Well, turn if you would to Genesis chapter 6.
I texted my good friend Paul hubby, many of you know him.
I texted him the other day and I said I'm preaching the message
this week that I've waited my whole life for.
If you are familiar with Genesis 6 or you like to geek out on fun
little scriptural topics, then you are aware of where we are
headed this morning. A while back I was talking with
someone and they said, oh, preaching is like giving a book
report every week. And I was like, yes, this week I
feel like it was a research paper.
This week was a lot of stuff to digest.
I've known a lot of what I'm about to convey to you this
morning, but there's just so much I had to process and sift
through in order to make it palatable for you.
And if you're looking at the note sheet, you will see that
there is a lot of information on the note sheet because
inevitably you will be like, what was this and what was that?
And trying to figure stuff out. So I've tried to make it as easy
for you as possible. So I've put a lot of information
there on the note sheet so you can refer back to that because I
know everybody goes home and you file all your note sheets away
and keep them for safekeeping, right?
I know a few people do. I know a few people do.
But yeah. So this morning's message is
going to be much different than a normal message.
But you know, as we get towards the end of it, I'll kind of
bring it into into scope, into view of what's important for us
to take note of in our passage this morning.
But if you are able, would you stand as we read from Genesis
chapter 6 verses one through 7, when man began to multiply on
the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the
sons of God saw that the daughters of man were
attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose.
Then the Lord said, My Spirit shall not abide in man forever,
for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also
afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man,
and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who
were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and
it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot
out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and
animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am
sorry that I have made them. You may be seated Now before we
examine this text, let's remind ourselves of of where we've been
after the fall and the humans expulsion from the garden.
We we looked at Cain and Abel and in doing so, I concluded
that the problem with Cain's sacrifice was that it wasn't his
best. God didn't accept less than
Cain's best. SO So Cain coaxed his brother
out into the field because his brother's sacrifice was
accepted. And when no one was around, Cain
killed Abel. Oh, God had cautioned Cain to be
careful and not allow sin to rule over him.
But Cain didn't yield to God's ways, so he was cursed to wander
when he began having children. There's one particular
descendant of his who who stands out, and that's the evil Lamech.
He epitomizes the sinful way of Cain, choosing to forge a path
of his own making and not heeding God.
But not all was lost. As an Adam, Eve's next son,
Seth, enters the scene. His line is characterized by the
righteous Enoch, whose character and faith were such that they
they warranted him passing go and advancing straight to heaven
without seeing death. He was the pinnacle of Seth's
line, Seth's descendants. So that brings us up to this
point, Chapter 6. As the text begins, we're made
aware that humanity's growing. Actually, humanity is
multiplying as what Scripture tells us.
They weren't just adding one here or one there, but
multiplying as each generation had hundreds of years to produce
more offspring. Can't help but wonder women how
long they might have, how many years they might have spent
being pregnant, carrying children Could have been a long
time if you live hundreds and hundreds of years.
However, the directive to multiply was first found in
Genesis 122. God bless them.
This is the initial creation. God bless them saying be
fruitful and multiply and feel the waters in the seas and let
birds multiply on the earth. So that was His command to birds
and fish. And then a few verses later in
verse 28, the command was directed to the humans.
God bless them. God said be fruitful and
multiply and fill the earth. In chapter 1, the motif of
multiplying was presented as good and necessary in order to
fulfill God's plans for the earth.
But now with humanity multiplying, it hints out of a
lurking problem as as the world's population grows, and
this leads to increased wickedness on the earth.
Verse 2 says the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were
attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose.
And then we jump down to verse 4.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward
when the sons of God came into the daughters of man, and they
bore children to them. These were the mighty men who
were of old, the men of renown. SO3 Quick questions come to mind
when you're reading this text. Who are the sons of God?
Who are the daughters of man? And of course, who are the
nepheline? The identity of these three
groups has precipitated thousands of pages of response
and speculation and explanations, both in paper and
digital formats. And here I'll do my best to
present to you the primary options for interpreting the
text this morning. Now before we jump in, I want to
make something clear. First of all, highly qualified
and well trained theologians and and and commentators will fall
on various sides of this issue. Highly respected theologians
will fall on different views. Secondly, this is not a primary
issue. I would say it's not even a
secondary issue. I would actually place it as
more of a tertiary issue, an issue of the third level,
something that is just fun, if you will, to speculate on and
try to understand as much as we humanly can within the realm of
the information that we have given to us in God's Word.
So with that said, there are three main perspectives on the
sons of God. First of all, the first
perspective is that the sons of God are fallen angels.
The sons of God are fallen angels is what this perspective
holds. And I might add that of the
three perspectives, I think if I had to hazard a guess, I would
say that this might be the most common perspective.
How is it though that demons could marry human women and have
children? It just doesn't make sense since
since we tend to think of angels as essentially spiritual beings
who aren't necessarily sexed and and don't have physical bodies.
But there are a couple reasons the sons of God might be fallen
angels. First of all, the phrase the
sons of God is used four other times outside of this passage.
And every time sons of God, that specific phrase sons of God or
son of God, every time that's used, it refers to an angelic
being. We see the sons of God among the
divine counsel and Job there at the beginning, it says the sons
of God came to present themselves before Yahweh and
then Satan tags along, joins the retinue of angelic beings there.
We also see a son of God there in Daniel when when we are told
about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being thrown into the
furnace, the the explanation or it's described as seeing one
like a son of God, meaning an Angel.
So those uses heavily predispose us to seeing Genesis, six sons
of God as fallen angels. But that's not the only support
for this case. Second, Peter and Jude both
potentially speak to the scenario.
Second Peter 2 verses 4 through 5.
They're on the screen. For if God did not spare angels
when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to
chains of gloomy darkness, to be kept until the judgement, If he
did not spare the ancient world, but preserve Noah, a herald of
righteousness with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the
world of the ungodly, then it goes on to say, will he not also
rescue Peter's audience? Here Peter tells us God didn't
spare the sinful angels from the ancient world, but he preserved
righteous Noah. But it's also possible that the
punishment in view here in Second Peter is actually
referring to the initial rebellion of Lucifer and 1/3 of
the angels before time even begins.
The other passage used to support this stance is Jude 6.
Jude 6 says and the angels who did not stay within their own
position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has
kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the
judgement of the great day. God wasn't happy with these
angels, so he punished them. Are these angels who went
outside of their proper position?
The Are these angels that it refers to the sons of God that
are mentioned in Genesis 6. Again, the text isn't explicit,
so we can only speculate. And then to further complicate
matters, there's the book of Enoch.
It wasn't written during the times of Enoch.
First of all, to be clear, it was written thousands of years
later during the intertestamental period between
the end of the Old Testament and and Jesus coming into the world.
The book of Enoch is also found in the Qumran caves among the
Dead Sea Scrolls. But just because it was found
there doesn't mean that we take it as God's word.
We call these writings the Apocrypha, and if you have a
Catholic background, you you are more likely to be familiar with
the Book of Enoch. The book of Enoch tells us a bit
about angels called watchers is what is what they're called in
the text. Watchers can be both holy and
fallen angels. In the Book of Enoch, which Jude
14 and 15 actually quotes, the book of Enoch writes about both
holy and fallen angels and the book of Enoch tells us the the
watchers in in this case, the fallen angels, they mated with
human women and produced the Nephilim, a race of giants.
You may think, well, this seems like a slam dunk case then, but
like I said, the biblical text isn't isn't specific and we
can't take the book of Enoch as God inspired.
And then Jesus says something potentially contrary to this
position. And in Mark 12, the Sadducees
had asked Jesus about life after the resurrection.
They approach him and say, suppose a woman's husband dies
and then after he dies, the his next brother does his duty and
marries her and he dies and then the next brother and so on, so
forth. When this happens in the
resurrection, whose whose wife will she be?
Jesus proceeds to rebuke them and then he says in verse 25
when they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given
in marriage but are like angels in heaven.
The point Jesus was making was that angels don't marry and and
people won't marry in heaven either.
Then the logical conclusion is since angels don't marry, the
sons of God aren't angels. Take that.
You see how thoroughly confusing this topic can be.
So I am presenting each of these perspectives to you.
I will say I think I do land on the fallen angels perspective,
but all of them have a point to make and issues you have to deal
with. The next perspective is called
the Sethite view. The Sethite view says that the
sons of God are descended from the line of Seth and the
daughters of men are descended from the line of Cain.
In this framework, the sons are followers of Yahweh descended
through the godly line of Seth. However, the these these
descendants of Seth chose to go outside of their godly lineage
to pursue wives from the ungodly line of Cain.
And these marriages, it's said, produced wicked children,
children who took after their mothers more than they did their
fathers. And the argument here is that
chapters 4 and five place a significant focus on the on the
2 lines of descendants. Indeed, I've actually conveyed
it that way right in the last couple weeks as I've talked
about these descendants. I have communicated it in that
manner. So we don't need to import other
ideas and concepts into our interpretation of the text in
order to hold to this view. It's actually fairly natural, is
the argument. It's fairly natural to arrive at
the conclusion the godly people in the text come from Seth's
line, and the ungodly people in the text come from Cain's line.
Clearly I'm dealing with something.
It has been quite a week. However, the beginning of verse
one refers to men and daughters in a more general, universal
sense. It says when men began to
multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them.
This is just men and women in view here.
This is a general reference to the growth of humanity, not a
specific line. So it doesn't make sense for
verse 2 to to suddenly single out men descended from Seth and
women descended from Cain. Also, if the Sethites, if the
descendants of Seth were so godly, then why did they go
marry these evil women? It's a question you have to
answer if you want to hold to that view.
The next view is the royalty view.
The royalty view it it says that the sons of God are tyrannical
human rulers. The Sons of God are tyrannical
human rulers. Those who hold this position see
the Sons of God as polygamists, nobles, kings, governors, Lords
who who all viewed themselves as gods.
Now, it's no secret that that many ancient Near East rulers
thought of themselves as either the personification of the gods
or as gods themselves. They were in this view they they
held to themselves as being divine prodigy prodigy, not
prodigy progeny. They were divine progeny who who
had lusted for power and and took wives from among the common
people and sometimes forcing these women to join their
harems. There are a couple arguments for
this view. First of all.
Offspring of these unions could easily be called what it says
are men of renown since they were descended from royal
bloodlines so they they could be well known men of renown.
And later in Genesis 10, we'll see that Nimrod, one of the
first kings named in Scripture, is identified as a mighty man,
potentially lining him up as support for this view.
And this is also a practice called exercising the right of
the first night. Now the right of the first night
is a practice that that was sometimes exercised, that the
king could exercise the right to sleep with any woman who is
getting married. So as she got married on her
wedding day, the king, that Lord tyrant, could exercise the
rights of the first night. It was his right to have her on
that first night. And actually in the Epic of
Gilgamesh it is it is the exercising of the rite of the
first night that that leads to Gilgamesh being labeled as a
tyrant early on in his life. So this was something that
existed in their time here. The question in this view, the
question needs to be asked, is it sinful for a king to marry a
common woman? I would think not 2nd, we need
to be cautious in our interpretation to not impose our
culture's meanings for words into the text.
It said that they took wives, right?
Is what it what it says they took wives from among the
daughters, daughters and men. Well, taking a wife is simply a
Hebrew idiom for marriage and it and it doesn't by any means
imply coercion. Later in in Genesis, Abraham,
Nahor, and Isaac, they'll all be said to take wives who who
willingly marry them so they're not coerced into being married.
It's difficult for us to be dogmatic about any of these 3
views. Now, have you seen they can each
be supported in some sense by the text, and they each leave
you with questions and issues to navigate.
What is clear though is that some sort of grievous sexual sin
is in view. So then what about the
nepheline? Well, the word Nephilim is is
plural. It's taken from the word nephal,
and the word nephal simply means fallen.
So strictly speaking, Nephilim are fallen ones.
That is all that the word Nephilim tells us.
They are fallen ones. One perspective of the Nephilim
is that they are offspring of the union between the fallen
angels and women. Their offspring of the union
between the fallen angels and women.
The thought here is that this was a superhuman hybrid race of
giants that were the products of fallen angels mating with human
women. The obvious question here is are
are demons sexually compatible with human women and then are
they able to even produce children?
This view says yes, they took on bodily forms and and they
impregnated women in various spots.
In Scripture we will see that angelic beings take human forms
soul. That is an argument for that
perspective. Next.
The next option is the Nephilim are independent of the sons of
God and daughters of men. The Nephilim are independents of
the sons of God and daughters of men.
Verse four said the Nephilim were on the earth in those days
and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters
of man and they bore children to them.
So this view maintains that the Nephilim have nothing to do with
fallen angels marrying human women.
The Nephilim were there before and after the sons of God
cohabitated with the daughters of men.
When you read the text, that's what it looks like.
Further, the sentence does not begin with the word and, which
is very unique in in Hebrew Scripture.
And when a sentence does not begin with the word and then,
then it's doing this for one of two reasons.
Either it's beginning an entirely new section or it is
acting as a footnote. It is, it is a sort of
commentary on the previous sentence.
The argument here is the Nephilim were, were already
there and they'll, they'll continue to be there after this
moment and as well as after the flood, right?
And, and especially when the Israelites are going in to take
the promised land, the land of Canaan, they will see many
giants there. So they were there before,
they're going to continue to be there after.
That's the argument. So that's the fun theoretical
part of the message. Go home, start Googling, start
looking up articles, read everything you can and you will
find yourself even more confused than when you started.
It has been fun for me to take an even deeper dive on this, but
you know, this is just theoretical stuff.
This doesn't change anything about our faith or how we read
Scripture, but there are some things that that we can still
look at in this passage. And if you're paying attention,
you might be left with a couple questions.
Still, verses 6 and seven read. The Lord regretted that he had
made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from
the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and
birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.
The phrases of notes here are the Lord regretted that he had
made man on the earth, and God saying, I am sorry that I've
made them. Now these phrases might well
trigger the memory of any good students of the word You'll say
God regretted, God was was sorry.
How? How is this possible?
Because Numbers 2319 says God is not man that he should lie or a
son of man that he should change his mind.
Has he said and will he not do it or has he spoken and will he
not fulfill it? And then Malachi 36 God says
that he doesn't change. And plus there are other
passages speaking to God's immutability and and the fact
that he doesn't change. We know that we can count on
God, right? That he is trustworthy in all
his ways. So how how could it possibly be
that God regretted or changed his mind about creating humans?
Well, it's best for us to understand God's sorrow and his
regrets, to understand those two concepts as grief over what man
had become. God was grieved over what man
had become. He was experiencing emotional
anguish over over these humans motives and and their actions.
He'd been wronged by the presumptuous sin of humanity.
He had initially set out what was right and what was wrong,
but humanity said no, I know better and chose to redefine
right and wrong. It's important to clarify God's
grief over the making of humanity isn't remorse in the
sense of sorrow over a mistaken creation.
God didn't make a mistake. However, these verses show that
God's pain has its source in humanity's perversion and
sinfulness. Creation of man was was no
error. It's what man had made of
himself that grieved God so much.
See, God intimately engages with his creation, which effects him
in ways that that we can't comprehend.
He's pained by the sinner's rebellion and acknowledging his
possibility. That is his ability to
experience emotions. Acknowledging his ability to
experience emotions, it doesn't diminish the fact that he is
immutable and he does not change.
When we say God loves, that God gets angry or God grieves.
The point isn't to say that we are the same.
There are, of course, drastic differences between our emotions
and God's version of emotions. God doesn't love the way we do.
He doesn't get angry in the same way US sinful mortals do, He
doesn't grieve in the same manner that we do, But this
doesn't make his emotions any less real.
God was sorry for what his creation had become.
The Imago day, that is, the image of God, had been
tarnished, and what was it that led to God's grieving?
Verse 5 told us the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil. Continually, humanity had become
wicked. In fact, humanity was so wicked,
God shortened humanity's lifespan from being 8-9 hundred
years, nearly 1000 years to 120. Shorter lifespans serve to limit
the destructive impact of humanity's selfishness, greed,
and rebellion. Individuals bent on violence can
harm or destroy an immense number of people in a 900 year
lifetime. Also, their spiritual malignancy
can spread like a cancer if they live for hundreds and hundreds
of years. The sins of the sons of God and
the daughters of men represent just just part of the picture of
moral disintegration that pervaded Noah's world.
Earth's entire human population had grown irreparably wicked.
It was so bad God declared every intention of the thoughts of his
heart. Human hearts was only evil
continually. Man's every thoughts, man's
every inclination was towards evil.
Sinfulness wasn't just a fleeting moment, a little little
blip on the radar. Oh, there's just that little
dots of sin. No, sinfulness was all consuming
in the hearts of humanity now. God wasn't just dealing with
externals here. We tend to think of sin as an
act. Yes, there are sins of
Commission. There are actions.
But sin is is more than that. And verse verse 6 actually
communicates that to us. Sin begins in the heart and it
makes its way outside into our actions.
It begins in the heart and makes its way into our actions.
Your actions can still be compliant while you have a
sinful heart. Eve's first sin, it wasn't
taking the fruit. Her first sin was was in her
heart. When she desired that fruit more
than anything, she looked upon it.
She saw it was good, and she took it.
When she looked upon the fruit it it created a desire that
she'd never felt before, and that was when she started
heading down the path towards sin.
Now I know none of us here is Cain, but nonetheless, you might
feel like you're descended from an ungodly line.
Maybe there are generational sins in your family that you
face. Sin is crouching at the door.
It's desire is for you and to rule over you, but you must
master it. When it starts to rise up in our
hearts, we need to take note and take action against it. 2nd
Corinthians 10 verses 4 through 5 read For the weapons of our
warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy
strongholds. We destroy arguments in every
lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every
thought captive to obey Christ. Sins.
War against us isn't a fleshly battle, it's a spiritual battle.
Our weapons from God serve to destroy the lies that Satan
throws at us. When we take our thoughts
captive, we're actively, we're filtering, we're evaluating, and
we are aligning our thought life with biblical truth.
And when we align our thought life with biblical truth, this
breaks the toxic, anxiety driven and ungodly thought spirals that
we can fall into as humans. No, it's not a insurmountable
task for us to break away from sin.
It's within our capacities to to change our thoughts.
First Corinthians 10/13 you'll be familiar with this says no
temptation is overtaking you. That is not common to man.
God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted beyond your
ability. Before we go on, I just want to
say something it doesn't say. People will say, oh, God's not
going to give you more than you can handle.
No, God's going to give you more than you can handle.
I want to make that clear. God sometimes gives you more
than you can handle, so it brings you to the end of
yourself and you trust in Him. What the verse is saying, God is
not going to give you give you. He doesn't give you temptation.
He's not going to allow temptation more than you can
handle. That's what the text is saying.
Then it goes on with the temptation He will provide, the
way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
God has given us all the weapons that we need, that temptation
that comes at you day after day after day.
God has provided the way of escape from that, the way to
freedom. When temptation comes, we aren't
facing something that that no one else has faced in the
history of the world, though sometimes it feels like it,
right? No, it's said that which is
common to man, that which humanity has experienced.
What we're facing is completely normal to the human experience.
Others have walked this path before us, and God's promise to
us is that we won't face more temptation than we can handle.
God has provided the way of escaping and we can conquer the
sin that enslaved those early generations, those early
generations whose whose every intent of their hearts was evil.
We can have victory over sin through Jesus Christ and the
power that he provides. So let's bow our heads and close
our eyes. We're going to do something.
I'm going to do something I've not done before just to prep the
worship team. We're going to go back and sing
Living Hope instead. But before we do that, let's
take a moment in our hearts to examine and to yield to say,
God, I give this to you. Would you help me to walk in the
power that you have provided through the Holy Spirit to be
filled with the spirits? God, would you change the
intents of my heart? May my motives be right and pure
before You, as Psalm 139 says. Search me, oh God.
Know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there is
any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Lead me in your ways, God. Just take just a minute to just
look in our hearts and surrender them to God.
God, we come to you, So God, we offer our hearts to
you and surrender this morning. Search us, know us, see if
there's any wicked way in US and us in your ways, Jesus name,
Amen.