Who Invented Territorial Spirits? From Ancient Gods to NAR | Revival Exposed | 719 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John traces the idea of territorial spirits from the ancient world into the biblical world of Daniel and then into the New Apostolic Reformation. He examines the Prince of Persia, the Prince of Greece, Michael, ancient patron deities, Deuteronomy 32, Psalms 82 and 89, and the changing ways Israel described gods, heavenly beings, nations, and divine authority.  Rather than treating Daniel 10 as instructions for confronting spiritual beings over geographical territories, John focuses on what Daniel actually does: he prays while the conflict takes place in the heavenly realm. The discussion compares that picture with modern spiritual-warfare practices and asks whether today's concept of territorial spirits reflects the ancient biblical setting or represents a much later reinterpretation.  CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 06:53 Are Territorial Spirits Even Real? 12:51 Daniel’s World: Nations, Kingdoms, and Their Gods 18:33 Israel’s Changing View of Gods and Nations 23:42 Deuteronomy 32 and the Sons of God 29:48 Psalm 82 and the Divine Council 38:21 Returning to Daniel: Who Actually Does the Fighting? 45:17 Daniel’s Prayer vs. Modern Spiritual Warfare 47:25 How Israel’s Divine Worldview Changed Over Time ______________________ Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K ______________________ – Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham – Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ – Visit the website: https://william-branham.org – Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg  – Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham – Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr – Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books

Transcript

00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.

00:35I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research

00:40at william-branham.org, where history proves that truth, or at least their version of it,

00:46is truly stranger than fiction. I've been having multiple conversations, as everybody is aware,

00:52with people who were in the New Apostolic Reformation or were impacted by it,

00:57because there are certain aspects of this that really, really fascinate me.

01:01I grew up in a world of Branhamism, which was one of the precursors to the New Apostolic

01:06Reformation and the charismatic movement, and some of the themes that are in the New Apostolic

01:12Reformation just seem so odd whenever I try to think about them. And that's me in a group that

01:19was part of the historical lineage of New Apostolic Reformation. And I can only imagine what it's like

01:25for people who are outside of this thing looking in. What in the world is going on in the minds

01:30of

01:31the people? That's one of the thoughts. And one of the key areas of focus whenever people are

01:37thinking about all of this is the concept of territorial spirits. This is something that just

01:43fascinates me. It really does. Everybody knows who has listened to the podcast. Whenever I left the

01:51Branham movement, I began studying the ancient world, ancient cultures, ancient mythologies.

01:56And there's just so many themes that you can see carried forward from the pagan worlds into the

02:03New Apostolic Reformation world. One of them is territorial spirits. And I wanted to talk through

02:09that today. When you look at the ancient world, Moab had Kimosh, Babylon had Marduk, and Assyria had

02:16Assyria. And when you open the book of Daniel, something strangely familiar appears. Persia has

02:23a prince, and Greece has a prince, and Israel has Michael. So how did we get from an ancient world

02:30where nations had gods and heavenly forces to Daniel's prince of Persia, and eventually modern

02:37Christianity, who are identifying and confronting territorial spirits? And I'll warn people from the

02:44outset of this episode. This is a historical episode. It's not an attempt to tell people what they must

02:51believe theologically. It's going to sound like I'm talking theology, because I'm talking about the

02:57Bible. But I'm actually going to do this from a historical perspective. And that's really important

03:03to understand. This is a historical episode. And I had the conversation recently with somebody.

03:09When my wife writes a letter to me, we have a language that we share, and we have things that

03:16we have experienced or have in common that we can say to each other. And it has this broader meaning

03:21than anybody else reading could understand. And the Bible is much like this. The Bible, the books were

03:28written to a specific people in a specific time who read and understood it in a specific way. But over

03:35the

03:35years and millennia, people have introduced theology about the underlying meanings behind those

03:41statements. And the culture has changed. The culture has shifted. Many of the things understood in the

03:47ancient world aren't understood in the same way today. We actually have a different worldview than the Bible,

03:53the people of the Bible had. So this is a historical episode. There's value in understanding how the

04:00reader of the original book in the ancient world would have understood it through their lens of the ancient

04:06world and its perspective. So I like to go there. And I strongly feel that if you are a Christian,

04:13I strongly

04:14feel that you need to go there as well. I understand that there is a purpose for the theological approach.

04:19But if you

04:20exclude the historical approach, you totally miss many, many things. And in the example of the New Apostolic

04:28Reformation, you go off into this error that really can't be corrected without understanding the

04:33history. So this is a historical episode. And the goal is to trace the development of this idea. How did

04:42it go from point A to point B, from the ancient world and its nations of gods to the modern

04:51New Apostolic

04:52Reformation, where you're climbing mountains to speak at the territorial spirits, which is so odd

04:58to me. So we're going to talk through what the ancient culture believed, going to talk through

05:04what the biblical text actually says, not what the theological interpretation of that text says, but

05:10what it actually says, and then walk through some of the ways in which the ancient readers in the

05:17Jewish or Christian world would have interpreted because they came from a world that's much different

05:23than ours. And what modern people do with this is totally different. If you look at the New Apostolic

05:29Reformation, it gets really odd because in the pagan world and their worlds of gods and demons that they

05:37lived in, that was separate from the God of Israel. And yet, when you go into the New Apostolic

05:44Reformation, the way that it's been framed and the way that they have taken the gods of the false gods

05:52of

05:52each territory and tried to reenact territorial gods, they've actually taken it out of the national

05:59context and they're trying to invent a new mythology. I think that's the point that I really want to drive

06:05out in this episode. Territorial spirits, as projected by New Apostolic Reformation leaders,

06:12is not a biblical thing. And oddly, it's not really a pagan thing so much as it is a reinvention

06:19of pagan

06:20mythologies. And that's the point I want to get at. So a non-Nar Christian can look completely

06:27differently at how angels and demons and principalities and owners of powers are in

06:34existence while rejecting the modern principles of the New Apostolic Reformation with regards to these

06:40territorial spirits. The average Christian reading doesn't read into the text. They read what the text

06:48says. And I'm going to be doing that from a historical perspective. And again, it's not a

06:52theological perspective. So the question I'm going to be driving at is this. Are territorial spirits even

06:59real? And where did the idea come from? What did it originally mean? And why did Christians start

07:07believing that they, not God, but they should directly confront these spiritual beings? The question

07:14came up recently in a podcast. I was talking about the modern invention of spiritual warfare. And a very

07:22valid question was posted in the comments, which I did address, because the poster asked, does not the

07:28Bible talk about the Prince of Persia or the Prince of Greece? And they were trying to say that there

07:34was this

07:35heavenly battle being fought, waged by the people on earth. And the question that I had was simply this.

07:42That is in the text, yes. But the modern New Apostolic Reformation way of presenting this is not that the

07:49heavenly forces are fighting. It's that they're wanting you to take part in the battle. And that is

07:55something that is totally different than what is projected in the Bible. Interestingly, it is projected

08:00in some of the ancient mythologies, which we'll get into that just a bit. But I want to separate two

08:06realms

08:07here that Daniel is talking about. And again, I'm no theologian, but any of you can simply open up

08:13Daniel and you can read and find exactly what I'm saying here. And Daniel is talking about the heavenly

08:19realm. And it's talking about Daniel, who is praying. His spiritual warfare is simply this. I'm

08:25praying. I'm praying that this thing will be taken care of by these heavenly forces that I have no power

08:31to control. And I'm trusting that God will take care of this. That is the beginning and the end of

08:37what happens with Daniel's involvement in this, other than having the vision of, of course, what's

08:43happening. But in the heavenly realm, you have the prince of Persia, who withstood me for 21 days. You

08:49can read this in Daniel. I think it's Daniel 10. You have Michael, the great prince who has charge over

08:55your people. You can read that also in Daniel. And I think it's chapter 12. And you have the prince

09:01of Greece from also Daniel 10, the prince of Greece will come. So that's in the heavenly realm. Well,

09:08in the earthly realm, you have Persia, which is now you have Israel, your people, and you have Greece,

09:15which will come. And Daniel is praying for 21 days as all of this unfolds. So let's break this down,

09:22summarize just a bit for those of you who are unfamiliar with Daniel 10. And again, I recommend

09:26you read it. I recommend not that you go ask somebody even what it means. Just simply open up

09:32the text and read it. Daniel has been mourning. He's fasting for three weeks. This messenger comes

09:37and says, fear not, I have come because of your words. In other words, I've prayed and I am coming

09:44because you have prayed. The prince of the kingdom of Persia has withstood this messenger for 21 days,

09:51but Michael, the chief of the princes has come to help Daniel. And it says, if you keep reading in

09:58the text, it says, I will return and fight against the prince of Persia. It doesn't say Daniel will

10:03return and fight. The prince of Greece will come. So lay this out. You've got Persia, which has the

10:11prince of Persia. You have Greece, which has the prince of Greece. And then Daniel's people,

10:16Israel, has Michael. So you have to ask the question, well, who are these princes? They can't

10:22easily be associated with ordinary earthly rulers. And that's one of the common misconceptions for

10:30people who, like me, are fascinated with history and you understand how the ancient world worked.

10:36The messenger has been fighting the prince of Persia for 21 days. Michael calls himself a chief

10:42prince and he intervenes. But Michael is specifically associated with Daniel's people,

10:48Israel. And the prince of Greece is still to come. And so this is talking about things that are

10:54past, present, and future. This is a battle that's happening in the supernatural political

11:00geography, not one that's happening on the earthly realm. So when you think territorial spirits and

11:06you're trying to think, okay, this nation is mapped to this God or this territory is mapped to this God,

11:11you can't really do that historically because of this important fact. There was no corresponding

11:17Persian versus Greek military battle on earth during those 21 days. We have the timeline and Daniel dates

11:25the vision to the third year of Cyrus. That's the milestone in history that you have to look at.

11:30That was approximately 535, 536 BC. And at this point, Persia had conquered Babylon, 539 BC, I think it was.

11:41Cyrus controlled the Persian Empire. The famous Persian wars against the Greek world were still decades

11:47away. That's a battle that's not yet even happened. And Daniel says that the prince of Greece will come.

11:54He doesn't say that it's here now. So you can't simply say that armies on earth were fighting

12:01territorial spirits through their human components and their relationship to the spirit world that

12:07weren't climbing mountains and speaking at demons and casting out spirits and doing the

12:12NARS stuff. Daniel was simply praying and he was praying, assuming that God was taking care of

12:19everything that would be to happen. This vision came to Daniel and he gets this glimpse into what is

12:26the battle that's going on in the heavenly realm, not the earthly realm. So understand that there is

12:31a disconnection between the heavenly realm and the earthly realm in Daniel's interpretation and in

12:37Daniel's vision. And that's something, again, anybody can read this. All you have to do is open up the Bible,

12:43but you do have to understand the history and the context of history around that passage to

12:50understand that these battles aren't happening at the same time. So let's talk through the context

12:55of history, what's happening in the world whenever Daniel's vision is taking place, more specifically

13:01what's happening in Daniel's world. Because again, in the example that I use with my wife and her

13:07writing a letter, we need to understand what the readers of Daniel's visions as he wrote it down,

13:13what the readers would have understood in their day. And it's quite different than what we would

13:18understand today. The timeline of history, we're centuries past the exodus from Egypt. And more

13:26recently, Jerusalem has been destroyed by Babylon. Judah's elite had already begun being deported by

13:33Babylon around 597 BC, I think it was. And Daniel's story is placing him in an earlier deportation,

13:42which is around 605 BC, something like this. So you've got the Babylonian exile that's happening.

13:50Daniel has this vision. And Daniel is in a world where the gods and the nations were connected very,

13:58very directly. That's something that it's very difficult in the modern world to understand,

14:03especially in America, because we have a separation of church and state. Unless you're in New Apostolic

14:09Reformation, there's this weird thing that happens. But for the most part, there is a separation between

14:15church and state. And when you think through the ancient world, it's much different. A people could

14:22have a god, a city could have a god, a kingdom could have a god, a king or a pharaoh

14:28could be a

14:29representation of that god. Or the king and the pharaoh's rule could be a representation of that god.

14:36And the examples which I mentioned earlier, which really apply here, Babylon had Marduk, Assyria had

14:44Ashur, and Moab had Kimosh. So you had this direct relationship between the kingdoms and the gods. And

14:53understanding that hierarchy as it was understood in the ancient world makes a lot of sense when you

14:59read what Daniel has written in this vision that came to Daniel. So the concept to understand, it's not

15:07necessarily like the modern way in talking where a demon occupies a geographical zone. It's more

15:15more to the point, it is God has a relationship to his people, the people have a relationship to the

15:22king, the king has a relationship to the land, the land has a relationship to the nation. So you could

15:29say patron deity, basically. In the modern world, in the football world, you think mascot. But you could

15:37think this city, this land, this kingdom, this people has a patron deity. And the actual

15:45history surrounding this, again, is fascinating if you study the ancient kingdoms, their mythologies,

15:51and why those mythologies existed. Ancient gods weren't just simply object of devotion, as you like

15:59to think of it in today's world. They could represent the political identity of an entire people. If your

16:06nation won a war, then your god had demonstrated power over the other nations and over their gods.

16:13So it was a god against god type of relationship. If your nation lost catastrophically, people could

16:20say, was your god defeated? Why did your god abandon you? And people who were on the defeated side

16:28would think, oh my gosh, our god must be weaker. So you began to have this battle of the gods

16:34that is

16:35happening, again, in the spiritual realm, not so much in the earthly realm, except whenever there was a

16:41direct battle, they thought that it was the gods fighting, not the people. That's key to understand

16:47when you think of how the New Apostolic Reformation leaders are trying to spin this territorial warfare,

16:54mumbo jumbo. But again, the kingdoms and their gods and their relationships is really important to

17:01understand. Because if you read through what's happening in Daniel, you start to understand that

17:07this is outside of our control. We have no way to control. We can only pray to God that these

17:14things

17:15are taking place and he gives his protection over us. So to the people who are reading after Daniel had

17:23written his vision down, the people who are reading are thinking their kingdom has a god and the other

17:29forces have another god that is about to conquer us. We're sitting here, what do we do? Thankfully,

17:36we have somebody who is our intercessor in this spiritual battle and that's happening outside of

17:42our earthly realm. It was a god over a kingdom and people and land and not so much a territorial

17:50spirit.

17:51Where the territorial spirit makes sense is only in the context of God's generals, which is in our

17:57concept. We have a general, we're going to throw this map out on the board, we're going to mark out

18:03territories where we're going to go invade. And this is a battle that literally is happening

18:09in the minds of New Apostolic Reformation leaders. The problem is as they visualize it in their minds,

18:16they try to map it back to passages of scripture and they do, but they don't take the entire context

18:21of scripture nor the context of history. And what they have done in essence is they've created a new

18:29mythology that doesn't really exist in both the modern world or the ancient world. The fact of the

18:34matter is that Israel did not develop in a bubble. Israel was part of a culture, part of an ancient

18:41system, an ancient ideology, an ancient belief system where the gods and the nations and the kings

18:50and the kingdoms and the people and the lands were all very closely interwoven. Whenever most Christians,

18:58whenever they look at this ancient world, they think of it like this. There is the Christian God

19:03and there's no other God. Everybody else is just worshiping in vain because no other God is in

19:08existence. To the Pentecostal charismatic world, especially in some of the more extremist versions

19:15of it, they think this is not true. Simply, you must climb the mountains and pray against the ancient

19:22spirits of evil that are plaguing our lands for millennia. But Israel did not always believe

19:29it like this. Israel was a product of the cultures that they lived in, but there's also a progression

19:35of understanding of worldview that is actually mapped out in the Bible. I will be covering this with a few

19:42different podcast hosts, but the question is, are there false gods? It's a big question if you're in the

19:49Pentecostal charismatic movement. Isaiah says it very clearly. Isaiah 45,

19:55besides there is none besides me, I am the Lord and there is no other. And Paul makes it very

20:01clear

20:01in Corinthians. He says, we know that an idol has no real existence and there is no God but one.

20:07And I'm paraphrasing. You can go read those in your Bibles and you can understand what they're trying

20:14to say. They're saying, essentially, these people are worshiping in vain. There is no God. There is

20:18only the one true God. That's what most Christians believe. Israel did not always believe it like this.

20:26And in fact, as it relates to what we're talking about with the Prince of Persia,

20:30it gets a little bit interesting because if you read through the Old Testament, you can read in

20:36Judges 1124, will you not possess what Chemosh, your God, gives you to possess? And they understood the

20:45worldviews. They understood the nations and the kingdoms and the people that Chemosh, their God,

20:52was to possess. And there was this notion that there was a structural division of kings and kingdoms and

21:02gods, much like the ancient world, the rest of the ancient world believed. There was Yahweh, and he

21:08was over our people in our land. But they looked at Chemosh as your people in your land in that

21:14passage

21:14of scripture. You can read through Kings. It says the servants of the kings of Syria say their gods

21:21are gods of the hills, so they were stronger than us. But let us fight against them in the plain.

21:26And that's, I think, is Kings 20, 23. You can read that for yourself. It's very plain. They're

21:33talking about here's a nation, here's their God, here's a kingdom, I should say, and it's people

21:38and their God. That is how the ancient worldview was. You can read all through the Old Testament,

21:44and you can find examples of this. But the important development that the Hebrew Bible contains

21:50is that while there are multiple ways of speaking about kingdoms and peoples and gods,

21:58they're not in contradiction, as you would find, Christian apologists will help you with this, but

22:04you'll find people who are fighting against the Christian Bible, and they say those two things

22:09contradict, they can't be, and they're not understanding what the Bible is. The Bible is not a

22:14book as it is portrayed by a lot of the Pentecostal charismatic world. It's a library of books,

22:21and it has different genres of books, some of which are just history books. And when you read

22:26through the history books, it shows the clear development of the mindset of the people and

22:32the reasons why they develop that mindset. It's quite interesting if you understand what it is

22:37and begin to read it. But if you continue reading, and again, I'll get into this in other podcasts,

22:43they start ridiculing the idols. They say they're wood, they're stone, they can't speak, they can't

22:48hear, they can't save you. But our God can. That's really the thing to understand here. Now, as it

22:55relates to Daniel and his dream, I'll say this, this is coming as a vision, so it puts it in

23:01a different

23:01category a little bit. But also, we find clear examples where God is speaking in ways that the

23:09culture he's speaking to can understand. Again, when my wife writes me a letter,

23:14she writes it in a way that I can understand it, not my neighbor or her brothers or her father.

23:20She writes it in a way that I can understand it. Well, the visions are God's mouthpiece to the

23:25people. God has to speak in the way that the peoples understand. And that is critical for everybody to

23:31understand as you realize what the New Apostolic Reformation has done with all of these ancient

23:37worlds and their concepts. One of the most important texts to understand behind Daniel 10

23:44and in direct conflict with the New Apostolic Reformation is Deuteronomy 32. In the New

23:50Apostolic Reformation, there's an idea that there are spiritual territories and we must conquer those

23:55territories. We must conquer the demons behind them. And they'll go to passages in the Old Testament

24:01that are talking about battles and warfare, but they're not really telling the people how that was

24:08presented in the ancient world. Like I said in previous sections in this podcast, Yahweh and his

24:14people had his land and they viewed the other lands as land for the other gods. And in Deuteronomy,

24:22it makes this very, very clear, but there's an interesting text variant. The text says something

24:28to this effect. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, he fixed the borders of the

24:34people according to the number of the sons of Israel. In other words, these are our borders,

24:40this is our land, this is Yahweh's, and we have the other lands. And as I mentioned in the previous

24:46passage that we read from the Bible, they have Chemosh, they have Marduk, all these other gods,

24:52but the Most High Israel has given us this land as our inheritance and he fixed those borders.

24:58But the Dead Sea Scrolls preserves this Sons of God text variant. Instead of Sons of Israel,

25:06it says Sons of God. And I'll get into that into a conversation with Channel Ross and Bob Scott,

25:12a few others. That plays into how you distinguish between what the New Apostolic Reformation has

25:20presented as the false gods and the difference between what the Bible actually says. It's a key,

25:25critical difference. But the picture becomes this, you have the Most High God, Yahweh,

25:31you have a division of the nations, you have the Sons of God, you have heavenly beings and nations,

25:38but Yahweh's portion, listen to that word portion, is for his people, Jacob has been allotted his

25:44inheritance. So potentially, other nations have other gods with other heavenly beings and it's

25:50their portion. We, as Israel, have our portion. So Daniel later, as we mentioned, Daniel is talking

25:57to Persia, who has its prince, Greece, which has its prince, and Israel, which has Michael.

26:05So this isn't really to say that Daniel's proving that these are identical to the Sons of God.

26:10It's more to the point, it's saying that there is a biblical framework in which nations and heavenly

26:18beings are already being associated by Israel, much like the whole rest of the ancient world.

26:24Israel is no different. When you look at the gods of ancient Egypt and you look at the Pharaohs,

26:29any mythology that you study, basically, you're going to find that there is a relationship between

26:34the God and the people in the kingdom. And Israel accepts this. Israel says, we have our borders,

26:41we have our boundaries. They have a God, we have a God. Our God is different than their God.

26:45And Israel is warned not to worship those. Don't worship the sun, the moon, the stars,

26:50the hosts of heaven. And so there is a clear difference. And understanding that difference

26:57is really the key point that I'm trying to make here. If you understand that difference,

27:01you understand why reading Daniel as these prince of Persia and this viewing it as a territorial spirit,

27:08why it's actually in direct conflict with what the ancient Israelites believed historically.

27:15Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern

27:20Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements

27:26into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's

27:32website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of

27:40John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others with links to the paper,

27:47audio and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various

27:53people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support

28:00the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to

28:06the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical

28:11Research, we want to thank you for your support. One of the things that deeply saddens me about the

28:18Pentecostal charismatic movement is that whenever there is a difference in opinion on theology, that

28:25difference in opinion becomes personal. And there's a reason for this. I've studied this deeply because this

28:31is the world that I grew up in. Whenever you adopt the belief system in the Pentecostal charismatic way,

28:39you must adopt it in such a way that it becomes part of your personality. You are living the word,

28:46you are acting out the word, you are becoming one with the word, so to speak. And whenever somebody

28:52else has a different variation of how they understand that word to be, well, that's a challenge against your

28:58person because you have, you have adopted your belief set as part of your identity.

29:05And I warned you at the beginning, this was going to be a historical discussion, not a theological

29:10discussion. So I'm about to step on some toes. And I wanted to warn you before I did step on

29:14toes,

29:15because I know from a theological standpoint, you're going to say, I disagree with John,

29:19you're the lowest sinner, you're going to hell. And there are theologians who know what I'm about to

29:24say, and they won't touch it with a 10 foot pole for the reason I'm about to get into.

29:29People who know me, they know that I don't have any 10 foot poles. So I just naturally go there

29:35because I want to know there, there are things about the Bible that if you don't think outside

29:40of your own box, it's very difficult to not be trapping yourself into a corner. And that corner

29:47that I'm about to discuss, and there are a few different corners you can get into, the one I'm about

29:52to

29:52discuss is the divine council. This is a subject matter that again, not many theologians will

29:58adopt this viewpoint, but it is critical because of one aspect of the previous historical conversation.

30:06Psalms 82, if you read the text, and you go to the interlinear version of the Bible, and you understand

30:14the meaning and usage of the word Elohim. Elohim is complicated because it can mean one God,

30:22depending on the other words that are used in the sentence, but it can also mean a plurality of gods.

30:28And depending on how you interpret this verse from Psalms 82, it gets to be a little bit tricky because

30:36it sounds very much like it's talking about a divine council. It says, and I'll read this in the

30:42King James Version for those of you who are KJV-only people, God standeth in the congregation of the

30:48mighty. He judges among the gods. How long will you judge unjustly and accept the persons of the wicked?

30:55And again, this passage is under debate. There are those who understand it to mean a divine council.

31:01There are those who do not. But this is critical when you think of New Apostolic Reformation,

31:06because if you read further, this is where it says, I have said, ye are gods, ye are all children

31:13of the Most High.

31:14That's important for all of you manifested sons of God escapees who are listening. This is one of the passages

31:21that they go to. What they don't tell you when they go there is that there is a debate as

31:26to whether this is

31:27talking about a divine council of gods. Think of the pantheons of gods in Greece. Think of pantheons of

31:34God in Rome. And now picture Israel. This verbiage sounds very much like it's also talking about a

31:41pantheon of gods. And it says that passage that is misused to make people think that they can become

31:49like gods. And I won't get into that debate. I think Chino and I probably had that debate in

31:54one of our podcasts. But the point I'm trying to make is there is some debate here. And here's where

32:00it gets interesting. Those who won't touch this with that 10-foot pole I was talking about

32:05also won't go to the fact that, like I just read in another passage, there are passages in the Bible

32:12that actually talk about the other deities for the other cities and nations and peoples. So it doesn't

32:19make sense to take this out of that context of a world filled with gods that are reigning over nations

32:26and kingdoms. Yes, the Bible does later say that there are no other gods. There's only one God. However,

32:33again, this is a progression of time, a progression of understanding. And the people are coming to a

32:40worldview that is changing over millennia of time. So after decades and decades and centuries of time,

32:48there is a change. And you can see that recorded. I'm talking about the early days of this understanding

32:56of the gods. It looks very much like they're talking about it. That's the only thing that I will say

33:00there. But now let's take a look at Psalms 89 and let's find out who these sons of God are.

33:06Who are they

33:07referring to? And let's look at it through the lens of the historical view. How would the people who read

33:14this have interpreted it in the ancient world? And remember the ancient world, as we've described

33:19before, they believed that there was a God who was reigning above their king, kingdom, people, cities,

33:27empires, and that God was usually associated with the sun, moon, and stars. So Psalms 89 says,

33:34for who in the skies above can compare with the Lord, who is like the Lord among these heavenly beings?

33:41Again, they're looking at the stars. They're seeing the stars. These are the heavenly beings

33:46which govern these other nations. In the council of the holy ones, God is greatly feared. He is more

33:53awesome than any who surround them. This would have sounded to them, whether it does in our theology

33:59today or not, it would have sounded like a divine council. And in fact, that verbiage is used in the

34:05council of the holy ones. And I'm laughing not because this is funny, but because of the big

34:11difference, the vast difference in understanding between what the ancients would have understood

34:17and what theology today is telling us to believe. And I'm not going to say which one is right or

34:23wrong.

34:24I can just tell you that this looks a little bit different than I was taught being raised. I'll say

34:30it like

34:30that. And the part that really makes me giggle when I read this, because it did the first time

34:36I thought about it, they took it a different direction than either side. They took it to this

34:42manifested sons of God. These holy ones that they're talking about in this passage is actually

34:48the manifested sons of God in some of the other passages. And when you think about that and realize

34:54that they're actually talking about what we would consider today the demonic forces, the false

35:00gods. Israel is talking about God is in the council of all of these other false gods who are among

35:06the

35:07other nations. But in some of the context, in the early versions of the context, as they were beginning

35:14to understand who they were in the world, they said, God, our God, Yahweh, has put boundaries between us

35:22and the other nations and the other gods who have these heavenly hosts. So when you think about

35:29that and you begin to understand the ancient worldview, again, it looks much different than

35:35this. But if you continue reading, who is like you, Lord Almighty? You, Lord Almighty, and your faithfulness

35:41surrounds you. You rule over the surging sea. You rule over Rahab, the slain, etc. If you keep reading

35:48this, it's talking about a God who goes beyond those boundaries. And I think that's why the theology

35:54evolved in the way that it did. But to the Israelites, they did have the boundaries. It's

35:59very clear from Deuteronomy. And with those boundaries, this is the God we worship, but our

36:04God is greater than the other gods. That's essentially what it is saying here. So why is this important?

36:10From the ancient historical version of context, not the new theological version of context,

36:16this gives us a few different things. You have Yahweh, the almighty, all-powerful God of Israel,

36:22the heavenly council, all of the other nations in the heavens. You have the sons of God, which is

36:28totally different than the NAR sons of God. And you have the holy ones. And this is not at all

36:33to say

36:34that Israel believed that all of these gods were equal. In fact, I just read the Psalm. It says quite

36:38the

36:39opposite. Who among you is like Yahweh? Who is as great as Yahweh? But the point I want to make

36:45is,

36:45when you read it through the lens of how the ancients would have interpreted this, you suddenly

36:51began to understand why the text variants come to be. And it's not that one is really right or wrong,

36:58it's that it is translated according to how the ancients would have understood it. But the point I'm

37:03trying to make is they believe that Yahweh was God. There was a heavenly court that Yahweh managed or

37:10governed. Below this was the sons of God, the angels, the princes, and the powers. And below

37:16this was the human nations. And you can pretty well get that just simply from reading even our

37:21translations today. But especially if you take the interlinear versions of the text and go through

37:28and read what these words mean, you begin to see a much more complicated picture than the King James

37:35of the Bible. And the modern translations do go there a little bit, but not to the extent that

37:43you get if you read the text in its original context, and especially not if you read it from

37:49the understanding of the ancient world. So for me, reading under that understanding is important along

37:56with the theology. It's not that you take one side or the other, but you really need both to understand

38:02how did the common person understand this? We have this division where the priests and the scribes had

38:09control over the text. Well, what about the person who's out in the farmer in the field who remembers

38:14coming out of Egypt or who had a family history of understanding what they believed in Egypt?

38:20So now let's go back to the mystery that we were talking about earlier from Daniel and not the mystery

38:25like you would hear in a sermon. I'm talking about the mystery of who are these sons of God,

38:30these angels and beings. If you go to Daniel 10, he is praying and mourning for three weeks and an

38:37angelic messenger appears and says, your prayer was heard from the first day. But he goes on to say,

38:44the kingdom of Persia has withstood me for 21 days. Then Michael, the chief of princes came to help me.

38:50And later it says, I will go and I will fight against the prince of Persia. And when I go

38:55out,

38:55behold, the prince of Greece will come. And again, we have the timelines of history. We know that this

39:01isn't all happening at the same time. So we're talking about events, past, present, and future.

39:07But the key point to understand is this. Daniel's not the one doing the battle. When you're thinking

39:14spiritual warfare and marking off spiritual territories and going and fighting spiritual

39:19demons in those territories or evil, ancient spirits of evil, however you want to phrase this,

39:24that's not what Daniel is doing here. It's completely different. And Daniel, if you keep reading

39:31things, Daniel 12, it even makes the relationship clear. It says something to the effect,

39:37Michael, the great prince who has charge over your people. And this is a, this is a object of

39:45debate for me coming out of Branhamism because Branhamism liked to go the Jehovah's Witness

39:51route. And he would say that Michael was actually Jesus. And he would go off into this weird tangent

39:58where Jesus was an angel. And that angel was the same angel he had on stage with him. And all

40:04of the

40:04latter rain people rejoice because the angel Michael, who also was Jesus was on the stage with Branham

40:10and the end is coming. That's how all of this began. And remember, that was the precursor to

40:17the charismatic movement. That was the precursor to New Apostolic Reformation. They had that idea and it

40:24comes from this passage. So this whole subject matter evolves around the whole reason I'm doing what I'm

40:32doing because I know what these passages meant in the context of latter rain and charismania built on top of

40:39them. But yet at the same time, they're butting heads with, with what the ancient world understood all

40:45of this to be. It's, it's kind of funny when you think about it, but let's lay out what has

40:52happened

40:53in the vision written down by Daniel. And I'll just spell it out very clearly. You have the heavenly realm

41:00and you have Persia who has the Prince of Persia. You have Greece who has the Prince of Greece. You

41:06have

41:06Israel who has Michael. So this is where the modern territorial spirit arguments get something actually

41:14important that is right. Daniel does depict these supernatural beings associated with earthly peoples

41:21and empires. But you can't deny that his interpretation of this is quite different from the perspective of

41:29the ancient world. He's actually talking about these worlds which were pointing up to a star in the sky

41:35or a moon or a sun. It is a completely, completely different thing. So I know that some people

41:41probably missed, misunderstood where I was headed with that in some of the previous podcasts, but

41:47make no mistake, what they're saying in New Apostolic Reformation does not match the Bible and it takes

41:54a step further. It does not even come close to, to what the ancients would have understood this passage

41:59to mean in the first place. So very, very important to understand that. Think of it like this. You have

42:05people, you have nation, you have empire, rather than a geographical coordinate system that is used in

42:14today's military. That's not at all what it is. And Michael is not called the spirit who is occupying the

42:21land between these coordinates. He's instead your prince. And ignoring the theological side, go back

42:30to the ancient understanding of this. This ancient understanding was very, very common among all of

42:36the ancient world. And Daniel makes it very clear because these other nations have their prince, we

42:42have our prince. And it's in the heavenlies, it's among the sons of God, so on and so forth. So

42:47it changes

42:48completely what you perceive when you hear the word manifested Son of God. It's totally different.

42:55And I know that verbiage changes when you get to the New Testament. That's another complexity for

43:00another day. But reading the text for what it says as written and for how the ancients would have

43:06understood it is mind-boggling when you think of where it actually went today. So it raises a very

43:13important question. And there obviously is not this Persian-Greek battle that's occurring on earth in

43:21Daniel's 20-day time period. And he says very clearly that he's in the third year of Cyrus. And we

43:27know

43:27historically that's approximately 536-535 BC. Persia is already dominant. The major Persian-Greek wars came

43:36later. And the angel says the prince of Greece will come. So therefore, if you read what Daniel's saying

43:44in the context of the timeline of history, then he appears to be describing this heavenly political

43:50order connected with the, what do you call it, the succession of earthly empires that are merely angels

43:59that are mirroring earthly battles that are occurring not simultaneously, but in a different time

44:06period. And that's mind-boggling when you try to think of this. It totally unravels everything that

44:13I believed about this passage when I began to understand the ancients' understanding of all of

44:18these peoples and places and empires and kingdoms. So he does not say who the prince of Persia is. He

44:28does

44:28not identify him by name. He does not research his hierarchy and map out his territory so he can go

44:35bind him. He does not climb a mountain and rebuke him, or remind him that he needs to leave Persia,

44:42or to take authority over him as they do in the New Apostolic Reformation. Because remember, God had mapped

44:49out the boundaries for the nation of Israel. So when you have these New Apostolic Reformation people

44:56trying to do this and they go back to these passages, all you have to do is say, well, is

45:01that your

45:01territory? Who is the one who is the God of that territory? Because that's how the ancients would have

45:07read that passage. And very clearly it is stated in the Bible that that's how they read it. So

45:14to think of this, the difference between what Daniel did and what NAR believes, which is also the

45:22difference between what Christians believe and what NAR believes. Daniel's action is simply this. He

45:29prays. This is not my territory. I'm not going to go conquer it. I'm not going to go bind the

45:34demons in

45:35it. I'm not going to do any of these things. He simply prays and that's it. And oddly, if you

45:42read

45:43the book of Daniel and the vision, that's really the purpose of this. Daniel prayed and he tells the

45:51story of this huge battle that happened because his prayer was answered. And if you think of it in

45:57that simple of terms, instead of trying to read and understand all these cosmic mysteries and those

46:04who are in the doomsday camps, the ones who are predicting the end of days, et cetera, if you ignore

46:09all of that and just simply say, what is this book telling us? It's telling us simply all you need

46:14to do is pray. And when that hit me, I was, I was a little bit upset really, because they

46:21had taken

46:22from me, they had robbed from me something that was so simplistic of a message that even if you're not

46:30Christian, you can understand this concept. Even if you're not Christian, you can say, all I need to do

46:36is trust that the higher power does this. And I don't have to fear. I don't have to worry.

46:42That's something that humanity, I think, needs. You wouldn't have many of the problems that you

46:46have today, but especially as Christians. And I know that modern New Apostolic Reformation

46:53interpreters can say that Daniel demonstrates all of these supernatural powers associated with nations,

47:00and therefore we're going to add to the text all of these things like the territorial spirits,

47:06et cetera. But that's not really what he's saying. A non-Nara interpreter can simply say yes, but

47:12Daniel never turns any of this into a Christian technique for fighting those beings or those

47:19people. He just simply prays. And that's really all that needed to happen. So if you take nothing else

47:25away from this podcast, think about this. Israel's view very clearly from the Bible itself, you don't

47:32even have to go to outside sources, Israel's view of the divine world changed over time.

47:37From early Israel, you can see that they very similarly matched some of the nations of the

47:43ancient Near East. And you can go through some of those histories and cultures and compare them,

47:48and the views aren't that much different. They do have a different theological system,

47:53and their view of who God is is a little bit different, of course. They don't worship the sun,

47:58moon, and stars. But if you understand the patriarch system that the ancient world used,

48:04Israel's very, very close to this. Then they go through the monarch period, the prophetic period,

48:09and during this time, their views begin to shift even more. Why? Think about where Israel had come

48:17from. And think about the time, the space of time that was between them and their worldview that was

48:22shaped by Egypt. It would make sense that a people and a culture would continue to change.

48:27You can read this in the text if you take the time to look, Exodus, Kings, etc. The Bible texts

48:33call

48:34Israel to worship Yahweh alone and reject the other gods. Whereas before, as I mentioned, it sounds

48:41very much like they're talking about a divine council. Go to, you know, the exile, the second

48:46Isaiah. Well, now you've got strong claims of Yahweh being completely unique. There is,

48:52besides me, there is no God, Isaiah says. So this strongly suggests that Israel began to understand

48:59that all of these other kingdoms, all of their powers, they're worshiping the sun, moon, and stars,

49:04and it's not really God. But when you look at this and understand that they're changing their

49:10perspective, you start to see God being shaped in their mind. And what is God and what does it mean

49:17to be following the true God? Then you go fast forward to the second temple period. Now you have

49:23one supreme God who is alongside of an elaborate world of subordinate beings. And that's how things

49:31begin to shift and change for Israel and the Jews. Well, follow that into the New Testament and it

49:37continues to be shaped. Follow that past the New Testament. I've read some of the early church

49:42writings and what the people believed, and it's a little bit out there. I'm not going to lie. I was

49:49a little bit shocked when I got into church history after leaving the cult and realized that some of the

49:54people who shaped Christianity were also shaped by the ancient world. And it wasn't my worldview that

50:01they were shaping, but that continued to progress and theology continued to progress. That's why I say

50:09that if you study by theology alone, you're only looking at today's view of the ancient world. You

50:15have to actually look at the ancient world and its history to understand why all of this matters and

50:21understand that it really does, it really does matter. It's not just a simple switch from many gods to

50:27no other supernatural beings. You have a history that is far more complicated and far more complex

50:34than you can answer in a single comment thread, in a single video, which this podcast is actually

50:41doing. You have to understand that some questions are so complex that you have to educate the people

50:47what you're even trying to say, because the subject matter itself has many different variants of how

50:55you can perceive and understand it. In this particular episode, I chose the ancient viewpoint,

51:01and I chose to some extent how it might bounce against the theological viewpoint. But think about

51:07all of the viewpoints in between this. Our theology is shaped by those who deemed other theologies to be

51:14heretic, heretics. And those theologies were different, but because they had a different worldview.

51:20This continues to evolve. The point I'm trying to make is, back to the manifested sons of God

51:26and New Apostolic Reformation, when you try to apply all of this that I've said into spiritual

51:33territories that you must go conquer, you have evolved it again past Christianity. So I've talked

51:40about the ancient world, what they believed, Israel, how their belief began to be shaped,

51:46Christianity as it was forming, post-Christianity. Well, now you've got Nar who's taking it a whole

51:51different direction. And for me, that's problematic. I'll just say it like that and I'll leave it there.

51:58So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

52:02You can find us at william-branum.org. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation,

52:07you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

52:14Bye.

52:16Bye.

52:22Bye.

52:29Bye.

Who Invented Territorial Spirits? From Ancient Gods to NAR | Revival Exposed | 719

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