
Loading summary
Mondo Gonzalez
The Week in Bible Prophecy, a Prophecy Watchers podcast.
Bill Salus
Behind us, you'll see up here is our Colorado conference, June 4th through 7th. So we encourage you to join us live in Colorado. It's going to be a great time. Colorado Springs is one of my favorite places to go, especially in June. It's beautiful there. A couple years ago we got snowed out, surprisingly in June. But join us there. You can go to prophecywatchers.com and, and check it out and get all the information about the conference as well as the speakers. And also we have another prophecy conference going to Alaska. So if you've ever wanted to go to Alaska, you can join us in August for that. La Marzulli is going to be there. Myself, Billy Crone, Larry Ollison, you might know he speaks at our conferences as well as Matt Freeman and I believe Ken Michael is going to be joining us too. So you can again find information about that@the prophecywash.com website. Scroll down, you can see the banner. And then of course, in the future, keep us in mind for December 10th through the 13th, which is in Branson, Missouri. We're coming back to Branson. Beautiful, beautiful area. They have a decorated allout for Christmas. It's, it's pretty phenomenal. Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Mondo Gonzalez
I'm definitely looking forward to all of them. So going to be good times. Well, look, let's get into this. We had some questions submitted to us and I'll, I'll start with the first one and what your take is on it. So we had Michael, he submitted this question and this is his question. He says, I'm wondering about the building of the third temple and the burnt offering of Red Heer. Is it the Antichrist that the Jewish people will receive as the long awaited Messiah who gives him permission to build this new temple and reinstate the sacrificial offerings again? And, and that being said, does this start at the start of the tribulation or, or is the temple already built by the beginning of the tribulation? And does prophecy reveal when and what is happening with what's going on with the next temple?
Bill Salus
So the I'll give the kind of the short answer first. Is that what we know from Scripture is that all we know is that the third temple is in existence at the midpoint of the tribulation, the 70th week of Daniel because of Matthew 24:15, where, and Daniel 9:27, where Jesus says when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, that's, that's a very specific phraseology referring to a physical temple. So that's all we know. So we don't know the temple could have been there for 10 years, could have been there for three months. We don't know exactly the timing. We just know that by the middle of the, of the seventh week of Daniel, according to Daniel 9:27, in the middle of the week he stops the sacrifices and offerings. So that implies that they have at least been going on. So in that sense there isn't a timing factor. But I do, I have the view that in Daniel 9:27 that when, when it says he shall confirm or he shall actually literally in Hebrew it says he will cause to prevail the covenant for the many, for, for a week, for this seven year period. And then in the middle of the week he stops it. So I think that's in reference to the. And so in that regard, when the Antichrist comes on the scene, he's going to cause to prevail for the many. It's very clear la ravim in Hebrew for the Jewish people. So I think that's really when he establishes that I think in the land of Israel that is going to be, I think the point where maybe the temple's there before, we don't know, but that's going to be where he's going to have some sort of influence, where that Mosaic system, the laws, the temple requirements. Because when you ask about the temple, all the regulations, that's in the law of Moses, so that's the covenant, it's in the Mosaic covenant. So when he does that, he's going to cause it to prevail. And I think for the Jewish people, so that's going to be broad. And so that being the case, the question comes back to, you know, is he going to be the one that gives it permission somehow he's going to have some influence in whatever that means. Does that, does he have a political position? It seems that he does in some way that he is able to. A religious position. So the other question, well, I want to get back to the red heifer, so don't let us get off that. But let me just say that the holy place is not necessarily only related to the temple because the tabernacle, remember the tabernacle came first and there was the holy of holies in the holy place there. So some people theorize that when he comes along, the first thing that's going to come up, boom, they're going to put up a tabernacle and then they'll build a Permanent structure after that. Because we do know in second Thessalonians 2 that it does say temple, which is mao in Greek. So it's not the tabernacle, it's not the tent. He's definitely dwelling in there. And then we also see in Revelation 11 that measure the temple and those that worship there. So you see that aspect. So when will it come? Somehow in the thing, I think it'll come post rapture. I think it'll come after he causes the covenant, the Mosaic covenant to prevail, and that'll set them permission. I think the other thing too is the mention of the red heifer is the language is very technical here. Because first of all, the red heifer is not a burnt offering. In Leviticus chapter 1, you see the kind of the descriptions of the burnt offering. But in numbers 19, where you see the red heifer show up, it's not considered a burnt offering. And here's why. Well, mono. But isn't the red heifer burnt? Yeah, it is burnt, but a burnt offering is burnt on the altar. And so this is why many of the rabbis today will say quite clearly that the red heifer is not a sacrifice. And actually some of them will get really upset, like you Christians. You guys don't even know what you're talking about. It's not a sacrifice. So it's not. It's not a sacrifice. It is a ceremonial offering which is burnt, but it's not a burnt offering because it happens outside of the camp. And so in this regard too, with what's happening there, according to Rabbinic tradition, which is not in the Bible, it happens, it has to happen on the Mount of Olives because that's what happened in the first century when they wrote this. And so it happens not on the Mount of. Not on the Temple Mount, which is where the altar would be. It happens across the valley over on the temple on the Mount of Olives. So that. That's important as we have the discussion about this, that we get it right. Yeah.
Mondo Gonzalez
So let me ask you this, kind of a follow up to Michael's question. So after the supposed red hair for ceremony a couple of years ago, you know, there was a lot of talk out there about these ashes that were gathered there and the properties that these ashes have that could have, I guess, healing powers and miraculous powers. Have you heard much talk on that? And if so, I mean, where are they getting this information from? Is this scriptural? Are we seeing this anywhere in our Bible that red heifer ashes have any type of healing or miraculous Powers.
Bill Salus
So there's nothing, absolutely nothing in the Bible that says it has healing powers, for sure. In numbers 19, they're meant for purification purposes. So you would take the ashes of the red heifer after it was burned, you'd mix it with water, and then the priest, if you were unclean, maybe your uncle died or your mom died, and you became unclean, ritually impure, and you would go to Jerusalem, the priest would sprinkle you, you know, third day, seventh day, and then you become ritually pure. And then you could participate in, in the sacrifices or the festivals. But nothing in the Bible, certainly, about healing. Now, I, I can tell you that I talked to Byron Senson on the phone, so I'm not giving you any. I'm, I'm telling you this is firsthand information. I'm not spreading rumors. He told me that after they performed the ceremony of July 1, that there were some rabbis that were there. There was some rabbis from the Temple Institute. Now, the Temple Institute is made up of many, many rabbis. So that just because you have rabbis that were affiliated with the Temple Institute doesn't necessarily mean that they're there on official capacity or that any of their comments are official of the Temple Institute itself, because the Temple Institute itself has distanced itself from the actions that happened at this ceremony that was conducted by Byron Stenson and the Bone Israel group on July 1st in Samaria. So it wasn't even on the. See, it wasn't, it wasn't on the Temple Mount or it wasn't on the Mount of Olives. And I remember talking to Byron, and I said, byron, you know, you know that the rabbis are not going to accept this. And he said, you know, Mondo, I know. He said, and my goal. I said, well, what was your motive? And he said, well, my motive was to follow the Bible. And so the Bible doesn't. Originally, there's no doubt that the first red heifer ceremony was not on the Mount of Olives. Right? It was maybe in the, in the, it was in the, in the wilderness even, right? So you're talking way far away from Jerusalem. So it's. He said, we chose Samaria near Shiloh, because that's where the tabernacle stood for three centuries. So he said, we chose to offer the ceremony there in order to follow the Bible, in order to kind of push and push along the idea of, of the, the, the Temple Institute doing it on there. So he goes, I know we're going to probably do another one. So. But what he did say, he said, mondo, after we collected the ashes, there were, we, we had given them to, you know, certain people. They, they kind of shared them, I guess. He said there were certain people that made claims that they felt healed from the ashes. And he just said, I'm just telling you what people told me. So I can't, I obviously can't vet it. I don't really have an opinion in that sense. But again, from a biblical perspective. Yeah, no, there's good.
Mondo Gonzalez
Yeah, it's definitely a lot of information going on. But that was question number one. And I'll just add to it. You know, we see institutions like the Temple Institute out. You know, their whole purpose for being is to construct that temple. So a lot of people ask, you know, will a third temple even be constructed? I mean, the answer is, obviously it's yes, it will be constructed. It's just a matter when. Right. And you hold the view that it's going to happen after the Rapture and that's going to be part of the Daniel 9, 20, which, which, yeah, it's
Bill Salus
not, that's not required. That's just where I'm leaning.
Mondo Gonzalez
That's where you're like, yeah, I, I tend to lean more toward that. It's not a requirement that it would happen after the Rapture. I mean, it could certainly happen prior to the Rapture. It's hard to see that right now. But I mean, if one of these rockets falls on, you know, Al Aqsa Mosque, then we can certainly see that the building of this temple could possibly happen prior to the Rapture if we're still here.
Bill Salus
And there's no doubt, like in, in my Red Heifer book, that's the reason I wrote the book, is because I wanted to give. When it, when it does happen, when the red heifer ceremony eventually does happen, I wanted people to have a resource to come back and say, well, how do. Now, how do I understand this? Because again, there's been a lot of, a lot of, I guess, focus on the five and, but also if you go to our website and you just go to prophecywatchers.com temple, I made it real easy. There are people, again, our brothers and sisters in Christ, that don't necessarily take a futurist view of Revelation or the other. They're very adamant that there is going to be no temple. And so what I did there is, I just asked the question, are we, are we crazy to believe that a future physical temple is going to be built? And so I provided all the biblical evidence. But secondly, a lot of people will say, well, this is a new view. This started with Darby, this idea of a temple, and that's just simply not true. And so I gave tons of, tons of information there about church history. I mean, early church fathers who are saying quite clearly that a physical temple is going to be rebuilt, which is fascinating to me way early. So the people that, that claim that this is from Darby are just, they're just, they just don't know the facts. And so I, I provided that webpage so that people could get the facts that we're not making this up. It's been part of church history for 2, 000 years.
Mondo Gonzalez
Yeah, that's it. So we're going to move on to question number two, because that was just one, and we're 15 minutes in.
Bill Salus
Oh, oh, we better hurry then. Long winded man.
Mondo Gonzalez
Watch out. So this question is specifically for Mondo Gonzalez from Bible Truth Drops. If someone like Tucker Carlson believes in Christ but is not living in Christ, does he go with us in the Rapture? Jesus said, few will find the door and that path is narrow. Are billions of people going with us because they believe in Jesus? James said, good on you, mate, for believing, but so do demons, and at least they shudder. But Tucker has no fear of God before his eyes, and he certainly doesn't shudder. Is he saved because he claims Christ?
Bill Salus
So this is the standard, the standard question, and what we do know is as James makes the comment, he talks about faith and he talks about works and he talks about being justified through works. And I think his, his, his version of justification is a sliver different than Paul's justification in the Book of Romans. So there Paul, Paul and James don't contradict each other by any means, but James is simply talking about practical living. And so when he says, you know, even the demons believe, the demons have, do they have faith in Jesus? See, that's different, right? They're not. The demons certainly acknowledge God's existence and, but they recognize it, but they don't submit to it. And so that's kind of where James is going in the sense of, hey, you can say whatever you want. And James isn't, He's following, I think, his brother, right? His brother's Jesus. And so he's following his half brother Jesus's comments in Matthew 7, 21, 23, where Jesus said, many will say to me on that day, lord, Lord. And he's gonna say, depart from me. I never knew you, you know. And so he gives that. So Jesus is introducing, right, in Matthew 7, this, this category of those who profess to know Him. They call him Lord, but they are. Their actions are not reflective of their profession. And so in the same way, we know that we're saved by faith, not by works. Again, works don't save us. Crystal clear. Ephesians 2, 8, 9. But Paul also speaks on this in Titus 1:16, where he says, there are many who profess to know God, but in their works they deny Him. So, so there's a complete consistency here. So I don't know Tucker's faith because this person says, if someone like Tucker believes but is not living in Christ, I don't. That's a real hard distinction because this person now is looking at Tucker and saying, based on his actions, he has faith, he believes, but he's not in Christ. So he's making a separation there. And so he would kind of lean towards this idea. Is he going to go with this in the Rapture? This is what I know. Second Timothy says, clear that God knows those who are his and that I take comfort in that, that if someone has leans on Jesus for their salvation, God knows that. And so I always, I always rephrase it and say, look, it doesn't matter what somebody says. It matters if God, if they're saved. From God's perspective, like God looks down and says, oh yeah, this is my child, 100% my child. They're going in the Rapture. But Jesus said there's gonna be many that aren't that make professions. And so this isn't. I can't, I don't know Tucker personally. I don't know. There's a lot of Christians who are genuine Christians who I know who have acted worse than Tucker does. So at the end of the day, it's all individualized. God knows those whom are his. And so I don't spend a lot of time, honestly, at trying to make assessments because I don't have all the information. I don't read hearts. So.
Mondo Gonzalez
So whenever I read this question too, I see this is more of a partial rapture type question, potentially.
Bill Salus
Yeah.
Mondo Gonzalez
Right. You know, whenever you have those that are not living in Christ, well, they're, they believe in Christ, they're Christians, they're saved. But if they're not walking that, that road, that narrow standard. Right, exactly. It's, it's at that point when you start putting, you know, people's lives on display, especially when you look at like, celebrities and things like that, I mean, we can cherry pick, you know, if
Bill Salus
any of our lives.
Mondo Gonzalez
Right, exactly. I mean, it appears that this guy may not be walking Right. But I mean, we never know what's going on in their hearts. Only Tucker and the Lord knows, you know, his heart. I mean, you could certainly look at his actions and say, yeah, I wouldn't do that. But, you know, that doesn't mean that he's not saved. And if he is truly saved, I mean, he'll certainly go with us in the Rapture. There is no partial Rapture. I mean, if you're. That's the quintessential workspace, salvation at that point. If you say that you're not going to go in the Rapture because you're not walking right with God, because, I mean, I can at least point out a couple of times during the day where I fall.
Bill Salus
And if you just took that, if you recorded that three minutes and you put it up and that was now the characterization of your entire life. Yeah, that'd be really unfair.
Mondo Gonzalez
Exactly.
Bill Salus
Because we all screw up. And so I'm glad that we're saved by grace through faith. I mean, Jesus said it's finished for believers. And so in the same way, I think this is a. This is a. It's a. It's a question. But I think it's kind of a question. I've been asked it so many times as a pastor, and I think so. It says, is he saved because he claims Christ? Well, again, according to Jesus, many profess to know him and claim him and call him Lord, but he doesn't know them. So I can't make an assessment of anybody. I can't make an assessment of anybody. Yeah, and I think that's. So when someone asks me like this, or anybody monitor, do you think so? And so said, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, all I know is what Jesus said. And I can quote Jesus, but at the end of the day, the Lord knows that's true.
Mondo Gonzalez
Absolutely. So we definitely want to thank you for submitting that question. We're going to move on to the next one. And this is one that really caught my attention. I think it caught your attention.
Bill Salus
Kind of fun.
Mondo Gonzalez
That's a fun question. So in reference to the Rapture, is the meeting in the clouds a reference to meeting here on Earth or somewhere outside of our view? When the Bible says caught up, I think directly above, what is. What about those that are in outer space, you know, on the International Space Station, or even if we potentially occupy the moon or even Mars, you know, Elon Musk wants to occupy Mars. But if this meeting is on Earth, then that wouldn't necessarily mean that they're Caught up because they would be brought back down, especially if they're on the International Space Station. If the meeting is in the clouds here on the Earth, that's basically the question. So I'm gonna let you handle this.
Bill Salus
This. Well, I, I really appreciate the creativity on this. You're thinking outside the box. This is awesome. There's a couple things as it relates to the word harpazo. If you, if you just study the word harpazo in Greek, it, it has the idea of being seized by authority. Some people say force, but that doesn't necessarily. It just. You, you were seized by somebody else. Like Paul was grabbed. He was, he was seized and dragged. And he wasn't dragged up. Right. So if you look in the book acts as it relates to Paul being dragged or others, he wasn't dragged up. So it's this idea of being grabbed by, by outside of your control. And at the Rapture, we're going, I mean, we're not going to stop. We can't stop it when the Lord comes to take us. That's really the phraseology. And so if you look at the entire word, it doesn't necessarily need to be up vertically. Even though we believe that Jesus said he's going to come and receive us unto himself and take us to the Father's house in John 14. So in the same way the dimension here is as well as of the clouds. If I encourage you to do a study of the clouds, cloud or clouds in the Bible, it's pretty fascinating where even going back to way early on in the book of Exodus, where the elders, they, they are. Moses went up into the cloud on Mount Sinai. So the cloud is, is very much associated with God's direct presence. We see this in the transfiguration, Luke 9, Matthew 17, where as well a cloud, a dark cloud overshadowed or bright cloud overshadowed them on the mount of all, or Mount Hermon in that sense. And then we see, of course in Acts chapter one, Jesus goes up, he ascends into the cloud at the rapture first Thessalonians 4:17, we go up into the clouds. And Revelation 11, same thing. But if you're on Mars, there's still going to be up direction. And so where's heaven at? Where's the Father's house? Is it outside of our solar system, our galaxy, even? So either way, I mean, if you think about it, let's say that, let's say that heaven is in the celestial pole of Earth, okay, North. Okay, like the North Star. Well, so if you're living on the, on the set in the North Pole, you're going to go up, right? You're going to go. But if you're on the South Pole, are you going to go through the Earth first? So are you going to have to go up and then go all the way around, you know, the whole, you know, sphere of the Earth to get around? So I think it's interesting. So either way, whether you're in space, because you could be on the other side, right. Because heaven is a direction, I imagine. Yeah, right. A specific direction. So somebody around somewhere is going to, Are they going to go up and then around or if you're on Mars or space station, you're still gonna, you see what I'm saying? There's still, I don't think we. This is where we run the risk of hyper literalizing. Yeah. And we don't want to do that because again, the word harpal doesn't necessarily mean up. But we do know wherever it happens, God's glory is going to be there and the clouds will be there and we will enter into those. And then once we get into clouds, is it a zap that he. Are we, how fast are we flying through the galaxy or the solar system to get to heaven?
Mondo Gonzalez
True.
Bill Salus
Don't know. So I think we just, we have to be careful not to hyper literalize it in that. And even though I like literal, I'm a literal guy.
Mondo Gonzalez
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate that question that comes from Josh, and actually I know Josh. Oh, I'm certain that that came from his child because I know his child as well.
Bill Salus
That's a good question.
Mondo Gonzalez
But, you know, but I love those kind of questions because that lets us know that especially if it comes from a child, that that child's growing up in a good home and thinking, and thinking, really, really thinking and wanting to know these answers. So definitely want to thank Josh for that question. So we're going to move on to the next one. And this is from Alexandria and she wants to know, with the rapid advancement of AI driven surveillance systems like facial recognition, behavioral prediction and real time data aggregation, how close are we to a fully integrated identity system where access to commerce, travel and communication is unified under a single digital profile?
Bill Salus
Well, let's step back for a moment and give why she would even ask that question. Because what we do know is in Revelation 13, you have, you have several things here. You have a political element of the beast, you have an economic element, and you have a religious element where they're going to be worship, worshiping the dragon and the beast. So this comes with the idea of that no one can buy or sell except without the mark. And so it makes great sense. I mean this has been part of the conversation for decades, probably even a century, to some degree of understanding that the easiest way to implement that sort of system where you have unlimited kind of surveillance and power and control is through a digital system getting away from money, which can be, you know, you can have a black market or you can even barter in some ways, which might always be there to some degree. But this idea of surveillance, AI driven surveillance. So that's the biblical reason why we think that's coming. And of course since it's been talked about again for decades now, we see it coming. So to answer her question directly is it depends on the country you're in because many there's, there's over 50 countries right now that already have digital things in place, digital systems in place. It is not a worldwide system yet. And a lot of the countries like the United States are, are lagging. And that's probably because we generally have resistance here. Now even in America, if you go to some of the bluer states, they're going to be a little bit more eager on this. But we know if you go worldwide, Australia, I'm thinking about some of these countries. Nigeria. Nigeria, that's in Africa. Very advanced in their digital. Estonia and Europe. So Europe and the uk, they've been talking about theirs. In fact, Starmer just came out not too long ago where the Prime Minister said that if you didn't have the digital id, you couldn't work. I mean, that's what we expect. Right. So in answering the question, how, how close are we? Well, to a fully integrated. It depends on the country. Some countries are absolutely like almost there for fully full integrations. Others are, there's a lot of countries that are lagging. And so who knows. But what you do see is most of the countries that are lagging are still, they're in motion. Yeah. So all the countries are moving in that direction. And I would say that for, for, for any of these countries, some of them like, some of them in like Estonia, they, they've had their digital Systems for like 20 years. So you think about that, that's pretty amazing. But to get to where there's going to be individualized countries and then it's going to be integrated worldwide. So that's the question. How close are we? Well, I tend to think that most of the countries that are lagging, they have had, they have pilot programs and most of them have already said that they want to be 26, 27. They're trying to get it dialed in. So I tend to go back to like a 2030 in the sense of. Not that there's anything magical about it, but just in looking out, these individual countries have to get it dialed in before, like, let's say the UN or there's some sort of agreement or need to integrate them. And as we know, remember that the mark of the beast itself is not implemented until the midpoint of the 70th week of Daniel. So even there, I think that's part of the process of the first half of the tribulation period is that the Antichrist is on the scene, but he doesn't have unlimited power yet. He. He's. He's consolidating his political base and he's going out to conquer. You know, that's what Revelation 6 says. But in that first half, there's consolidation going there. A political cult consolidation. Of course, you have the harlot there as well. So if that's the case, the question is we might not see all this fully integrated before the Rapture happens. That could be what takes three and a half years of the first half of the tribulation. Yeah. Before it is fully integrated worldwide in relation 13 in the middle.
Mondo Gonzalez
Exactly. Because that's when the System of Revelation 13 really kicks off. Is that the midway point? That's what causes, you know, the Jews basically flee into the wilderness. Now, as far as it pertains to what we see going on in the world right now technologically, now you mentioned 2030. I'm working on an article series right now that's going to touch on 2030. There are 50 plus initiatives worldwide that target the date of 2030. And it seems like every day I'm seeing new articles coming out that reference 2030. Just today I shared a article on the substack and on our Facebook that was about NASA wanting to target nuclear reactors on the moon. And the target date for that is 2030. So 2030 is definitely a key date. But when we're looking at the technological aspect of what's going on, just in spring of this year, spring of 2026, over 65 airports started integrating more advanced biometric identification programs within the airports.
Bill Salus
Tsa, I can tell you, I just. So I was just out of the country last week, and when I came back, I said, well, do I need my passport? They said, no, we just need your face.
Mondo Gonzalez
Yes.
Bill Salus
And I walked up, they took a picture of my face, and that was it. I Didn't have to show my pat. It was amazing.
Mondo Gonzalez
They already know who you are before you even cross the gate because of the cameras there. You know, you mentioned the European Union. We're seeing, I think just today or just recently, within the last week, they introduced their age verification app. We're starting to see a lot of states start to talk about age verification. They're doing it in the sense of this is for safety because we want to prevent kids from getting onto websites that they shouldn't get onto. And I mean, who wouldn't be on board for that? Who wouldn't want to be on board for a kid not being able to get onto a, know a naughty website? Basically, Right, you don't want to get onto that. But we know that eventually that this is going to be used against us. We know that online anonymity is basically being taken away. Because if you have to do online age verification, what does that mean? Well, you're going to have to put your ID on there and, and everybody that has any kind of sense of doing anything online, you've had to go through the process of the verifying yourself by taking a picture of your driver's license and putting it on, you know, uploading it into the system. Absolutely. So eventually that's going to go to a completely digitized system where you don't have to worry about that anymore. You just need to take that screenshot of your, your face on the computer or even the thumbprint, because if you notice now, tons of computers, they come with a little thumbprint reader. Right. So you're already seeing that being implemented in the technology that we have in our own houses.
Bill Salus
Well, even like for certain countries or even flights. I could take my phone and it, I put it on my passport and it reads the chip inside the passport. And so my phone, I was like, I never knew my phone had the ability, but yeah, it read it and boom, it brought up all my information just like that. Probably similar to what you have on a, on a credit card with a chip in it. But it was able to do it. Boom, done. Didn't, didn't have to scan anything. It just, I just touched it there.
Mondo Gonzalez
Yeah, I'm with you though. I think technologically we're, we're right there. We're getting so close to what it is there. There are some areas of it, I mean, and each day we see new things being coming out that we know that's going to be used in the this beast system. Earlier this week we talked about the Ghost Murmur technology that was used to locate the. The pilot that was lost there in Iran. I mean, just five weeks ago, we would have never imagined something like that. I mean, two weeks ago, we would have never imagined that type of technology existed. But here it is, and we know that that type of technology is going to be used in the beast system. Because when your heartbeat could betray your own location, when you say, oh, I'm just going to, you know, hide it
Bill Salus
out, I'm going to hide off the
Mondo Gonzalez
grid, I'm going to go live in the woods, whatever, I mean, well, if they can locate you based off of your distinct unique heartbeat, I mean. Oh, come on, we're getting close, man. I'm telling you, it's getting crazy. So we certainly want to thank you for asking that question. And let's see, we got to move on to the next one. We got Leslie and Liam. So they ask, are the increase in unusual cosmic events connected to Luke 21:25. And there seems to be more asteroids and fireballs that have been reported recently. We've seen that on the news.
Bill Salus
Yeah, there's a couple ways to answer this. You know, Luke 20:25. Jesus makes the comment that there'll be signs in the heavens and other things, which, of course, I love to watch. I would say, though, that what's happening recently is the technology to. To recognize or to discover a lot of these asteroids. Again. Apophis was discovered in 2004, so that's a long time ago. But there's a new telescope that just came on in the last few months called the Vera C. Rubin Telescope. It's down in South America. And this is one of the largest and most advanced telescopes that's ever been built. And it has a. Like, what is it? A 3000 megapixel camera, digital camera. I'd love to have that in our observatory. But. So it's taking images of. It's scanning the entire sky every single night. And so every few nights it gets the whole sky. And so it's just. They talk about petabytes of information. So what that means, though, is. It's. What it does is it'll. It'll take these images and then of scanning, and then it'll compare with AI too. It'll compare it to another image that was, let's say, two weeks ago or three months ago. And then it's saying, hey, that little dot right there, that's, that's. That moved. That wasn't there three months ago. And so then it'll go back and it'll begin to look throughout the sky and it'll see, oh, this dot is moving on a certain trajectory which again ends up being an asteroid. So the, the era of thousands and thousands of discoveries of asteroids which have been there the whole time. So this isn't anything new. I guess that that's probably the question is, are increases, is this connected with an end time event? I would say no necessarily because the technology is more advanced now. And so I think as well we're hearing about it because there's comets all the time. There's always comets. I mean, I could go out any night and we've taken pictures of comets. There's always comets around. Some of them are in the southern hemisphere. So we, we don't have access to them up here. But at any given time there's comets. Now if you have a telescope and a camera, you can see those. Most of the comets that we don't see is because they're so dim, their magnitude is again very high in that regard. But so I think most of what Luke 21 is describing is more in line with what you see in the book of Revelation. So, and, and I wrote an article on this because this is, this came up last year, well, two years ago now, in April of 2024, with the eclipse. And so if you go to prophecywatchers.com eclipse again, make it real easy, people can read the article there where I talk about what is in Genesis 1:14, 16, the signs that the sun, the moon and the stars, they're meant for signs and seasons and other things. So I just, I go through, then I highlight all the details of what that means and also what it doesn't mean. And so ultimately, I think 100, I would say 99 to 100% of what Jesus is describing in Luke 21 is in reference to the seven year tribulation. And of course, if you go to the book of Revelation, you see something like a mountain falling, something like a torch. You see the sun and the moon going dark, stars going dark. It's pretty phenomenal. But I think that's more of what it is than rather seeing a comet right now or a fireball.
Mondo Gonzalez
Yeah, I mean, and I tend to agree with you on that because you look at Revelation 6, the breaking of the sixth seal, you have the cosmic disturbances that are going to happen there. I mean, I certainly think the closer that we get to that time frame of the breaking of the sixth seal, which I believe doesn't happen until the beginning of the seven year tribulation period, I think the closer that we get to that Period. I believe that we're going to start seeing more cosmic. Cosmic disturbances. So is that what we're seeing now? I mean, it's too early to say in that instance, because like you said, we can see so much. I know that. I believe as of March of this year, there was more fireballs being seen in the sky than, than usual. You know, could that be related? You know, possibly. I'm not going to tie it directly to Revelation 6. We're not seeing the breaking of the sixth seal right now, obviously. But I do think that as we get closer to the time frame of that which would happen during the Tribulation, I think we're going to start seeing more and more cosmic.
Bill Salus
Yeah. And I think as we. There's no doubt that a lot of it has been in the news. And I, Again, I, if things change, I'll be happy to change my view, you know, in the sense of the. But I, I think overall the, the news is, is more apt, again, being following this for so long in my, in my adult life, I've always been cognizant of, of the comments and the amount of comments that are out there, and. But sometimes only the big ones get the news.
Mondo Gonzalez
Yeah.
Bill Salus
You're like, well, why aren't you talking about this one? This has been around for two years or whatever, or it's been making its way. But I think sometimes we can be victims of the media.
Mondo Gonzalez
Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned Apophis, I believe, what, April 13th. So we're right at three years, a little less than three years ago, from when it's supposed to make its pass of. I think it's what, 20,000 miles?
Bill Salus
Yeah.
Mondo Gonzalez
Above there.
Bill Salus
I mean, you think about that some of our geosynchronous or satellites are basically 24,000 miles out, which means they just, they kind of follow their geosynchronous. That means they stay, you know, as we rotate, they stay the same view. But, but that, I mean, this thing's going to come inside those. I mean, that, that's, that's pretty phenomenal.
Mondo Gonzalez
It is. We're going to. Maybe we can get some pictures of.
Bill Salus
Oh, absolutely. Couple of our friends have. Yeah. If we're still here. A couple of our fellow astrophotographers have gotten pictures of Apophis already and which. It gets pretty boring. You're looking. It's a little dot of light because it's small. It's really small.
Mondo Gonzalez
Well, good deal. We'll move on to the next one. Now, this is more of a pastoral question. So you're the Perfect person to answer this. So hl he asked, he says my pastor doesn't connect prophecy to current events. Is this concerning and should I leave? That's just the short version of it. He said, I attend a church where a pat. Where my pastor does not take a position on the Rapture. He doesn't talk about Bible prophecy outside of whatever is in the Bible. He preached. He does preach through revelation, but he doesn't tie any of this to current events or any of the news that's happening in the world. For example, when, for example, when we were in Revelation 13, he just read it. He told everyone that there was coming a day when we would have, when the world would have a mark and not be able to participate in society and then moved on. And then he didn't discuss any of the current technologies or possibilities. So my first question is what can I do to encourage or convince my pastor to do to convince my pastor that things that we see happening right now are relevant? And the second question, is this concerning and should I find another church?
Bill Salus
Yeah, these are very important questions. It's interesting that pastors, there's all different stripes of pastors, some are more humble than others and, but also many pastors take their position. Their, their, I mean God has called them, I would assume this for the sake of argument. God has called this pastor to be a leader of the church and to teach. Right. So he's gonna, many times pastors feel like, hey, you know what, maybe I went to seminary, I got educated, I got trained, so I'm here and God has called me to protect the flock and to teach the flock. Okay. So that makes them sometimes very skeptical when, when, when somebody, a layperson, which again, I'm not into classes, I'm just telling you that psychology, somebody comes in and says, hey pastor, look at this. And the pastor's natural can be like, well, okay, I'll look at that maybe. But I also am very, very standoffish because I don't want to bring in any potential false theology or newspaper exegesis. Yeah. Which I respect. Okay. But they're asking what can I do to encourage. Well, to convince. Well, that might be, it depends on the pastor. Some pastors are so strong minded that they're like, I'm the expert, you're not. What I would say is that, you know how you do that? What's the phraseology that you, you win, you win more bees with honey or something like that. Or I would tell you, go to your pastor and love him and be a friend. So love him no matter what, because then when he comes to love you back, he's going to be more in line to hear you and, and, and not to think that you're trying to challenge him or what. Humility, there's different levels. So I'm not defending crowd pastors, but so I would tell you if you're, if you're trying to get away in there. Here's the phraseology. I've seen this too. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that's, that's actually this versus as a pastor myself, you know, sometimes you have to teach some hard things. The scripture does, and so many times people don't want to hear that. But if they know that you care about them and you love on them in all the other days of the week, so that when you're there, you're in counseling and you have to speak some hard truth to them, but they know you care, they're more apt to receive it. And that goes both ways. So I would encourage that. Is this concerning? It is concerning, of course, because we want people to teach the entire council of God in that regard. We see that In Acts chapter 20, Paul says teach the whole council. The fact that he's teaching through revelation at all, that's actually something to rejoice over.
Mondo Gonzalez
Absolutely.
Bill Salus
So don't be too critical. I can just. Should I find another church? Look, what I would say to you is leaving a church is extremely, it's an extremely important decision. Yes. And so I do not recommend leaving a church lightly for a couple reasons. First of all, if you are interested in prophecy and they're, and you're one of the remnant, so to speak, in your church, why would you leave? You're, it sounds like you're already studying on your own. You don't need this guy to teach you anything. You can. There's like our, all the stuff that we do. That's why we exist, honestly, Prophecy watchers and others ministries that we promote or partner with is we do this full time. We love eschatology, I love all the Bible. But certainly we hear we're here to teach eschatology. So you can get your, you can get your information from a commentary or from us or others. So you don't need your pastor to teach you about eschatology. But the second reason why I would tell you if he's preaching the gospel, that is the most important thing. And I would tell you again, if he's preaching the gospel, then stay there. Because if God has Opened up your heart to, to read and to learn. Again, you don't need him to learn about eschatology or, or prophecy, but think about all the people that you can influence while you're in the church. So if you leave, you are a light to eschatology that has now left the church. And so, as you just admitted, your friends that are there, that need to hear this truth are not going to get it from this guy. So why would you leave the church and leave them without no light? So I'm very. I. I went to a church probably about 10 years ago where I was an elder there. And of course, I love eschatology. I've been teaching in my whole life, my adult life. This pastor did not teach eschatology, but, man, he preached the gospel. And I didn't leave. In fact, what I did is I taught the youth group at the time, and I started teaching the book of Revelation. I started a small group. I started teaching the book of Revelation. So I'm like, so I'm. What I'm telling you is I practiced what I preach, what I'm preaching to you now. And you know what? He did not stop me from preaching any of that stuff. So I was teaching the youth all about the whole book of Revelation instead of the book of Daniel, that small group. And now if you would have came and said, mondo, I forbid you, then that would have been a problem. But he didn't. And so in the same I thought, I'm going to be a light here while I'm here. So I would tell you, do not find another church. Continue to study and be a light to those around you. If he stops preaching the gospel, then you have a reason to leave.
Mondo Gonzalez
Yeah, I mean, and one of the things that we run into pretty often, some pastors just aren't equipped this, you know, eschatology is not their wheelhouse.
Bill Salus
And they don't love it. They don't like it. Yeah, whatever.
Mondo Gonzalez
So nervous like, you know, the gospel is the main thing. If they're preaching the main thing, then that's absolutely what you need to be more concerned about. But if he allows you, and that may be something that you can do, start your own small group. You know, go in and ask the pastor, hey, can I start a Sunday school class? And. And that's what, that's what I actually do in my church. Yeah, I teach Sunday school in my church, and I have about 20 students in there. And we primarily talk Bible prophecy because this is where they get their, you know, fix, so to speak. Now of course, I'm privileged to go to a church where my pastor does preach on Bible prophecy, so. And I understand that not a lot of people have that. So if you have somebody that's even willing to touch the book of Revelation, I mean, that tells me that, hey, he's. At least he's going through the entire word. It seems like he may preach word for word, which is good. Maybe he's not tying everything to current events. I mean, that's fine, too. I mean, maybe ask him the question. Maybe if he's doing a. A series on Revelation on Sunday night, that's a perfect opportunity to say, hey, I got a question about this. You know, Sunday mornings may not always be the proper time to bust up in the middle of a sermon to be like, hey, I got a question about this. Better not do that. The camera mess up. But that's true.
Bill Salus
Yep.
Mondo Gonzalez
So. But anyways, let's move on to the last question. And this is from Hannah. If Deuteronomy says not to add to God's word, how can there be a New Testament? And why are Enoch and Yasher left out?
Bill Salus
Okay, great question. So this is the key here, is if I would say this, there's a little bit of an inconsistency in the question, because how can we. It's Deuteronomy 4. 2. It says, do not add to the words of this covenant. And so the question is, well, then how can we justify the addition of the New Testament? Well, in that regard, how can we justify the addition of the book of Judges or the book of Isaiah or any of the other Old Testament books? So it's not just the New Testament. We'd have a problem. And so in one sense, they're taking the, the phraseology in Deuteronomy, chapter 4, and somehow applying it outside of the book of Deuteronomy to the Old Testament. The question is, is that anything that is truly God's word is allowed? And God can speak. God doesn't. God didn't say, from now on, I'm never speaking again. And so second Timothy 3, 16 is super important that Paul is writing to Timothy, and there's no New Testament yet in the fullest sense. But he says all Scripture is God breathed. And it's given for doctrine and for proof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness. So there he's talking about the Old Testament. So all those books, all that scripture was God breathed. So in that sense, you have all of the 39 books of the Old Testament that Paul was referring to. You might have had Some of the other books that Paul had written, like to the Thessalonians and the Corinthians, because He, he wrote second Timothy pretty late, you know, probably about 60 A.D. 62 A.D. before he passed away or was killed. So. But we know from second Peter three that Peter's writing to his audience and he says, he talks about Paul's writings and he calls them Scripture. So even there, as soon as you have the phraseology of scripture that is God breathed. And so I would say that we don't have to justify the addition of the New Testament because anything that is God breathed all the rest of the books of the Old Testament, including those of the New, by the Holy Spirit are God's word. So he's not. You have this in Revelation 22 as well, and 18 and 19, where Jesus says the same thing that don't, don't add or take away from the book words of this book, which in that sense would be the book of Revelation. So I think that, that, that would be. We don't have to justify it. God speaks. Boom. Done. Especially in written form. When it comes to the book of first Enoch. The again, there's something loaded here. Why are some of the Old Testament books left out of the Bible? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's hold on a minute. Let's not assume that first of all that the book of first Enoch is part of the, the God Brief Scripture or even the Book of Jasher. There's, there's a lot of, there's several, there's probably a half a dozen books referenced in the, in the, in the Old Testament. You know, you have Jasher, the Book of Enoch is not mentioned specifically, but you have Jasher, you have Gad, you have other books that are specifically mentioned as is not written in such and such book. Those books aren't here anymore. And so, but let me mention jasher because the Jasher Jasher that we see today is mentioned in, in Joshua chapter 10 as well as in, in 2nd Samuel chapter 1. But the Jasher that we have today was a, it was a document. If you, you can look this up and I again look up pseudo Jasher, you can look up on Wikipedia. Now I'm not endorsing Wikipedia has a lot of bad things on there, but this actually article is actually pretty good. So if you look up pseudo Jasher on Wikipedia, that'll give you the background of what I'm going to tell you. The book of Jashers we have today was, is based on a book that was basically written or produced or publicized in 1750. And it's a complete forgery. Okay, this. So the Book of Jasher is mentioned in the Bible, but somehow that book is lost. So when somebody says, well, how come this book is left out? Well, the book that you're reading today, that's not the original. So this is a book that was produced in 1750. What do you know what's fascinating about it? The claim, it says this book is a translation of the original Hebrew by this abbot from Britain, basically in the 9th century. So 900. So this is saying this is a copy of a book that was written in, in the year 900 by this, this English abbot of Canterbury. What's, what's fascinating about it is when you read the Book of Jasher, the modern one, it's written in like, post King James English. Like, dude, the guy that was in 900 AD, he was not writing in King James English. I mean, you. If you read, for example, the Wycliffe Bible, you'll see that was kind of like a Middle English or Old English. Even the Wycliffe bible, which is 1300, 1350, 1380 A.D. that is totally. It's really, really strange compared to the King James. So now you have this Jasher book that's written in post King James English, not even like Wycliffe, and not even like what you'd see in 900. So it's a complete lie. So there is no Book of Jasher today that is still extant, that is available, that is a legitimate copy. It wasn't found in the, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, so we don't have that. We would see. But the book of first Enoch was in the Dead Sea Scrolls, parts of it. And so in that sense, I would say that there is no Jasher, so that wasn't left out. And even when you look at some of the other apocryphal books, you know, there's. There's 14 apocryphal books, you know, Maccabees, first Maccabees, Esdras. You have a whole bunch of them. And then in the Catholic version, there's seven. So those aren't included. But the Catholics, they'll call them deuterocanonical, which means second canon. We call them apocryphal, meaning they're like, hidden and they're not legitimate again. And if you go back to the first century with the Jewish. The Jewish Canon 24 is very clearly, you have the writings, you have the prophets, and you have the Psalms. And so those books were not in the Jewish canon. So I Just I want to say that these are not books left out of the Bible. They were never in the Bible to begin with. So it's kind of how it's phrased.
Mondo Gonzalez
Well, good deal. Good question. We're almost running out of time, but I do have one more question for you, Jennifer. In the chat, she asked, is there any new info on 3i Atlas? Have you heard anything else?
Bill Salus
Yes, actually. So 3atlas is again was discovered in July of last year, and it made its way into our solar system at a very strong angle. It made its way around Mars and then it went around the sun and then we we were kind of far away in our orbit, so it didn't really come near Earth. But then as it came in, it made its way out towards Jupiter. And so last month in March, it passed Jupiter and it's like, see you later. It's leaving, it's leaving our solar system at a very fast pace. And so even Avi Loeb, who the Harvard physicist, astrophysicist, who's been watching this, he's, he's talked about it a little bit here and there, but he has pretty much acknowledged that it's a natural comet and it's, it's unusual. But it's no surprise because it is a what is known as an interstellar comet. It's only the third one ever discovered, which I think is going to change because of the Vera C. Rubin telescope. But it doesn't mean that there hasn't been other interstellar comets. It's just we've never seen them and it just happened to be discovered. So it's making its way. But it's very it is an unusual comet. It's not like a solar system comet because it comes from again, outside of our solar system, moving at a very fast rate. So it's I even months and months and months ago, pretty much like last fall, there was a lot of hoopla. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's an alien ship, it's going to land, it's going to send out probes. And it was some of it was pretty fanciful. And I just made the comment that here in about six months, it's going to be a memory. And so we're at the memory time that it's, it's on its way out of past Jupiter pretty far.
Mondo Gonzalez
Yeah.
Bill Salus
So that's the latest on 3i Alice well, good deal.
Mondo Gonzalez
We appreciate you asking that question, Jennifer, and that about wraps it up.
Date: April 30, 2026
Hosts: Mondo Gonzalez & Bill Salus
Podcast: Prophecy Watchers
In this dynamic listener-submitted Q&A episode, hosts Mondo Gonzalez and Bill Salus (sitting in for Gary Stearman) tackle a wide array of pressing questions on Bible prophecy and its intersection with current events. Topics include the Third Temple and the red heifer, the fate of nominal Christians in the Rapture, AI-driven surveillance and the mark of the beast, cosmic events, church prophecy teaching, apocryphal books, and more. The conversation is engaging, sometimes humorous, and always focused on scriptural grounding for their views.
Timestamps: [01:13] – [12:28]
Timing of the Temple:
Red Heifer Ceremony Clarification:
Ashes & Miraculous Claims:
Timestamps: [12:34] – [18:20]
Timestamps: [18:29] – [22:39]
Timestamps: [22:49] – [31:21]
Surveillance Tech and Prophecy:
Emerging Technology Points:
Timestamps: [31:55] – [37:44]
Timestamps: [37:44] – [45:29]
Timestamps: [45:30] – [52:27]
Deuteronomy 4:2 and the Canon:
Canon Formation:
Timestamps: [52:27] – [54:14]
3i Atlas has passed Jupiter and is exiting the solar system; widely considered a natural interstellar comet, not an alien artifact.
On Literalism and the Rapture:
“We have to be careful not to hyper literalize it in that. And even though I like literal, I'm a literal guy.” — Bill Salus [22:39]
On the Imminence of Biometric Control:
“They already know who you are before you even cross the gate because of the cameras there.” — Mondo Gonzalez [28:43]
On Approaching Your Pastor:
“People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.” — Bill Salus [38:47]
On Salvation and Judging Others:
“All I know is what Jesus said. And I can quote Jesus, but at the end of the day, the Lord knows.” — Bill Salus [17:34]
The episode is a rich, fast-paced journey through some of today's most debated intersection points of prophecy and culture, leavened with both scholarly care and pastoral encouragement. Both hosts keep the focus on Scripture while acknowledging the real-world complexity of church life, global technological developments, and the endless curiosity of believers.
Resource links:
Listener takeaway:
Stay rooted in the gospel, remain watchful, and be proactive as both learners and lights in your faith communities.
Segment timestamps are provided for context. For a deeper dive, visit Prophecy Watchers’ full episode archive.