And
the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of man.
Go ye therefore into all the world, and preach the gospel.
Jesus spoke, saying, I am the light of the world.
He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.
Taking the light to the nations.
Light of the Southwest.
Well, welcome to the Light of the Southwest.
Amy, I'm starting to call you Tommy.
Well, I look like her.
I sound like her.
And that is a problem to me.
When they yell, I don't know which one is yelling at me.
What do we got going on here, Amy?
We have an old friend on the set.
Finally, he's back.
Richard Reeves.
Welcome back to GLC.
It is such an honor to have you back on our sets.
Well, I consider it a great privilege to be here.
Actually, you got to say, Richard Reeves, too long in the sun.
Well, that's just a little bitty part of what he does now.
But it was a big part when we met him in the last century.
That's right.
In fact, you had a program on here for several years, I believe.
I think we did about 30 half-hour programs a long time ago.
We played them for years and years.
Yeah, we replayed several times.
Well, even though you haven't been on the set, we're still carrying your stuff in
the bookstore.
Because it's eye-opening stuff.
It was the truth back then, and that's not going to change.
It will be the truth 100 years from now if things go on that long.
So, tell us what you're doing now.
Well, my original book was Too Long in the Sun.
Tell them why you picked that title.
That is very important.
It is.
It's very important.
Well, I found that everything opposed to the true worship of the Creator was based
on sun worship.
If you go back and check it out and study what the Old Testament has to tell you,
they worship Baal.
And, of course, Baal is just another name for all the different sun gods.
And so, everything I found, whether it was the mother goddess or whatever,
was still associated with sun worship.
And so, that's just the title that God gave me, Too Long in the Sun.
Because I found out that many of the things that I had been taught were based
on traditions.
And when I learned it, I was shocked to find it out.
And I wanted to find out not only what had happened, but how it could have taken
place.
And that's when I started doing my research.
Well, how did you discover what the church has been brought up in, really?
Well, it's kind of a long story, but I'm happy to tell my story.
The first thing I learned about was the Seventh-day Sabbath.
You know my son, Murray.
Murray was born with spina bifida.
And I was there in the hospital.
We didn't know he was going to be born like that.
And I was in the corporate travel business.
We talked a little bit about that.
And I had airport locations that were open seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
And so, I was in the hospital praying, didn't know what to do.
And I remember that Jesus, Yeshua, said, Whatever you ask in my name,
I'll do it that the Father be glorified.
But it says, if you abide in me.
And so, my question was, well, how do I abide in you?
And I looked it up.
It says, you abide in me when you keep my commandments.
And so, I said, well, hey, I know where those are.
So, I turned to Exodus chapter 20.
I'd known where they were since I was a young boy and believed in Jesus.
And I looked it up, and there was one I was in blatant violation of.
And that was the Fourth Commandment, to remember the Sabbath day.
There was no way that I was not in violation of that commandment.
I was open seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
And the commandment says we're supposed to rest on the Sabbath day.
And so, one of my offices was at an airport parking facility, and they
depended on me to issue the airline tickets for the customers there.
So, I called the man that owned the parking facility, and I told him,
I said, look, I'm in bad trouble.
I need God's help, and I can't expect him to help me if I don't do what he says.
And so, I said, I've got to be closed on the Sabbath.
And so, you know, he thought I was going crazy.
And, you know, he didn't like it, but he said, well, okay.
And so, I called the manager of that particular location, and I said,
look, I'm in bad trouble.
I need God's help.
I can't expect him to help me if I don't do what he says.
So, we've got to be closed on the Sabbath.
So, next Sunday, we're going to be closed.
I thought Sunday was the Sabbath.
It never was, never will be.
The seventh day is the Sabbath.
How did you figure that out?
Well, you know, I believe that once we're obedient to do the best we know,
the Bible says, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
And I believe that once we do the best we know how with what we have, then by the
power of the Holy Spirit, we can learn the truth.
And it wasn't very long before I learned that Sunday was not the Sabbath.
That's what I'd been led to believe.
But if you go and check it out in Scripture, we find out that the seventh
day, not the first day, is the Sabbath.
And so, it was a real surprise to me.
I couldn't believe that I'd been taught that all my life.
And so, I wanted to find out how in the world that could have happened.
And that's when I went to do the research.
I never intended to write a book.
But the more I learned, the more I knew I had to share it.
I believe that we've been given a great privilege to learn these things,
and now we have a great responsibility to share them.
And so, that's the reason I wrote the first book, Too Long in the Sun.
And it still applies today.
You are also doing some things, I've been watching them, yours and your
son David's, your videos that you've posted on worldnetdaily.com.
We do video commentaries every week on World Net Daily.
And if people sign up for my email updates at toolong.com, T-O-O-L-O-N-G dot com,
we send out video commentaries every week, and then along with a written commentary
that, you know, people don't want to look at the video.
And those go out to thousands and thousands of people all over the world.
And they're little short two to five minute clips that talk about some of the
things that I've learned.
And we put a lot of good pictures, you know, a picture tells a thousand
words, and so we put pictures and video with it, a lot of on-site video.
And, you know, we're here for people all over the world.
Yesterday, you and I were talking about a project that you're doing, trying to get
the word out to people.
Would you like to share about that?
I sure would.
Can I show it to you?
Absolutely.
Okay, this is a new DVD that I produced.
It's called, Hath God Said?
You know, that's what Satan asked him in the Garden of Eden.
He gave him some commandments.
Did he really say that?
Hath God said?
And so that's the reason for my title.
And in your bookstore, you carry my new book, entitled, Time is the Ally of
Deceit.
And I produced a DVD for each chapter of the book.
And you've got that in your bookstore.
And it has all the documentation.
It has all the historical references, you know, where it's proven the thing.
So it's all the documentation.
It has an extensive index in the book.
And like I say, it has about six hours of video.
But a lot of people won't sit there and watch six hours of video.
So I came up with a one-hour, I think it's 51-minute summary of what's in those six
hours of video.
And I'm trying to get people to help me give these away.
And I started a program I call, The Faith of the Saints Evangelism
Program.
You know, the scripture says, here's the faith of the saints.
They that believe in Jesus and keep the commandments of God.
And so that's the reason that I picked that title.
But these DVDs cost me $2.50 when I can ship them in multiple copies.
So I'm asking people to consider contributing $25 a month to the program.
And they can get as many as 10 of these to give to people.
We don't make any money, but we get the information out.
And we've got these going out.
Thousands and thousands are going out all over the world.
And we're hearing from people all over the place.
You know, a lot of people, they learn these things and they try to tell their
family and friends.
And you know, I'm sure you've experienced, they think you're crazy.
But if you can get them to look at this, this shows the historical background.
And once they realize it's a basis, they might not agree with it, but they've
got something to think about.
They know that it is some reason why we believe like we do.
So that's what this is all about.
And what I'd like to do, with your permission, is show excerpts from this
DVD.
And then discuss what we see here.
That would be great.
So that's kind of what I'd like to do.
I'm pretty sure that's the one that you had sent to me that I got to review and
even I was shocked.
So you're going to be shocked at some of the things you see today, huh?
Well, I was when I learned it.
And you know, Satan is the master of deceit.
He's the father of lies.
And I think probably the first lie was, hath God said?
You know, the scriptures tell us that His commandments stand fast forever and ever.
And so they're never going to change.
He wrote them in stone and they can't change.
If He changed His mind every day, we wouldn't know how to live.
But I talk about the Ten Commandments is basically what I talk about.
You know, the thing is, coming to that understanding that we serve a loving God,
we are His creation.
And everything that He tells us to do is to give us life, abundant life.
It's not so that we'll have a bunch of rules and regulations.
And this is really great because it helps us to understand how our enemy snuck in
and did a really good job of separating people who love God from the fullness of
His benefits.
So I really appreciate what you do, Richard.
I know Dad does too.
Well, I want to give him one plug.
When he first started with us, I was big on Christmas.
And this guy changed that 17 or 18 years ago.
And I thought he was really off the rock.
And then when he hit me with Easter, I finally got it.
I finally got what he's trying to tell us.
So you want my recommendation?
Yeah.
So let's see what you're going to say here.
Okay.
All right.
I think they've got a clip all set up for us there.
We're ready.
About 20 years ago, I found out that many of the things that I had been taught in
church for most of my life were not based on what the Bible teaches, but rather on
traditions that were gradually developed over the past 2,000 years.
These traditions have become so commonplace that few people question them,
or even think about questioning them.
Many Christian leaders would now tell us that we have no responsibility to the laws
of God, that now it's all about grace, that the law has been nailed to the cross.
As a result, while most believers do not realize it, major components of
contemporary Christianity actually violate the laws of our Creator.
The three most prominent features of traditional Christianity are, in fact,
pagan in nature.
Easter, Christmas, and Sunday rest.
They are based on aspects of pagan sun worship that have crept into Christianity
over time, and are in direct violation of the first four commandments that tell us
who our Creator is and how He wants us to worship Him.
Now, I realize that I've just made some bold and shocking statements that are hard
to believe.
I can tell you that when I began to realize that what I have just stated is
the truth, it was a shock to me.
Even so, it's still the truth, and we must not allow ourselves to become
offended by truth.
That would be a tremendous mistake, for it is only our love for and the
application of the truth that allows us to grow as believers.
The Bible instructs us to prove all things and to hold fast only that which is good.
In other words, we must check things out and reject what is false.
As I began to learn things that did not agree with what I had been taught all my
life, I had to check them out.
Why were these aspects of Christianity being taught as the gospel, when in
reality they are actually pagan in nature?
How could that be?
How could it possibly have happened?
As I began to do a little research, I found that easily accessible reference
books such as encyclopedias and dictionaries plainly provided facts that
could not be denied.
Even more shocking was finding out that educated theologians and religious leaders
are well aware of those facts, and that they will go to any length to
avoid discussing them.
Here's what I learned.
During the first century at the time of Christ, we find Rome ruling the world in
an environment of Hellenistic or pagan Greek culture.
As if that was not bad enough, Scripture informs us that corrupt Jewish
leaders were teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
As a direct result, only a remnant of Israel received their long-awaited
Messiah, Yeshua, Jesus Christ.
We are told that those people, the believing remnant, were all zealous of
the law.
During the first century, believers were known as Nazarenes.
Not Nazarenes or Nazarites, but Nazarenes, based on the fact that Yeshua was known to
have come from Nazareth.
Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
The book of Acts speaks of the apostle Paul as a ringleader of the Nazarenes.
The fourth century historian Epiphanius tells us that the Nazarenes remembered
that Jesus had warned that when they saw Jerusalem encompassed with armies,
that they should flee to the mountains.
And that's exactly what they did.
Prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, the believers moved across the Jordan
River to the cities of the Decapolis, the region of ten cities mentioned in the
New Testament.
There they settled in a place called Pella.
What is most interesting is that not only did this group of people believe in Jesus,
we are told that they kept the commandments of God as well.
They believed that if Jesus had intended for the laws to be abrogated by the new
covenant, He would have plainly said so.
And as we know, He said the exact opposite.
He said that until heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass from the law till all be fulfilled.
The historians tell us that less than 100 years after the time of Messiah,
believers, those who kept the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,
had been driven away from Jerusalem.
As they left, they took with them the faith practiced by those who walked and
talked with Christ.
Now, why is all this important to us?
Well, in addition to the reference to the Nazarenes found in the book of Acts,
Revelation, the final book of the Bible, provides a future reference to such a
group of believers who are called saints.
They that keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus.
Just as the Nazarenes, they will be keeping the commandments of our Creator,
a fact that most theologians will go to any length to avoid.
Now, I realize that at this point some would say I'm being legalistic,
but that is really not the case.
We are saved by grace through faith and not of works.
There is no commandment that we can keep that will save us.
However, once we have received that grace through the shed blood of Messiah,
we should want to live according to His commandments by the power of the Holy
Spirit.
Commandments that remain valid and will never change as long as heaven and earth
exist.
That is exactly what the first century disciples believed, but over the past
2,000 years, something has changed.
Let's take a look at history.
In 70 AD, the Roman general Titus destroyed Jerusalem, and just as Jesus had
forewarned, not one stone was left upon another.
As the believers moved to other areas, the faith of those who walked and talked
with Christ moved with them.
By the year 131, the Roman emperor Hadrian had established Aelia Capitolina,
a pagan city built upon the ruins of Jerusalem.
A temple of Jupiter was built on the Temple Mount where Solomon's temple once
stood, and those who appeared to have anything to do with the God of the Bible
were forbidden to enter the city.
It should have been expected that Jewish people would revolt, and that they did.
The devastating revolt known as the Bar Kokhba Rebellion would see hundreds of
thousands of Jewish people slaughtered, exiled, or sold into slavery.
The name of Judea would be changed to the Syrian province of Palestine, the land of
the Philistines.
And most importantly, it would cause a final split between Christianity and
Judaism.
Up until that time, historical records document the fact that Christians studied
scriptures side-by-side with unbelieving Jews.
Remember, the only scriptures were that of what we would call the Old Testament.
Why the split?
Bar Kokhba was proclaimed to be Messiah by rabbinical decree, and Christians could
not support a rebellion led by a false Messiah.
Yeshua, Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel had already come, and they were not
about to deny it.
Well, as we all know from history, Bar Kokhba was not Messiah.
And as a result of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem were
forced into exile.
An exile that lasted in one form or another until 1948, a period of over 1,800
years.
What about Gentile Christians who were left in Jerusalem?
As Jewish believers could not enter Jerusalem, all that were left there were
Gentiles.
The historian Eusebius informs us that when the church was collected there of the
Gentiles, that the first bishop after those of the circumcision was Marcus.
In other words, it was 100 years after the time of Christ before Marcus would become
the first non-Jewish Christian bishop of Jerusalem.
100 years!
Edward Gibbon, in his famous work entitled The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
tells us that at the persuasion of the new Gentile bishop Marcus, the most
considerable part of the congregation renounced the Mosaic Law, the practice of
which they had preserved above a century.
By this sacrifice of their habits and prejudices, they purchased a free
admission into the colony of Hadrian.
Let us consider what these references tell us.
They tell us that for 100 years after the time of Christ, believers, both Jews and
Gentiles, observed what Gibbon calls the Mosaic Law.
They kept the commandments of God and had the faith of Jesus, just as saints that
are described in the book of Revelation.
This is a very important consideration.
Today we are being told that the law was nailed to the cross.
But history reveals that first century believers would not agree.
If the commandments of our Creator were abolished at the time of the cross,
those living in Jerusalem for the next 100 years knew nothing about that.
The New Testament is full of references to the law, including the fact that sin is
the transgression of the law, and that if there was no law, there would be no
definition of sin.
Even so, what we hear most often is that believers are not under the law.
And that is exactly what our adversary, the devil, wants.
No definition of sin.
That gives you a little idea about the history.
You know, I wanted to learn, you know, not only what had happened, but how it
could have happened.
And that's some of the things that I started learning in history.
You know, we have an adversary that wants to kill us.
He doesn't want us to have everlasting life.
And he knows that the wages of sin is death, but of course we know that the gift
of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
But if you go back, it says he died to pay the penalty for sins that are past.
He didn't die so we can keep breaking our Creator's commandments.
And so that's the big trick.
He's the father of lies and the biggest lie has been half God said.
Did he really write those commandments in stone?
Did he really mean what he said?
And he did.
He did.
And we read about that throughout the Old Testament.
And nothing has changed.
The only thing that's changed is that there's no more sacrifice for sin.
The sacrificial system has changed.
Jesus, Yeshua, was the sacrifice once for all.
But the commandments stay just like they always were.
You know, the thing is that there is a battle going on.
We have our Heavenly Father who's doing absolutely everything he can to draw us to
himself so that we can spend eternity with him.
He has an adversary who is trying to do everything he can to keep us out.
So that we don't spend eternity with the Father.
Because he doesn't get to.
But he wants to be God.
He wants to do what he says and not what those commandments.
He wants to be God.
The Bible is plain about that.
Before we get too far, what we just saw is available.
How do we get that?
Well, I'm going to leave some with you in your bookstore.
I mean to the actual viewers.
Well, I'm going to leave some in your bookstore.
Okay.
And if people will send me an email, I'd like to give them one.
I hope they might consider sending me a little shipping cost or something like
that.
But if they can't afford it, I'd like to give them one.
That's what the program is all about.
Okay.
But I'm going to leave some with you and if...
If they want to donate at the bookstore, you're...
Well, we can handle it any kind of... I just want to hear from you.
We haven't figured out the details on that, but this is the DVD that he was
showing that he's trying to get people to partner with him at $25 a month.
So he can send you 10 of them and you can start dispersing them to your friends and
family and your pastors.
And I don't wake a bunch of people up.
We've got people that are giving them to pastors in three counties, every pastor.
We're sending them to seminary professors.
We have groups of people that are giving them to every family in their community.
You know, a lot of times we learn these things and once again, Satan's done a good
job.
And this is strange to us when we first learn these things.
And so people try to go out and present these things and may the man I have all
the details that have taken me 25 years to figure out.
And so hopefully I can provide enough details that people can see that there's a
basis of what we believe.
Well, the thing is too, Richard, is that when you're given information that
is so contrary to what you've been taught all your life, you can totally grasp what
you're watching, what you're hearing.
But when you go and try to tell someone else, and I know this from firsthand
experience, you're challenged and they want to know the facts.
And it's hard.
It's hard to be able to go from believing this to being able to really present the
truth to someone.
That's why these DVDs that you put together are phenomenal.
They're phenomenal.
Well, you have to remember, they feel like they're challenged.
In other words, you're challenging what they've been taught and believed all their
life.
And I tell people, you know, don't believe me just because I tell you these things,
but I do plead with them to check these things out.
It's amazing what's happened to us.
I'm not anti-church or anti-Christian or anything like that.
But, you know, the scripture says that the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the
earth and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things
wherein there is no profit.
And I'm one of them.
And when I learned this, I couldn't believe it.
And so I just want to share it with people.
And the other thing is, we learn these things and we share the information with
folks and we think they're going to receive it right away.
But it doesn't always happen like that.
I've had people that I've given the information to and 10 years later,
all of a sudden, it starts making sense to them.
Somebody else may have shared with them.
So we've just got to all share this information the best we can.
I'll tell you a little funny story.
I had one man and somebody gave him my Too Long in the Sun book.
And he said, Oh, I don't want to read this.
And threw it over in the back of his car.
And he drove around with it in his car for years and years.
And his car caught on fire and burned up.
And the only thing that didn't burn was the Too Long in the Sun book.
And so he said, Well, I better read what's in this book.
And he did.
And things started making sense to him.
So we shouldn't be surprised that people don't receive it right away.
Some people do.
Or if your car burns up.
It'd be better to read it to start with so your car doesn't have to burn up,
right?
Well, I know when Mom and Dad first got this information so many years ago,
did they give me a copy of your book?
Why, yes, they did.
No, I didn't.
And I used to watch you.
It took me quite some time to grasp what you were saying.
I didn't want it.
Well, you know, I tell people, don't believe me.
Don't believe anybody.
Read the Bible starting with Genesis all the way through.
It's a story of creation all the way through and prophetic events at the end.
And it tells the story.
And, you know, Jesus said that Moses wrote about him.
Jesus, Yeshua is all throughout the Old Testament.
And once we start putting it together and realizing that he doesn't change his mind
about his commandments, then it all starts to make sense.
You know, it's funny is that the Old Testament talks even about the death of
Yeshua.
The thing is, is that he is so woven throughout the entire scripture.
He's in there.
But he's hidden.
And there's a reason for that.
We have an enemy.
And he would not have allowed the crucifixion of Yeshua had he had known.
But it's in there.
Once it happened, then you can see that it was there.
We, you know, a lot of people talk about prophecy and I tell people I don't think I
completely understand prophecy.
I study it and read what it has to say.
But I believe there's a lot of surprises coming.
Because if we perfectly understood it, Satan would too.
That's right.
And I tell people I don't feel so bad because Daniel didn't understand it
either.
He was in the middle of the captivity and he said, hey, this is what Jeremiah was
talking about.
So I think we should study it and know what it says.
And when it starts happening, we can say, hey, this is what was prophesied.
Well, we have to get back to your DVD because I remember one picture in
particular sometime, it might even be in the next hour of this program,
that I was floored.
Okay, well, let's look at a little more of it.
At the beginning of the third century, in the year 218 AD, a man known as
Elagabalus became Roman emperor.
Elagabalus was Syrian by birth and was the high priest of Baal or El-Jabal,
from which his name is derived.
In the book of 1 Kings, we learn of Elijah's confrontation with the priest of
Baal.
And a careful study of the Old Testament reveals that it was sun worship,
the worship of Baal, that was a primary cause of the downfall of the nation of
Israel.
Now, almost a thousand years later, with the rise of Elagabalus to power,
we find the worship of Baal still flourishing in New Testament times.
Elagabalus was instrumental in firmly establishing within the Roman Empire,
the worship of Baal or El-Jabal, which would later become known as Sol
Invictus, the Invincible Sun.
As we continue, we will discover that this same sun god, Sol Invictus, was worshipped
by Constantine the Great, who would become known as the first Christian emperor.
Later in the 3rd century, in the year 273, Aurelian became Roman emperor.
He was the first capable emperor that the empire had seen in years, and what took
place during the time of Aurelian is of particular interest to our study.
The worship of Baal, originally introduced to Rome by Elagabalus, was once again
brought back from Syria to Rome by Aurelian when he conquered the Syrian
Palmyrene some 55 years later.
During the reign of Aurelian, the worship of the sun god Baal, under the name Sol
Invictus, the Invincible Sun, would come to be accepted as a personification of all
the Greco-Roman sun gods.
Here's what's important.
Later emperors, worshippers of Sol Invictus, would proclaim aspects of that
worship to be Christian in nature.
Educated Christian theologians are fully aware of that fact, as if that's not bad
enough, the theologians of other religions are too.
In the year 274 AD, Aurelian established a temple of the Invincible Sun God in Rome
in honor of Deus Sol Invictus, where he set up cult statues of Helios and
Belos that had been in the great temple of Baal in Syria.
He dedicated that temple on December 25th, a well-known pagan feast day associated
with the winter solstice, the shortest day of winter.
After December 25th, the sun begins to rise higher in the sky, and that time was
considered to be the rebirth of the winter sun, the birth day of the sun gods.
Whether one worshipped Apollo, Helios, or Osiris, or any of the other sun
gods, December 25th was known as their special day.
Yes, Aurelian was some politician.
By proclaiming December 25th in honor of the Invincible Sun, Aurelian made it
possible for the worshippers of all the various gods to recognize Sol Invictus as
the personification of his own sun god.
Sol Invictus, a single sun god at the head of the Roman pantheon.
What a concept!
And by proclaiming December 25th as the birthday of Sol Invictus, Aurelian was
able to pull it off.
During the third century, aspects of paganism, including the festival of
December 25th, would be incorporated as a part of Christianity.
Precepts that have nothing to do with Christ and everything to do with pagan sun
worship.
Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no
profit.
Is December 25th, better known today as Christmas, really the birthday of Jesus?
Surprisingly, the answer is very easy to find.
Today we really have no excuse for ignorance.
Let's take a look at the Encyclopedia Britannica, a reference book available to
almost everyone.
In reference to Christmas, the encyclopedia relates the following.
The traditional customs connected with Christmas have developed from several
sources, as a result of the coincidence of the celebration of the birth of Christ
with the pagan agricultural and solar observations at midwinter.
The encyclopedia goes on to mention Saturnalia, a festival commemorating the
dedication of the temple of Saturn in Rome.
It also mentions that December 25th was regarded as the birth of the Iranian
mystery god, Mithra.
We will find that the names Mithra and Sol Invictus are interchangeable.
They both applied to the invincible sun god.
Collier's encyclopedia reports the same findings.
In reference to Christmas, the encyclopedia states that after the triumph
of Constantine, the church at Rome assigned December 25th as the date of the
celebration.
By the end of the 4th century, the whole Christian world was celebrating
Christmas on that day.
The choice of December 25th was probably influenced by the fact that on this day,
the Romans celebrated the Mithraic feast of the sun god, Nautilus Sol Invictus.
The Nautilus, or birthday, of Sol Invictus.
In 354 AD, a calendar was drawn up by a Christian living in Rome.
While the other pagan birthdays were celebrated with 24 chariot races in the
Roman circus, the birth of Sol Invictus was celebrated with an additional 6
chariot races.
30 races on December 25th, the most important pagan birthday.
Over 200 years after the time of Christ in supposedly Christian Rome, and there is no
mention of the birth of Christ on that day.
That's no coincidence.
Christmas was illegal in England.
It was outlawed in New England from 1649 to 1658.
It was condemned for its pagan roots by the Puritans, the Methodists, the Quakers,
the Amish, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists.
It was made a legal holiday in Massachusetts in 1856.
These are easily confirmed facts that theologians are well aware of.
Was December 25th the birthday of Jesus?
No, it was not, and our forefathers knew that.
The Bible tells us that to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not,
to him it is sin.
For most of my life, I had no idea that December 25th was an adaptation of pagan
sun worship.
In the book of Ezekiel, we find that when the people of God associated themselves
with pagan practices, they provoked the Lord to anger.
He said that he would deal with them in fury, and that when they called on him,
he would not hear them.
These are God's own people, and yet because of their association with
paganism, he would not spare them or have pity.
Are we going to believe more privileged than the chosen people of that time?
That we can associate the birthday of the pagan sun gods with the birth of our
Savior?
We have an adversary who cares not whether we call paganism Christianity,
or if we reject Christ altogether.
Anything but the worship of our Creator in spirit and in truth.
Now let's take a look at Mithraism, a pagan religion which can be traced all
the way back to the ancient Persian Empire.
Once again, we will find that aspects of that ancient pagan religion have been
incorporated as a part of contemporary Christianity.
In the east, the sun god was known as Mithra.
Mithraism originated in the Persian Empire and eventually became the chief rival of
Christianity.
In the 4th century, Roman Christianity was established as the official religion of
the empire, and many would lead us to believe that the worship of Mithra
mysteriously vanished.
But was it Mithraism that vanished, or true Christianity?
That's a very good question, considering the fact that what became known as
Christianity lacked few Mithraic rituals.
The Persian god Mithra found his way into the Grecian Empire of Alexander the Great,
and we find it flourishing during the 1st century BC in a small country of
present-day Turkey by the name of Comagene.
In 17 AD, the Roman Emperor Tiberius Caesar annexed a small country of
Comagene, and it was the policy of the Roman Empire to send soldiers from one
area of the empire to another, in an effort to create a more homogenous
population.
As the soldiers from Comagene were sent out to other parts of the empire,
they took their worship of the sun god Mithra with them.
The worship of Mithra was a man's religion, and Mithraism soon became the
faith of the Roman soldiers.
Some historians are perplexed by the similarities between traditional
Christianity and Mithraism.
One historian states there are striking coincidences with Christianity.
Mithra was born in a cave on the 25th of December and was venerated on Sundays.
The truth is, there is no reason to be perplexed.
As we have already discussed, it is no coincidence that a December 25th birthday
and a Sunday observation were incorporated into Christianity.
They are elements of a cleverly devised satanic scheme to combine pagan sun
worship with the worship of the biblical creator, Yeshua of Nazareth, Jesus Christ.
The very same scheme is followed throughout the Old Testament.
The combination of the worship of the sun god under the name Baal with the true
worship of the Almighty.
In an effort to find an excuse for the similarities between Mithraism and
Christianity, the first century Christian apologist Justin Martyr came to the
conclusion that elements of Mithraism must have been derived from Christianity.
That wicked devils had imitated Christianity.
The problem is that many of those Mithraic precepts predate Christianity by
centuries.
When challenged, Tertullian, a second century writer, says basically the same
thing.
The pagans of Tertullian's day knew that the sign of the cross was an image that
had been adopted from the worship of pagan gods.
We find that the Mithrists place a symbol similar to that in use among Christians
upon their foreheads.
In Tertullian's own words, Mithra, there in the kingdom of Satan,
sets his mark upon the foreheads of his soldiers.
Even though the pagans of his day knew full well that the cross had been a pagan
symbol in use for centuries before the time of Christ, Tertullian says that the
devil imitates even the main parts of our divine mysteries.
The truth is, by Tertullian's time, Christianity was imitating the devil's
mysteries.
The pagans accused Christians of being sun worshippers because they used the cross as
a Christian symbol and observed Sunday, the day of the sun, known to be in honor
of the sun gods for centuries before the time of Christ.
Here's what Tertullian had to say in book one of his writings known as Adnationes.
Others with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed,
suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians.
Because it is a well-known fact that we pray toward the east, or because we make
Sunday a day of festivity.
It is doubtful that Tertullian said anything that would change the mind of the
pagans in regards to Christianity of his day.
By that time, Christianity was far from the faith of the believers that walked in
talk with Christ.
As hard as he might have tried, there is no way for Christianity to defend
precepts of Mithraism, the worship of the sun god Mithra.
Tertullian was, however, right about one thing.
He said that the attempt to corrupt the truth can be traced directly to the wiles
of the devil.
On a cave wall in Israel, there's a 2,000-year-old fresco depicting a bearded
man wearing a robe with his hands outstretched and a halo or radiant glow
around his head.
Now have a little test.
Who would you think would be depicted in this fresco?
Before you answer, allow me to provide you with a few clues.
The person depicted was known to have been born on December 25th, and Sunday was his
special day of honor.
His followers participated in water baptism, they had a Lord's Supper,
and the sign of the cross was the symbolic representation of this person.
Who is depicted on the fresco?
When shown a picture of the fresco, most people respond by saying Jesus,
and I must admit that there was a time when I would have said the same thing.
No, the fresco does not depict Jesus, but rather the sun god Sol Invictus
Mithra.
The fresco was found in a Mithraic temple at Caesarea Maritima in Israel.
Today, many scholars assume that because there are so many similarities between
Mithraism and traditional Christianity, that belief in Yeshua, Jesus Christ,
is just an adaptation of pagan sun worship.
However, when compared to the faith of the first century believers who kept the
commandments of God, there is a vast difference.
Jesus, Yeshua of Nazareth, was not born on December 25th, nor was the sign of the
cross a Christian symbol.
Sunday was not his sacred day.
No, Mithraism did not vanish during the first century when believers kept the
commandments of God and had the faith of Jesus that precluded any association with
pagan forms of worship.
Mithraism supposedly vanished hundreds of years later only after aspects of
Mithraism, sun worship, were incorporated into Roman Christianity.
Once again, these are well-known facts which scholars and theologians are well
aware of.
Most will go to any length to avoid discussion.
We have been to that cave at Caesarea Maritima, and that picture isn't there
anymore, but how did you get that picture, Richard?
Well, we do a lot of archaeological work in Israel, and a man I worked with over
there was in charge of some of those excavations.
And he was able to get me in there before it was open to the public.
I had to crawl in through the shores and chase bats out and all that kind of stuff,
but I was able to get in there and take the pictures.
And since that time, they've opened it to the public, so they've kind of smoothed
the floor out and made it nice.
But the fresco was removed from the wall.
A fresco is a wall painting, so the Mithra caves were plastered inside, so they
removed that plaster.
And what happened to it?
I can't find out.
Last time I was in Israel, we went to the Israel Museum looking for it.
We called the archives and we hadn't been able to locate it, so I really don't know.
But that's a picture of Saul Invictus, or Mithra.
And once again, he was known to be born on December 25th.
His special day was Sunday, on and on and on.
And that's right there at Caesarea Maritimia.
And the interesting part about it is that Origin School is right above that.
They found where Origin School was located, and Origin had a lot to do with
what's known as the Hexapola.
It was a different translation of the Scriptures.
And some of the modern versions of the Bible are based on Origin's fifth column.
But anyway, what you might find interesting is that these are sun worship
caves, and it has a hole in the ceiling where the sunlight would come down onto
the altar.
And the hole for the sunlight is in Origin's backyard.
It's in Origin's backyard.
He was a pagan philosopher.
He never stopped wearing his philosopher's cloaks.
He castrated himself.
That's what the pagan priest of Sybil did.
And so there's a lot of historical facts that people are not aware of that ties all
this together.
And it's just unbelievable what's happened to him.
You know, I know when people start hearing the truth that we've been taught,
so many times their reaction is to be very angry at us.
And so I know that you get the same reaction.
Sometimes it's to be angry at the church for having perpetrated the lies for
centuries.
Now, it's normally the ones who get angry at the church that will be the first to...
it's easier for them to walk away from participating in these pagan festivals,
because that's actually what we're taught to do.
So the problem with that, it's good that they walk away from participating in pagan
stuff.
But what is the problem when they get angry at the church?
What have you seen?
Well, you know, we need to be angry at the devil and not at the church or the people
that tell us the truth.
There is such a thing as righteous indignation.
So I think this is good to be angry sometimes.
And the people that make me angry are the theologians and religious leaders that
know that what we're sitting here talking about today is absolutely the truth.
They'll do anything possible not to have to talk about it.
They don't want to debate it.
They know it's the truth.
And so I think we should be angry at those people.
They need to start telling the truth.
But, you know, the churches are full of good people who have no idea, just like
me.
And so I don't expect people to just drop everything they've learned.
But I do hope they'll check it out and they'll be surprised.
And then, you know, I'm not anti-church.
The church does a lot of good things.
They tell people about our Savior.
But there's justification and there's sanctification.
And sanctification is a process.
And when we learn the ways of God about His commandments, we can start to grow
into Him in all things.
The book of Acts, I think it's chapter 5, said the Holy Spirit is given to them that
obey Him.
And I know that once I started being obedient to the things that I learned,
then other things started making sense.
And so, you know, once again, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not,
to him it is then.
I didn't know any better.
You mentioned you like Christmas.
I liked it too.
I had three Christmas trees in my house.
But when I found out where it came from, I couldn't have any more to do with it
because we can trace it right back to Tammuz.
We mentioned the Mithra cave there in Caesarea.
And if you go to Bethlehem, the Church of the Nativity, they take you in an
underground cave down there.
And that is a temple of Tammuz.
That's where the sun god Tammuz was worshipped.
His special day was Sunday.
His birthday was December 25th.
We've got all these names for the sun gods.
Tammuz was one of them.
And the way we know that is because of Jerome.
Jerome translated the scriptures into Latin.
And Jerome tells us that that was a sun worship cave for the god Tammuz.
So every year, thousands and millions of believers go to Israel.
They are taken into an underground cave.
And shown that niche where that old pagan statue was placed and kissed the ground on
that spot thinking that's where our Savior was born.
Bethlehem, not Jerusalem.
Bethlehem.
I'm sorry, I said Jerusalem.
Taken to Bethlehem into that subterranean cave and get down on their hands and knees
and kiss the ground thinking that's where Jesus was born.
And that's where that old pagan sun god was stood up in there.
Have you been in there to see it?
I'm sure you have, right?
I have.
I haven't.
There may be something on this video where I show.
But anyway, I always take my compass down in there and show people.
It faced east and west.
It's definitely a sun worship temple.
And it's documented by historians.
But yet, they don't tell us that.
The first time I went in there, I didn't know.
I thought that's where Jesus was born.
So you get all emotional thinking, hey, we're here where he was born.
And then when you find out the truth, it is upsetting.
But we shouldn't get mad.
We just need to do what's right.
We shouldn't get mad at each other or the church or anything.
But we do need to fear God and keep his commandments.
Well, this is the whole beauty of man.
A very smart man said that, King Solomon.
Well, and he did some really stupid things.
He did.
The thing is that you don't want to walk away from the church.
You don't.
You want to stay in there and start perpetrating the truth about things.
That's what you want to do.
You've got a book in your hand, Richard.
You have to share about that in the set.
Okay.
Well, anyway, this is the book, Time is the Ally of Deceit.
And I have produced five DVDs, one for each chapter of the book.
And you have these in your bookstore.
You've had them for quite some time.
But it's all the documentation.
When I talk about different places, I take you on site if I can and show you
the things.
And then in the book, on every page of the book, it has footnotes showing the
historical references.
And it's got an extensive index in the back so that when people ask us a question
about Christmas or Easter, you can look it up real quick and go and not only tell
them about it, but give them the references.
A lot of people want to know, well, how do you know that?
And you can show them exactly how we know that.
Yeah.
Any word at all that's in that book is in that index in the back.
Pretty much.
It's an extensive index.
And so any important subjects are in there.
So you can look it up real quick.
And we already know these things, but we're showing a lot of details.
We don't always remember the details.
But you can go and look up the page and show them in the book.
And there's lots of really cool pictures in the book, too.
You can get that stuff through the GLC Bookstore.
The book sells for $18.
The DVD set does not sell by itself.
The book will always come with it.
And that sells for $100.
For the book and the five DVD.
About six hours of video.
Six hours of video.
Can you imagine how much information is on that?
Because I haven't watched that series.
I'm going to have to, I guess.
Look at it.
My goodness.
You know, I wanted to ask you.
You said that you had gone down underneath the Church of the Nativity where we've got
this little altar for Tammuz that everybody is taught.
That's where Yeshua was born.
And the first time, apparently, you went in there, you thought it was the
place.
I thought it was.
Me, too.
Really?
I thought it was.
And Arafat made an issue, you need to go there.
Because Jesus is one of us.
Uh-oh.
Yeah.
You said that you were very emotional the first time that you went in there.
Thinking that that was the place.
And now that you know the truth about that, how would you caution people about
running on emotion?
We have to go by what the Scriptures say.
We have to have some basis for our faith.
And mine is the Bible.
We have to trust the words of Scripture.
And so, we have to check everything we believe out against Scripture and see if
it's right.
It's easy to be emotional when you think that's where your Savior was born.
But we were being misled.
The way that became known as the Nativity site is Helena, Constantine's mother,
went around picking out holy places.
Picking out holy places.
And she said that's where Jesus was born.
And you just didn't argue with Constantine's mama.
That wasn't good for your health.
She did the same thing with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
I've been there.
And I tell you, the hair stood up on the back of my neck in that place.
I did feel some emotion when I thought that's where he was born.
And I think that's only natural.
But we've got to check things out.
We've been fooled on a lot of things.
We can base everything that we believe on our emotions.
And how it makes us have goosebumps or whatever.
We do have to check things out.
The church would not be in the state that we're in if we were checking things out.
You kind of mentioned a little bit that you do some archaeological work.
Can you share a little bit about that?
How you got into that?
Did you get into that because of what you discovered?
Well, not really.
I worked with Ron Wyatt the last 10 years of his life.
And he found a site over in eastern Turkey that many people believe to be the remains
of Noah's Ark.
And so I went over and worked with him on that site and some other places.
And so I started working on archaeological projects.
Right now we're working in Jerusalem and King Solomon's quarries.
We're about 75 feet underground.
And there's passageways going in every different direction down there.
We found some defensive walls with gates with locks on them.
And there's a lot of debris down there.
So that's where we're working right now.
And you work real close with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, correct?
We do.
We work with the IAA, Israel Antiquities Authority.
And their projects are... that's what we work on.
So everything is documented, published in scientific journals.
So everything that I've done since 2003 is fully documented.
You were telling me a little bit about when you were in Turkey with Noah's Ark.
Well, we were working on the site over there.
And we were taken hostage and ended up climbing mountains at the end of a gun for
about a month.
And since then I haven't been able to get the permits.
I was over there a few years ago.
We do three-dimensional subsurface radar now.
And if we get a chance in the next segment, I'd like to show you a little bit
about how the radar works.
That'd be cool.
So I was there.
They promised me the permits.
And then two weeks later the whole government changed.
So I was right back to square one.
There's a lot of work.
Some people do not believe that is the remains of Noah's Ark.
There's a lot of work we need to do.
But I have to get the permits first.
I saw a thing on the internet probably a week or two ago about some farmer in
Turkey who was plowing his field.
And there was some ceramic that came up.
So they started doing this huge dig over there.
And you don't think about that area being so much a part of everything.
Lots of history.
That's Galatia.
We read about the Galatians, we're talking about Ankara, Turkey.
And so there's a lot of Bible history right there.
And of course the Ephesus and those places.
Well this has been a pretty interesting first hour.
I hope we didn't make you just angry.
I hope we're challenging you to seek the truth.
There's a lot of work to be done.
But you know what?
Like your very first clip said over in Revelation 12, 17.
That group of people that has not existed for 1800 years.
That group that keeps the commandments of God and bears testimony to Yeshua.
God Himself is raising them up.
And we're watching it happen.
It's an amazing, an amazing thing.
And I know that you have been pretty amazed over the years getting to watch
that too.
I really have.
A lot of people are learning the truth.
The scripture I use is prove all things, hold fast that which is good.
We'll be right back.
Are you enjoying this Light of the Southwest episode?
Did you know you can order a copy of this or any Light of the Southwest program on
CD or DVD?
Simply call the GLC Bookstore with the program number to order your copy.
Call 432-563-5200 or toll free at 866-846-5200.
You can also order online at www.glc.us .com
Well, we are back with Richard Reeves.
And wow, that was a pretty powerful first hour you had there, bud.
A lot of information.
It's a lot to swallow.
This hour is going to be probably a little bit more challenging for most of us who
grew up in the church.
You know, we're going to share about the Sabbath this hour.
And I know that I have personally come under attack.
For the Sabbath and telling people it does start at sundown on Friday and it ends at
sundown on Saturday.
And why do I know that?
Because God gave the commandment and the Jewish people have been keeping it at the
same time ever since.
Well, that's exactly right.
All we got to do is go back in history to the first century and find out exactly
which day the Sabbath is.
A lot of people say you can't figure it out, but that's not true.
Because the Creator was here.
And He's the one who established Sabbath rest at the time of creation.
We're told that all things were created by Him and for Him.
Everything consists because of Him.
And so Jesus, Yeshua, was the Creator.
He's the one that worked six days and rested on the seventh day and made it a
holy day all the way back at the time of creation.
And so when we read what the New Testament tells us, and the fact that He said that
Moses wrote of Him and start putting it all together, it makes perfect sense.
And I'm pretty sure He kept the Sabbath when He walked the earth.
He sure did.
Sin is the transgression of the law according to 1 John 3, 4.
And so in order to be a sinless sacrifice, He had to rest on the seventh.
Seventh-day Sabbath.
He had to do it all right.
Just right, or He disqualified Himself.
Is there anything that you want to preface this next segment with?
This is a pretty long segment, but what was amazing to me, and I'll talk
about it in here, is that the whole known world during the first century was resting
on the Sabbath day.
Not just the Jewish people.
Even the barbarians were resting on the Sabbath day.
You remember when they went and preached at, I believe it was Antioch, and they
preached to the Jews, and it says the next Sabbath day the whole city wanted to come
here and preach.
Why was that?
They were not working on that day.
They were resting all over the whole known world.
And the historians Josephus and Philo tell us about that.
So that'll be included in this next segment here.
That's pretty amazing.
Are we ready to go with that?
We're ready.
Okay, we'll be back with you in just a little bit.
During the fourth century, a blend of paganism and the faith of the saints would
define Christianity in a way that the disciples would never have imagined.
In the year 306 A.D., Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus replaced his father
as emperor of the western portion of the empire.
Constantinus would later become known as Constantine the Great, the first Christian
emperor.
We know from history that Constantine, during his early life, is known to have
been a worshipper of the sun gods under the all-inclusive sun god title Sol
Invictus.
By the year 313, Constantine found himself in a position of authority and along with
Licinius, ruler of the eastern portion of the Roman Empire, he issued the Edict of
Milan, also known as the Edict of Toleration.
Basically, that edict declared that the empire would be neutral regarding all
forms of religious worship, making it possible for Christianity to be openly
practiced without persecution.
Shortly after that time, Constantine himself embraced what he and his advisers
perceived to be Christianity.
What most people are not aware of is that while professing Christ, Constantine
maintained his devotion to the sun god Sol Invictus, the all-inclusive title given to
the sun gods by Roman Emperor Aurelian some 30 years earlier.
Professing Christianity while practicing paganism, Constantine had the authority as
the ruler of the empire to define a new Christianity, not the faith once delivered
to the saints, but a new version of Christianity, lacking few aspects of pagan
ritual.
Defining his own faith, Constantine could have the best, or should we say the worst,
of both the pagan and Christian worlds.
The worship of the sun gods including Baal, Mithra, Apollo, and Helios,
all of which had come to be recognized as Deu Sol Invictus, God the Invincible Sun,
could easily be redefined as Christianity, thereby encompassing all the various
beliefs of the empire.
It was not the faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the
biblical Messiah, Yeshua, but rather a faith in the Lord of the Universe,
the One Supreme God.
While claiming to be a Christian, the coins of Constantine bore the image of
the pagan sun god, Sol Invictus, with an inscription stating his allegiance
to the Invincible Sun, the sun god of the pagans, not the god of the Bible.
Sol Invict tu comiti, my companion is the Invincible Sun.
The English word that describes what took place during the reign of Constantine is
syncretism, the reconciliation and fusion of differing systems of belief.
Constantine was a master syncretist, and what had become known as Christianity
offered everything he needed to form a religion that would accommodate all the
constituents of his empire.
During the reign of Constantine, there was a great deal of controversy
among Christians as to the proper time to remember the crucifixion of Christ.
According to the book of Leviticus, in the 14th day of the first month,
at even, is the Lord's Passover.
A church council was called in an attempt to resolve the issue.
The Council of Nicaea took place in the year 325 and was presided over by
Constantine.
Basically, what took place is that the council changed the date for the
observance of Passover from the biblically prescribed time to that now recognized as
Easter.
It was the decision of the Nicaean council that Passover would be observed on the
first Sunday after the full moon on or after the vernal equinox.
According to biblical timing, Passover could fall on any day of the week.
Based on the timing of the council, man's timing, Passover would always be
observed on Sunday.
Because of that, what is now recognized as Easter is often far from the biblically
prescribed time of Passover.
There is no indication that the early Christians celebrated Easter or a festival
by any other similar name.
The records of the Nicaean council speak of Passover and not Easter.
The 7th century Anglo-Saxon theologian, Venerable Bede, tells us that Easter is
just another name for Beltus or Ishtar of the ancient Babylonians.
And the worship of the fertility goddess can be traced all the way back to Hathor,
the cow goddess of Egypt.
It is important to consider the fact that Hathor and Aphis, the cow and bull gods of
Egypt, were directly associated with the building of the Golden Calf at Mount
Sinai.
Those folks also tried to associate aspects of paganism with the true worship
of the Creator.
Just as in the case of Easter, they declared a feast to the Lord,
to Yahweh, that had nothing to do with Him.
Well, He wanted to kill everybody and probably would have done so if Moses had
not interceded.
The respected Oxford English Dictionary informs us that the name Easter is derived
from the name of a goddess whose festival was celebrated at the vernal equinox and
that she was originally known as the Dawn Goddess.
No doubt the origin of sunrise celebrations at the time of Easter.
According to Venerable Bede, who lived some 600 years after the time of Christ,
the heathen Anglo-Saxons called the fourth month Easter month after their goddess,
Eostre.
He said that the name of the festival was transferred to the celebration of Christ's
resurrection when Anglo-Saxon and German heathens converted to Christianity.
Yes, it is common knowledge among historians, theologians, and linguists
that the word Easter is the translation of the name of a pagan fertility goddess.
Why won't they tell us?
One important consideration with a direct connection to pagan fertility rites is
Easter eggs.
The art of decorating eggs dates back to the spring rituals of pagan sun worship
thousands of years before the time of Christ.
The spring fertility goddess, by whatever name, was thought to have turned a bird
into a hare, thus the Easter bunny laying eggs.
No, Easter eggs have nothing to do with Jesus and everything to do with the
ancient goddesses and their symbols of spring fertility.
So how did the name Easter find its way into our Bibles?
Well, when Martin Luther wrote his German Bible, he substituted the name of a
Germanic fertility goddess in place of the word Passover in Acts 12.4.
The name of that goddess was Osterne.
Later, when William Tyndale translated the Bible into English, he picked up on Martin
Luther's usage of the name Osterne and placed the name Easter in his Bible,
the name of the spring fertility goddess that his English readers were familiar
with.
Up until the time of Tyndale and the King James Version of the Bible, those reading
Acts 12.4 in Greek, Latin, German, and other languages read the words that
conveyed the meaning of Passover and not Easter.
Now, I realize that in regard to Easter, there are those who would say,
but that is not what it means to me.
I've heard that hundreds of times.
The truth is, it really doesn't make any difference what it means to us.
The real question should be, what does it mean to our Creator?
The Old Testament is full of accounts of people who believe that they could combine
paganism with the worship of the God of the Bible.
We are told that our Creator considered that to be an abomination.
That's what it means to Him.
The Fourth Commandment tells us that we are to remember the Sabbath day to keep it
holy.
Is Sunday, the first day of the week, really the Christian Sabbath?
About 20 years ago, our Heavenly Father got my attention and opened my eyes to the
fact that Sunday is not the Biblical Sabbath.
I thought it was, but it's not.
It never has been and never will be.
Just as the Fourth Commandment states, the Sabbath day is the Sabbath of the
Lord.
Let's take a look at just who it was that instituted Sabbath rest in the beginning.
What does the New Testament have to say?
The book of John tells us that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was
with God and the Word was God.
We are told that the Word became flesh and dwelt among the disciples.
That the world was made by Him and that the world knew Him not.
Now if we really believe what the New Testament has to say, it was Yeshua,
Jesus Christ, who created all things in six days.
Therefore, it was Yeshua, Jesus Christ, who rested on the seventh day,
who blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
Today there are some who would tell us that the Fourth Commandment is,
in their opinion, just for the Jews.
But we must take into consideration the fact that Jesus pronounced the Sabbath day
to be holy thousands of years before Jewish people came onto the scene.
If it ever was holy, it still is.
Nowhere in the Bible are we instructed that the Sabbath day is no longer holy.
Just the opposite.
In fact, we are told that the Sabbath will continue to be observed, even in the
future, in the new heavens and the new earth.
The Sabbath, as stated in the Fourth Commandment, is a day of rest.
And in order to avoid the embarrassment of trying to explain why Christians should
disregard one of our Creator's commandments, many theologians do what I
call the Sabbath Sunday Shuffle.
When questioned about the Sabbath, they suddenly change the subject,
stating, We worship on Sunday because...
When questioned about Sabbath rest, they quickly change the subject to Sunday
worship.
If you want to see a preacher dance, just try it for yourself.
You will find that most will do anything possible to keep from talking about
Sabbath rest.
So how is it that Sunday became known as the Sabbath?
Well, on March 7, 321 A.D., Constantine the Great made it a law in the Roman
Empire that everyone was to rest on Sunday.
As the Roman Emperor, he decreed that all judges and city people and craftsmen shall
rest upon the venerable day of the sun, Day Solis.
As we have discussed, it is very important to understand that Constantine honored the
sun god, Sol Invictus, even after claiming he was a Christian.
At Day Solis, the day of the sun, Sunday is a reference to the worship of
the sun god, Sol Invictus, and nothing else.
Jesus never taught anyone to break the fourth commandment.
We find that at the time of the crucifixion, after Jesus was buried,
the women who came to the sepulcher rested the Sabbath day, according to the
commandment, before bringing spices to the tomb.
Now, if Jesus had instructed them that it was unimportant to observe the fourth
commandment, how in the world would they rest on the Sabbath day, according to the
commandment?
Now that's hard to explain.
History reveals that during the first century, the whole known world rested on
the Sabbath day.
Quoting Josephus, the well-respected first century historian, there is not any city
of the Grecians, nor any of the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever,
whether our custom of resting on the seventh day hath not come.
Another first century historian, Philo, said basically the same thing.
Speaking of eastern and western nations, Europe and Asia, and the whole inhabited
world, Philo asks, for what man is there who does not honor that sacred seventh
day, granting in consequence a relief and relaxation from labor, for himself and for
all those who are near to him, and that not to free men only,
but also to slaves, and even beasts of burden.
The whole inhabited world.
Here we see that during the first century, the time of Christ, the whole known world
was resting on the Sabbath.
Not just the Jews, but everyone.
In the book of Acts, we find the Apostle Paul speaking at a Jewish synagogue in
Antioch.
He tells us that when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles asked
that he preach to them the next Sabbath.
Why the next Sabbath?
These were Gentiles, yet the scripture tells us that the next Sabbath day,
almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God.
Why the next Sabbath?
The first century historians, Josephus and Philo, have told us why.
The people of Antioch did not have to work.
The whole known world was resting on the seventh day.
It becomes immediately apparent that it was not necessary to inform Gentile
converts to Christianity that they were supposed to keep the Sabbath.
They were already resting on that day all over the whole known world.
Some would tell us that Sabbath observance is an Old Testament precept, that it has
nothing to do with believers.
That is not what we find in the New Testament.
In reference to the future destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus told his disciples to
pray that they would not have to flee in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.
Now, these are believers that Jesus is speaking to about events that would take
place in the future.
If Sabbath rest was to be a thing of the past, why did Jesus speak of a future
Sabbath day as distinguished from other days of the week?
Now, that's hard to explain.
We've all heard the saying, when in Rome do as the Romans do.
Have you ever stopped to consider where that came from?
Well, at the end of the 4th century, almost 400 years after the time of Christ,
St. Augustine was given some advice by Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan.
When I am at Rome, I fast on Saturday.
When I am in Milan, I do not.
Follow the custom of the church where you are.
At the beginning of the 4th century, Pope Sylvester had ordered fasting on the
Sabbath, thereby turning a feast day into a fast day.
Pope Innocent made it a binding law about 100 years later.
During the 5th century, the historian Socrates tells us that almost all churches
throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries, or communion, on the Sabbath of
each week.
Yet the Christians of Alexandria and Rome, on account of some ancient tradition,
refused to do so.
When in Rome?
Yes, that saying which we are all familiar with has to do with Sabbath observance.
Yet we have been programmed to think of everything but the Sabbath when that
phrase is mentioned.
Nowhere in Scripture is the weekly Sabbath regarded as a day of fasting.
It is a feast day, the Holy of the Lord, a delight.
These are just a few examples of the fact that believers were keeping the Sabbath
day Sabbath hundreds of years after the time of Christ.
And there are many, many more.
Theologians simply write off those who believe in the validity of all Ten
Commandments as misguided believers, when in fact it is the theologians
themselves who are misguided.
They have been educated to the extent that they now deem the traditions of men more
important than the commandments of God.
That's not smart at all.
In regards to the seventh day, some would say, OK, we agree, all Ten
Commandments are valid.
But even if we wanted to keep the Sabbath, we cannot be sure what day that really is.
They say that calendars have changed and we just can't be sure.
The truth is there is nothing to prevent us from knowing which day of the week is
the Sabbath.
While calendars have changed, the order of the days of the week have stayed the same.
In 1582, the Gregorian calendar replaced a Julian calendar that had been in place
since 46 BC, the time of Julius Caesar.
Due to slight errors in the length of the Julian year, adjustments were made to
correct the calendar.
Even so, calendar changes did not affect the order of the days of the week.
All we have to do is trace the Sabbath back to the time of Jesus, which is easy
to do.
He certainly knew which day was the Sabbath.
He himself had instituted Sabbath rest at the time of creation.
While most Protestant denominations dismiss the validity of the Fourth
Commandment, the Catholic Church upholds it, with one exception.
They boldly claim the authority to change the day.
Here's what they teach regarding Sabbath observance.
Sunday is expressly distinguished from the Sabbath, which it follows chronologically
every week.
For Christians, its ceremonial observation replaces that of the Sabbath.
On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain
from engaging in work.
Here we see that the Catholic Church teaches that the obligation to rest on the
Sabbath day has been replaced with the obligation to rest on Sunday.
This particular Roman Catholic belief can be traced directly to Constantine's decree
mandating rest on Sunday.
All judges, city people, and craftsmen shall rest on the venerable day of the
sun.
In 363, the Sonata of Laodicea made it official.
Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day,
rather honoring the Lord's day.
And if they can, resting as Christians.
But if any shall be found to be Judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.
By the year 381, almost 70 years after Constantine's soldiers had placed a sign
of the cross on their shields, paganism was still being practiced side by
side with Christianity, making it hard to tell the difference between the two.
We know from history that Theodosius, the Christian emperor at that time,
decided to do something about it.
The laws of the Christian Roman Empire that were established by Theodosius are
recorded in a document known as the Theodosian Code.
That code states, on the Lord's day, which is the first day of the week,
on Christmas and the days of Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost, believers will be
occupied with the worship of God.
Those who follow this law we command shall be comprised under the name of Catholic
Christians.
But others indeed we require as insane and raving, to bear the infamy of heretical
teachings.
Their gatherings shall not receive the name of churches.
They are to be smitten first with the divine judgment, and after that,
by the vengeance of our indignation.
Now, before we move on, I would like to make one thing very clear.
It was not the Catholic Church that taught me to disregard the Fourth Commandment.
It was the Protestant Church.
Scores of books have been written documenting the Catholic Church's
involvement with substituting Sunday in place of the seventh-day Sabbath.
They don't deny it.
They say that the Catholic Church has the authority to make that change,
and they are proud of it.
Catholic theologians are honest about it.
It's the Protestant theologians who are in denial.
The majority of the Protestant Reformers did nothing to address the substitution of
Sunday in place of the Sabbath.
And today's Protestant theologians are ashamed to admit it.
Most will do anything to avoid an honest and in-depth discussion about rest on the
seventh day.
Most attempt to change the subject to Sunday worship as fast as they can.
Yes, God has said to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
And just as the first century believers that walked in talk with Christ,
millions of believers around the world are still remembering the Sabbath day.
It is not some bad thing that was nailed to the cross.
It is a delight, the holy of the Lord.
I was amazed when I learned these things.
You know, I didn't know this for years and years.
And what's so sad is that theologians know these things and they won't tell people.
You know, it is.
It's absolutely heartbreaking when you think how deceived we've been and how far
away we are from the truth.
You know, the first time that I went to Israel, which is actually when I went into
that little altar thing there at Caesarea Maritim.
That's really when things really started hitting me about the truth of this.
Well, the Lord himself had told me just a few months before I went that he wanted me
to start keeping the Sabbath.
I heard it in my spirit, right?
I didn't question him.
I knew what he was talking about.
I knew.
And it changed my life.
That was 2002.
You know, the Sabbath is a delight.
That's what the Scriptures tell us.
And if people would just start keeping the Sabbath, it would be a wonderful thing.
We're told that his commandments are not grievous.
He didn't tell us to rest on the Sabbath day to be mean to us or give us some bad
thing.
It's for our own good.
It's a day when we can rest and think about him.
And I'm sure there's some health benefits to it as well that people are not aware
of.
There's a lot of things we don't understand, but it's always to our
advantage to do what God says.
Well, it is.
And, you know, he wants us to be obedient to him just because we love him.
It doesn't mean that we're going to understand everything before we do it.
You know, if you have to understand all of the aspects, the benefits or whatever of
doing something that God tells you to do, how is that obedience?
That's just my will.
And our will needs to be... and the Sabbath is a great example.
Because I had no idea what a blessing it was going to be to me in so many ways.
I had no idea how many times in Scripture, Scripture that I had read all my life.
He's talking about the Sabbath, the blessings of keeping the Sabbath and
the mark that's on you.
Well, it says the Sabbath is a sign between him and his people that they'll
know that he's the God that sanctifies them.
In this video we've been looking at, there's all kind of gods.
There's Helios and Apollo and Zeus and Baal and all these different gods.
So how do we know which God it is that's the real creator?
That's the one in the Bible.
And one of the ways we know it is because of the Sabbath.
He's the one that created all things, rested on the seventh day and hallowed it.
And it's a sign between him and his people that they'll know he's who the creator is.
And Richard, were you hanging around with me when the ministerial alliance of Odessa
and Midland came against us for the very thing?
That would have been 97, 98.
I might remember a little bit about that.
Tell us the story.
Well, they just didn't like this Jewish thing.
They got up a petition, all of them, and signed it.
And went to the cable companies hoping they could take us off the air.
Well, that's federal law.
It wasn't a city law.
But it was a great thing.
They told people, stop watching us.
And we picked up lots of new viewers.
You know, the Sabbath has been observed since the time of creation, before anybody
ever heard of Jewish people.
Everybody says, well, you got the Christian Sabbath on Sunday and the Jewish
Sabbath on Saturday.
It's not the Christian Sabbath or the Jewish.
It's God's Sabbath.
Established a long time before anybody ever heard of Jews or Christians.
It's just another form of replacement theology.
And that's what they were so mad about.
Well, I think what's interesting about it is that Constantine and all of these
things that happened in history actually managed to accomplish for the enemy what
had been happening prior to Yeshua with the conquerors that came into Israel.
They conquered... anybody conquers a Jewish people, there's three things that
they put a stop to immediately and you will lose your life.
The first one is the Sabbath.
You keep it, you're dead.
Keeping kosher, God's dietary laws, they're not Jewish dietary laws,
and circumcision.
That's right.
Well, of course, circumcision is one of the things that started the Maccabean
revolt.
You know, Israel was right there between the Ptolemy and the Seleucus, the
different empires that came to be after Alexander the Great died.
It was split up into four parts and they were right there in between all that.
And, of course, when the Syrian empire, the Seleucid empire, took over,
that's when Antiochus IV came along.
And, you know, you couldn't keep the Sabbath, you couldn't circumcise,
they would kill mothers for having their children circumcised.
Oh, it was worse than that.
They would kill the baby and hang the baby around the mother's neck until it rotted
off and then kill the mother.
Right.
There's a lot of mean folks out there.
One thing...
There still are.
There still are a lot of mean folks.
But there's a lot of good folks, too, that don't know what we're talking
about.
And all we want to do is check it out.
A lot of people think that we're... the first thing people try to do is say we're
talking about salvation by way of works.
And we need to make it plain over and over again.
We're saved by grace through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast.
There's no commandment that we can keep that will save us.
But once we are saved by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can live according to His
commandments and do what He says.
And we should want to.
The scripture that I always point out to people is we're told in 1 John 3,
4 that sin is the transgression of the law.
And, of course, we know that the wages of sin is death.
And we're told in Romans that Jesus died to pay the penalty for sins that are past.
He didn't die so we can keep breaking God's commandments.
That's what the Holy Spirit is all about.
The scriptures tell us that the carnal mind is enmity or hatred against God,
for it is not subject to His law, neither indeed can it be.
So not only did He lay down His life to pay the death penalty for our past sins,
He sends us the Holy Spirit of promise, the earnest of our inheritance,
to empower us to keep those commandments.
And it's not that we don't mess up, but if we confess our sins, He's faithful
and just to forgive us our sins.
And cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
But we cannot practice sin.
There's plenty of New Testament scripture that backs that up.
It tells us that if we sin willfully, once we've come to the knowledge of the
truth, there's no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of
judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversary.
And it concludes by saying it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God.
You know, Paul talked about it over and over again.
He said, do we make void the law that grace may abound?
God forbid.
Yea, we establish the law.
So the believers of the first century kept the commandments of God.
And then by the end of the first century and the Romans had destroyed Jerusalem and
scattered the people like we talked about in 135 when Hadrian made a pagan city on
the ruins of Jerusalem.
People stopped keeping those commandments.
But there's always been a faithful remnant all the way out through history that's
kept the commandments of God and had the faith of Yeshua, Jesus.
And so we're not preaching salvation by way of works.
We're just saying that once we are saved by the power of the Holy Spirit,
we can keep those commandments.
They're for our own good and their delight.
I don't think in this hour that we have addressed your books because you've got a
lot of hunters out there.
Hunters are men who hunt across the channels.
And you need to talk about your books.
Alright, this is my first little book.
It's entitled Too Long in the Sun.
It traces pagan sun worship from the time of the Chaldeans to the Assyrians,
the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and right on
through present day.
This is pretty much a classic.
A lot of people have learned about these things through this book.
It's been a best seller over the years.
And then my latest book is called Time is the Ally of Deceit.
And it picks up pretty much in the Roman Empire and gives a lot of documentation
and details.
I have an extensive index in the back of the book.
So when people ask us about these things, we can look it right up and go to the
details.
And there's footnotes on every page that gives the history references on each page.
And so it's a good reference book.
And then I produce five DVDs, one DVD for each chapter of the book.
And so when I talk about these places, I take you on site when I can and show you
the actual places and the documentation is in the DVD.
And you have these in your bookstore.
And then what we're watching right now is a one hour summary of what's in that six
hours of video.
I can't give all the documentation, but it tells the story in a kind way.
At least that's what I intended.
So that people can see the summary and start to think about these things.
If they want the details, it's in the other material.
Okay, Too Long in the Sun and Time is the Ally of Deceit.
The book and the DVD set, you can get those at the GLC bookstore.
We'll probably also have this last one, Half God Said, the summary edition.
But we're really encouraging you to partner with Richard Reeves.
And you can go onto his website.
The information is on the screen.
What he is doing with that is he's trying to get that into your hands so that you
can get the information out.
And for $25, he'll send you 10 copies of that to get out.
So we really encourage you to do that.
A lot of people all over the world, we're sending them out everywhere.
And it's making sense to some people.
But once again, I don't ask people to believe me.
But I do plead with them and beg them just to look at the things we talk about.
Check them out for yourself.
Just go to the local library and look up Sabbath, Christmas, Easter.
It's right there in the encyclopedias.
And I was amazed and I think people will be too.
I think when this program airs, we'll probably run a special in the
bookstore.
So I have to talk to the bookstore about that.
But you can call the bookstore and you can find out what that special is going to be.
And I'm sure it will be posted online too.
But it is so important that this information get out.
It's amazing because it so ties to everything that GLC does.
What do you got?
I'd like to recommend this book over all of them right here.
This is the only book we really need.
We carry that one too.
But this is the book we need to read.
And we need to start at the very beginning in the book of Genesis and read all the
way through.
And it'll tell us the whole story.
So this is the book we need right here.
How much has the Bible helped you in your archaeology studies?
Oh, the archaeology proves the Bible true over and over and over again.
We've been talking about Caesarea.
One of the best examples is the Pontius Pilate inscription there.
And a good friend of mine is the one that discovered that.
For years and years, they said that you could prove the Bible is not true because
nobody found inscriptions or any references to Pontius Pilate.
And he was in charge of the excavations there at the Roman theater.
And they found the inscription that said, Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea.
Not Palestine, but Judea.
And so he found the inscription.
And that's just one example.
Over and over again, archaeology confirms the biblical record.
We knew it was true.
But these things, I hope that people will realize that and then look at the rest of
it.
So the archaeology work is to get people to take another look, dust their Bibles
off and take another look.
And to really look at it.
And I know last night we were discussing a site that is in, maybe Jordan?
But it was Jerash we were talking about.
No, that's not the one.
Pella or Petra.
But you said, it cannot be because.
This is what the Bible says.
Boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo.
And he just lined it all out.
It's like, this is your ultimate source.
And it's like, if the word says that this is where it is, it gives this description.
That's got to be where it is.
Exactly.
This is right.
If this is not right, we're in bad trouble.
We are in bad trouble.
And it is right.
So we're not in bad trouble if we go by it.
And if we think that there's anything in there that contradicts itself,
that's our problem.
Because it doesn't.
We know that everything, we've learned that everything is based on those first
five books of the Bible, collectively known as the Torah.
All the prophets, all the writings, everything ties to that.
Guess what?
The New Testament's commentary.
And guess what?
You can't understand Revelation without those first five books either.
We've done a lot of archaeological work.
The story of the Hittites is another thing.
People said they hadn't ever found Hittite civilization.
I do some work in Turkey and there was a professor by the name of Ekrem Akurgal
that found vast Hittite civilization.
And we know now that they were allies with the Egyptians.
And so, you know, just over and over and everywhere you dig in Israel, it just
keeps proving the Scriptures are true.
I know that the digs around Jerusalem are just phenomenal.
They're absolutely phenomenal, the things that they are proving.
And it's no wonder that...
Can I show you a little clip?
Yes, please.
We have a little clip of our excavations in Jerusalem.
We still have a little conclusion on this, but can I show you a little short clip of
what we're doing in Jerusalem?
Please.
Well, they're not quite ready yet.
Okay, now.
Okay, here we go.
I'm going to try to give you a little tour of the southern passageway.
I'm probably about halfway in, leading back to the defensive wall,
is what I call it, because it has windows or airports in it.
Coming up over a little hill here.
And then, right here, I'm kneeling down on top of a semicircular man-made wall.
You can see a little of the glow.
I'll try to get my light up here.
You can see a little bit of the glow from the excavation in there.
But I'll go down here.
I'll turn back around now.
And as you can see, that's a man-made wall.
Kind of a semicircular that goes up over that hump that I just came up over there
in the cave.
Let's see if I can zoom here just a little bit so you can see.
And you can see it's a man-made area.
If we spin on around here to the left, there's passageways that lead way back in
there.
And David's down in there now.
I think you can see a little bit of his light flashing there.
I think I saw his light flashing just a minute ago.
Yeah, there he is.
He's coming back out now.
What'd you see, David?
Well, it goes back quite a way, and then it dead-ends with rock.
But all the way back to the back, you can still see quarry marks.
I mean, through some of the tighter stuff.
So evidently the floor is much deeper in here.
This is all cave-in or fill.
If you're seeing quarry marks, they had to bring it out.
And there's no way they could have gotten it out with it the way it was.
So I guess the logical assumption is that the floor was much deeper, and this is a
lot of fill.
Well, to get a better idea when we start excavating down the wall up here...
And I was just talking to the camera here about this semicircular wall that we know
has to be man-made.
And so evidently there's no telling how tall that is, so we'll have to try to
determine that.
As we excavate down, we may find that that's the top of a wall that may be 10 or
15 feet high.
We just don't really know at this point.
All the way back up to where we were, you can start to see some of our work
lights back up in here.
It's getting pretty low in here.
I'm going to do a little crawling around.
There's Sherry.
What do you got, Sherry?
I'm supposed to brush down there?
Yeah, the wall.
They're starting on the wall up at the top.
Work from the top down and start cleaning and looking for pottery in the wall.
Now we're back up to the area where we're working.
We're starting by taking this down so we can work.
There's a plate that you can switch on.
We have 5 or 6 big filling buckets and then we pass them up, probably 50 or 75
feet up to an area up the hill here.
I'm going through the opening in the wall now to give you an idea about what we're
having to do.
A lot of hard work.
I'm going to go up the line here a little bit.
Made sandbag steps.
Kangaroo.
Whatever they end up getting in the trailer.
A roadkill kangaroo.
Buckets being thrown back down.
And then this is where we're dumping back over in this area.
And then I think I'll just keep on going and take you on back over to the other
area.
Steve.
Steve, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
It's nice to hear all these southern accents.
My God, I don't hear that in a long time.
I'm from L.A.
Lower Alabama.
So tell me about you.
I'm just a student at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Just a student.
I think that sounds more important than just a student.
Very interesting.
Thank you, sir.
We'll talk later.
Alright, we're going to keep on going with the tour here.
I'm going to kind of try to keep the camera going and take you on a complete
tour.
We're going to climb it up, probably 20 or 30 feet here, up steps that we've made.
And then we'll keep on going.
What have we got going on?
Sandbagging, making stairwells, and checking out the progress.
Alright.
What do you think so far?
Feels great.
Made some steps.
They look good.
Alright, take that thing off so we can see your face.
There you go.
How about you?
You got it all under control?
I would say he's the supervisor, but he's been working too hard for that.
He's been handling these heavy sandbags like a muscle man here.
What do you think so far?
It's great.
What do you like the best?
Too easy.
No.
What's your best fun job?
I guess all of them.
All of it.
Alright.
Okay.
Alright, I'm going to keep on going with my camera tour here.
And work my way back down to the bigger room over here where we were working
yesterday.
And as you can see, we've made sandbag steps down through here.
And we're going down probably 15 feet right here.
Work our way down.
You can almost stand up in this area.
And then we get into the big room down here.
And I would say this is probably 50 by 75 feet.
And this is where we've been filling the sandbags from this area right here.
You can see this loose material.
This is where we've been making sandbags for the steps.
And then you can hear the jackhammer back over here.
Yesterday we were working in this open passageway.
And as we were moving material, we had some big stones to roll out.
So we had to kind of scramble and run for it there.
And most of it's been removed now.
We're jackhammering all the big rocks.
You can see what we've piled up here that has come out of that passageway or
opening.
Evidently this led into a big room.
And what's happening is it's all caved in in there.
And we can see up about, I would say, 25 feet.
And we see large...
Wow!
It gives you a little idea of what's going on over there.
We really are doing a lot of work.
It's a lot of hard work.
And we use volunteers from all over the world.
It's amazing what goes on under the ground that you have no clue about.
Where we're at.
Well, this is under Mount Moriah.
This is under the Temple Mount, under the Old City of Jerusalem.
First Century Jerusalem is about 25 to 30 feet underground in that area.
And we're below that.
And so there's passageways leading in every different direction.
According to Jewish legend, and also according to the man I work with,
some of the Temple treasures are thought to have been taken out during the
Babylonian siege and hidden.
Because when the Babylonians got the city in 586, they didn't get certain of the
Temple treasures.
And so there's no telling what's down there.
Even maybe the Ark?
Even maybe the Ark.
Yes, sir.
So we've got a lot of work.
Where I am right now is, I mean, the bottom line is it's going to take more
money to move this material than I've ever had.
And so we're working on the shoring designs now.
And if anybody out there is listening and wants to help us, we can sure use some
help.
I was asking you, where did all these people come from?
Well, they come from all around the world.
Our other website, if people want to look at this, is www.wyattmuseum.com.
www.wyattmuseum.com.
And the other one is www.toolong.com, T-O-O-L-O-M-G.com.
And so people know about what we're doing all over the world, and we use volunteers.
You're basically very near the entrance to the Damascus Gate.
Is that correct?
Well, you go into Zedekiah's Cave or King Solomon's Quarries between Damascus Gate
and Herod's Gate.
And then once we get in there, then we drop down again into an area most
people don't know anything about.
No, I don't.
Never heard of it.
It's just so intriguing that all of this stuff is down there.
And coming out now.
Yeah, and that now is the time that God is choosing to prove Himself once again.
Wow.
The thing I think about all the time is we're reading the Old Testament about all
the miracles and things that took place.
But we're seeing miracles ourselves.
I think things are really happening.
And I know you cover the news on God's Learning Channel.
The real news, Richard.
The real news.
And a lot of things are going on.
I think about all the people we read about in the Bible.
But what's going on now, we're just as responsible to do what we can do with it
as those people we read about in the Bible.
It's our time.
It's our day and time.
And we've got to do what we can do now.
And that's what I'm interested in is sharing these things with people that,
just like me, have no idea what's happened to us.
Well, that's really the burden on our heart.
It's like, we know because you can feel it.
Everybody can feel it.
And it doesn't matter if you're Christian or Jewish, you know the Messiah is coming.
Even the Muslims are looking for theirs.
You can feel the spiritual happening around the world.
And, you know, I think about standing before a perfect king who suffered a great
deal just so that I could have salvation.
And I don't think there's enough that we can do here at GLC to tell people the
truth, whether they want to hear it or not.
Whether we're going to catch a lot of flack, whether they threaten to pull
support, it really doesn't make any difference.
Our king is coming.
We must be prepared.
We must be willing to turn away from things that are an abomination to him and
embrace what's real.
And been in the sun too long.
Yep.
And so, you know what?
I know it's no accident that the Lord has brought you back to GLC for such a time as
this, actually.
And we're really, really pleased about that.
Thank you for inviting me.
And I encourage people to support God's Learning Channel.
You're telling the whole story.
You watch it, don't you?
I watch it.
And you're telling the whole story.
In Tennessee.
You find one-sided things here and there, but I believe you put the whole story out
there and let people make their own decisions.
Today, everybody wants to tell us how to think.
And that's not what we're supposed to do.
We're just supposed to provide information for people to let them think for
themselves.
But that's what's going on in a lot of the churches.
People are telling folks how they ought to think.
And that's what happened to me.
And I just encourage them to check it out with the Bible and start questioning
things.
And I believe folks will be surprised by what they find out.
They're telling people how to think.
They're presenting the Messiah as fire insurance without the discipleship.
And we've got like two minutes left in this program.
And I'm just thinking, you know, even you.
I said, what about the rapture?
What do you think about the rapture?
And what was your response?
You gave me a scripture.
Well, it says immediately after the tribulation of those days.
You know, so some things are going to happen.
Some bad things are coming along.
And that's when the Son of Man is going to be revealed after the tribulation of those
days.
A lot of people think that we're just going to escape all that stuff,
but we better be living for Him so He can take care of us.
And we're pretty well in agreement that, you know what, if we're wrong about that,
hey, good, we're out.
We hope we're wrong about that.
We're not, but I would be glad to be totally wrong about that.
But bottom line is, that's another area that we feel like we have to tell the
truth about that, you know.
We could make a lot of money just tickling your ears and making you happy and keeping
you believing what you're believing.
The Scripture says, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake.
And that's what's going on.
Teachers, people have itching ears and people are telling them what they want to
hear.
That's not good for us.
It's not good for us.
And it's quite the little path of destruction that the world is going down
right now.
And unfortunately, many parts of the church.
So, you know what, our Messiah is definitely coming.
It's time to clean up our act and get ready.
But that's what makes the difference with GLC and all the other broadcast stations,
Secular or Christian.
And you're out there.
Do you agree with that?
I agree with it.
Thank you for being a part of GLC through the years and thank you for supporting us.
Be sure and call the bookstore, find out what the special is, go online,
get his products, come out.
And be sure to go on Richard's website, wyattmuseum.com, for one, to see about
getting involved in the archaeological stuff.
And just keeping up with it.
And toolong.com to partner with him on some of the work he's doing.
We love you.
We will see you again.
Thank you, Richard.
It's great to have you here.
This program is brought to you exclusively by the love, gifts, and offerings of our
faithful partners.
Thank you, partners.
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