I have been open and forthcoming about my Biblical Worldview, which I will admit oftentimes runs outside of, and independently from, the traditional Church's viewpoint. I hope you will give me the grace and understanding that this does not mean I seek to rebel against traditional and long-established teachings. It simply means that I have been not been willing to keep God in a box in order to make Him fit my framework [or the Religious Church's] of who He is or what the Bible desires to reveal to me through the revelations of the Holy Spirit.
You see, I've always held to the axiom that everything in the Bible is true and all about the Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. BUT, everything about the Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit cannot be contained in the Bible. The totality of information about who they are and the history of the world they created cannot be limited to a book with a mere 1540 pages. As John says in 21:25, Now there are also many things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. And as King Solomon is credited in Psalm 25:2 as saying, It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.
So, I guess if you need to put me in a category, it could be said that I do not believe that God has quit revealing Himself to us. In fact, I believe that as the time for Jesus comes nearer, God is revealing Himself more, and continually exposing Satan's hidden strategies in order to prepare His Remnant for the physical and spiritual battles coming in these End Times. And that brings me to a connection between antediluvian history (pre-Flood) and today's headlines that I've been piecing together from several current sources. And again, I'm able to consider these things and vet them against Scripture because I'm willing 1) to accept that their connections are part of God's plan for us to know them; 2) I know how to test the spirits to see if they are from God; and 3) I'm willing to look beyond traditional religious belief systems to see if God is concealing things He wants me to search out.
So, all that being said, this brings me to the current situation in Lebanon; namely that just this last week the Israeli military began a bombing campaign against the ancient city of Baalbek. Today, this historical site is known for being the location of one of the world's largest remaining standing Roman temples. It is also a World Heritage Site and famous for being known as "the ancient Roman citadel of Baalbek". While this is certainly of interest to us because of the chaos in the Middle East that threatens to spill over into the rest of the world primed for war, there is so much more significance to this site that we 21st Century Christians don't know ... but need to know as to how it relates to these times.
If you research the history of Baalbek in today's search engines, you will most likely discover the near ancient history of this famous site. One such extensive article tells us that Baalbek's origins can be traced back to the Phoenician era, around 900 BC, when it was known as Heliopolis, dedicated to the worship of the god Baal. During this period, the Phoenicians constructed sanctuaries on the site, laying the foundation for the religious sanctuaries and the religious and architectural legacy that would evolve over the centuries. After Alexander the Great's conquest in 334 BC, the city incorporated elements of Greek architecture, as the site embodied Greek style with its Phoenician heritage.
Modern history will tell us that in 64 BC, the Romans took over, and at this time the iconic Roman Temples came into existence, including the Temples of Jupiter, Bacchus, and Venus. These monumental temples, dedicated to these ancient gods were known for their archeological magnificence, and credit was given to ancient Roman craftsman for their engineering skills in constructing these temples of stone known for their size, weight, and engineering marvels required to transport and assemble them. As the article reports, the most famous example of the Baalbek Stones is the so-called "Trilithon", which consists of three enormous stones located in the foundation of the Temple of Jupiter. Each of these blocks weighs approximately 800 tons, making them some of the largest quarried stones in the world. The article goes on to say, "The exact methods by which these stones were quarried, transported, and lifted into position remain the subjects of historical and archeological inquiry."
While that is the extent that modern secular historians are willing to research this subject, I want to take you a little further down this rabbit hole, if you will allow me. To begin with, the name "Baalbek" comes from the words "Baal" (the god who was significant in Canaanite religious beliefs), and the word "Bek" or "Belaa" (referring to the fertile Bekaa Valley). The name "Baalbek" translates something close to "The City of Baal in the Bekaa Valley". Indeed, the current city of Baalbek is located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley. Baalbek is mentioned several times in the Bible, often referred to as "Baal-Gad" and most notably as part of the land Joshua conquered in the land of Canaan --- [Joshua took all that land ... as far as Baal-Gad in the valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon (Joshua 11:17]. This connection between Baal and Mount Hermon is mentioned several times in the Bible, namely Joshua 12:7, 13:5, and Judges 3:3.
What is significant, yet oftentimes missed by us modern Christians, is the understanding that the pagan god Baal's name means "lord, owner, possessor, or husband", and who was the supreme god of the Canaanites, who became a substitute for YHWH when the Israelites strayed from the One, True God. Also, did you notice the mention of Mount Hermon in these passages? It is necessary that we understand the significance of this location. And this is where you need to do your own research and develop your own Biblical and theological worldview, keeping in mind that God wants us to search out the things He has concealed for this Age so that we can spiritually see the cosmic war between Him and Satan that will determine where all mankind will spend eternity.
So, once again, I am sharing where I believe the Lord has led me. It is up to you to take my discernment, do your own research, and determine what you will believe. Because, very soon, you will need to know exactly what you believe in order to traverse the path before us. So, a very shortened synopsis of where I am at this stage of my research is this ... Because of the fairly recent discovery (1946-1956) of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Qumran Caves on the West Bank, we find connections between the Bible and 1 Enoch (or "the Book of Enoch"), credited to Enoch, great-grandfather of Noah, who walked righteously with God until God took him to Heaven).
In fact, verses from Genesis 6, Daniel 7, Jude 1:14, and 2 Peter 4 bear a striking resemblance to 1 Enoch, which historians have speculated could have been written as early as pre-Flood, and as late as 300 BC. The truth is that no one knows the exact date it was written, but it pre-dates the Bible and serves as a historical account of the defection of Lucifer and his 200 Watcher Angels. NOTE: 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch are widely accepted as fraudulent and I do not give them credence as to their veracity. But for the purposes of this post, I want to use 1 Enoch to connect the dots that will lead us to the current situation in Baalbek, Lebanon.
From 1 Enoch 6:5,6 we read, Then they [the Fallen Angels] all swore together and bound one another with a curse. And they were, all of them, two hundred, who descended in the days of Jared onto the peak of Mount Hermon. If you have eyes to see, it can be understood that Mount Hermon was the landing location of the Fallen Angels who would begin their assault on the human race, producing a race of hybrids, known as the Nephilim, who became the Giants, "the heroes of old, men of reknown". It is important that we understand that they were no "heroes"; they wished to be worshiped as gods because they shared the spirit of pride that led them to follow the rebellious Lucifer, in search of their own kingdoms. So they began to share the forbidden knowledge of Heaven with their idolatrous followers among the human race, bringing with them the secrets of astrology, pharmakeia, metallurgy, sorcery, warfare, etc. They used the knowledge of these secrets to gain authority for their sons, who could then subjugate the sons of Adam by building their own kingdoms on earth.
A very insightful picture of this ungodly situation is convincingly written by Timothy Alberino in his book, Birthright: The Coming Posthuman Apocolypse and the Usurpation of Adam's Dominion on Planet Earth: "If men could be enticed to willingly abdicate their authority in exchange for [forbidden] knowledge, then having received authorization from its regents, the Watchers could legally operate in [man's] realm... Thus, the Watchers became the lords of the earth through the dominion of their sons and the willing abdication of mankind".
So, 1 Enoch recounts the story of the progeny of the Watchers, who continued their Fathers' dominion over the earth, which "became a living hell filled with violence and despair". Eventually the supplications of the righteous line of Seth rose to Heaven and "filled the bowls of God's wrath". So 1 Enoch goes on to reveal that God sets a plan in motion to cause "a Nephilim Civil War; kingdom against kingdom, race against race. The progeny of the hybrid gods slaughtered one another in epic battles, laying waste to their realms and reducing their megalithic fortifications to rubble". The Book of Enoch goes on to recount that the Watchers come to Enoch and ask him to draw up a petition asking God for a second chance, so to speak, and when it was rebuffed, they were "found together, weeping, in a place called Abelsjail, which is located between Lebanon and Senir".
Lebanon likely refers to Mount Lebanon, and Senir is another name for Mount Hermon. It just so happens that the imposing megalithic complex located between these two mountains is the very same Baalbek of today! And the fact that it lies at the foot of Mount Hermon (where the Fallen Angels landed) gives me reason to agree with Timothy Alberino's conjecture that it is likely to have been built in the pre-Flood era and served as the epicenter of the Watcher's empire on Earth!
Modern archeologists and historians only credit Baalbek as a site of an ancient Roman temple. True, the Romans would later raise a temple to Jupiter over these mammoth stones, but new technologies have provided archeoastronomers the means to date monuments erected on such sites as the Giza Plateau (Egypt), Baalbek (Lebanon), Teotihuacan (Mexico), Tiwanaku (Bolivia), Sacsayhuaman (Peru) and Goebekli Tepe (Turkey), among others, as having been constructed between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago. The fact that no one, even with our advanced scientific methods, are unable to explain how 800-1000 ton stones were placed with such precision, and align with particular constellations and cosmological phenomena, giving rise to the speculation that perhaps the Giant sons of the Watchers were involved in building these megalithic structures as citadels within their earthly kingdoms. And they could have withstood the Flood!
So, as I hope you can see, this is a vast amount of information that takes us down many paths. And in this post, I have just barely scratched the surface of the implications for us Believers. But just for a moment, let's consider what the spiritual significance might be of modern-day Israel waging war on ancient Baalbek. If it truly was a fortress of the Fallen Angels, is God trying to tell us something? Granted, I'm willing to accept that it is just a coincidence ... but man, what a coincidence!
Satan's enemy [God's chosen Holy Land], is now in a war against what was once the center of Satan's (and his Fallen Angels) empire. Is this signalling to us that the Great Battle between Good and Evil is on the horizon? You might think I'm reaching too far, and you certainly have a right to that opinion. Maybe I am ... but I never want to discount what the Lord might be trying to tell me. For too long, we Christians have closed our hearts and minds to the warnings of God, and look where it's gotten us. So pray! Pray that Heaven's divine and righteous Watchers (yes, there are good ones, too) will fulfill their spiritual purpose: to offer guidance to mankind and provide us with early warnings to keep us aligned with God's will in our lives and on the earth. And pray that we will heed them! The time is near when we will desperately need their holy counsel!
Daniel 4:17 The sentence is by the decree of the Watchers, the decision by the word of the Holy Ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom He will and sets over it the lowliest of men.