00:00:37.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:43.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:10.000So, Jonathan, build out for our audience the main thesis of your book, The Return of the Gods.
00:01:16.000Yeah, The Return of the Gods is, well, number one, it's probably the most explosive book I've ever written.
00:01:22.000And it is what if behind what is happening, the changes, the transformation of our culture, what if it goes back to what actually the Bible says?
00:01:31.000What if it goes back to what the Bible speaks of as gods?
00:01:34.000And what if the gods are not just fiction, but there's something actually behind them?
00:02:00.000And the thing is that I wrote The Return of the Gods not only to reveal this, but also to arm God's people, because if you're in a fight and you don't know what you're fighting, chances are you're not going to win.
00:02:49.000Yeah, the Bible says that when it speaks about the false gods, and that's exactly what we're speaking about, it says that behind them were, it uses a Hebrew word.
00:03:58.000It was an exorcism of Western civilization.
00:04:00.000That's what's made the West so unique.
00:04:02.000And so the thing is, the thing is that then, then the next question is that, okay, where'd they go?
00:04:07.000And then, and the next kind of clue to set up what I'm sharing is that Jesus gave a parable.
00:04:13.000And he said, when a spirit goes out of a man, it goes looking for a place, doesn't find it, says, I'm going to go back to my house, the guy.
00:04:20.000And he goes back and finds the house, the guy, empty, in order, cleaned, brings seven other spirits.
00:04:30.000And the latter state of the man is worse than the first state.
00:04:32.000But now people think it's just talking about a guy.
00:04:34.000But when you read the end of it, in Matthew, it says, so it shall be with this generation.
00:04:38.000And so the premise is this: the warning is this: that, first of all, cultures, not just people, can be oppressed and possessed.
00:04:46.000They can be delivered and they can be repossessed.
00:04:48.000So the warning is for America and for the West and for much of the world, modern world, any culture, any civilization that has been delivered of these spirits by God, of paganism, by God, if it should ever turn away from God, then the spirits that were cast out of it will come back into it to repossess it.
00:05:07.000If you want to understand what's been happening to America for the last half century, we're witnessing a repossession.
00:05:13.000We're witnessing a turn from a Christian civilization into a pagan one.
00:05:17.000And this is the beginning of the mystery.
00:05:20.000So if you read the Torah, which means teacher, through the lens that there was an obsession from the writing of it to really wage war on river civilization pagan polytheism, right?
00:05:34.000This idea of one God that is not in nature, but created nature, this idea of one morality, this idea of Hashem or Adonai or Jehovah, whatever term you want to use, it was not just foreign, it was a mystery and a threat to the predominant views.
00:05:54.000And if you look at some of the themes that especially the first 11 books of Genesis lay out, we're seeing almost a resurgence of that, whether it be earth worship, whether it be doing what is right in your own eyes.
00:06:07.000So when you say a return of the gods, we're almost just seeing a replaying of the same temptations and vices that the first couple books of the scriptures go out of their way to wage war on.
00:07:16.000And the thing is, Charlie, it's not just a general thing.
00:07:19.000There are specific entities or gods or spirits that the Bible speaks about that are literally, that are literally at work right in our culture.
00:07:28.000So that's a really deep and important point that honestly, I don't even have theological clarity on.
00:08:02.000And does he have, you know, lieutenants or demons or helpers?
00:08:06.000Yeah, well, number one, you know, Satan in Hebrew, really, it's a Hebrew word that means satan, means the one who opposes you.
00:08:13.000It becomes in Greek, diabolos, we get devil, you know, from that means the opposer.
00:08:17.000Well, it says the Bible clearly says that Satan was also a spirit, an angelic being that fell.
00:08:25.000So therefore, you have, you have starting with that, but interesting too, because Charlie, you know that, you know, one of the words for Satan is Bealzebub, you know, or Bealzebah.
00:08:34.000Well, that actually comes from a Hebrew word that is Baal Zavuv, which means Baal, which is a one, which is one of the spirits or one of the gods that Israel worships.
00:08:44.000So yes, he has there, the Bible says very clearly, there is one, I mean, there is Satan, and then there are spirits that are, that are part of this realm, just like God has angels, there are spirits.
00:08:54.000Well, what, you know, what would a spirit do more than draw attention, you know, draw the worship of God away from God to itself?
00:09:01.000So when you look at the pagan world, you know, this is this, if there's a reason why it's demonic.
00:09:07.000You know, when you look at pagan worship, it's demonic.
00:09:10.000It's not just, you know, they have all the signs of possession shaking and foaming at the mouth.
00:09:15.000And actually, and a possessed culture is a, is literally, I mean, a pagan culture is literally demonic.
00:12:24.000So I don't know where he gets that, but it's clearly there.
00:12:27.000You know, just like many things, it gets clearer in the New Testament or it gets more exposed, you know, just like the Holy Spirit's in the Hebrew scriptures, but it's more exposed.
00:12:35.000Just like the Trinity or the triune nature of God is in the Hebrew scriptures too.
00:13:02.000And actually, when I spoke about, we can actually identify some of them that actually have returned.
00:13:07.000You know, when Israel turned away from God, there were three particular principalities that really, really kind of possessed the nation and led to the destruction.
00:13:17.000In the return of the gods, I call it the dark trinity.
00:13:20.000And the first one in Hebrew, these are all in the Bible.
00:13:23.000The first one is called the possessor in Hebrew.
00:13:45.000Now, the first, no, in a nutshell, there's so much, and of course, we can just touch on it.
00:13:49.000But the first one is the one, kind of like that first spirit that comes back to the house that turns, paganizes a nation, turns it away from God.
00:13:56.000Ever since the early 60s, we've been watching this turn from America.
00:14:00.000This spirit drives God out of the culture, paganizes it, makes it forget God, just like it did to Israel.
00:16:09.000This lab-grown stuff is strange, it's weird, and you shouldn't eat it.
00:16:13.000This means meat is formed in a bioreactor will soon be coming to a store near you.
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00:16:24.000If access to food you can trust is important, then I cannot recommend Good Ranchers enough.
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00:17:19.000There's no natural or geographic or physical connection between these civilizations all over the world, yet they do the same thing.
00:17:26.000The fact that all these nations from Hawaii to Russia to China are worshiping gods is a strange thing.
00:17:33.000But then that you have human sacrifice all over, you have child sacrifice all over.
00:17:38.000And as you said, the only thing that stopped this, number one, was the word of God.
00:17:42.000Number two, it was the gospel through Messiah, through Jesus, that actually put an end to it.
00:17:48.000But so notice then, then when a nation like America starts putting God out, it comes back in the form of abortion.
00:17:56.000And abortion is not, you know, is not anything else but that because it ultimately is, I mean, we're talking about millions and millions more than they did in the ancient world.
00:18:05.000And the other thing is, and I won't go into the details, we don't, but in the book, I actually put in how when you look at the ancient rituals of child sacrifice and the elements of child sacrifice, you actually see it today replaying an abortion.
00:18:19.000So you talk about possession over a nation or a people.
00:18:37.000If you are born new, you are not able to be possessed.
00:18:41.000So I think that should give, is that correct?
00:18:43.000I believe there are Christians who believe otherwise, but I believe that.
00:18:47.000I mean, you can be oppressed and you can be many things, but no, if you're possessed by the Holy Spirit, you're possessed by the Holy Spirit.
00:18:53.000So what do you mean by national possession?
00:18:55.000I struggle with this only because I think it creates a little bit of tension of people's then ability to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
00:19:06.000So what do you mean national possession?
00:19:20.000It was a people who a spirit came over, possession.
00:19:24.000In other words, there could be a spirit that's over a culture.
00:19:26.000Now, it doesn't mean that everybody in the culture is saying that that is, this may be the key for you.
00:19:32.000It's not saying everybody is in a position of Individual possession, but cultures themselves, you know, the mainstream culture, spirits can drive that.
00:19:44.000Spirits can, a culture can give itself to ownership.
00:19:47.000And listen, if you're not giving yourself to God, who are you giving yourself to?
00:19:51.000You know, so there is there, you know, if you're not owned by God, who are you owned by?
00:20:38.000You know, we don't, we don't call, you know, in the book, I go through all these manifestations of the ancient gods that we won't, you know, the secular world or the unsaved world, the mainstream culture will not recognize that they're doing it, but they're doing it.
00:21:33.000He says, in Jewish tradition, there really is not a belief in a devil.
00:21:37.000He said, however, the last two years, for the first time in my life, I am open to the idea of the diabolical.
00:21:44.000He said, because there is no other explanation that I can come to to the outright intentional, widespread, repeated, transparent exploitation and suffering of millions of people.
00:22:09.000Well, let me give an idea of cultural.
00:22:12.000Now, again, I'm not talking about individual here, but cultural possession, possession of a culture.
00:22:17.000One of the gods I spoke about, the Enchantress, had another side to her.
00:22:21.000And that is that she says, and I put in the ancient, in the book, I put in the ancient Mesopotamian inscription so you can see for yourself.
00:22:28.000It says, she says, I am a woman, I am a man.
00:22:32.000It says she has the power to turn a man into a woman and a woman to a man.
00:22:37.000So now, now, this is the same enchantress that begins the sexual revolution.
00:22:41.000So this couldn't come out of the beginning, but once she starts taking possession of a culture, then it gets to her deeper work.
00:22:48.000So she is the one who literally turns men into women, women to men.
00:22:59.000She feminizes men in every possible way.
00:23:03.000But also, she had a priesthood, Charlie, that were her priests were men who dressed up as women, walked around her temples, dressed up as women.
00:23:13.000Parents would take their children to see the men dressed up as women.
00:23:20.000And not only that, she also would surgically transition her priests from men into women, literally.
00:23:28.000So that when you see this, you know, when you turn away from God, it all comes back.
00:23:31.000And so when you look at it, listen, you know, people, again, who are not even believers will look at this and say, what would possess an adult to do this to a child, a mutilated child?
00:26:10.000So now I want to transition to how do we individually, on a family level, and collectively, how do we excommunicate, or if your word is exorcise the unclean spirits, this kind of dark trinity of oppression?
00:27:38.000And so the first thing is, you know, before you can deal with it in the culture, you deal with it in your life.
00:27:43.000You know, Gideon was called to be a great warrior of God, but before he could do anything great, he had to, he had to smash the altar in his backyard to bail.
00:27:52.000So first thing is that anything in your life, deal with it there.
00:29:10.000As long as there's, you know, Charlie, every time I've written a book and I've written, you know, I deal with heavy things, always hope because as long as you have God, there's hope.
00:29:26.000As long as you have God, you have hope.
00:29:28.000And as I said, you know, Jesus, Yeshua, I say that, that's his Hebrew name, is so much stronger and actually has the power to deal with these things, cast these things out.
00:29:39.000But one of the things that's important is that, you know, the answer to all this that I'm talking about came from the absence of God.
00:29:47.000So the answer, the antidote for all this is the presence of God.
00:29:50.000And the presence of God, number one, has got to be in our lives.
00:29:53.000The more that we are filled with him, you know, the spirit of God is much stronger than the spirits and these spirits that we're talking about.
00:30:00.000But we have to be strong, you know, and we have to not be silent.
00:30:04.000You know, one of the things that if you look at, when you look at what happened when Baal took over a culture, he sought every need about him and every tongue confess and everybody be silent.
00:30:35.000You know, when everybody says they're Christian, Charlie, it's all gray, you know, and we came from a time, everybody said they were Christian.
00:30:44.000Now to be a Christian and to stand up for Jesus means everything, but it's more powerful.
00:30:48.000You know, a candle in the daytime, you know, you can barely see it.
00:30:51.000A candle at night lights up the world.
00:30:52.000So it might be harder, but it's more powerful.
00:30:55.000You know, it's like, I will say this, you know, one of the mysteries of what the Bible calls the end times is that everything's returning to where it was at the beginning.
00:31:03.000You know, there was an Israel at the beginning of the age, it's back.
00:32:12.000In fact, you know, it's like saying, well, it's like you're a light and you're saying the darkness is so dark that we might as well give up.
00:32:18.000No, if the dark is dark, it's saying that's my job as a light to light it up.
00:32:47.000And if you are a believer, listen, I mean, I mean, listen, there's so much in the book we can't touch on, but I want you to know more than anything, this is your hour.