Gilbert House Fellowship

GOD PROMISED that the tears and fasting of the Jews who'd returned to Jerusalem would be turned to joyous feasting. Then we turn to prophecies of God's judgment against the unrepentant nations on the Day of Yahweh. We analyze Zechariah's references to specific places, such as Tyre, Sidon, Greece, Damascus, Lebanon, and Bashan, a clear prophecy of Judas Iscariot, and a mysterious "worthless shepher...

A FLYING SCROLL, a woman named Wickedness, other women with wings like storks, and four chariots pulled by red, black white, and dappled horses continue the fascinating vision of the prophet Zechariah. Picking up from his vision of the "two anointed ones" last week, we discuss the link between the flying scroll and the one unsealed by the Lamb in Revelation 6. We speculate on the significance of t...

WE OPEN 2019 with a study of two of the shorter prophetic chapters of the Old Testament, but they are rich with multiple layers of meaning — messages that point forward to the end times, but also back to Babel and the spirits behind it. We discuss the Angel of Yahweh, another appearance in scripture of the Second Power of Heaven; the symbolism of Joshua, the first high priest of the remnant that r...

NOT SURPRISINGLY, the exiles who returned to Jerusalem in 538 B.C. got discouraged pretty quickly and left off rebuilding the Temple. About eighteen years later, in 520 B.C., God sent the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to encourage the people to get busy. Somewhat surprisingly, the people listened! We discuss the prophetic aspects of the messages given to Haggai and Zechariah, and compare them to t...

THE PROPHESIED return of the exiles from Babylon is the focus of our study today. Under the leadership of Zerbbabel, who led the first group back to Jerusalem in 538 B.C., and with the encouragement of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. We discuss the return of the people and the overwhelming emotions of the elders who wept when they saw the foundation of the new...

PHYSICAL RESURRECTION is an aspect of Bible prophecy that's not often discussed. Today, we link Daniel 12:2-3 to Isaiah 26:13-19, Ezekiel 39:11, Matthew 27:52-53, and 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 to show how the prophets and apostles understood not only that we will be physically resurrected someday, but that the Rephaim -- i.e., the spirits of the Nephilim (yes, them again) -- will be "blocked" from th...

THE END of the 11th chapter of Daniel reads like a prophecy of the wars of Antichrist. Since the first 35 verses of that chapter are a prophecy of wars that were over the Holy Land in the two centuries before the birth of Jesus, concluding with Antiochus IV and his abomination of desolation, this analysis makes some sense. We revisit last week's study of Daniel 11:1-35, and then spend the rest of...

THIS WEEK, we dig into one of the most historically dense sections of scripture. It's especially fascinating because the history recorded here was written in advance. Daniel was shown a vision of the wars that would rage across the land formerly held by Israel during the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. Kingdoms established by two of Alexander's gen...

IT'S NO WONDER Daniel was so distressed by the visions we discuss this week that he "lay sick for some days." Our study this week focuses on the vision of the coming of Alexander the Great and Antiochus Epiphanes, a precursor and type of the Antichrist, and the famous "seventy weeks" prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 which includes the prophecy to the "abomination of desolation" (Daniel 9:27) used by Jes...

WHILE POLITICS hasn't changed much in the last 2,500 years, we're thankful that today being "thrown to the lions" is just a figure of speech. In Daniel's day, it was apparently an effective method for disposing of political enemies. Unless, of course, God had other plans. This week, we discuss the famous story of Daniel in the lion's den, and then we move on to the prophetic section of the book to...

TODAY WE discuss the fall of Babylon. It wasn't just divine punishment for the hubris of King Belshazzar; this was a smackdown in the spirit realm. Interestingly, the target of God's wrath wasn't Marduk, city-god of Babylon and head of the Mesopotamian pantheon, it was the moon-god, Sîn. Belshazzar's father, Nabonidus, was the king of Babylon in 539 B.C., but he'd been living at Teima, an oasis in...

THIS WEEK'S study in the book of Daniel gives us a window into the polytheistic world of ancient Mesopotamia. Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean king of Babylon, had personal encounters with Yahweh, the God of Israel. He witnessed the power of God as He saved Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego from the fiery furnace. We explain why the giant golden statue was probably an image of Marduk, the chief god of B...

End times prophecy are the focus of this week's study as we conclude the Book of Joel and begin our study of Daniel. We explain why the third chapter of Joel confirms that the battle of Armageddon will be fought at Jerusalem, and we analyze the first dream of Nebuchadnezzar recorded in the Book of Daniel. We also discuss some of the historic and cultural context of the time in which Daniel lived,...

WE CONCLUDE our study of Ezekiel and move on to the apocalyptic prophecy of Joel this week. Here's a hint: The soldiers of Joel's Army are the bad guys. We discuss Ezekiel's prophecy of the division of the land among the twelve tribes of Israel, and then we analyze Joel's prophecy of the coming judgment on the Day of Yahweh (the Day of the Lord) and explain why we believe Joel's prophecy is anothe...

GOD PROMISED to extinguish a cult of the dead that had defiled the Temple. This is one of the surprising things we find in our study of Ezekiel this week, in which the prophet continues with his detailed instructions for a future Temple complex, the land around it, and the calendar of feasts. In chapter 43, Ezekiel's description of the return of the glory of God to the temple includes His condemna...

DID EZEKIEL see John the Revelator, or at least his supernatural guide? That's one of the interesting questions raised by Ezekiel's vision of a new temple in Jerusalem. We discuss the need for the Third Temple, given that the new Jerusalem will not have temple in it (see Rev. 21:22), when this temple might be raised, and some of the differences between the temple in Ezekiel's vision and the one bu...

THE INVASION of Israel led by Gog of Magog is the war to end all wars. This week, we back up to Ezekiel 39:1 and discuss the entire chapter to explain why this war ends with the Battle of Armageddon. We also dig deeper into the description of the hordes of Magog to show why the "fat beasts of Bashan" are the old gods, the Watchers (i.e., the Titans of Greek mythology), and their demigod progeny, t...

WE CONTINUE our study of the war of Gog and Magog. To reiterate, Gog will not be a Russian leader. We explain why we should be looking at supernatural north, not a compass point. Ezekiel, like Isaiah, recognized that the great enemy of God would come from yarkete tsaphon, Mount Zaphon -- the mountain on which the pagan neighbors of ancient Israel believed the palace of Baal was located. We also di...

THE MYSTERY of the identities of Gog and his minions has been the subject of debate for more than 2,500 years. We tackle it in this week's Bible study. In a nutshell, we arrive at these conclusions: * When he named Persia, Cush, and Put along with a coalition of smaller nations from the north, Ezekiel was actually prophesying that the entire world will come against Israel in the end times. * Gomer...

EZEKIEL'S FAMOUS vision of the valley of dry bones has a deeper secondary meaning -- a message for a supernatural audience that had conned Israel's pagan neighbors into believing their ancestors were divine and could return to the land of the living. God's message, here and elsewhere (for example, the raising of Lazarus), was not just that He would restore Israel to the land, but that a resurrecti...

THE ROLE and responsibility of a watchman opens this week's study. But beyond the burden watchmen carry for sounding the alert when enemies approach is a deeper sense of the word, a meaning rooted in the similarity of the Aramaic and Hebrew words for "Watcher" (Strong's H5894) and "city" (Strong's H5982), which is a place guarded by a watch. We discuss the implications of this parallel (see Isaiah...

NEPHILIM IN the Book of Ezekiel? Possibly, yes! We continue our study of one of the most amazing sections of scripture this week with another condemnation of the divine rebel from Eden, the spirit of chaos (Leviathan), and the "chiefs of the gibborim," the mighty men who have gone down to the pit, to the "midst of Sheol," and we explain why Ezekiel 32:27 may actually be a reference to the Nephilim...

JUST AS God used the king of Tyre to represent His judgment against the rebel from Eden, the "anointed guardian cherub," He used the pharaoh of Egypt to describe His judgment against the spirit of chaos, which was represented by the sea monster Leviathan. Here are the verses that describe the conflict between God and chaos: * Genesis 1:2 ("deep" is the Hebrew tehom, a cognate for Akkadian temtum,...

ONE OF the most cryptic and fascinating sections in the entire Bible is the focus of our study this week: On the surface, it's a message from God to the Prince of Tyre, who, at the time of Ezekiel, was a man named Ithobaal III. However, it's clear from the context that this was really directed at the divine rebel from Eden. We discuss the location of Tyre and why the "heart of the seas" was more l...

SHOCKING LANGUAGE intended to wake up the people of Judah kicks off our study of Ezekiel this week. Through the prophet, God compared the pagan practices of the nations to lewd behavior, and Ezekiel didn't soften the language at all. God also had harsh words for Ammon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines before turning His attention to the Phoenician city-state of Tyre. We explain why this wasn't a si...