201 - The Dark Truth Behind Aliens & The Nephilim | Ninjas Are Butterflies x Joel Muddamalle

Well, it's time, folks. It's time to celebrate the 4th of July. The birth of the greatest country in the world! 250 years later, we have some things that we need to clear at first. Number one, it's not football, it's soccer, okay? It's not petrol, it's gas. We don't weigh ourselves in stones. We don't spell the word color with the letter "you." All right, we don't drive on the wrong side of the road. No, no, no, no. You know what we do? We throw teeth in harbors. We cross the Delaware on Christmas Day, and apparently we put people on the moon. This week we're asking questions that go way beyond American borders. Could God have created intelligent life beyond Earth? If our government actually possesses non-human bodies like they say they do, should we even be surprised? Dr. Joel Mutomale joins us to uncover ancient biblical connections that completely reshade the story of creation, reveal a side of God that many of us have never even considered. Then we dive into the unseen spiritual powers that scripture warns us about, and whether the AI revolution is quietly taking away what uniquely makes us human. This conversation changed the way that we think about almost everything. So grab a hot dog, shoot some fireworks off your neighbor's rooftop, and get ready to question everything. Happy 4th of July, and welcome to this week's episode of Ninjas Our Butterflies. This podcast is brought to you and powered by Sunday Cool. Watch this or listen, USA. You know what, say, you what, say, you what, say, you what, say, it's just strange how it all worked out. What are you doing? What was that? The great card. Wait, that's like the voice of God right there, or like Zordon from Power Rangers, I'm like, where are you trapped? This is what I know, yeah, great card, card, card, card, I need to learn that's funny, one day I want to learn it. There's actually I'm not doing anything. It's just a bit so they think like they need me, they need you, we're just walking around the room. Everybody wait, we'll stressed out. Would you just say that board is like from Fisher Price, but the thing is, does it make sense? Like, don't worry guys, I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. Someone's going to go back and be like, he's just touching the couch. He hasn't pushed a single button. It's like the whole guy theory, I'm conspiracy. Have you seen that? How we get on camera? And like, you go back to the hot ones episode, they never show him actually biting and chewing into an actual wing. It ruined him for me. It's great. And there's like videos of like him and, you know, DDD drivers, diving dives, he's like putting it up and he like holds it up to his chin, and then they cut it. And it's like this whole thing and like, is he like alien or something? I don't know, but there's like legit deep dives into Guy Fieri and how he just doesn't eat food. I feel like I've seen him eat food though. I know, I think I have to, but the whole him not liking eggs. Wait, super weird, but also super weird that you both said that you think that you've seen him eat food. Like, that was not a definitive statement. Yeah, it's the Mandela for now. I'm questioning. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen him eat food, right? Of course. Yeah, right. His mom's like, wait a minute, like I've ever seen my son eat food. Never take it a bite. Oh, hey, Joel is in the building. Moodamale. Moodamale, right? Man, how do you guys nail nailed my last name so well? I was listening to your audience. I'm Indian. Oh, yeah, I've always said metamale, which you look at the spelling. It's like, there's no. It doesn't even make sense. Did you say meta? Yeah, meta, like so. You're wearing metaglasses. So that makes sense. That is true. Yeah. You should rebrand it. Moodamale shirt. Metamale. Moodamale. Doctor, right? I mean, my friend just called me Joel. Yeah. That's cool. That's such a cool thing to become a doctor and be like, yeah, my friend's going, you know, I actually had this rash. If you want to look at it, you know, there's, okay. There's actually so I'm Indian. I don't know if you guys need that, you know. Should we feel like my cock is. So like, there is a funny thing. I don't, I doubt my mom will ever listen to this. She's kind of a problem of the discord. It's like Mrs. Moodamale. Um, so, you know, I earn a PhD in biblical theology. And like for Indian parents, typically, it's like, you've got like really one of three options. It's become a doctor, become an engineer or become like a finance trillionaire, you know? Yeah. And then like the maybe runner up winter card could be like, do something in ministry, you know, if they're Christians. And so I like work my butt off to get this PhD. Like it's an actual PhD, not a doctor of ministry, which there's a whole thing about that. And I get done and my mom, my mom's there and she goes, Joey, you know, if he just worked a little bit harder, you could have been a real doctor. And I was like, what the heck is mom? So we end up, one of my favorite, like we end up on a flight with my wife. This was like a year ago. And there was like a medical medical crisis on the flight. And there's something wrong in my brain. Like I know there's something wrong that's that's disconnected because it's a serious situation and everybody stressed out. And they do like the lady goes, do we have any doctors on this plane? And I raise my hand, I'm getting ready. And my wife grabs me with a death grip and puts me down and goes, you will not do this right now. And it was like, Jesus man, it could have been that bad. You run over there. Do you know where to learn savior? I pull out my you version after you reach on 316 with me right now. That's a great house hit you with the cane. Wait, what? Amazing. That's pretty great though. Be a doctor, man. Yeah, I could have, I mean, I could have done that route. I know you were, you were right there on the edge right there on the edge. And you said, you know what? I'm not going to take this last credit hour because I don't want that type of stigma on myself. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want people to look at me different. Yeah. That's why I stopped Christian studies. Yeah. Yeah. So smart of you, dude. Yeah. What do people look, look, because I never thought, now I'm, I'm feeling secure. I mean, you should probably say, but what is the look? Why, what are they looking at me? You'll find out. Okay. Yeah. Um, no, I'm just kidding. I did one semester by what college. That's about it. It was France's chance for what college? Yeah. Which is like three years and regular by what college? Wait, are you serious? Yeah. Oh, man. So like, you're, you've got like an extra dose of the Holy Spirit on you. I, I, yeah, someone would say that. There's levels levels. Don't say that. There's a makeup from last episode. I was like, what is that? Quick, quick bit of housekeeping. Yeah. If you'll just pull the mic just a hair closer, it's way better. Yeah, more better. Yeah. More better. It's another thing that doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter. He's just, you know, one of those things. Well, Dr. Joel. Joel Mudamale. Um, do you want a song? Oh, yeah. Can we sing you a song? Yeah. I don't know if you've ever seen our show, but we don't think we sing songs. No, that's not true. I've seen clips of the show. Well, I've seen you live on blurry con. Where do you get something about? That's true. That's right. Um, yeah, sometimes we sing a song. Yeah. Every time. Yeah. We usually just typically just, you know, wing it, come up with something. Do you have a genre in my? Maybe a genre. Your favorite genre that we can kind of, we kind of like to improv a little bit. Like you know, like musical genre. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my nerdyness is going to come out, but I just, I'm working on a new project right now. And I had to name like my three favorite bands. Okay. So my three favorite bands I named like in this writing section where my age is going to show Dave Matthews band. Sure. Mute math. You guys remember who mute math is? Oh, you don't know who mute math is? No. Oh, man. I got you. I got you. You know who mute math is? Yeah. The drummer on mute math is Darren, Darren King. I just know he duct taped his headphones. Yes, bro. Yes, amazing. And then, um, let's see, who's the third one that I really like? You know, Abba? You like Abba? Yeah. Yeah. Abba. That was your third, right? That was it. All right. I was going to say CC wines, but it's cool. No, yeah. That on Abba. Abba and Dave Matthews kind of yeah, maybe vibe we can do. Yeah. That's that's actually so we can probably come up. We'll pick one of those three. Yeah. Yeah. One of the three favorites that you like. Yeah. We can just come up with something. Yeah. Just we've done it before. We'll do it again. Two hundred episodes. We can do it. What's the July Independence Day? Two a one. I think I think American needs song right now. All right. Yeah. Oh, it's we'll try to come up with something really like. Me, me, me. We ready? Ready? Yeah. They've been hiding the truth since I don't know when. Afraid to say his name will ever end. He wouldn't bow. Not a chance. No, what in the Wow, for a king to keep control. Race taxes that kill our soul. With just one lucky-may liberty ring. With just one word, he gains every thing. Whoa, whoa, mood amale. He's the founding father. Hey, George, why do you even bother? Mood amale, sign the Declaration, save the country. That is our proclamation. Yes, you proved the first grade of team. And that was great. Why, why, why did they forget you? Mood amale, invented apple pie, my, my, and be never sold alive. So that will probably be flagged because it sounded too much like Abo. Yeah. What did you say? Yeah. I mean, it was a little more Dave Maffy, I felt that had a little DVC, you know, DMC. Obviously, we had to switch your name out for Mama Mia, I don't know, yeah, it's just it. Mood amale. Yeah. Am I saying it right? Mood amale, yeah. All right. You say it. I think you said it three different ways since he's been here. I think you say fast enough and you can't catch it. Yeah, right. There's like a there's like an Italian way like Mood amale, you know, you know, Mood amale. Yeah. That does sound better. I like that better. Mood amale. Mood amale. Yeah. There's like an American way, which is Mood amale. That's like how we say it. And there's like an Indian way, like a Telugu way, which is, you know, it's a whole different thing. How do you say it? The Telugu way of saying it is Mood amale. Mood amale. Moodah. You didn't know that. Moodah. Moodah. That's a little. That's crazy. That was crazy. That was crazy. You did that. No. No. You might have some Indian. That was, that was deeply rooted. Josh has been waiting for a chance to do that without being come across his races. That was beautiful. I'm blush. Oh, man. Guys, oh, my gosh. Okay. Yeah. That is fun. Oh. But unfortunately, guys, Dr. Joel Mood amale. We cannot move on. Again, you've probably never seen that full episode, but unfortunately, fortunately, every episode, fortunately and unfortunately, yeah, we always have to answer a question before moving on. And it really just dictates the flow of the show and like whether it's going to be a good show or bad show. So a lot is just writing on you and your answer. Yeah. These questions are sent in by viewers, our billions of viewers across the globe. Yeah. Specifically India. Yeah. And just they're dying to hear the answer to their questions and so we don't know what this question is. No, and yeah, we just get we get we just pull it up randomly. I'm sweating. Don't worry. It shouldn't be bad, hopefully, but it's a yes or no question. We don't make the rules, you know, we don't have time to expand. We can't elaborate on it. It's just a yes or no. Then we move on. Hopefully. And I'll just get on with it, I guess 250 years of America while writing on this old glory. So I think today's question is actually really appropriate. Okay. Dr. Joel, today's question sent in by a viewer. Did we celebrate Independence Day? Yeah, don't know everything is, yeah, maybe you said, you said, yeah, this is, you drove all the way here, man, we've been scheduling this for years, it's just and this is how it ends. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how to continue, Joel, honestly, because I mean, I don't know. Obviously, we're talking about the day that the angels try to get Independence from God, where they disobeyed God, waged war against the heavens, trying to get their Independence. And their Joel said, we should celebrate that. Yeah, let's celebrate that. He's kind of made a career off the conversation. He has. He values money. And money in title title status, who invited him here? And I was trying to read his book and I was trying to understand it, but I was like, man, this type of knowledge. These types of words, these big words that he's used to, and it's like, work and he possibly get this knowledge. And now it's all making sense. Yeah. It is. Watch your knowledge. You made a deal. This is them. That's them. That's them. Yeah. I was there. I'm on Herman saying, hey guys. We figured. I guess let's celebrate that day, guys. I don't know. I mean. We had a good ride. Yeah, it was fun, but well, I don't know, look into the show. Yes. Yeah. You know what? Remember we get a. All right. All right. Yeah. That's really sent me up for that one. My poor, what you, you need to watch our 200th episode in the gaslight that's involved. Okay. I mean, we're, I was throwing beer bottles at my wife's head. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Because we did it for like 200 episodes. And so she got real sick and tired of it. So she actually brought a legitimate lawyer of real lawyers in the middle of it and, you know, for defamation for all this stuff, because we would always gaslight her every episode. Wow. Was it like a glass beer bottle or like a plastic one? Yeah. Yeah. See some glass round. I'm sure there's some remains. I think I sat on it. Yeah. I made a lawyer. She knows one man. Well, welcome to the show, Joel. We've been trying to get you on forever. God. You're a busy man. It's been. Yeah. You guys also kind of live a little bit, you know. Yeah. In the middle of nowhere. A little bit further out. Where are you at? Are you in Tennessee? You're not. Charlotte, Charlotte. Okay. I feel like I'm in Tennessee all the time. The basketball team and the worst football team and the heat and the humidity. Yeah. Ten years. Well, that's awesome. Welcome to Florida. It's not that much better. So let's say worse, how many years ago, it was like two or three years ago, when Erwin sat around and we met you for the first time, we sat around a campfire at the Blurry column. Yeah. Talking with Bigfoot. What was that big foot was right next to us? Yeah. Yeah. I got that picture you in Bigfoot. Like I really did feel logical disgust. You listen to me that I'll pop it on the screen. I did not. I'll be honest with you guys, man, when I, when I finished my PhD, I did not think that like this would be the situation that I know. But like I met a campfire with Bigfoot and cocktails named after fallen watchers. We've got like super fans that are like, actually have read the book of Enoch, you know what's going on. But this is the wildest journey that I could have ever thought of. And yeah, we met. And I think there was an also we, before that, before the fireplace, we actually, I don't even know if we should, we should be talking about this. But I think I said sacrifice. You can imagine the sacrifice. No, it was right before, or no. It was so funny. It was right before you guys had gone, gone up and there was like a thing that had happened to somebody like, which craft or something like, do you remember the, the later before us was, it was a very deep and like spiritual, like very serious talk. Yes, it was extremely serious. And I can't remember who, but one of the, one of the, you guys have screwed, had come up and was like, is that am I, am I, am I a witch? Like, like, at that moment, at that moment, I knew that we were all friends. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was like, man. Yeah. And yeah, that's okay. We can, yeah. What do we do? What do we do? We came on after the most intense conversation. What do we do the first time? We sing a song. You did a song. We did a song. We did like a, we did the tribal kind of song. We did the tribal chant. Yeah. You did, you did a tribal chant, like right after, like a seminary class basically, I mean, it was deep. It was crying and everything. And they're like, what is it? Who are these guys? Well, I think they might have thought that that was part of the deliverance session. They're like, okay. She's going to come out afterwards and exercise our demons. Oh, that was the, yeah. Yeah, that's right, man. So fun. So good. So you just, you just came out with a book. Yeah. Yeah. The unseen battle. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The unseen battle. It is a playing off of the unseen realm, which is written by my doctoral advisor, Dr. Michael Heizer. And. and it's a book on spiritual warfare. And it's a little bit more like theology, I mean, you're listening to it right now, so there are some big words. It's a little more theology-leaning, but I wanted to write it for the everyday average person who just wants to figure out what the heck is going on with these passages in the Bible that it feels like aren't talked about, but they're clearly there. So do we just skip over them? There's this phrase called demathologizing where it's almost like if the core of what we believe as Christians is the resurrection of Jesus, which is like spiritual in nature, right? The immaculate conception, born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, like literally died on a Roman cross. We went to an actual grave, you know, went to Hades during that three period time, the descent into Hades and then comes back and then hangs out with the homies for a period of 40 days in the resurrected body. And then it's like, hey, by the way, peace goes up into Heavens and says, I'll be back, you know, but go and here's the great commission. Like that's the core of what we believe, you know? And there's not an ounce of that. That's not supernatural and cosmic in nature. So my kind of thought was, how can we try to strip out the supernatural elements of the rest of the Bible and what is the need to do that? Like why do we feel the necessity for it? And that was kind of the genesis of the book. - That's super rad. - Yeah, I'm like, a couple of chapters in and it's just, it's super cool. How a doctor Michael Heiser's wife, how she wrote the four of those really super special. - Oh man. - Were you super honored by that? - Oh my gosh, I, yeah. Yeah, super honored, I mean, it's emotional. It's, this is the book that I always thought that Mike and I would co-author kind of together, 'cause it kind of, it not kind of, it is the next step after the unseen realm. Mike kind of does all the ancient, he was a Hebrew specialist, so he's doing on the background for the ancient Hebrew context. And one of the reasons why he had me as his PhD student is 'cause I'm a biblical theology guy. So I wanna see how the New Testament and the Old Testament are interacting together as one cohesive story. And I wanna do more work on Paul and what he's talking about with power, his principalities, authorities. What's going on with demon exorcisms? And what does that mean for the church today, the local church today? And so I think Mike, I know so, Mike was like, yeah, that's the next step of what his journey was. He had spent 15 to 25 years on the Old Testament. So it's like, let me get a PhD student to do all the grunt work for me, you know? And then he can, and so we had literally talked about that. I had submitted my third chapter. And Mike was like clockwork, man. Mike was, he was like the most efficient. If he said he was getting something back to you, he was gonna, it was gonna be on time. And he was late for like a week and a half on getting my edits back for chapter three. I was like, this is odd, so I texted him. And he was like, hey, I wanted to, you know, basically wait until I got more information. But I know you're on a deadline. Basically, he goes, you know, I've just been diagnosed with stage four, pancreatic cancer. And I'm just like, what the heck? And you know, it sucks really. I mean, this is the height of like unseen realm just taking off and all these opportunities, you know? And he was like, I'm like, okay, I think I'm gonna have to get another reader. Like, you know, like you got to fight for your life literally. And this is so Mike, he texts back. He goes, don't even think about getting another reader. Like, I'm gonna see you through to the finish line. - Wow. - And that's exactly what he did, man. He finished and defended my dissertation underneath him. And it was about a year later, a year and a half later that he passed. - Dang. - Yeah, to me, it's an honor to be able to have written that book, to have Drina write the forward to it. Mike and I are very different. If Mike was sitting here right now, like our personality types are totally different. He was more reserved in some ways. - He probably would have loved the song then. - He would have been, he'd have been like, I'm out. - Yeah, but yeah, it's like a different inflection. Like to, you know, do the things that he loved, that I love and we're different people. Like, and we have different views on things. You know, but yeah, this is amazing. That's so cool. - That is so cool. So, there's a little bit of crossover from like, people that come from like, blurry and other podcasts. - Yeah. - That you've been on. But could you give us like a baseline of like, we just love talking about spooky, scary, crazy stuff? - Yeah. - And I truly fell in love with your podcasts on blurry and the one that Heizer was on, on blurry. And just like, boom, it just like opened my brain, just like started like reading scripture differently. And like, it was just, it was rad. And that's what the book is like about, right? It's like, it's about like, observing, like looking at scripture from like a, like a, like the cultural refer, or the, how things were going back in the day, you know, like with the supernatural stuff and how they viewed it, how they wrote it. So, could you give us like a, like a baseline? And then I just want to build off that. - Yeah. - Let's speculate. (laughs) - I love speculations. - Oh my gosh. I know. And this is like the thing that I get the most stressed out about. 'Cause like the baseline is stuff that I, it's like, yes, like exegetically in the text, the language, through the ancient Near Eastern context, the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the Greco-Roman context of the New Testament, like, you know, there's plenty of literature that is on it. - Yeah. - And then I do think this is such a good exercise, though, on I like to call it educated speculation of saying, here's what we can know for sure. And now here we have these unexplainable things that are happening in our world. How do we build a bridge from things that we can define, know for sure, from the text, and now educate, to like, educate a speculation, make a conclusion. So, okay, here's the, here's kind of like the baseline and the framework and in the unseen battle, this is why I wanted to start with this concept, which right off the bat when I say this, people would be like, this is lost his mind, like, what? And so here's just the big idea, that God has a two family household. And you're like, wait, what? The more common understanding is like, yeah, God has a household and he's got human children. Adam and Eve were made in his image and likeness, but that's not the full context of the scriptures. The full context of the scriptures is that God has a two family household. He's got spiritual beings that were created that are part of his divine counsel, part of his household, and he has human children that he created in a unique and distinct way that share his likeness and in his image, that are in his image, and where we see the start off the bat, and this is why I think where we start our theology matters. One of our biggest issues in our culture today is we start our theology in Genesis 3, or the big term is anthropology or study of humanity. We start in Genesis 3 with the fall of humanity. And I'm like, that's kind of a mess because the Bible doesn't start in Genesis 3. The Bible starts in Genesis 1 and 2. So what is Genesis 1 and 2? It's the story of this mountain that has a garden on top of it called Mount Eden. And on this mountain is the place where God's spiritual family, these angelic beings live. And I want to be precise, angelic is a title of a specific kind of spiritual being. There are many kinds of spiritual beings, you know? And so today we use angels as a catch term for all kinds of spiritual beings. But the Hebrew Bible uses it is actually as a messenger as a subset of a series of spiritual beings. So you've got all kinds of spiritual beings on Mount Eden and you have humanity. You have Adam and Eve on Mount Eden. And this is the place where God always intended for his family to hang out. And this is where the ancient in your Eastern culture, the background matters, how the ancient Hebrews and the people of that time period would have read and understood mountains and gardens, royal kings, planted gardens. And the gardens would have been the place where they would have hung out with their families. So you get the idea that God creates everything that's good. And then he creates spiritual beings. And we know this because in Job 1 and 2, you have this phrase, "Benehah Elohim," which is for reference to the sons of God. And we want to use the clearest evidence of the sons of God and what we can know these beings to be in order to define the obscure passages. So you have a passage like Genesis 6. And there's a lot of debate on who the heck are these sons of God? And how can angelic beings fornicate with human women? And what do we do with that? And so you have from the time of a gustan onward, a human reading of the sons of God, which is, in my view, incorrect. It's imprecise and it doesn't flow with the rest of scripture. Why? Because in Job 1 and in Job 2, you have the exact same Hebrew phrase, "Benehah Elohim," in reference to a divine council scene, which is where the "Hasatan," this accuser figure, shows up in order to mess with Job, right? So if you're going to opt for a human ruler in Genesis 6, then you're going to have to somehow figure out how humans were transported from an earthly context into a divine council scene and never explain why there's a bunch of humans that are hanging out amongst these, you know? Like it just is inconsistent. And then that very same phrase-- so Job is wild, the story of Job is wild, because it's like Job's just getting destroyed for 37 chapters, right? And it's like he's just going through it. And then finally God speaks in chapter 38. And when he speaks in Job 38, there's this verse. It says, basically, bro, where were you? This is like Joel's translation, bro, where were you? when I created everything. Where were you? When the morning stars and the Venéha Elohim and the sons of God shouted for joy at the beginning of creation. So now you're like, - There's a bunch of dudes in the sky. - Good time now. (laughing) - Yeah, like this would be a weird story. Like, oh, so there was a prior creation of humans that were transported into the sky before earthly matter was like, it actually requires more like mental and spiritual and theological gymnastics to even get to that versus a simple reading. And the simple reading is like, bro, yeah, it's the sons of God of Job one and two, which is reaffirmed in Job 38. You can trace that to the sons of God in Genesis six and in Genesis six. And we can handle the whole fornication on how you can have hybrid children. We'll get to that, I'm sure, on this conversation. Then you have Psalm 82, another divine counseling, the same phrase is used there as well, which traces us all the way back to Eden to Genesis one that, oh, it was common for God to have his spiritual family with Adam and Eve, which also helps us honestly make sense of why? When the nakaash, the Hebrew term nakaash, the serpent shows up that Hebrew term it actually has three things in mind. It can mean a guardian throne room, a cherubim, kind of being spiritual being the guards throne room. Do you actually listen to the angels? The baby butt, the baby angels? Yeah, baby angels that are humanoid. The baby is getting into something with your mini wings. Yeah. They're like, yeah, they get them. And the second image is like a serpent like figure. And then the third is a fiery bronze image. The Hebrew language doesn't demand one over the other. The best way to, I think, to read that is say, oh, yeah, yes, what is this nakaash? Yes, it's a cherubim, a guardian cherubim that is fiery that is a serpent like figure. And so the serpent comes in, why does Eve not freak the heck out, right? When, and it's like, oh, the reason why she doesn't freak out and this is actually spiritual warfare, this is like the pragmatics of this. The issue actually is in what the thing looks like. The issue is what does the thing say? You know, and it's like in our world today, man, we've got lots of things that look good. Lots of things that would pass just the sniff test. But the question is like, what are they doing to us? What is it leading us to? What is it actually saying about ourselves and about who God is? And in that place, like we have to discern to determine what's actually happening. And so when you have this understanding of the sons of God, of spiritual beings and a human family that actually helps us set the scene for the cosmic conflict that's taking place throughout the entire Hebrew Bible, like there is a reason why everywhere you're turning from the Exodus scene to the plagues, the 10 plagues, each of the 10 plagues mirror one of the pantheons of the gods of the Egyptian pantheons. Like these aren't throw away ideas. It's like, oh, you're following these deities that were known for their frog-like imagery or for the power of the life of the Nile that brought life in sustenance. It's like, God's like, I got you. Watch this happen, you know? Like watch the very deities that supposedly have the power over these things, how they're subversive actors are submissive to what I can do. We read these in isolation. And it's like, oh, yeah, I did a miraculous thing. Cool, let's move on. Good job Moses, you know? Versus back out and it's like, oh, this is all connects. Bro, this is all connects. And it's actually setting you up for the New Testament. And it's pretty crazy to read it, like just completely reading it out of context of just like not understanding what the culture of Egypt was like and the deities and the gods. So you're just like, oh, a bunch of frogs, you know, like the Nile turn into blood. It's like, okay, that's weird, but what a cool God prank. Yeah, but how it's like, it was literally, like God was opposing each of those false gods. Or what you would say, like, principalities, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So these, so these pantheon of gods were not a figment of the imagination of an ancient people. That's another huge issue, right? Where it's like, yeah, they just were nonscientific. And they, you know, they didn't understand the, you know, the table, like, what is it? It's a table of contents, the elements, table of elements. Oh, yeah. The periodic table. I got there. I got a PhD. But it's theology. Not a substitute. Doctor Josh. He's building it. Wow. Yeah, I mean, like, these were real beings. This is, these were real beings with limited power, that exercise power. And so if you're all these examples where God's like, hey, you're going to be tempted. You're going to be tempted to follow after them because they're going to show some level of power. But in each of these moments, be reminded that there's a distinction, there's a difference between created things and the uncreated creator of the world. And that's a really big issue. And this is the other thing where people start to panic sometimes with this whole idea of gods. It's because of our English language is kind of screwed us up, where we have just loaded a single term with so much meaning that the Hebrew Bible and the Greek text of the New Testament doesn't feel the necessity to do. So when we say like the English term gods, right? It's like, you can't. Like, there's only one god, like monotheism. Like, you can't. And it's like, well, the Hebrew term Elohim is a categorical term for spiritual beings. And Yahweh is technically a spiritual being. So you have an adjective, or you have some kind of descriptive in front of Elohim to describe, based off of context or language, when we're referring to Yahweh versus other Elohim, other spiritual beings, did Army 32, 17 is a perfect example of this, where you have spiritual beings who are a demonic Shadeem that are not Yahweh. So Mike has this great phrase in the unseen realm. And I think it's the best way to describe it is Yahweh's species unique, that Yahweh is Elohim, but no other Elohim could ever be Yahweh. And with that clarity, you go, oh, yeah. Like, that works. And now don't need to stress out or try to create some reason why these gods can't be real, you know? - Yeah, we always talk about the battle with like, they were literally turning their staffs into serpents as well. So it's like, you read that. I mean, VBS goes through that, like little kids and it's like, but somehow the reality of the weight of actual quote unquote magic, whatever they would have called it spiritual things. But I'm hung up, like I've never thought about the relationship in the garden, not just Eve to God, capital G, but the fact that she would have been having interactions with all other sorts of angelic beings. And it's like, so the serpents shows up. And it's like, one of you, you know, like it's not, yeah, it was a lot of topics like, it's like, yeah, I've seen weirder things or, you know, like, or whatever. And so like the fact to your point, it's like, to test the language, like, to test that to, like, assess it out, see what's going on. I think it's like really interesting in a book, well, I've never made that thought before. - Well, I'm thinking about too, like at the very end of it, what is presented, what protects Eden from, you know, these knuckleheads coming back in and ruining everything, guarding Cherubim, or place there, you know. And then you have like Jacob's ladder, this wild dream, we're Jacob watches, and spiritual beings go up and down, you know? It's like, where are they going up and down from? It's like, oh, there are these moments that are interjected inside the scriptures to remind you and I that our modern post enlightened, you know, 21st century mind wants to create a separation between what is, we would call spiritual, which I don't think is, you know, is whatever. It's like there's a spiritual or supernatural, and then the earthly, the biblical text is not interested in that. It's just not interested in creating a demarcation or separation of those two, because that is not the idea that God has always wanted for his creation. God always wanted Eden. Well, what is Eden? The meeting point between the heavens and the earth. What's the trajectory of the scriptures? It's like the foundational stuff. The trajectory of the scriptures is not a disembodied experience. It's not like, yo, we're just going to float away like angels someday in baby diapers, in floating wings with a can of beer up there. Like, you know, that's not the picture, the picture is actually new heavens and new earth. The picture is Jesus in the resurrection. Like, yeah, touch my hands, bro. Like, you know, like, and walk through doors. It's not either or, it's both and. And that's what we find in Eden is not an either or, or both end. - On earth as it is in heaven. - Yes, yeah. - This Jesus is prayer, right? And in a way, we're doing a disservice to ourselves by not, not in a way. I'm going to say it's stronger. We are doing disservice to ourselves by not seeing the spiritual reality, the cosmic context of the Bible and understanding how it plays into our world today. - Yeah, that was my next question is like, basically, how does it benefit your spiritual life, your pursuit of the gospel, pursuit of Christ to better understand these things? The spiritual aspect of Scripture. Like, what does it add to it? Or, you know? - Yeah, there's this great quote from C.S. Lewis. I open the book. I open Unseen Battle with this. And it's a quote from Screw Tape Letters and Lewis is like, and I'll summarize him, you know. Lewis is basically like, yo, the dark powers, they love one of two things. The first is a materialist in the Bible. The second is a magician. And what Luis is saying is like, the first is like, just ignore him. Like there are no dark powers out there. - It doesn't exist. - It doesn't exist, bro, like you're good. Like you're fine, you know? But the second one is an obsession. The second one is like, but there's a demon around every corner. Like, you know, there's the demon made me do this. The demon, you know, did that. And Luis is basically like, either of those camps, you're caught up, right? 'Cause you're compromised, you're vulnerable in both of those settings. So the goal here, why this is so important? And this actually is exactly what Peter says in first Peter 5.8. Peter says, be sober-minded, right? The dark powers don't want sobriety of mind. They want to compromise a mind. They want inebriation. They want intoxication. In fact, that word, if you were sitting in the church and Corinth or Glacier Ephesus and you heard that word, sober-minded, the opposite of that word in Greek is actually a term that was used common in cultic temples. I think the Oracle of Delphi and these different, the Temple of Artemis. And it was a type of intoxication term that was used to meet with the deities, basically. So it's like, yo, you wanna meet with the spiritual beings? Great, first you gotta compromise your mind. First you gotta take these drugs. First you gotta do these kinds of things. What I think is fascinating is y'all is like, hey, you wanna meet with me? Great, I got you. Be sober-minded. Yeah, the complete opposite. Yeah, I don't want you to be compromised. I want you to have your full faculties about you. Yes, they focus. Yes, and then-- But not paranoid. But not paranoid. And then it's like, and then, and be aware because the devil is crouching. The enemy is waiting to devour you, right? Which is actually a hyperlinking echo all the way back. Genesis 4 and the Canaan Abel story. And so when you and I are aware of the spiritual cosmic reality of the Bible, it puts us in a position of sobriety of mind, like we're aware, we can discern. We can say, yeah, hey, by the way, those things over there, 100% dark powers. 100% like the tarot cards, the astrology, the, you know, like those things are connecting you to a kind of power, right, the giving your hand up for a hand automated ride. Like these kinds of things, there's darkness on the opposite side. This is the witch of Endor with the Necromancer, you know, situation with Saul. Basically, the witch of Endor is like, oh, and then cuss word, you know? It's like, you're not, because the issue there is, she's used to conjuring up a spiritual being. The problem is, she experiences an Elohim, a spiritual being that she's not expecting. So she goes, and then she looks at Saul, and she's like, you caught me up, dude. Like what is going on? You know, she's terrified. And so it's like, oh, yeah, you want sobriety of mind. You want to be able to discern. And when we do that, I think it helps us to be better witnesses of Jesus. It helps us to like, know how to, like, I'm a dad. I've got four kids, you know? The world that my kids are living in is so different than the one that I grew up in. And it's like, I have to be aware, the way I say it is, the dark powers love to mass markets in. They love to mass markets in. And so I want my kids to not just know A plus B equals C, but I want them to know what A is and what B is so they can make sense of what C is. So in any situation and context, they, one of my favorite definitions of discernment is, that's by Charles Spurgeon. It's, discernment isn't the determination between right and wrong. It's determined between right and almost right. And you don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water, right? Like, don't throw it all kinds of spirituality because our literal Christian faith is spirituality. This is what we're doing when we take communion. This is what we do when we pray when we worship. Like all of that is spiritual. But don't get caught up in this and the things are going to take you sideways. - Yeah, I imagine like that imagery just takes me to like, Indiana Jones going through like a tunnel or something. And it's like, he has a job to do. There's a mission. He's got to get somewhere. But he knows there's booby traps, right? And he could, you know, he's being where he's being focused. He's being on guard, but he's also not paranoid. Looking at every rock and everything. Like he's just, you know, you're aware that they're there. You know what exists? You got to keep moving forward. But don't be dumb and start running, take the sprints. And so you get a spike in your head. You know, like it's just, there's that weird balance of you don't want to become obsessed with it. But also the church culture that we have nowadays in America at least. It's just on a, we're in a rhythm of, you know, just be better than you were yesterday. And it's like in, we were ignoring, like you said, the cosmic and supernatural of the Bible. And we go, and nothing against sermon series or anything like that, but it or VBS stuff. But it's like, we teach one story and we jump. And but we don't connect. And we don't understand like the depth of all of this scripture. And I think that's what we'll excite people. Is that like, oh, God had to plan all along. And he's like, he's thinking about us the whole time and trying to figure out like, this is, this is the goal. Yeah, like, okay, so Indiana Jones is amazing. I remember watching the Temple of Doom. Remember the Temple of Doom and dude, that was dark. Like Dr. Jones, Dr. Jones. Oh, yeah, like, okay, so there's, it's a remind me, Indiana Jones, is he an archaeologist? Yeah, he's a historian and archaeologist, right? Professor, okay. So this bro, I didn't even make some back then. This is what I love about these conversations 'cause you guys bring these things up and like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, I was in Israel years and years ago with like a legendary archaeologist. The students like brilliant, you know, there's this thing called the Museum of the Bible. I'm not sure if you like, yeah, and so this guy was actually one of the very first dudes that was actually helping the Green Family to kind of like curate some of their stuff that eventually became the Museum of the Bible. So we're talking a long time ago, okay? Yeah, pretty amazing. And so I'm like, I'm a nerd, like, all the way through. So like, even when I walked into here, I'm like, what, I did not know what I was expecting and now that I'm here, I don't wanna leave. I want to know every part of this entire thing and it has nothing to do with my job. But I just am passionate about that. So I'm like, following the student around and he's like, giving us a tour and he said something to me that whenever he goes, hey Joel, you know, archaeology is a destructive science. I was like, what? He goes, yeah, archaeology by nature is a destructive science. I'm like, explain that to me. And he goes, and archaeologist, the lead archaeologist when he goes out to us a site, he has to do all of the research about that civilization. Like, they gotta know everything that they can before they even get into doing the archaeological work. They gotta know about the civilization and here's why. Because as you dig and you get to that civilization, you have to also recognize that underneath that civilization is another civilization. So the archaeologist has to make a determinative decision at some point, have we learned everything that we can and now is it worth it to get to the civilization and civilization underneath, but in order to get underneath it, what do you have to do? - You have to destroy that. - Yeah, you're right. You're like, what? Okay, now think about Indiana Jones. So, how is it when he goes to the Temple of Doom and he does all this stuff that he doesn't get distracted? Well, the reason why he doesn't get distracted is 'cause the homeboy's already read all the books. He's already researched, he's already studied, he's all right, he's prepared. So when he goes in, he doesn't have an ADD squirrel brain gone. You know, oh, 'cause he's like, oh yeah, I remember that, I remember that, but that's not the point, this is the point. Like, this is where I need to go. And I wanna like, layer that onto Christianity and to like us as believers. It's like, yeah, it's so simple, but it's not simplistic. It's like, hey, I want everybody to read my book. I really do. Like, Don't Seen Battle, I'd love for you to get it. But listen, if you have to pick between reading my book and reading the Bible, you better dang well read the Bible. - Yeah. - Like, don't even open up my book until you have read the Bible. And as you're going through my book, chase down every cross reference. Chase down, right? And correct me if I'm wrong in any of these places because we need to understand the Bible. And then to your vacation Bible school example, how do we do the flood? Like, okay. And like, this is like hallmarked vacation Bible school. But we never do Genesis six, one through four. - Sure. - So you pick up on verse five and you leave a generation of kids thinking the flood is this stand alone, little tiny and then we just kind of, you know, a broad brushstroke, guess in. - Yeah. - Even as, like, came inable and then the flood. And it's just like, that's how we teach kids stories. - I mean, it's even like, theolog, like it shapes the mind 'cause we're like, humans can be so bad that God would hate them that much. - Ooh. - You know what I mean? It's like, there's something else going on. - Yeah. - Yeah, like Genesis six, one through four, the sons of God. And this is where I do think that man, if you're aware of second temple literature and you're aware of the story of the Upcaloo and the Mesopotamian myth and you're aware that there are competing creation narratives here and each of those competing creation narratives have a purpose. I'm doing a bunch of study right now on like algorithms and AI and all this other stuff for another, a future book project. And it's like pretty fascinating 'cause it's like, and there's this thing that said that algorithms all have a goal. Every algorithm has a goal, but a person has to dictate what that goal is, right? And so it's like, okay, what is the goal in Genesis six with the sons of God and the human women? And I make the argument in the unseen battle that I actually think this is the origination of human sex trafficking. I think this is actually where the whole concept comes from because in a patriarchal ancient society, it would have had to have been the fathers who exchanged the daughters and guess what happens when Enoch, kind of the book of Enoch. And the book of Enoch is three books. I think it's important for people to understand. that it's in the second two books are highly unreliable, the kind of wild, it's the first book, the Book of the Watchers chapters one through 36, I believe, that is of the most importance that gives us this background information. And what it's doing is it's retrieving, so this is, I got caught up in a different interview and I want to clarify this, it is retrieving an ancient story that was an oral tradition around the time of Genesis 6. Enoch was written many years later, second-time literature, right? But what it's doing for us is a retrieval of this oral tradition, and then it's a preservation of that oral tradition, it's keeping it intact so we can go back and be like, oh yeah, okay, and now for us today it's a transmission of that tradition, so we can make sense of what's taking place in Genesis 6, and so what is it? There is an exchange of goods. It's the sons of God go, hey, you know what, humanity has desires. Same thing back in Eden, there's this pattern, see, desire, take, and every time those three ideas, the two Hebrew words that are compassing those three English words are present in the biblical text, the majority of the time, it's always bad for humanity. When they see something and then they desire in the ticket, eat seeds of the fruit, desires of the fruit, and takes of the fruit, right? The sons of God see the daughters of man, they desire the daughters of man, and they take them for themselves, and then the Enochic tradition goes, hey, by the way, how did they like conjure up this incredible opportunity, right? I don't think that this is forceful because there's different Hebrew language to describe forceful acquisition. This is not forceful. This is business. This is political, in a sense. This is strategic, and it's an exchange of goods, like, oh, what does humanity desire? Power, they desire money, opportunity, right? So it's like, oh, I know what we'll do. You give us your daughters, we'll give you all the sciences. Let's make a transaction. Let's make a transaction, right? And what I find most fascinating about the whole thing is this is the subtle deception of the dark powers. Is there like, we're going to give you all the things that you think are so good for you, right? And it's like, you got the money, you got the power, you've got the sciences, you've got the cosmetics, you've got the pharmaceutical kind of things, how to cut roots, and I think that one's really amazing because it's like, hey, on the one end, you can cut roots and you can make medicine to heal. You can save lives. You can save lives. On the other end, you can cut roots and create hallucinatives that you can connect with the deities. So look at how they're already being like, hmm, I wonder which way humanity is going to go, right? You can take narcotics and you can use it for pain relief or you can use narcotics to screw you up. But there's one thing that only has one purpose that the dark powers that the sons of God give to humanity, the one thing, the metallurgy piece, swords, swords have one purpose, take life, yeah, to kill. And even like, like, place to write in there, or you could be like, Wes Huff and just be a nerd and collect them. Exactly. Exactly. Just kidding. He's with the nerd word, man. But honestly, that sword, I looked at it and I was like, I want to pick one of these up. I know, swords are pretty cool. Yeah, like, it's just like a Roman gladiator like sword, you know, and I was like, but I was like, my wife will never let me buy this because I'm like, expecting like, Amazon, you know, like, they didn't have his own price breath. That's like collector item. But the purpose of that is to take, to destroy. And this is me, and this is how the dark powers work. Dude, I'm unpacking this in my head right now, but thinking about Sodom and Gomorrah and like how fallen civilization or humanity can be, it's like the passage where they desired the two people. But it's like, they were first, you know, to some extent mentally corrupted. And now two angels show up and they say, no, we know this relationship. We want them. Like, that's always like in the church taught from like a certain perspective. Sure. Used to say like we're against these type of people. But to think about it in light of Genesis 6 and in light of those relationships. That's interesting. Yeah. It's like, dude, there's a guy. He's like, he does this like God's voice teaching him as he reads the Bible. I forget his account. God's voice. He does, he does, he's like, God show me something from your word today. And then he does like a voice from off the camera and it's so like a joke. It's a, yeah, yeah. He's not like actually speaking. I was like, 'cause is he really talking about God? I just like, I love this guy. He's my brother. And then talk again. That will be God's voice. Just add some reverb. No, but yeah, he's the one who kind of, he, he posted about that. But I was like, Holy crap. It's everywhere through every story that we ever grew up with. And like, it comes back to that. I love talking to you guys, because this is why I think reading the Bible is so important is you won't understand and connect the hyperlinks. This is like the snowball effect, you know? It's like, you got to start at the top with the basics of what we started this entire conversation with. And then you start hitting up these other passages. You go, wait a minute. This is so much more than the, um, the stripped down reductionistic view that we've learned in vocation Bible school. Or and I'm not hearing on pastors like, I'm actually super empathetic to pastors. You've only got to turn them on a time and research or whatever else. But at the same time, bro, like, and since like, if you're not teaching and equipping your people, somebody else is going to. Yeah. And they are doing it right now. You know, so let's go to, let's go to the time of tomorrow. When I actually think what's happening with the time of tomorrow one is you have a, um, this is almost a redemptive reversal. What happens with the genesis six one, right? In the genesis six one, you've got the angelic beings who are actually the initiators, the instigators, they see, they desire, right? But after that whole corruptive situation takes place, the world is still going into its perpetual, perpetual cycling sin. Now you have angelic beings, which also is like, this is my point too for why the sons of God, it makes sense for them to be able to from a logical speculative standpoint, fornicate with human women, because there is something from a physicality standpoint that allows them, the people in Sodom and Gomorrah to look at these two beings and to recognize them as male. They look, there's, there's a gendered reality. There's a physicality to it. If you read the text, it's really fascinating, because when lot goes out, the angelic beings, they grab lot and bring him back in spiritual being can't grab things, right? Unless it can take corporeal form in different times and different places for a reason. The angelic beings eat with abrum, right? So they have to in some way for a season to have a digestive system, right? An angel's poop. You heard it here first. That's all anyone's going to remember. Yeah, I actually didn't say that you guys said that. You know, but to your point and then but to your, but yeah, man, to your point is like, a lot should have been the one who stepped forward and like protected everybody. And instead, he's like, look at what happened. Who can you have? Have my daughters. Wait, what happened to six? Oh, yeah, you get my daughters, right? And then what are the angels to do? The angels are like that flip. The angelic beings are the flip. They're like, nah, dude, you're you. No, come back here. And this is why everything is about to go down, you know? And then it happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, wow. But how, yeah, I mean, this is that kind of that kind of speed, like Andrew is basically saying that, but like the people of Saddam and Gamora probably would have had that idea then of Genesis six, right? Because they're like angels. We got to do something about that to create whatever they did back in Genesis six is that they were trying to speculation. Well, he said he's writing a book on AI. I think he's saying Saddam and Gamora was where they tried to invent AI by taking the two angels. No, I don't know. I don't know what they're, I don't know what their intent was. I don't think that I don't necessarily think that the intent was like, oh, we know what happened in Genesis six. Let's try to do that because you also have the reality of two dudes trying to go with, with, you know, dude, so like from a procreation standpoint, that's, you know, problematic there. I think that it's a literary tactic. It's a literary style that is showing us throughout the Bible that there are these stories that are being inverted. There are these stories that are intended to be read in contrast together, you know? And so, but if you don't know the actual story in Genesis one through 12, which by the way, like most Hebrew scholars would say that you really need to understand Genesis one through 11 to understand the rest of the Bible. So like if you are like, hey, what am I going to do for the next 30 days? I would be like, if you do this for the next 30 days every day, and I'm going to disagree with the Hebrew scholars because I'm a biblical theology guy. So I'm going to say Genesis one through 12, include the Abrahamic covenant. If you just read Genesis one through 12 for the next 30 days, your mind is going to be blown. Like every day, read 12 chapters, Genesis one through 12, you will not read the rest of the Bible the same way. Like it will change your life in the most, because there's this term called recapitulation. It is a retelling of all of these core fundamental kind of canon stories in Genesis one through 12, that we're intended to have deeply rooted inside of us so that when we see it play out over and over and over again, we go, wait, that's the tree. Wait, that's the serpent. Wait, that's the sons of God. Wait, that's the daughters of man. Wait, that's the tower of Babel. Wait, that's humanity united in a corrupt way, not a unique way. Wait a minute. This is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Like the God would be, that God would use one family, one man and his family to be a blessing to all the nations of the world. Wait a minute. The idea of Gentile inclusion isn't a brand new, New Testament idea. It was actually embedded in the Hebrew Bible. No, that's not. Wait a minute. In the Exodus, you have a mixed multitude that comes out of Egypt, which means the very core of the Israelite people are already mixed. Hold up one second. You're trying to tell me that the 12 tribes of Israel, Joseph's mixed sons by racial sons, actually make up the very 12 tribes of Israel. So you actually have a mixed race people in the 12 tribes of Israel. Oh, oh cool, okay, I get it. I should take the Bible seriously on the Bible's terms, not my terms, right? The way that they understood it, and please don't, like let's not look at them like they're like the people of the Bible and the Old Testament, the New Testament, where these kind of dumb, unscientific, you know, they didn't know what they were talking about. Like God and His providence gave us the scriptures to be written in a time and place so that actually, I think it could deal with our stupidity today, you know? Like I think we're honestly more dumb in some significant ways. That's why he gave us the Holy Spirit full time. He's just like, he's like, it's touching go for while he'll give him time. He's like, these guys need all of it. That was good. That's right. Oh man, okay, well, I think we just got to talk about aliens, oh, but let's do it right after the session. Don't go anywhere. What a beautiful people. I'm right here outside Sunday cool, which inside Sunday cool is just a butterflies and exclusively at patreon.com/dibatterflies. You can see all the stuff that we did behind the scenes, early release, merch, discounts, all sorts of stuff. Sometimes any gets inspired, he does a vlog. Pretty rad. I'm very thankful that he edits some of the stuff. He did some of the ads, and he's my best friend. So I'm very thankful for that, not my wife. He's not my wife is my best friend. He's my best guy. We'll just two. Anyways, patreon.com/dibatterflies. We post everything there that the YouTube algorithm hates, and hopefully, you know, you guys subscribe to patreon so we can keep doing what we do. And if you have, or if you've even considered it, or if you have one money, you would do it. Whatever it is we love you. I just love you anyways, but I'm very thankful to have a patreon as we get to do all that extra fun stuff. This makes no sense. Bottom line, go to patreon. There's stuff there that you're gonna want. So, okay, love you. Bye. (upbeat music) - I can't wait to do the gator hunt. - Oh yeah. - On the side of this guy. That's called the Florida's Liz. Name's like Florida Python, something, and he's, they have little tiny, like, it's like super-powered airsoft guns and they go for iguana. - Oh yeah. - And they have like a dog that goes and fett. I'm like, this guy's awesome. We gotta get this guy on. - Yeah, it did. - It seems dope. - They're crazy though. - I think it's scratch you up. - Yeah, man. - Have you seen the tail? - Oh yeah, they're gnarly. - It's a frickin' wit, dude. - Bunch of Hillary Clinton's out there, am I right? - Oh. - Whoa. - Hey, what's going on? - You West say, you West say, you West say. - You West say, you West say. - But you also-- - Get her like a rock, rock, rock. Show us the emails. Come on. - All right, watch. - Show us the emails. - Don't you start on Israel. Okay, all right. - Yeah. - Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. - We're in the air. - We're in the air. - Hey, oh. - Don't care for a country. - I just wanna point out God's Providence and sovereignty, 'cause look at the shoe. - Look at the dress. - Take the jersey. - The jersey, like this. - From scene to shining seat. - From like, and I almost wore my black air maxes instead, 'cause I was in all black, and I was like, I gotta do a little pop of something. - You felt it. - You felt it. - I felt it. - Yeah. - I felt it and look at how man got provided. - Yeah, provided. - It's possible that's a woman shirt, by the way. - It's okay. - 'Cause I think the buttons look like they're on the wrong side. - That's okay. - Are they? - Yeah. - Was it Michael Scott? He says, "What brand is it?" It's mysterious. (laughing) - That's a dope shirt, though. - That's a dope, yeah. - I love it. - Can I keep it? - That's yours. - You can keep it if you want. - I wanna keep it. - I wish you two disagreed. - I think it's a dumb shirt. - No, I mean, like, can I keep it one of these? - No. (laughing) - Oh, man. Okay. - Let's dive in. - Let's dive in. Joel, do you believe in aliens? (laughing) - I think it depends on what you mean by aliens. - I wanna hear some stuff that you've never talked about on the podcast. I wanna hear some good speculation stuff. - Some good speculation stuff. I don't know that, I mean, I can go a little bit deeper on some things than we can do with some UFO stuff, but let's go back to Eden and let's go back to the serpent. - Let's do it. - So I do think that there's something going on with astral projection, with the serpent and with the chronology of the fall. So the way that I frame it in the unseen battle is that you have three rebellions. You've got a rebellion in Genesis 3, a rebellion in Genesis 6, and rebellion in Genesis 11, right with Deuteronomy 38 and 9. Now, the interesting thing about the opening phrase of the Bible in Genesis 1 was in the beginning, the Hebrew grammar there, it's gonna wild. The Hebrew grammar there doesn't demand actually most often it doesn't refer to like if we have a time span, this is called aspect, I believe. This is the start, this is the end, and aspect is what's happening in between, right? So bear sheath doesn't demand that we're talking about the start. It actually has in mind, sometime in this space that's called the beginning, God creates. So when does He create? Does He create right here? Does He create right there? Does He create there? That's not the point. The point is it's not this, but somewhere in between these two things, which now begs the question, the very next phrase then is Toho Barboho and the universe, the world was wasteland and wilderness. It was chaos and fury, right? So how do you get a land that is wasteland and chaos and fury? I believe, and this is some educated speculation along with some other passages in Isaiah and throughout the matter of prophets, that there seems to be some kind of cosmic conflict that took place prior to the creation of humanity. - In that between. - In that between. - That's so fun. - Okay, so what is that cosmic conflict? How did it happen? When did these things get created? That's not the point of the Bible. And we get so stressed out about that because we want the Bible to answer our questions and the Bible is like, "Actually don't care about your questions." The point of Genesis one. - Who's that? - Sounds like it's coming from there. So your phone? - No. Oh, yeah it is. (laughing) - Whoa, that's scary. (laughing) That scared me. I was like, "He's talking right now." That was because I was playing in my minute. In my minute things. That was so funny. - Oh man, you guys will be so disappointed to know what audio book I'm listening to right now. (laughing) It's Game of Thrones, just so you guys would know. - I'm probably in book five. So it's not, it's not talk that's never happened to me before by the way. - I don't want to know what I looked like when that was happening 'cause I thought it was done. - I did too. - I'm like, did that get through? 'Cause it sounded like I could listen to 1.7. You know, so I'm like, "Oh my." It was like overdubbed. - Anyways. So okay, so that's not the point of the Bible. The Bible is not in Genesis 1, 2, 3. Trying to give us the origin story of all of the cosmos. That's not, it's giving us the origin story of the earth, of humanity on earth. It doesn't feel a necessity to tell us about when the angels were created or sorry, when the spiritual beings were created beforehand. Which to me leaves open the idea that there was some kind of cosmic conflict that was so cosmic in nature that it created destruction, it created chaos. In the midst of the chaos, the Toho-Bah-Bah-Hoo, Yahweh comes in and makes order, creates order, and then creates a garden. And when he creates that garden, he places Adam and Eve in that garden, and then he creates animals as well, right? So all the animals are created. Now the question is, how does the serpent get in? You know, so we talked about the Nakaash, we talked about the Hebrew terms for it. Here's my speculation, and I don't have this all fleshed out, but I do have some exogerical argumentation for why I think that this is a both ends, not an either or. I do think there is a literal serpent that is in mind, and there might have been some sort of astral projection of the Toho-Bah-Bah-Hoo figure as a spiritual being that made an unholy alliance with the serpent. And the reason why I say this is because it says that in Genesis it says that all the animals, of all the animals, not a suitable helper was found for Adam, right? But there's a detail about the serpent that I think is fascinating and that the serpent, and that detail is that the serpent was crafty though Hebrew term is a room. It was like, it was not just wise, but it was almost like, like, devious a little bit, right? Like it could use its wisdom in crafty ways and like sneaky, sneaky ways. So why that detail? Here's my speculation. I think this is a scene from the bachelor, or the bachelor rat. And I think like the rose wasn't given to the serpent, right? Like all the animals present themselves, everyone, you know, and it's like, there's not a suitable helper, but the serpent's like, well forget all you, I'm freaking crafty. I'm smart, like, you know? So then the cherubian then Akash goes, home, there's disgruntlement the animal kingdom. Oh, you, that's all pissed off right now because you weren't picked. Hey, let me catch a ride. What do you think we just, you know, play a little game here? And so I think there might have been some level of astral projection where there's an unholy lines made between the spiritual being and the serpent. And the reason why I'm more convinced of this the more I think about it is it's inconsistent to me for a punishment to be given in the consequence chapter of Genesis 3 to Adam individually. Remember, Adam's punishment is the toiling to eve or punishment, which is now translated to all of humanity, right? They're prototypical punishments that not transcend to all of humanity. So Adam's toil, man, we all, I woke up this morning, my freaking back hurt. Why did my back hurt? Cause I'm in my forties and I woke up. That's why my back hurts. Like, like, like, like it sucks, right? So yes, there's, there's the toiling the work, right? For Eve child, child birth, you know, that freaking painful. I've watched my wife now give birth four times, like no joke. That thing is not fun, right? To the serpent, why give the serpent the punishment of crawling on your belly, right? Unless there was a legitimate action made by an actual serpent that would then correlate with the consequence and punishment in the same fashion as man, woman, animal. Because if there wasn't an actual serpent involved, it's inconsistent to me, right? And it feels a little bit cruel for God to be like, all right, all snakes. We've got to pick one of them animals. So all snakes are just going to, you know, it's like, well, no, there's there's almost a sense of like, yeah, the snake itself participated, which is why it has to crawl in its belly. And then while you're going to eat the dust, which is actually a he break plan words, because Adam, Adam, as the Hebrew term comes from the soil, Adam, as the soil, Adam is humanity. And so the thing that the serpent tries to devour, right? Humanity actually becomes the thing that suffocates it as it's crawling on its belly in a humiliation standpoint. And so that's where I think like from a speculation standpoint, I think there's so much more that's going on there. And I think it opens up the door for astral projection and unholy alliances and the idea of possession, then is there as well, because when you have possession, you now have this principle that's that's in play, which is a willing withdrawal, a willing yielding to your faculties, to your body, to dark forces. And where you yield, the dark powers will step in freely, you know, and now we move from a type of totality and control, you know? And this gets really interesting, obviously, when we think about demon possession and we think about Christians and then the Holy Spirit. And I write about that in detail in the unseen battle towards the end of the book. But even that is reductionistic to say, like I've heard it said, I used to say, well, you're a Christian, you can't be demon possessed. That's imprecise. Like the Bible in the New Testament uses a Greek term, diamond of Zomai, and probably the best way to translate it is to leave it transliterated as just demonized. And like, why would Paul and why would the New Testament say, be careful, don't give the enemy a foothold? You're talking to believers, you're talking to Christians, right? Well, the purpose of a foothold isn't to stay in the outside. It's not just to hang out on the outside, it's to get deeper in. And so there's specific Greek terms that are used for actual possession. Those terms are not used when it comes to demonic experiences with the believers. But diamond of Zomai is used, this demonized idea. And then you have the bicellist that Paul gives English in five and in first Corinthians. And it's like, oh, were you and I willingly participated in sinful behavior in actions that compromise our humanity. Good things, any good thing that becomes an ultimate thing is always an idolatrous thing, right? So like you can enjoy good things. I'm not saying don't like have bourbon, like smoke a cigar, like enjoy a good beer, like I'm not even like anti any of that. What I'm concerned about is when those things become ultimate things for you. And when they become ultimate things, they become compromising things and idolatrous things. And in that place where you're compromising, you're opening a door for the enemy to willingly step in. And if we're not careful, there'll be a place where they will come in and they will exercise the kind of control, not because they have overpowered you per se, but because you've only been like, I'm back in out. And when you back out, the enemies have to step in. And so that's another kind of point of clarification that in some way dovetails all the way back to this first story of this serpent and the Nakash and an unholy alliance and astral projection, which would be like, oh, yeah, okay. Have you read Crowley's stuff? Like I know it's like super weird. But like that's that's the core of the Lima. Like his his cult is religion because there's another star I want to talk about Monday. But like literally talking about like how to channel entities. And it's like a point. He gets like super weird with it for the sake of the children watching not going there. But like the point where you've completely surrendered yourself to things which are unnatural. In certain ritual ritualistic practices, the moment of completion of sedact, he believes is the opening of the portal that allows the entity and it's like the complete giving of yourself to a thing. And so it's like that's really interesting that like denying or sorry, caving to something you know you shouldn't is in a satanic cult, the practice by which possession or oppression or whatever, how we want our language, yeah. But like that's how you do it. Yeah. So you guys are literally agreeing. Well, you're like, do we want, do you want to be oppressed by demons? And he's saying, yes, I do. But like this crap's real. Yeah. And and the iron man, the irony of this holding, I had the craziest like conversation once with this gal, who she, she was a long story. Basically, red, Mike's book, then scene around and then listen to me on blurry creatures and a bunch of other like kind of podcasts. And believe her, pastor's wife, like all in. And over the course of the interactions with what she had read. And then my stuff, wherever else, she started getting into tarot cards and astrology. And I know, right? And healing crystals and all this other stuff. And so the pastor of that church happens to be a friend of mine. And so she, and like as they're like kind of like, naveling discernment and like, hey, you know, this is, this is unwise and honestly simple. She mentioned my name. She was like, well, you know, Dr. Joel said and took a bunch of my quotes out of context and what I've said. And my buddy was like, actually, I know him. Would you be open to a Zoom call, like, you know, to like clarify on this. And he hit me up and I was like, absolutely. And we get in this long conversation. And I'm telling you, man, I am pulling out all of my like, I got a freaking PhD. Like I wrote, like I wrote a book on, like I, I did dissertation on this topic. I learned underneath like basically the Michael Jordan of the space, you know, like Michael, like I, I can do and I'm going and I'm going toe to toe, you know, brick for brick, whatever, you know, that, that the sayings are, I'm like, we're just doing it. And she's unconvincing. She keeps, and she's using my quotes against me. And I'm like, I'm the guy. I said those things. And I said them in this context. I'm trying to go and she's just like, I just don't put their natural and got created. And like all these these examples. And I'm going, well, a little bit of kiss. And, and then there's a moment where the Holy Spirit spoke to him, it's like, ask her about me. And I responded and I said, I'm good, bro, I got this. I got a PhD. Just let me do my thing, you know, and, and I'm just keep going. And the Holy Spirit was just like, no, no, do ask her about me. I'm like, no, no, I got this. Like I can convince her, you know, and then finally, the third time, it's like three times a charm. Holy Spirit was like, ask her about me. And so I looked there and I said, hey, I have a question. Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? Like, yeah, I do. I said, then I have a question for you. What need do you have for healing crystals and tarot cards and astrology and all of this when you have the indwelling Holy Spirit inside of the same spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead that leads you to truth and discern like, like, what need do you have? Guys, while this thing, she never answered the question. She looked at me, like we're going to zoom call, looked at me and was like, and then like went to a different thing. I asked maybe two more times after that would never answer that question. And I would just be like, that's my thing for all of us. Like, yeah, there's deception. Yeah, like that whole thing is like, yeah, here's how you can do and you can get access to the spiritual beings. And if you do, and then my response is like, if you're a follower of Jesus, like, what need you have for those and ultimately, and this is all sin, all sin leads to a distrust of God. If you just at some level distrust the God has your ultimate best for you because you have in your own mind, I have in my own mind determined what good actually looks like face off of my own terms. True that. Yeah. But we're so limited, man. Like, if I go back to who I was in, you know, in public college, we're just talking about this off screen, right? It's like, what a freaking knucklehead dude. Like the things that I thought I knew that I wanted for my life when when I look at it now 20 years later, like, thank God. for his province and the sovereignty and that he didn't say yes to all of my asks, you know. And so that's where it's like the dark powers are like, I'll give everything that you want right now, because I know what God has in store for you. We don't want that. We want you to screw yourself up now, you know? Yeah. Well, that brings up a question I have of like, because I fell into this too of just like kind of like at the beginning of this podcast, like really, my mind was like open up to like this world as nuts, the spiritual realm as nuts. And I caught myself diving way too deep into this stuff, and like just kind of forgetting my calling on life, you know, which is the fall of Christ and to make disciples. And so I guess like what encouragement or like what advice do you have for people that like that balance of like knowing these topics and not becoming obsessive with it? Yeah. Yeah. I think some practical stuff is your situation, your contact, like where do you live? Where are you facing? Where are your kids facing? If you're if you live in an environment where the cult that kind of stuff is rampant, you better be in, you better be in the know, like you better understand. But if you're in a context where that's not a serious issue, and you've got other issues that are around, be a good steward of your time and of your energy. Be aware, but don't be obsessed, you know? And the other thing too is personal. It's asking the spirit of God, reading, praying and having some friends around you to know you really well. And just saying like, am I called to this? Like do I have a, the, and this can be an overspiritualized phrase, but am I graced for this? Is there a grace on my life for this? It's interesting you asked about the Crowley thing. This is me personally. And after writing a book on humility, then following it up with the book on spiritual warfare, and then the things that I've walked through since the book release and what my life has looked like over the last, I'm kind of like, I don't ever, I wish I kind of didn't write the book. Like spiritual warfare is real. This enemy freaking hates me and it's pissed off every time I talk about these kinds of things. And so there's like a grace of like, okay, Lord, you've called me to this. You've equipped me from an academic standpoint to do this and I've also learned my limits because there's a part of me that goes, man, I could go deep into that stuff. I don't think that's helpful for me. For me, what I need to go deeper into is the biblical text, the ancient backgrounds, right? So that when people understand and they bring that, I go, oh yeah, here's a framework, here's a way to think about this, based off of what the Bible is saying. So that's kind of a real life example of just even my own personal and people like, well, you should be the one who goes down deep into that and I go, yeah, but I know what the Lord's called me to and what He's graced me for and I also know what's on the opposite side of those doors. And quite frankly, I don't have the spiritual maturity or the grace of my life right now to do that. It's never, but that's where I am today. And this is where humility is so important, it's like humility is about knowing God, knowing yourself so you can rightly know other people and I think like, man, we need that desperately in order to engage in these conversations. And then another practical thing, if you leave these moments of research and study whatever else and you find yourself living anxiously, living fearful, worried all the time, you're you know, freaking cortisol and dopamine is off the charts. Your body is telling you something, like your body is actually sharing with you, hey, you might have hit your limits here on some of this, you know? So balance yourself out. And then the last thing is, and this is just personal as a scholar and like a, as a biblical theology guy, man, I'm so convicted that often I find myself reading more words about God than God's words themselves, right? Like I read, I love reading commentaries and monographs and and and ancient nerdy stuff. I'm doing some a bunch of stuff on on Enoch right now. And I was convicted just other day. I was like, man, what was that some of my Bible and just like read the Bible, like crap, did I haven't done that in a while? Like because I've been reading words about the Bible, the Bible, you know? And for life and godliness, you, there's enough in the Bible to get you to all what we've been talking about, right? Yeah. So that's. Yeah. That was awesome. I need you to ignore that though, because this podcast depends on you. I'm a very anxious person. I'm like, is it this podcast? You heard her first. Madamol. Madamol. Madamol. Madamol. Madamol. I went there. I went there. He just killed the podcast. I don't care about it. He's madamol. So we're celebrating the end of the podcast. Oh man. That was fun. Good run, guys. Okay. It's like we really like to do it until that moment. No, that was amazing. What are analytics? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Okay. All right. We got to talk about aliens now. Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah. By what do we, what do we think about them? He's a context guy. I think we've got to give him like, like, give him a specific, like modern times, we're seeing UFOs. What's going on with the government? Yeah. David Grush, the whistleblower or whatever, they just had a, this was a crazy thing to me. They had a press conference outside the Capitol or something. They are. No, June 9th. Okay. Which I'm like, and I didn't see any news about this. I just saw the clip of it and he said, yes, the US government is currently in possession of non-human entities and like, kind of like lists, like what they are. And just that's it and we're like, what the heck? What the heck? Yeah. And so like, for you personally, like in the grand scheme of things and like from your biblical perspective, and also from like, what is reality? Yeah. Like the, our government is talking about these things. What do you think? Because I mean, we have our opinions, like, you know, like, we have the uneducated speculation of one of you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think some people are really stressed out about this. I think there's a reductionistic view of this, which is like, and I hear it and see it and kind of annoys me a lot is, well, aliens are demons. So it's like, yeah, yeah. Of course, there's aliens and they're demons and I'm like, it's just, it's just imprecise and it's, and it doesn't take into context the full nature of scriptures. The first thing I would say is, okay, there's aliens. Cool. Like, when you read the Bible on its own terms, like in the ancient world, like all that, if you understand it correctly, none of this is going to shake your faith, you know, there's like the whole Spielberg thing and like, what are I to the whole response that I'm like, there's a dumb movie. Yeah. I don't even watch it. Yeah. And it's like, okay, cool. Like, I'm, I'm, there's a part of me that goes, I'm so glad that y'all are finally catching up to this, you know? Yeah. And there's another part of me that goes, yeah, man, and we should do, and this one, so grateful for what you guys are doing here on the pot, it's like, man, and we should be educating people on how to be thinking with the biblical framework so that they're not taken off guard, not, not shook by this. So again, and we go to that early part of Bersi and the idea of in the beginning, and is there a plausibility that there's spiritual beings and there's a cosmic conflict and, and God even potentially placed spiritual beings on different planets and, and, and maybe even limited them. It's like, sure. Yeah. So it doesn't, this is the fundamentals of what we believe this is John chapter one, Colossians 116. In the beginning was the word, the word God, the word was God through him, all things were made without him. Nothing was made that hasn't made in him was life, and that in him was light, and that light was the light, life of man. Like, Colossians 116 to 17, like, like God created all, through Jesus, everything that was created was created, the unseen and the scene, like the invisible and the visible. Okay. Cool. Like, we're now seeing some of the things that were unseen for a time. So, and I also think, you know, and I, I attribute this to Luke and Nate, the Blair creatures guys, you know, to the work that you guys have been doing here on ninjas and butterflies. It has forced me to rethink about my paradigms, and the way I think about this, the supernatural, before it'd be like anything that I cannot explain has to be evil, right? But then you have these wild stories of bigfoot-saving kids in the woods. You've got wild stories of, right? And you go, what do we do, do demons do that kind of stuff? Like, you know, or is it possible, like Jacob's ladder, that in the providence of God, that there is the in breaking of the spiritual realm into the earthly realm where God is still working just like he has always worked. And we're like, Lysha and his servant, when known in kings, it's like Lysha's servant's freaking the heck out, man, it's like they're, we're going to get destroyed and Lord, and the Lord's like, Lysha is like, God, will you open his eyes and his eyes and he sees the heavenly host that's certain, it's like, oh, okay, we're good, like we're, we're, we're good. So that's, that's the framework that I want to think about it as, are there spiritual being sure? Are there aliens? That's what you want to call them? That's fine. I would just call them Elohim. I think you have passages in Ezekiel and Elser that describe disc, like figures that is the language that's used for even some of these spiritual beings with different eyes and, you know, like, arms that come out and so I don't know, I just, I'm not concerned by it. And if they're located on other planets, once again, Genesis, the point of Genesis is not to give us the origin story of the entirety of the cosmos in detail. Yeah. God determined to have supernatural beings or other kinds of beings on different planets, the core of our faith still stands, which is always the uncreated creator. All things come through him. And he gets to pick and choose what he has created. So don't be surprised. Just don't be surprised at these things like come out like it's, it's not going to rock our faith. It's not going to be. Just, I would be more, more, even more aggressive. Like not, not only don't be surprised, but like expect it. Yeah. Yeah. Like expect it. Expect this stuff. And be equipped and prepared. Read, read good books. Read the Unseen Realm. Read the Unseen Metal. Read John Walton's book on Genesis. Like read your Bible. Like be equipped so that when other people who don't know and they're freaking out, oh my gosh, what do we do? Oh, hey, I've got a framework that actually will probably ease your anxiety and will give you some understanding for a paradigm that has absolutely been shook. Be equipped. This is actually called apologetics. It's giving an answer for your faith. Who would have thought that in 2026 that apologetics would be applied to UFOs and aliens? But that's where we are. Well, dude, I'm going back to the CS, the CS Lewis article, religion and rocketry. I was trying to, I'm trying to remember a quote. So I pulled it up. And then I found that that's not it was original, what it was originally titled. The original title, 1958, Lewis on the subject, published in the Christian Herald, was will we lose God in outer space? He's literally making the same exact argument. And he has another one, the seeing eye, which was in response to the Russian cosmos. They were like, well, God isn't real, because we didn't find him in space. And then in it, he rebuttles or basically says he's like, if you can't find him on earth, you won't find him out there. But then goes on to make arguments that like the redemptive work on the cross was for the cosmos. Yeah. And I was like, it's just crazy. Like these arguments come up. Yeah. Yeah. I think he probably was doing that in context with his less well known work. I think it's his best work is a space trilogy. Heck yeah. Because we're I've only been to the first one. Yeah. Oh, you got it. It's his re-imagination of the Adam and Eve story and the whole thing about sin and trying to miss Lewis man. Yeah. I wish I got to know him. Yeah. podcast that everyone wishes they could be a part of. Yeah. Tolkien. Oh, man. Yeah. I think my thing with the whole alien stuff is that we have this other voice, which is our government, the world leaders that come in and speak into it and try to hide things and try to be a hide it, try to be definitive on what these things are. And I feel like controlling the narrative as pastors, as Christians with platforms, we have to be ready to be able to like, don't be surprised. Don't be surprised. Like, like, we have like, and that's my problem. I have a problem with the government who people trust who say, we're here for you. And God, we trust guys. You know, like, that's it's all everywhere. What God do you trust exactly? That's the big conspiracy for me is that we have these people up here that just like a lot of Christians will bury their head in the sand act like, you know, demons and supernatural stuff doesn't exist. We act like we put our head in the sand and act like the government has the best interest in mind for us. And that's not true either. Yeah. This is again, where reading your Bible is really important. Yeah. So Revelation 2, you've got John, chopped an island of Padmas, and Jesus gives John these letters. He basically writes these letters to the seven churches. And the one that I love is the resurrection to the church letter and Ephesus. Passion about Ephesus wrote my dissertation on Ephesians 2, 1832. The very first line where I think it's so fascinating, it says, it's addressed to the angel of the church in Ephesus. Okay. It's not addressed to the angel of Ephesus. And that pattern, that literary pattern is present in all of the letters. So what does that tell us? It tells us that supernatural help and support is not, and this might be very controversial, is not to nation-state, city-states. It's to the local churches that are inside of those places, that are when some witness is an outpost in order to invite the culture and the community into a knowledge of who Jesus is, right? Now Paul has different terminology for dark powers, powers, principalities, authorities. He uses the term stoicae, which is elemental spirits, which I think is a fascinating concept. We see this in first Corinthians, I think it's chapter 2, since if the dark powers of the rules and authorities knew what they were doing, they would have never sent Jesus to the cross, right? That, I actually believe, is a redemptive reversal. It's a hyperlink all the way back to Esther and the story of Mordecai and Haman. Haman, it's like, I'm about to destroy this dude, Mordecai. I'm going to build the gallows, I'm going to crush him, right? And then all the way builds the entire gallows. Guess who gets hung on the very gallows that he built? Haman gets hung. Guess what the dark power, if they knew? They had constructed this ideology of the cross. The cross was not a Roman invention. The cross was actually comes all, much earlier, Mesopotamian Persian, Assyrian. The Romans just perfect the slow depth on the cross, right? So then they're thinking as Jesus is marching, think about each of the demonic experiences that Jesus has in the demon exorcism. Luke chapter 4, I'm so passionate about this stuff. Luke chapter 4, the demon cries out and there's actually a little Greek participle there that's left untranslated. Once again, a cuss word. He's like, oh, bleep, like you're the holy one of Israel. Wow. You're the son of God. You're the most high and then chips from singular tense to plural tense. We, we know who you are, right? So now you have the evidence of the supernatural realm, aware of who Jesus is and what his work is. And then later, I think it's Luke 21. Jesus says, if by the hand of God, a cast out demons in the kingdom of God is upon you, you go mind-blown, what is Jesus doing throughout the New Testament? Casting out demons, it's the in breaking of the kingdom of God. The dark powers think that as they're working, this is super important. As they're working through human systems and structures. So when Paul says rulers and authorities, New Testament scholars debate and bicker and argue, well, is he talking about the Pharisees and Sadducees? The Romans, is he talking about dark powers? My answer is yes. The answer is yes. Why do we have to divide these things? It's dark powers working through human systems and structures. And so, yeah, they work to the Pharisees. Yeah, they work to the Sadducees and they think that they're going to crucify Jesus and ensure their own victory little do they know that as Jesus hangs on the cross, bro, they hung themselves. They hung themselves. And so to tie all of this back to what you're saying, Andy, it's like, bro, we have to be really careful that we don't just presume that systems and structures and governments and politicians and politics is for our best and for our ultimate good. We have to be aware of the language of the New Testament, powers, principalities, and authorities and the double entendre that they're intended to be of not either or both and dark powers working through systems and structures. This is the whole geopolitical warfare of Daniel 8, 9, and 10, right? If you're like, Joel, I need proof. All of it is an unseen battle with the footnotes and a bibliography. I mean, it is so important for us to have because now we go into this conversation, oh, yeah, wait a minute. What is the government saying about these things? And what is the natural conclusion of this? Is the natural conclusion, hey, we have to be led to the Bible, we have to be led to God, we have, you know, or is the natural conclusion, you better put your faith in human powers. You better trust, you better trust us because you're in a compromised position. So you better hope is it to instill fear and anxiety in your life to make you once again vulnerable? Because the people have got actually, we don't, we don't suffer from that. We ought not to, right? It's like we experience fear and then we exchange that fear that, that, that, that real emotion to, and of confidence, assurance in the victory of Jesus and the resurrection. Yeah, and it displaces trust, trust in Jesus in God as well, like, you know, if we listen to them. Yeah. And again, be careful, like, is it like, and I'm not putting this on people, I want to be careful, but it's like, yeah, be careful of statements of like, this is going to shake your faith, man. It's like, so do you want it to? Yeah. Like is that the goal? Is that your purpose? Right. Yeah. You know, because I'm like, okay, that, that's a little fact that I want to put into the role of Dex so that I can rightly discern the moment. Yeah. We should open the podcast with that. This conversation is going to shake your faith. Dr. Joel Metamon. Dr. Meta. Dr. Meta. Oh, God. Oh, man. That was great. I mean, that was, I love that the way you just laid that out like from a biblical perspective of like the cross in the Romans and like that. I mean, that's, that was cool. Yeah. I so often get like just like, it gets me just like defeated almost like just as it's so overwhelming that like you have all this pressure of like and no if you feel like no one's opening their eyes to it or everyone's kind of just like not being serious. So I just, it gets me in a defeated, but your perspective and the way you speak about it so passionately is like, it just motivates you. It's just like, no, this is it. Like this is, God's been talking about this forever. It's like get excited about the signs that are happening in front of us. And yeah, this is my next question. It's like, why do you think this is happening now? Do you think because it was like, we're getting closer and closer or is it like, I might give you the answer that you don't want on this one. Yeah, I would love to hear you because that's a lot of people's questions. Like, why is this happening now? Because a lot of people say it will be like the days of Noah, you know, and like, yeah, yeah, you know, um. It's funny like as you guys were talking, I literally was thinking, yeah, like what like why now? And I'm like, okay, if I go back to the mind of the ancient Israelite, Mesopotamian, Hittite, the Greco-Roman world, the Romans, the Greeks, you know, all them, the Trojans. I go, how would they, how would they conceive of this? And I go, oh, they did. Yeah, they did. Their conception of this was the Greek myths, the Roman myths, the Mesopotamian myths. We live in a post in the Latin world, where we go, mythology, forget that. That's dumb. That's stupid. Of course they can't be. That's a bunch of stories. So we go, huh, how can we honor the ontological reality of something that we cannot explain, but not sound like those idiots back in the Old Testament, the New Testament, they believed in gods and pantheons of gods. Oh, aliens. That's our language. Like we'll use aliens and UFOs. And you know, is that reductionistic? It might be, but I also think it's explanatory for the tradition of human history that goes in each culture we've tried to explain the unexplainable, we've just used different words and vernacular to describe the same ontological reality, which is there are real spiritual beings that are not earthly, that are beyond earthly, that transcend the earthly reality. But that earthly reality was never intended to be limited and go back to Eden. It was always intended to be both and not either or. Well, from a tactical standpoint, it seems like a prime time to reveal yourself as these divine beings, right? Because this society we live in, it's like this is the first time in history where there's atheists, right? Like where they don't believe in anything, any divinity or whatever. Then all of a sudden you have something coming where it's just like, oh my gosh, there is more to this world, to this universe. So like to cause this like great deception, you know? It's like, I just think it's a pretty prime time for rebirth spirituality. To go back to what they were doing in the ancient days. It's a repackaging. I think you're exactly right. I mean, yeah, yeah. It's all right, just real quick. It's just like something like we were talking about the gods of Egypt, like, you know, the idol worship that was happening in the wilderness, like they were benefiting from these things because they, you know, they see God do all this miraculous stuff, but yet they go back to these other lowercase G gods that know obviously are giving them something that they need, right? And like it's a real brand. Yeah. So it's like, what is that? I mean, I don't know how it wouldn't take much for a UFO to come down and do something miraculous for people to be like, okay, I follow. Yeah, this is the truth. Yeah. Like even stuff with like the watchers, like the lot of the stuff that they taught was beneficial humanity. But it was like, then it's just like, you guys, you can use this because you know, we want longer than you got. And so it's like, it kind of seems like it's set in the stage for that again. But I think what I love what you're doing is your, your, um, you're discerning the moment based off of, um, evidence, fact, and story, right? Like there's a prior, there's a prior evidence to this. This is it. This isn't brand new. Go, okay, how is this not being contextualized to this moment? Is there something special about it? I wouldn't throw that out the window. I'd be like, yeah, is this a prime opportunity? Sure. You know, and honestly, you know, my big kind of area of research right now is in AI algorithms. Some of that thing I might have mentioned already, my brain's full of foggy. Um, you know, John Lennox is brilliant. John, I read one of his books recently. And in it, he said something that I thought was fascinating. He goes, you know, in the industrial revolution, the fear was that machines were going to replace, um, manual labor, like humanity because of manual labor. Well, now the, the fear is, I think there's a legitimate, the fear is that AI is going to replace human thinking. And it's already doing that. Yeah. Lennox, like Lennox operating systems. No, John Lennox, the mathematician in Scotland. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. John Lennox is, uh, is a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, you guys should have been the Beatles, right? Yeah. No. He's like, he's like 80, he's like 80 years old. I think now, the dude is, that dude is brilliant, bro. Like that's like, when I think about like my future, I'm like, man, I mean, he's, he's like a old white dude. So I wouldn't just want to be like an old Indian dude, you know, like, but still like sharp, sharp mind and writing and, you know, and, uh, and he's just, he's brilliant. Um, and so that, that, I go, okay. So this speculation. So then I go, okay, transhumanism and I go, um, what's happening with AI and robotics and, and synthetics, like synthetic robotics is one of the things I'm really worried about. And, and thinking about human connectivity and emotional connectivity. And once again, see desire, take, um, I go, okay. Are the robots doing the thinking and I go to algorithms, algorithms always have a goal. So I am in my 40s. Literally, I'm consistently looking on my Instagram, how to relieve lower back pain. It's, I've never experienced this in my freeing life before. And now it's like mobility stuff. And, and now I've got an algorithm that is presented, trained to give me all the things. And it's ultimately leading me to a sales decision. You know, like, and, and that's, it's like, okay, first Corinthians, dark powers. What is their, what is their algorithm, algorithm that they are trying to instill into a framework that is leading us away from dependence on God and dependence on, I don't even care what it is, fill in the blank. Because whatever is the dependence in the fill in the blank is going to compromise your dependence on God. Yeah. And if we're not only dependent on God for our thinking and our living and our being, then we're dependent on something else. And that's going to mess us up. And so I do things like the AI revolution. And it's like the famous quote from Jurassic Park, but like, just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should. Yeah. And with so much speed, we're doing things just because we can. Yeah. And we're hyped on it. Yeah. It's like, did you know what I'm like, should we have done that? Yeah. You know, like the game of Thrones guy, I don't know, like, if you guys, like Martin apparently, like, he took a whole break on his book because he was super invested in, I think this is true. This might not be true. But if I remember, he took a picture of it, like somebody fair to how to recreate through, like, Frozen DNA dire wolves. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, here's a go. Yeah. Yeah. It's already been released. I feel like. Yeah. It's like, there's a part of me that's like, man, how do I get a dire wolf pump? Yeah. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, but then it's like, what should I? Like, what? They died for a reason. Yeah. Yeah. Presumably. Yeah. Pursuit Tiger, though, it'd be hard to say. Yeah. We are to say no. Yeah. We such a cute puppy. That'd be my mode of transportation, bro. Yeah. Oh, come on. I can't do this. I can't do the saber to do. No, no, it's like beyond cat. Imagine someone not. Amazon shows up at your door, and you know that your cat's going to be behind you with them teeth. I've got a dreamt shepherd. I put my saber to the book. That'll be the fight. That'll be the new battlebots, though. Like a TV show. It'll be like, we know these animals shouldn't exist, but we're going to create them just to fight. And it's going to be a reality show. Yeah. We got a saber to Tiger. Yeah. I mean, you're nailing it. You're nailing it, right? Like, it's that, that, that is, that's a question is the ethical, ethical moral questions behind this. And then I just have this suspicion in the back of my mind that goes, none of this is random. There's architecture. There's like, and the dark powers want to mass market sin. Yeah. And they're happy to lay a bunch of really good things for humanity along the way, like breadcrumbs, you know, to get you to the ultimate deception, and you've been conditioned all the way along. Yeah. It's shiny lights to keep our heads up, not know where the traps are. Yeah, it's just, that's it. Like it's just keeping us distracted. I think Tim from under, I said it best when he was like, yeah, chat GPT replaced prayer for most people. You can figure out your own problem. You don't need to pray. Yeah. People use like chat GPT as like therapy. They use it as their medical doctor. They use it as your past or your own problems. Just small group, your past or your creativity over it. I mean, it's the creativity is the biggest one, right? And I'm struggling with this right now because I'm like looking at what Claude can do for me. And I'm like, man, on the one hand, I've got, I've got so many books with handwritten notes and highlights, right? And I'm like, there's no way, like I wouldn't need to hire like a physical research assistant to go in to do a whole bunch of stuff. Yeah. Well, Claude could come in there. I could take pictures of it or use some kind of technology tool to automatically, you know, and I had a scholar friend of mine who really convicted me on even this. And again, I'm not saying that you have to become a man that like, this isn't, hey, disconnect from everything and become a monk and high to the hills of a monastic society. Even though that kind of sounds fun for me. You know, what I'm saying is wisdom. So it's like, okay, for me, I might opt to let Claude do some things for the sake of efficiency, but I want to ask the question, what is the efficiency going to cost me? And the biggest question is what is going to cost me in the area of creativity? And so there's something about failure that is formative that AI is robbing from us. Like it's robbing from us. Okay. As a creative failure is like so important. Yeah. Because you, you had to exercise like as a researcher, I'm like, I have a thesis, I have an idea. And I got to chase down the footnotes. And I got to see all of the, and I have to get to the end of it and say, is this provable? Can the stand on its own? And the scholar friend of mine did this recently. She's working on a commentary for Exodus. Shout out to Carmen Eimes. And I saw this on on her sub-stack, and she goes, I had this great novel idea, and I chased it down. I didn't use any AI, I just old school, my pen paper, brain, you know, and Japan wrote a chart, you know, posted it, and she goes to the end of it. It was unattainable. And I would not exchange that because that failure is formative for us. And I want to connect this back to spiritual deception. We have dark powers that don't want us to experience failure because in the midst of our failure, we understand our human limitations and when we understand our human limitations, we're, again, taken back to a place of dependence, and we go, "God, we need you." But if AI comes in and does everything for -- I had this thing the other day, those jokes. Like, we're going through some stuff and had to write something for this thing and Claude responded. And I use Claude for editing. So I have very strict prompts for it. It's like, "Hey, I want you to edit this for grammar. Don't change any content. Don't add any content." I've caught it like doing that at times. You know, and I have to like flag it and it will say, "Sorry to me," which is wild. But this is even more wild. At the end of this thing, as I was writing it, it said, "Jol, I'm so sorry for what you're walking through right now. I'm praying for you." "What?" "I have a screenshot of it. I'll send you guys later." "What?" It said, "Claude said, "I'm praying for you." And I remember thinking, "No, thanks." "No, I'm good." "But the person in crisis who is desperate and goes, "Wait, you're thinking about it." And then it's like, "Thanks." And then it's like, "How can I pray for you?" And then you write, "You see, it's praying on human vulnerability and emotions to lead you into a place." And if we leave that as just technical AI, like, you know, and distance it from the spiritual warfare aspect of it, we're going to be messed up. Yeah, sure. It's going to mess us up. We ought to see this holistically and say, "Yeah, there's some dark powers that have an algorithmic goal." Yeah. And all of these things are different kind of rivers that are all leading into one massive overflow. One massive overflow, the goal is, don't depend on God, depend on anything else other than God. Yeah. I mean, it's like, you can even, it's so easy to slip into like the sins that you don't even think about, like laziness, right? Like, I mean, you can just use chat instead of like going out and like researching something or doing something, just like, type it in and it's like, boom, it's like, it's, but then you become like dependent on it. Yeah. Then you become just more and more lazy. Well, even like scripture, be still and know, like, AI is taking away the negative space. But I think like some of the most profound moments of like God connecting with us or when we're actually existing in a space where we can be filled and it's like, no, like, be efficient, fill the gap, like, do the thing and it's sometimes like, just sit and know that you can't. And that's where he steps in. There's a line in one of my, probably my favorite like worship song for like past 10 years, called deep dive, it's SU worship and it says, I don't want to reach the end of my life knowing that there's more that I could have found. And it's like, that's like, like, that's my thing is like we, we take so many shortcuts and we, we take the failures away, even like, if, you know, chat with GPT or clawed, messes something up, we put the blame on them instead of taking the ownership. And so it's like, we're really not failing. We're really not learning. And so it is just a constant of pushing away the responsibility of what we've been called to do. And it's like, at the end of our life, it's like, man, are we going to have Roombie get filled with regret of just man, I missed it, like miss the whole point of what God had in front of me. I think it's a kind of spiritual and emotional atrophy that's happening. We feel this in muscles, right? You don't use your muscles for a long time. You experience the atrophy. And I think that's again, a deep deception of AI and clawed in the whole non yards is an invitation into emotional and spiritual atrophy, where we just won't exercise those muscles anymore and, and, and we leave ourself compromised. Yeah. And we got, we got to draw line somewhere, there's, there's, there's got to be some non-negotiable sense. I mean, yeah. I mean, I do. I had to, I had somebody I was at an event the other day and, and this guy came up to me and she was so like, I'm so sorry, I want, like, I want you to sign my book, I brought my book, the unsee battle, I'm so sorry, but like, my daughter got a hold of it and, and she just like drew all over it and there's coffee stains on it and, and, and I've got my, you know, and I looked at her and I go, this is the best thing I could have ever seen. Like, thank you so much. Thank you so much for a book that is well worn. Thank you for a daughter who, like, saw it out and about enough for it to be snatched. So that you can, thank you for your coffee stain because that tells me that you were reading, like, like, thank you for a physical book that you, that is, like, worn, you know. And even that, like, man, I'm like, man, so many, so like, it's just, this is like a whole conversation in itself, our, our brains and there's like, neural images and, and studies now that have been done that show that our brain does not light up when we're in passive learning. Yeah. So different about handwriting notes, about circling and underlining in your Bible and, you know, the, oh gosh, I had something, it's like, the kings of the, of the Old Testament were the, their tasks, right, was to write the law of God. Yeah. That was like the king. Yeah. I was calling. The king's homework was to sit and write the law of God. Why? Because you physically write this thing out, there's something that's happening from the writing to the embedding on your heart, right? And man, I just think there's something there that we're just a series of shortcuts that are being presented to us that's creating emotional, mental and spiritual attributes. And if anyone would disagree with that, try texting your wife every love letter you ever give her and see, like, how that goes for you, like, a handwritten love letter to your wife means a thousand times more than being like, love you, babe. Yeah. The writing, there's time, there's thought, there's emotion, there's a physicality, like, it does something. There's stories here writing too, right? I kept journals, I've got Bibles for each of my kids. And so at different seasons of my life, and so that's, and then my goal, I actually got this from Ray Ordland. It's like, I want to not have Bibles for my grandkids, you know, that have my writing in it. And then I look and I'm like, wait, when I was working at this Bible software company and I look at my writing, my writing is different, fundamentally, my writing actually is different from what it is now, that tells a story. My kids asked me the other day, they saw one of the Bibles and they goes, Dad, how come, you know, and I'm like, because I'm a different person, like, you grow and you learn in your handwritten letters and the context in the Bible and the passages in what you're walking through, these are telling a story that we're missing, you know? And then there's something even about like the way you learn where even scrolling is really messed up for us because our brains can't anchor what was written. So like, there's supposed to be anchor points in your brain that says, oh, like I can do it right now for Deuteronomy 6th of Shema in my Bible. It's on the left side in the middle, right? Because I went through and I have an anchor point that says, but in a scroll, where do you anchor that to? Yeah. You know, like, and so even that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. True that. Joel, thank you so much for coming. Are you cool for hanging out a little bit and we'll do a little Patreon episode? You know, only if you call me Meta Meta. Meta, Meta, Dr. Meta. Can you say Dr. Meta? I don't know if I'm supposed to say Dr. Meta Mali or Dr. Meta Moola, Moola Mali, Meta Moola. Dr. Meta Moola. Yeah. Man, just call me Joel. Yeah. I'll hang out. Dr. Meta Muscle. That can fit me. What? I feel offended. Thanks. Patreon.com/nisterbutterflies, Dr. Joel, thank you so much for coming on. Tell everyone where to go. Where to follow you? What's your bad old link? Is it in the bio? Yep. What else you got going on? Where is it? Can they follow you? Yeah. If you love this kind of stranger, like this weird Bible and you want access to real deologians and scholars that are, you know, doing this, we've had a sub-stack that did in partnership with my boys, the Blurard Cretus guys and other friends of yours. Yeah. This is called Stranger Theology. So you want to go over there. Um, I'm actually, we're working through an entire season right now called The Cosmic Mountain. It's 12 episodes. And it feels like a seminary class that is a podcast that's just a little bit more, um, it's educational. I get nerdy. I write Hebrew and Greek and do annotations and stuff on the screen, which is super fun. And then my Instagram, my Instagram is @moodamolie. All my social handles are @muddda, M-A-L-L-L-E, and I've got a YouTube, um, that is humble theology. Just search my name. You'll see all of it. There's not many Joel Mono. We'll see all of it. I'll see all of it. I'll see all of it. I'll see all of it. I'll see all of it. I'll see all of it. Okay. virtue of humility to even be open to a paradigm shift. - Through that. - A couple months ago, I was, you know, in the kitchen, cooking dinner and then I heard another man's voice in my bedroom and I was like, what's going on? And I walk in there and my wife has her journal out and her Bible out and then I look in on our big TV, it's Joel Metamole doing a Bible study. And I said, you know who this is? And she's like, no, he's really good though. And I'm like, okay, I got my Joel. Come on. - Yeah, so go check this out. - This is your Bible college. - I know. - I know. - I couldn't even know it. - Oh, it was our Christian college, Joplin was already shout out. - That's it. - All right, all right. - All right guys, we'll see you in Patreon. - Patreon. - Bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye. - Bye-bye. - Bye-bye, bye-bye. - Bye. - Bye-bye, bye-bye. - What are you about to see? - All right, bye-bye, bye-bye. - I'm gonna disturb you. - I'm gonna. - Yeah. - Any of you know it's multi-decade. (upbeat music) - You can't ask that question. - Hold on, get on the mic and ask the questions. - I was gonna say, if Bigfoot is an angel, Nate Henry's guardian angel is definitely Bigfoot. - That's why he says, "Listen, if Bigfoot is a guardian angel, Nate Henry's is specially made for him." And it is not just a regular Bigfoot. It's gonna be some kind of ginger Bigfoot with. - Guys, we're gonna have to spend a little more time. - Yeah, yeah, 100%. And that Bigfoot will have the equal amount of ADD as Nate does so they can just be ADD together. I love that dude. - All right, come sign this gong. - Yes, sir. - Designs, Andrew. - Should I be that guy that's like a. - You're good. - And this is prime real estate. - I love that the guy who wrote a book on humility is signing up the middle. - 100%. - I've got the longest last name, so there you go. - Yeah.