the daughters of men (left their own domain) (Gen 6:2).

4 The annihilation of the population of Sodom, Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, because they had practiced gross immorality (homosexuality) by running after "strange flesh" (Gen 19:24-26).

We can conclude from these texts that there certainly were sons of God on earth before the flood, angels in other words, who had children with the daughters of men. But we can nonetheless rule out the possibility of any "angelic civilizations" on earth like those suggested by Pastor Torell. Jud 1,6 confirms, these angels "did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode." This means that they came from heaven down to earth – a move evidently forbidden to them by God, and for which they were later punished.

(See alsodiscourse 1133: "How and why the Great Tribulation begins: ‘The beginning of birth pangs’.")

This punishment with eternal bonds and darkness is comparable with the first, physical death of the human being. Whereas every human being basically dies biologically at the end of his or her life, and their spirit then temporarily enters the kingdom of the dead, the existence of angels is unlimited and is only curtailed as a punishment. They are held prisoner in darkness, just as Satan is bound and forced to spend a thousand years in the abyss (Rev 20:1-3). At the end of days they will all, both human beings and angels, rise for the Last Judgment and receive judgment on their deeds from the Son of God.

The eternal existence of every human being.

So if Torell, with his talk of "angelic civilizations", is really referring to these texts about angels, they have been completely torn out of context and are also assigned to the wrong time frame. But if we take a closer look at the website of this preacher, we come up against further false "positionings" – like this appeal of his to Christians to pray for America’s President Trump.

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

Well, no one has tried to assassinate Donald Trump – at least not yet. Whether he is or ever has been humble, you might rather venture to doubt. But even if it should be the case that he has been protected against evil men, sadly no one has protected him from himself. And so, governing by decree, he has made one decision after another which has been railroaded through the Senate or ratified by the judges of a state of the union.

And although Pastor Torell sings his exorbitant praises, and practically presents him as a "Messiah", Trump seems rather to be the type of the Antichrist, who will pretend to be the promised Messiah and so be worshiped by the Jews, as well as by some Christian congregations, as the "long awaited Second Coming of Christ".

But let’s wait and see. With his latest decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Trump has in any case effectively destroyed decades of effort on the part of the international community of nations to bring about a two state solution in Palestine. It is to be feared that now the situation may continue to escalate. And through this decision at least, Trump already has a good few dead Israelis on his conscience. And there will probably be more, as well as dead Palestinians.

So should the glory of Trump’s election as President be given to God? As we know, according to the Bible Satan rules the world (see above)! I leave it to the reader to judge. For biblical themes, we have the Bible as a basis and foundation for forming our own opinions. When it comes to worldly themes, truth – as it has been well said – lies "in the eye of the beholder".

The following e-mail from our visitor HU reached me just before I completed this article:

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

Yes, I agree with you there that understanding is growing in the Last Days. But as we sadly find over and over again, people are also less and less interested in the Bible and in the sermons of biblical commentators. This surely can’t be the fault of the Bible. It may be the fault of some preachers, but I think for the most part it is the fault of the people themselves. They let themselves be unduly caught up with beautiful things that seem worth aspiring to, as well as with the anxieties and crises of this world, and let their spirit wholly absorbed with such things (Mt 13:22). They are hardly approachable at all when it comes to biblical topics, and so have no idea what kind of thing to expect. And if you talk to them about it, they just don’t want to know.

In connection with this, the information service "TOPIC" cited a study a few years ago, which explains this very phenomenon:

With reference to your other statements about Pastor Torell in your second e-mail:

"He stands firm by the Bible and establishes nothing without support of the Word, with a clear spirit and plain understanding. (…) He engages too with current events, sees marriage, the family, diet etc. in the light of the Bible, and uncovers the occult practices of some celebrities and politicians who are taken by many people today as a model.""

- I have found an article of his on the "European-American Evangelistic Crusades" website, and here his "clear spirit and plain understanding" are perhaps less evident:

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

So as to make it easier for readers to understand my differentiated attitude to Pastor Torell’s statements, I would like to suggest a comparison. Let’s just suppose that the Jews had not rejected their Messiah and condemned him to death two thousand years ago, but had recognized and welcomed him as the Son of God.

This is perhaps a consideration which might have occurred at the time to the high priest Caiaphas with his adherents in the Sanhedrin, the elders and scribes. What would then have happened? The Old Testament prophesies that the Messiah will come as a king and rule over Israel.

At the time of Jesus, Israel had no king. Under the Roman occupation there may have been governors, but Jewish judicial authority, even for capital crimes, was vested exclusively in the Sanhedrin. This of course meant that its members enjoyed a certain position of power. And with the appearance of the Messiah, their power and influence would have been lost. Quite possibly they would have been reluctant to accept that without a struggle.

Here is a commentary on this, from the website "Der Prozess Jesu aus Sicht des Jüdischen Rechts" ["The trial of Jesus from the point of view of Jewish law"]:

"Occasionally we find it asserted that the high priests, elders and scribes were simply hardened criminals, in the habit of breaking every law in order to achieve their hateful objective. (Among these objectives we should not leave out of account the securing and extension of their influence and of the position of power they had attained to, increasing their own wealth and the like; any obstacle to their achieving these goals would of course have to be forestalled with all the resources at their disposal.)"

Now if Jesus had been accepted by his people, the Thousand Year Kingdom of Peace of the Son of God – the Millennium – would actually have dawned two thousand years ago. Caiaphas too must have known this, since he was after all, as high priest, the top ranking scribe and all these things had been prophesied in the Old Testament. And then the world and humanity would have been spared the following two thousand years of criminal rulers, wars and billions of deaths.

(See also chapter 10: "The Millennium")

But Caiaphas and his scribes chose to secure their own private and personal prebends, and preferred to condemn the Son of God to death on the cross. And here we come to the point of resemblance with Pastor John S. Torell, and his defense of Trump’s decision to back out of the climate agreement. The Paris Climate Agreement could still prevent climate catastrophe and give humanity a chance of leaving a healthy environment to their children and grandchildren.

But Trump and his politicians chose rather to secure their own personal American benefits of office, and by withdrawing from the climate agreement have delivered the death blow to this last ditch attempt. Along with China, the USA is the country with the highest emissions of greenhouse gas. It is now to be feared that China, India and Russia will likewise appeal to that "global competitiveness" Trump keeps harping on about, to justify their reneging (at least to some extent) on the climate deal.

And so the reproach of our Lord Jesus Christ to the scribes and Pharisees of the time can be read in a double sense, if we refer these statements to the worldly conditions of today.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self‒indulgence.

Mt 23,25 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self‒indulgence. 23,26 "You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. 23,27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 23,28 "So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.. Mt 23,25-28;

Although I generally see these verses as a reference to the Catholic church, to whom the statements on the "successors" of the Jewish Sanhedrin apply with equal validity – they fit Trump and his American Evangelical supporters just as well.

 

Jewish high priest, Catholic bishop.
The "Historic Costumes Society" has just changed the names.

So I would advise our visitor, Mr. HU, that if he wants an explanation of the Bible from an American Baptist preacher, I would be more inclined to recommend Pastor Steven Anderson from Tempe, Arizona, whom I have quoted earlier. If we leave out of account minor errors (of which I pointed out two above, and which are going to be found in all biblical commentators, myself included), he is really one of the best around. And as far as I know, he gives his sermons in German translation as well (the videos even with synchronized translation).

If I don’t try to convert you to my own website, this is not because I am not convinced that you will really and truly find that it is one of the best sources of biblical information worldwide, with hundreds of interpretations, analyses and comparisons that are in conformity with the Bible. But I am a servant of my Lord and God. And if he leaves it to the free will of each human being whether to decide for him or against him, I do not want to ignore the will of my God and put any kind of pressure on people to acquire the basis of their faith from my website.

This form of compelled "conversion" we find chiefly in the Catholic church, which in former times converted the Indios of South America under threat of being burned at the stake²⁾. The God of true Christianity has left it to the free will of the individual when, where, how and whether he or she will decide for or against this God. That is the biblical teaching – and that, and nothing else, is what you will find at Immanuel.at.

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Are the "spirits" that show up in seances the fallen angels of the Bible? / Commentary HR 00, 2018-01-29)

Dear Mr. Horak

I read your article about the "fallen angels of God", and then today came across a report of spiritualist seances where similar phenomena occur to those which Jesus cast out back then. Do you think these could be the same demons by which such people are possessed today? Here is the link: Physikalischer Spiritualismus bzw. Mediumismus heute [Physical spiritualism or mediumship today].

Best wishes,

HR

Physical spiritualism or mediumship today

Cloudy ectoplasm emerges from an eye of the medium and distributes itself progressively, until the head of the medium can hardly be seen any longer. Photographed during a private séance in the year 2017. Copyright: Kai Mügge

Dear Mr. R.,

Fundamentally, of course, such occurrences are perfectly within the realm of possibility. Based on biblical reports, telekinesis of objects, penetration of solid matter and materialization are all likewise possible. We only have to think of Jesus’ appearance after his Resurrection, where he suddenly appeared in the room without the doors having been opened (Jn 20:26: penetration of solid matter); or the opening of the iron gate when Peter was miraculously released from prison (Acts 12:10: telekinesis of objects), or the time when Jesus appeared to the disciples on the road to Emmaus and kept them company (Lk 24:13-31: materialization).

But when it is a case of the direct presence of demons in the spirit of a human being, it is always the individual who must allow such influences to become active. I do certainly agree with you that today above all, when the spiritual background to these phenomena is completely ignored and in most cases even laughed at, nonetheless the "kick", the adrenaline rush and the "fun" factor of such occasions appeal to large sectors of the population, the young above all, and are actually sought after.

The picture you sent with the link above has been taken with an infrared camera. The "medium" sits in a "cabinet" – a hanging metal device with a curtain of black material draped over a support frame. Beneath this is a chair and a small table, on which directly before the start of the "séance" a glass is placed for the "medium". Then the curtain is drawn.

Behind the curtain, the "medium" now drinks the glass of water – which is not cold, however, but almost hot – and then leans forward so that his or her face emerges from the curtain. The medium then inhales deeply, closes his or her mouth and exhales again through the nose, expelling breath that is now quite warm at great pressure, so that the hot air, once the "blast" is over, turns around and (as hot air does) rises in the space of the room. That is the point at which the infrared camera takes these pictures, while the spectators, being completely taken in, are astonished and full of admiration to see the "ectoplasm" which apparently emerges from the medium’s nose.

When we now take a closer look at the picture, we can see that the woman on the left – who is clearly left-handed – is just replacing something on the table. And on the table something like a container (a carafe?) can be made out, which is supplied with a great deal of heat from below. This could be the source of heat on which the water, which the "medium" then drinks, is warmed up.

As you can see, we must always take a close look, and carefully analyze pictures and circumstances in order to avoid being diverted onto the wrong track.  Wie man sieht, muss man immer genau hinsehen und Bilder und Zusammenhänge analysieren, um nicht auf falsche Spuren gelenkt zu werden. To see the fallen angels of the Bible here would certainly be wrong.

However, it could be that we might find it at another event: John Glenn: "myriads of stars" / Italian version.

Notes

¹⁾ Research into the possible maximum age of human beings established some 50 years ago that the chromosomes and their propagation are crucial in this connection. Chromosomes are long, spindle‒shaped structures made up of DNA. Their propagation mechanism involves their losing, every time they propagate, a part of their ends, known as a "telomere". The total available length of the telomeres thus determines the maximum possible age of every human being. And this biological upper limit has been experimentally demonstrated by Leonard Hayflick, a gerontologist (science of aging) and professor of anatomy at the University of California in San Francisco. It comes to just 120 years! Since then this limit has been known to science as the "Hayflick Limit".

²⁾ For centuries the Roman Catholic church has been missionizing many of these peoples, and with some of them it has been successful in converting the greater part of the population to the Catholic faith – even if the Catholic Spanish and Portuguese practically exterminated half a million American Indians in the name of the Catholic church in Southern and Central America in the sixteenth century. Nonetheless Brazil, for instance, is 93% Catholic today, although these so‒called "Christians" do not have any kind of problem, after Mass on a Sunday morning, about praying to the spirits of the earth and the forest – who have now been promoted to Catholic saints – in the afternoon, and sacrificing to them in hope of a good harvest. In Africa we find comparable practices involving shamanism and voodoo cults. This is Catholicism as it really exists in these countries.

These people were not converted to Christianity – rather they robbed of all their goods and made into Catholics in order to increase the wealth and the power of the Catholic church and the Catholic hidalgo families in Europe of the time. The following statement by the Kazike Hatuey, a Cuban Indian chieftain still famous to this day, has come down to us from that period. Before being burned at the stake he was asked by the conquistadors’ Franciscan friar if he would not be converted, in order to go to heaven.

"The Kazike thought about it for a moment, and then asked the friar if the Spanish Christians would also be going to heaven. Certainly, said the friar, all good Christians go to heaven, including the Spaniards! The Kazike answered immediately and without any further thought that he would rather not go there then – he would prefer to go to hell, to get away from the company of such very cruel people."