Supernatural Sin and God's Sovereignty

[0:00] Well, it is our great privilege as a congregation to have God's Word and to be free in this nation to read it and proclaim it.

[0:23] And that would happen even if they told us not to, right? We'd find a way. To honor the Lord. Or we'd go be with the Lord. And so Paul said, I want to be here to help.

[0:37] I want to be here to serve. But much greater to be with the Lord. So either way, we win in the end. We're going to be with Him. We're in Genesis. And we have come to this very enigmatic place in Scripture.

[0:55] Genesis 6, 1 through 7 particularly. The title of my message for this morning, Supernatural Sin and God's Sovereignty. Supernatural Sin and God's Sovereignty.

[1:09] Now we're going to read down through verse 8, but I'm only going to deal with half of those verses for this morning. And then I'm really going to put the brakes on, God willing, for the next couple of weeks because this is such a critical, critical place in Scripture for what we're going to see God do in the way of His judgment and how this is going to affect the entire planet until Jesus comes back.

[1:35] So in Genesis 6 beginning in verse 1, Now it happened. When men began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were good in appearance.

[1:54] They were attractive. And they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then Yahweh said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever because he indeed is flesh.

[2:08] Nevertheless, his days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them.

[2:23] Those were the mighty men of old, men of renown. Then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

[2:38] And Yahweh regretted that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. And Yahweh said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, for I regret that I have made them.

[2:58] But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh. Now, just, well, I'm going to say just about every, no, every conservative commentator that I know of and have consulted agrees that this is the most enigmatic, difficult passage to translate and understand in the entire Genesis account, in the entire book of Genesis.

[3:27] Many of them thought that this was the most difficult passage to translate in all of the Bible, or at least it rivaled the most difficult passages. But I think that God wants us, like any other troubling passage or difficult passage, to know this.

[3:42] God wants us to know this. He's not hiding the truth from us. This isn't a parable. And so I want to say some things about how we approach interpreting these verses because so many different ideas have been put forward about what this means.

[3:58] And you probably have a certain understanding. You're probably coming into this, having read this or heard sermons about it or read different things, and you have some ideas of your own.

[4:10] What does this passage mean? What does it entail? Who are these people? What's going on here? Now, I've tried to prepare you for this, but this has been a very, very challenging study.

[4:22] In order to set the tone for this in light of what I've been telling you over the last two weeks as I've thought about bringing you into this passage, that's why I preached what I did last Sunday, I want to show you some things that we're going to deal with.

[4:38] We are going to take a literal, grammatical, historical approach to interpreting all of Genesis. We started that way in Genesis 1-1, and we're going to continue to take that approach throughout the book of Genesis.

[4:52] And here's what I mean by that. I'll put it up here to start with. This is the literal, grammatical, historical approach to interpretation. When we talk about hermeneutics, hermeneutics refers to the science of interpretation, rules that govern how we come to different pieces of literature and understand the meaning inherent within what's being written.

[5:18] The first principle I'll give you is that of being literal. We come to this text and we take it literally. That is, it is truthful in what is actually written.

[5:28] It is factual in terms of what is written. We're not doing all kinds of craziness with this text. We're not trying to mythologize it.

[5:39] We're not trying to allegorize it. We're allowing this to have a literal impact as it's written on us. Number two, grammatical.

[5:49] We are dealing with the syntactical relationships that we have between sentences and words. And so we go to a lexical exegesis, a syntactical and lexical exegesis.

[6:03] And what that means is, lexicon deals with the definitions of words. We are careful to define these words and understand the relationship these words have with each other based on the context of the passage.

[6:18] That's another way that we keep from doing all kinds of monkey business with it and reading our bias into it. Exegesis means that I'm allowing the text itself to tell me what it means by what it says.

[6:31] It speaks its meaning to me as I work through these issues of hermeneutics. Rather than eisegesis, me reading my bias into the text to make it say what I want.

[6:43] No. We're going to do exegesis. And then number three, we're taking a historical approach. That is, we understand this to be teaching us about real people.

[6:54] These are historical people. These are true events. These are true depictions. That's how we're approaching this. This hermeneutical approach answers the basic question what does this text mean by what it says.

[7:11] We allow it to say what it says without messing around with it. And we allow the meaning to derive from what it says. So we're careful to deal with it the way that it's written.

[7:24] Now that sounds very basic. I know. But this is the spirit that you get oftentimes when you attend Bible studies outside of this church.

[7:36] Not all of them, but some of them because we've had these reports come back to us. I've sat in these myself. I did this as a young Christian. When you sit around in a Bible study and you take turns going around after reading the passage and you ask everybody, what do you think it means?

[7:53] Well, I'm going to tell you now, we're not at all interested in what you think it means. You're not interested in what I think it means. No. What do I know?

[8:04] I wasn't there. What we need to do is allow the text to tell us what it means. That's exegesis. Allowing the text to tell us what it means.

[8:15] And we need to approach it in a very straightforward way of dealing with the rules of interpretation. In other words, it allows for the text or the passage to say what it says at face value and to be interpreted as literally true so that we don't read any personal bias into the author's meaning.

[8:41] Now, speaking of the author's meaning, what are we after? We are after this. We are after authorial intent. Author. The meaning the human author assigned to the text when he wrote it.

[8:57] Ultimately, what we're looking for as God worked through these human authors, we're looking for what does God mean by what he wrote, right? We want to know what is God's meaning.

[9:09] So every time one of your pastors steps to this pulpit to preach a sermon, we want to preach God's sermon. You understand, God's already preached it because it's written here.

[9:20] And so what I'm interested in is preaching to you what God has already preached. You need to hear from God through his human instrument. It doesn't mean that I don't have opinions.

[9:34] It doesn't mean that I don't have bias. It doesn't mean that I struggle with my own weakness and inability to understand difficult things. But I'm trusting the Holy Spirit to help me with integrity come to the text and deal with it in a way that I help show you this is how I got this.

[9:53] When I'm not sure, I'll tell you. And I've had to say that on occasion. It's rare. But I've had to say on occasion, yeah, I'm not sure about this. But I try to land.

[10:04] If I land in something that I say this is what I believe this to be after the study that I've made, but I'm still a little bit hesitant to be dogmatic about it, I might tell you that.

[10:17] And I might caveat it in just a way. But boy, I tell you, that is rare. I don't want to be wishy-washy about the text of Scripture. I believe God wants us to know these things and understand them.

[10:28] And I think we just need to work hard. And Bible study is hard work. It requires a great deal of humility and prayer on the part of you, me, anybody approaching God's Word.

[10:41] We need to remember that the God of the universe wrote this for His people. So this is God's book so that it is written with God making certain that what we have today is a trustworthy, accurate, and complete account of what He wants us to know concerning the subjects He deals with.

[11:05] Is this book designed by God to help people understand how to do brain surgery? No. Is this book designed to help us know God?

[11:15] Yes. Is this book designed to help us know who we are in relationship to God? Yes. Is this book designed to help us understand the world that God made and how He made it and why we're here?

[11:26] Yes. So in all matters concerning our souls, in relation to the God that we live under, God has given us everything we need to know to do that in a holy, God-pleasing way.

[11:41] Amen? That is the truth of the Scriptures that we serve today. This is what we're looking at. So God wants us to know what He wants us to know concerning the subjects He deals with in Scripture.

[11:55] Today, the subject is God's view of the degradation of society or the degeneration, the degrading reality of society not long since He put Adam and Eve out of the garden.

[12:13] Things have progressed very, very rapidly in several fronts. One of them being this population explosion as God has blessed the wounds of these women who have given birth and people are just multiplying like crazy all over the earth.

[12:30] But so is sin. So is sin. That's what He wants us to see in the text this morning. The degradation of society which prompted the Lord to sentence mankind on the whole to death.

[12:46] My goodness, what had to be going on that Almighty God would bring a great global flood to wipe out all living creatures on the planet except eight human beings and the animals who were in the ark?

[13:00] What in the world? Now a lot of people want to mythologize that. No. Allegorize that. No. We believe that that literally happened. Just as we interpreted the creation account as being literally true, that is we took a view of 26, 24 hour days.

[13:20] We understood that as we went through Genesis 1 and 2 that God made everything from nothing. You know, He didn't start out with dirt somewhere out in the cosmos and say, I think I'll take that dirt and move it over here and wad it up and make a ball and put people...

[13:39] No. Everything from nothing. That's the truth of what God did. See, we understand that's not a problem for the God of the universe that we're being introduced to in the Bible.

[13:49] None of what we're... Six 24 hour days? Nothing for Him. Right? Nothing. We might struggle with that. We might want to try to explain that away. It's not an issue for the Lord to do what He did from nothing.

[14:04] We will also interpret the verses of our text this morning as being literally true. At least I will. That's where I'm coming from. In part, that means that we believe, as with chapter 5 that we just went through together, that people were actually living for hundreds of years.

[14:22] In some cases, over 900 years. in one lifespan. Wow! That's incredible. Yes, it is. We also believe that things are as bad as God describes them now that we move into chapter 6 and that He is fully justified in all His actions against sinful mankind.

[14:45] It is very important for us to understand that as we move through interpreting these matters in a literal way, so that we read Genesis chapter 5 and we see all of these numbers and we believe those numbers are in there for a reason and that they're accurate because God preserved them to be accurate.

[15:02] And now we're going to come over to chapter 6 and we're going to start doing funky things that take us out of a literal understanding. No! He's saying no, absolutely not. Why would we do that? There's no good hermeneutical reason to do that.

[15:15] So I'm making an offensive stance before you this morning to say that we're going to safeguard the text in terms of what it means by what it says. And we're always going to take that approach unless the text tells us itself that we shouldn't do that.

[15:33] Let me give you an example before we move on just real quickly. Don't turn there, but if you were to go to John chapter 6, you would see Jesus coming to a place where he is going to command the people who are listening to him to eat his flesh and do what with his blood?

[15:48] Drink it. Now does Jesus want us to become cannibals? So we understand when we read texts like that that we cannot take that literally. Now Jesus is making a shift on us in the text and so eat my flesh and drink my blood contextually are equated with belief.

[16:08] It's Jesus' way of saying believe in me. I am your food. I am your drink. I'm your sustenance. I'm your life.

[16:19] Believe in me. That's what John 6 is all about. But it's very obvious. There's no reason to do something like that in the verses before us this morning and so your pastor's not going to do that.

[16:31] We're going to take a literal approach to what we're reading here and I'm going to try to walk you through it and show you what I've come to understand about this based on much, much study. In fact, I'll go ahead and tell you that a couple of different times in the past in my seminary studies I took a class that required me to pick a topic that was a what did they call it?

[16:54] A problem passage. That's what they called it. A problem passage. In the scriptures. I could pick anyone I want from a big old list and this is the one I chose.

[17:06] And so I did a master's degree paper master's level paper on this actual position. Now I'm going to make a confession to you.

[17:17] I got it wrong. Now they let me go and say just defend it. So I tried to defend it. And one of the options that I'm going to give you this morning was the option that was most attractive to me at the time.

[17:33] I was a much younger Christian. We're talking about the late 80s. I'd been a Christian for maybe five, six years at most. I didn't know anything about how to study the Bible. And now I'm in seminary expected to crank out this kind of stuff.

[17:47] And so later applying more skill, more knowledge, more understanding, more use of tools that helped me do this with great integrity and that kind of thing.

[17:57] I saw, oh dear me, I went left when I should have gone right right here and here's how I did it. So that's just me letting you know we're all growing. We're all growing.

[18:08] Well Jeff, how can we then, if you got it wrong that time, what's to say you didn't get it wrong today? Well, you be the judge. Be a good Berean and follow along and listen and see what you think.

[18:21] All right? I'm going to preach it dogmatically. I'm going to preach it like this is the truth that just fell out of heaven at my feet. So we don't doubt, we don't dismiss all of this based on science, so-called, or any other man-driven methodology.

[18:40] God was there. So we're going to take God at His word as the author and the eyewitness of these events. We take a literal view of these events unless tech gives us a good hermeneutical reason to view it differently and all of this is to say I'm not going to make my sermons about answering skeptics and scoffers.

[19:01] I'm not going to do that. I'm not on the defensive up here this morning. I'm on the offensive. I'm not going to make my sermons about squashing contrary opinions so that I get up here and argue with different people that I've read or whatever.

[19:15] I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to make my sermons about demanding that science prove anything to us. Science cannot prove or disprove the Bible. Science will prove helpful to us down the road as I show you some things that I don't know lends I think credence to the way that we can see evidences in the world of what happened long ago.

[19:47] It's doing science with integrity but science isn't the measure of scripture's veracity it's truthfulness. I don't go to science and say is the scripture got this right?

[19:59] Do you see why I wouldn't do that? No. I bring science to scripture and I measure science by what the word of God says and if there's a disconnect I'm going to camp out in the word or I would be a scientist I guess I wouldn't make anyway today we're going to get our introduction to what God saw and what God says based on what he saw and what he did it's about how low society had sunk into sin and self and so here's how I want to begin this morning to outline this for you this is the only point that we're going to deal with this morning in sub points and then I'll have several others that will complete this section or this passage down through verse 8 in the next couple weeks the sinfulness of society is where we'll start now it happened that doesn't that's not circumstantial there in the sense of being serendipitous or something like that it didn't just all of a sudden happen and God was taken that's not what it means now it happened now it occurred now it came about in this way is what he's saying when men began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them and the sons of

[21:19] God saw that the daughters of men were good in appearance they took wives for themselves whoever they chose then Yahweh said my spirit the Holy Spirit shall not strive with man forever because he indeed is flesh nevertheless his day shall be 120 years now the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them those were the mighty men who were of old men of renown that's the text that we're going to be looking at for the next little while here and what we're going to start off with God gives them over or the end of restraining grace in verses 1 and 2 God gives these people over and right away I'm going to take you just in a quote up here in Matthew 24 Jesus compares his second coming to the time of Noah this particular time look at what he says for just as the days of

[22:21] Noah were so the coming of the son of man will be in what way for in those days that is the days of Noah before the flood they were eating and drinking they were marrying and given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away here you have people living oblivious to the reality now while verse 1 can seem rather innocuous to us as people go about their lives multiplying filling the earth they are not attempting to obey the Lord this isn't the multiplying and filling the earth that God commanded so that these people understand that command and they are seeking to obey God that's not what this is we know that from the context the truth about these people is much more sinister they are not innocent they are not ignorant they are not even naive in the sense that I'm going to explain they are rebellious they are rejecting

[23:47] God and his truth we come to know that from the fact that the Bible tells us that Enoch and Noah were preachers of righteousness and they were sharing the gospel with these people constantly they were preaching the truth of God for salvation and these people weren't having it now I've shared some of that with you already as I've shown you in previous messages just the last two or three right before we came to this text that's why I did all that is to lay the groundwork and prepare you for what we would see here knowing that I wouldn't have time to take it apart like that I don't want to break it up too much I want you to see the flow these people are rebellious they have no concern for God they have no concern for God's holiness none whatsoever now if you contrast this attitude with how the Lord sees what is taking place if you look with me

[24:47] I won't preach through this today but look with me at five and six and contrast God's view with the view that these people are taking as they marry and are given in marriage as they go about their lives and live like nothing is going on look what God says about what is going on then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth you want to ask yourself how did they miss that and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually they can't even escape this everything about their lives every aspect of their lives it's all about living in this evil evil twice in verse 5 he uses the word evil the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually he's not leaving any room for anything else and Yahweh regretted that he'd made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart now the picture that's being painted for us here with these people is there's no grief there's no sorrow there's no broken heartedness they're proud of their wickedness they're parading their evil in front of each other and encouraging each other in more of it and God is heartbroken so much to the place where the scripture tells us he regrets that he made him that we're going to deal with that in the future what does that mean stay with me the next couple of weeks and we'll get there

[26:33] God willing this is a huge disconnect between how God sees them and how they see themselves just as we see in our day regarding how people pursue lies and give themselves over to evil desires and evil lifestyles these people actually took pride in sinful rebellion and in counting themselves hear me now they counted themselves independent and free and they were anything but they are deceived in God's view the pre-flood world is in pervasive gross sin but the people are essentially oblivious to just how bad they've all become and this is what is defining the spirit of this age we need to take from this text the spirit of the age and see intently into what

[27:35] God is showing us about what it was like to live at this time in this particular society people here at the bottom people have given themselves over to gross wickedness so God has given them over to that wickedness you see what's happening God hasn't caused all this wickedness on the earth people have pursued their own rebellious selfish prideful hearts to such a degree that God has given them over to what they want to their idols the idols of their own hearts now just how gross and depraved they've become is described in verse 2 and folks I'm going to tell you this is tough because this is not G rated stuff all right I'm going to try to keep it within the bounds of what we need to do here and I understand who aren't my audiences but you need to understand that the way this thing is written is in your face verse 2 that the sons of

[28:38] God saw that the daughters of men were in good appearance and they took wives for themselves whomever they chose whomever they chose now we've already dealt with this to some degree we're going to put it in its context now and talk about it more what is going on here well verse 1 go back to verse 1 connects this passage to what Moses has just revealed about the godly line sons of chapter 5 the fact that we have people that are multiplying on the face of the land and daughters being born that's language reminiscent of what we saw in the pattern in 5 where people were being born sons were being born more children were being born and then they died this is what's going on and it connects the two together ten generations of godly sons were identified in chapter 5 but notice in chapter 5 there were other sons and daughters born to these families of people

[29:45] Moses now shifts the emphasis to these daughters in chapter 6 to give us insight into how Satan sought to corrupt humanity to thwart God's promise of bringing his Messiah from the line of a godly woman you see what's happening then in chapter 5 we have an emphasis on sons at the beginning of chapter 6 we're shifting over now and Moses is going to highlight the daughters of these families so we have godly sons and we have by understanding there were some women some daughters that were born and some of these women not all of them were raised up to be godly women in reference to these godly sons as well but not all the sons in chapter 5 and not all the daughters that are being mentioned were godly not all of them that's not what it says so the line of

[30:49] Seth was producing people who were not coming to God in faith you understand we just have ten generations of guys that are by name highlighted and prompted out to show us that God is working salvation in people to preserve this godly line but not all the people from Seth's line are coming to know God there are many many many more sinners who are not following God than are following but now we're going to see him zero in on some of these daughters and what Satan is trying to do is get in here and corrupt humanity in order to break up this godly line why would he do that well listen Satan didn't know which woman was going to be the woman of promise the woman that God would bring the Messiah from he just said it would come from woman right and Eve got that started and now he's going to preserve that godly line as it moves through these all these generations but Satan doesn't know he heard the curse he heard what God told Eve right back in

[32:08] Genesis 3 15 listen and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed so woman is going to have seed children and I'm going to put enmity between your seed Satan and her seed he shall bruise you on the head the seed of the woman and you shall bruise him on the heel well he doesn't know he's not omniscient like God so he can't see into the future to see how this is all going to play out he just knows that it's supposed to come from humanity this promised one to deliver everybody and so now I want to get in there and mess humanity up I want to foil God's plan to do this through human beings and so he comes up with this and not only is it sickening but it is one of the most disheartening schemes that you'll read in all of scripture it is really really something so

[33:13] Satan used so Satan used a deceptive strategy to exploit these daughters of men and the men that are going to be involved with these daughters of men so don't hear your pastor standing up here bashing you ladies don't hear me standing up here bashing women and blaming women for all this this is a two-sided coin involving ungodly men and ungodly women coming together and this is a mess so this is a human issue not a woman issue or a guy issue this is a human issue and the issue is sin Satan wants to corrupt what God made good so several interpretations have been put forward to explain what I'm understanding this to be an enigmatic or mysterious series of verses but the traditional Jewish understanding fits the context best so we're going way way back now to

[34:15] Jewish interpreters and rabbinic scholars who interpreted this passage in the way that I'm going to put forward to you in just a moment I think that it's best understood that way but one interpretation the one that I first landed on all those years ago suggests that the sons of God refer to the men of the godly line of Seth and the daughters of men refer to the women of the ungodly seed or lineage of Cain so we have godly men in Seth's line we have ungodly women in Cain's line and the ungodly women proving to be as beautiful and alluring as they are are bringing some of these godly guys over and corrupting them and that we've got this inner marriage between godliness and we've got this unequally yoked thing happening so that the degrading influence that these ungodly women are having on these godly men is winning out and pulling them over now some of you ladies are probably looking up here and thinking yeah a man had to write that and come up with that

[35:32] I don't know they dated this back actually it was a couple of guys and they are church fathers that first came up with this idea but this is a very attractive interpretation in terms of how it plays out in the context of these verses enough to where when I first studied this I thought boy that's that's very insightful I think they've hit on something here under Satan's deceptive influence and plan to corrupt the godly line to mess up God's plan to bring Messiah from this godly line these godly men from Seth's line intermarried with the godly women from Cain's line but now look here's the problem and there are many I'm just going to give you a couple assigning the phrase daughters of men to Cain's line is not what the text says or means you won't find that in here that is not what it's saying it doesn't say now that the sons of God saw that the daughters of Cain that's not what it says and that is very important this is where our syntactical and lexical hermeneutical approach is going to help us out and keep us from reading in does it say the daughters of Cain or does it say something else it says the daughters of man or men either translation is going to work and I'll show you why that's that's what we're dealing with that's why we're taking our time to look at this the Hebrew phrase daughters of men or your translation may say daughters of man is meant to be a generic not a specific reference or he would have said

[37:29] Cain or the line of Cain or somebody else or Lamech or something like that but he didn't so look verses one and two employ the same wording and grammar to emphasize mankind and it's up here for you in verse one when men that is a generic reference for humans people mankind began to multiply on the face of the land similarly in the similar grammar and now in verse two the daughters of men the reason that the LSB says men instead of man is both of them are correct the NAS will have man the LSB has men is because both of them are plural both of the references it means mankind or humanity not the line of Cain or a specific line the daughters of men or mankind would include both

[38:38] Seth's and Cain's lineage so daughters of men is being used as a general term for mankind it's not being used in a specific referenced way limited only to Cain's line now what does this tell us it means that when it says that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were good in appearance those daughters of men were also from Seth's line not just from Cain's we got both lines with the sons of God looking at Seth's descendants and looking at Cain's descendants in terms of the women and saying whoo that's I like that now all right that's what's going on not just one line we haven't determined this other thing yet with the sons of God we'll get there think of it this way daughters of men general term not a specific reference the fact that only eight people eight human beings survive the flood tells us there were godless sinners in the lineages of both

[39:47] Sethites and Cainites right eight people from the line of Seth because Noah is identified in that line were saved eight of them all the rest perished and we haven't got there yet but think about what that tells us that tells us that we've got a lot of people who don't love the Lord and they're from both lines not everybody born in the line of Seth loved the Lord all right now let me ask you you're you're all you adults for those of you who are sitting here sound in your faith you you know I'm saved the only explanation for my life is that I have faith in Christ by the grace of almighty God all right I'm talking to you now you have a lineage you have people that are close to you is everybody that you know especially part of your lineage are they all Christians no it's just easy to answer isn't it not everybody in Seth's line were godly people just like not everybody in our families and connected to us are godly people it's the same kind of thing that's going on here so what are we dealing with the idea here that one line corrupted the other falls short to help us explain the context of what's going on and that's why I can't subscribe to it there are other reasons but we'll leave it at that now that leaves us with the phrase about the sons of god who were they now you if you were here last week you heard me deal with this in preparation for what I'll tell you today we're going to review a little bit of that and then

[41:39] I'll add some other stuff to fill out the context of what we're talking about so in short who were these sons of god well I believe the scripture teaches these were fallen angels they are angels but they're fallen angels and I've used a couple of previous messages to better prepare you for this particular answer that they're fallen angels it's not like for those of you who've been coming to grace it's not like I'm just jumping into that throwing it on you and now we're moving on I've taken a couple of sermons to lay the groundwork for this for you the new testament helps us with this understanding that these are fallen angels but before I review those verses I want you to just take note please beloved take note that the phrase the sons of god is consistently understood in scripture as referring to either good or evil male angels all angels in scripture are always male 100% of the time and so most consistently not not in every instance but most of the time when sons of god as a phrase dealt with in scripture it's referring to male angels there are other instances where believers are referred to in that way but again you have to deal with it contextually to understand now I'm going to show you where this is in the new testament as well so fallen angels being the culprits behind the sons of god thing is how the oldest jewish commentaries and jewish scholars have understood this passage now I realize that doesn't make this interpretation foolproof just because the jewish scholars said so I understand that so as we turn to allowing scripture to help us interpret scripture which is a good hermeneutical principle the case becomes clear that the ancient jewish interpretation I think is best so once again revisit with me second

[43:43] Peter 2 so that we can look at how the new testament helps us understand this second Peter 2 4 through 10 a this was much of what I talked about I think last time and the time before for if God did not spare angels who send but cast them into the pit and delivered them to chains of darkness being kept for judgment and did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah a preacher of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly and if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter and if he rescued righteous lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men for what he saw and heard that righteous man while living among them felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment and notice verse 10 a and especially those who go after the flesh in its corrupt lust and despise authority Peter tells us that this event with the angels happened just before the flood you see that in the context of the passage and that notice up here how I highlight this God did not spare these angels who sinned but cast them into the pit and deliver them to chains of darkness being kept for judgment that's different than how

[45:39] God talks about demonic activity among other classes of demons in scripture who are free to roam and tempt and do what they do possess people these particular angels have been imprisoned it's it's very different so something's gone on here that brought God to do something different with these fallen angels than he has with others different with these demons than he has with others now clearly we can see that these are evil angels because the whole passage is talking about wicked lust depravity these are evil angels whose sin is especially vile so that God sealed them in darkness while they await his judgment that's what the text says now we turn over and look at Jude 6 and 7 so a couple of books back past verse John and into Jude just one chapter here and I'll show you how I got this if you look at verse 6 and angels who did not keep their own domain domain but abandoned their proper abode

[47:06] God has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day that's the same parallel idea that Peter is bringing up we have a special group of fallen angels demons who abandoned their domain their proper abode so that God kept them now in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day and now he makes a comparison with these demons to this particular event in verse 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them have indulged in the same way as these that is in gross sexual immorality and having gone after strange flesh are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire now folks here's what's going on Jude helps us see that these sinning angels these demons didn't remain in the abode

[48:12] God portioned for them by Satan's command they roamed beyond their domain and their sin was equated with that of Sodom and Gomorrah that's what the text is plainly saying to us just as these angels just as in Sodom and Gomorrah in the same way as these that's what he's talking about so let me put it up here and see if it'll help visualize some of this Sodom and Gomorrah indulged in the same way as these fallen angels in gross sexual immorality most likely they were able to accomplish this by possessing human men now look this is this is where I can't be dogmatic and I have to tell you this because was it required of these fallen angels that in order to come and commit these lewd acts with these human women did they first have to possess human men in order to accomplish that all right I think most likely yes and here's the reason we see when we come to Sodom and Gomorrah that angels two angels walked into the city didn't they all right and everybody saw them didn't they so they had bodies as human beings and they were very attractive guys and they went into

[49:43] Lot's house and what did they do with Lot they ate they physically partook of food and such right so that would leave you thinking well if they can do human things like that right you with me you following tracking adults all right here's a problem with that these are good angels we're talking about a different context of angels now aren't we so these are these are beautiful angels man and I know Satan can describe this disguise himself as an angel of light but I but I wonder if it's a different story with these evil angels if they're able to take on an appearance that would be attractive and alluring and then be able to engage in human activities in that such we see that with angels who are serving the Lord but I don't know that the scripture says the same thing about demonic angels or demons you with me I just need to throw that out there to let you know that that's as far as I can go right now in my understanding of that that's something you could explore more if you'd like but that's just me being upfront and honest with you about it my personal judgment based on the study I've done so far is that it is most likely for me that these demonic spirits possessed human men in order to accomplish what it's the text is telling us they did all right that that's as far as I can go right now now here's here's what we can say though this then was a time notice the text when the sons of God it says came in to the daughters of men came in to the daughters of men that is a very strong reference that we're seeing from the word of God itself as we pull these New Testament passage together to help us better understand what we see going on in Genesis chapter 6 the sons of

[51:56] God saw that the daughters of men were in good appearance and they took wives for themselves whoever they chose in verse 4 when it talks about the Nephilim being on the earth it references the time frame that the Nephilim were on the earth and it was when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and we're going to deal with that here in just a second this was a time this was a time when all of this was going on with these fallen demons possessing human men and then carrying on with these daughters the women both from Seth's line and from Cain's line the fallen angels or demons left their appointed domain that God appointed for them to possess these human men from both lines to engage in immorality with human females in an attempt to corrupt all humanity see this is where we need to allow the context to be king for us to help us better understand the flow of thought and the emphasis that Moses is putting here that God the author is telling us about what is he trying to communicate to us through through what is just sounds so weird what's he trying to tell us this Satan has come up with a sickening scheme and the point of all of it is to corrupt humanity to degrade humanity to thwart God's promise this is an attempt to fight God's promise there may be things about this that you and I will never fully understand there are other places in scripture we can say the same thing right but that doesn't mean that we can't see the intent of what we're being told here and I think that's the point Satan is trying to thwart God and corrupt all humanity now let me just show you the

[53:50] Bible doesn't pull any punches it doesn't hide the dehumanizing nature of what these people gave themselves to and here's how it comes out look at this right here at the bottom of the screen came in to the daughters of men that is a crass Hebrew expression characterizing God's view of the vile nature of these acts and that's about as far as I'm going to take it I think most of you can grasp what's being said here the Lord is giving us a chilling unsettling uncomfortable look into just how bad and dehumanizing society had become given our day and time friends I don't think this should be much of a jump for us for this unprecedented violation both angels and humans are now going to pay the ultimate price for the angels God is going to imprison them until the day of final judgment the word that is used for imprisoning them in hell that we looked at at the in the other references that is actually a word that describes a place of thick darkness and emptiness to give the idea that it has no boundaries or no limits they're in a place that doesn't have any prescribed reference points for where it ends it is thick thick thick darkness that offers no ability to see anything anything and it has an emptiness to it that drives into your very being that's where these angels are being kept in Jewish tradition it was called the place of the dead and that's where they are this is a special imprisonment and confinement for these demons who did this with these women possessed these men and took these women and did this with these women this made God sick and it's so bad and so pervasive across society that God is going to wipe out humanity this is bad folks this is really bad that's what he's going to do to the angels for the humans utter destruction by the flood so again I say to you beloved God gave these people over to what they wanted he said aren't these people deceived by Satan yes they're also self-deceived nothing is happening here that these people don't pursue don't desire don't chase after this is what they want to chase after this is what they want for themselves and so God is giving them over to it and society is running down the drain headlong in their selfishness and rebellion against God the Lord now has removed his restraining grace to the point that these people are giving themselves completely to Satan's deceptions they've thrown off restraint they've said no long enough to God and so

[57:25] God's removing that restraining grace to the point that God's removing that restraining grace and these people are now evidencing that they are showing the evidence of God removing his grace from their lives so again remember as I say that we're not talking about saved people losing their salvation we're talking about sinners who have stayed under the blessing of God's common grace and multiplied on the earth and now they won't give God any glory and in fact they're pursuing the filth of their own desires to the exact duplicates of their hindrance for demonic omdat they've considered their уровней Jordan and steamboat olives to the limelight down the holybel��서 Corinth's hopelessness of them to decides they've created the co- functions of our nên port of Otomoous Alcoholics Advocacy giving themaci compris of his brotherhood to the redemption of evil that Sodom and Gomorrah became are dominating society at this particular time.

[58:29] That's why he gives us in two different passages in 2 Peter and in Jude the comparison with Sodom and Gomorrah. Friends, please hear your pastor.

[58:42] When godless perversion is pridefully pursued and pandered and paraded before a holy God, it reveals the rottenness within.

[58:56] And society can expect God's judgment in the form of giving them over to that delusion. And that is what we're seeing today. In our own society, when we have parents that are paying good money to allow their children to do the kinds of things they're doing to their bodies, their minds, to each other, and sanctioning that, when we have a government seeking to sanction that by law so that as you as a parent try to intervene, you are now the deviant.

[59:38] you are now the person that the law is going to come down on. Now, how backwards and sick is that? What is God doing? He is giving us over to what we're pursuing and parading.

[59:51] You see it, and so do I. they go up and down the streets and block off blocks and blocks of our main cities and go out there in all states of undress and everything else and mock God.

[60:03] and as they do it, they say that they're free. They're independent. They're following themselves and they're proud of that and they're under a great deception.

[60:19] They're under demonic dominance. I can't go so far as to say that they're physically possessed of demons. Perhaps that's the case in some. I don't know. But I can say they're rebelling against the Lord.

[60:33] Well, let me hasten with this. You saw earlier that the sub-point was God gives them over and that's the end of His restraining grace.

[60:43] Now God gives them time and yet the end of God's patience. What do I mean? In verses 3 and 4, Then Yahweh said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever because he indeed is flesh.

[60:58] Nevertheless, his days will 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 men. They bore children to them.

[61:10] Those were the mighty men of old. They were men of renown. This unrepentant sin pretends the end of God's patience.

[61:22] So the Lord makes a pledge concerning the time frame for repentance. He is not unmerciful in this situation. You would think after listening to me, man, God's just going to wipe them out.

[61:38] Well, what He actually does is He extends mercy and sends them preachers to try and pull them away from all this. And what is the pledge concerning the time frame for repentance?

[61:50] Look at it with me. My spirit shall not strive with men forever. In other words, my patience is limited. It's running out. When will it run out?

[62:03] In 120 years. And then it's done. In 120 years, the Lord's going to judge them with what will be the great flood.

[62:18] So, what we're saying here about the 120 years is probably different from what you've heard in the past just by people casually reading this. It's this. That 120 years is not a lifespan decree.

[62:32] It is a declaration of mercy fitting the context. It is a warning of impending judgment if the mercy of God is refused. You have 120 years to repent.

[62:45] Now, when people are living 900 years, this is very gracious of God. Very gracious of God. You have 120 years to hear the message of hope, to turn from this kind of filth, turning to God and be delivered.

[63:06] Now, as to these Nephilim, verse 4, can actually read this way. I'm going to put it up here just to make it clearer for you. We're just talking about the Nephilim now as they are exposed in this passage.

[63:20] The Nephilim, then, were on the earth in those days and also afterward. And then, those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

[63:33] That's how the... So, we have this middle part of the verse dealing with these sons of God, but the Nephilim are being dealt with in the beginning of verse 4 and at the end of verse 4.

[63:45] Pull those together. And so, what we have here concerning the Nephilim, that's where we're going to start. We'll do the Nephilim in those days and mighty men. The Nephilim, this is a negative reference to the extreme fallenness of mankind.

[64:03] Nephilim. A literal translation of Nephilim means the fallen ones. It's related to a Hebrew word, nafal, which means fall.

[64:17] And it came to be understood as a reference for those who fall upon others. So, the Nephilim is not a reference to physical size like you may have heard about giants and all that kind of thing.

[64:30] we can't read what happens later back into this. No, we've got to deal with the context here. It relates to bad character and the evil actions resulting from that wicked character.

[64:46] So, Nephilim is a reference to a group of men with very wicked character and from that character carrying out wicked deeds.

[64:59] Wicked, wicked deeds. We'll pull all this together in just a second. In those days, in those days, refers to the time of this angelic sin.

[65:14] Just before Noah began to build the ark. So, while these demons, these angels, fallen angels, are possessing people and then they're engaging in these wicked, wicked, depraved acts with no restraint, no rules and all of that, while all of that is going on.

[65:34] That's in those days. That's the time frame we're seeing for these Nephilim. And then he says, and also afterward. That likely refers to the time after Noah began working on the ark.

[65:50] It is not a time reference for after the flood. That's not contextually correct. So, it seems then the context of selfish ambition characterizing this time best supports the understanding that these Nephilim were influential wicked men who used their power and resources to exploit and dominate other people.

[66:18] That supports the context of the evil that Moses is putting forward to us in this passage. This is a time of sickening evil and the Nephilim are part of it.

[66:32] They could have used their prowess and resources for good. They didn't. They're just as corrupt as everybody else. So, you can see these men as tyrants, despots.

[66:44] These are men who gather a following and go around and exploit people. You could use your imagination. It goes on though.

[66:57] We won't stop there because we need to deal. We've had done with Nephilim in those days. Now we need to deal with this reference to mighty men that comes at the end of the verse.

[67:08] Mighty men is, you see it up here, mighty men is also pejorative. or disparaging, negative. It refers to being mighty in their rebellion against God.

[67:21] They were men of renown in that they were infamous. They were known for a bad thing. That's what infamous means. They were known for wicked, rebellious living.

[67:34] That's the context. Again, we're letting context help us understand all of this instead of reading into it. this is all bad.

[67:46] The children then that you see being born in verse 4 are from the demon human marriages. And they're not having these weird exorcist babies.

[68:00] Don't see that. Don't let the movies do that to you. These children that are being born between these demons possessing human men who are then engaging in these lewd, illicit acts with these women.

[68:14] The children being born to these couples are human beings. But they are under a significant demonic influence. And this is perpetuating throughout humanity and spreading.

[68:30] Do you see the flood coming now? You're starting to see the picture of God taking humanity out because He's given them over to what they want. This is what it's like to live without God.

[68:42] This is what it looks like when a nation turns its back on God. Things go totally upside down. So what we're saying here is that the Nephilim don't seem to me at least to be the offspring of these marriages.

[69:03] Don't see these mighty mighty men the Nephilim as being the product of angel demons and humans coming together. I don't think the text supports that.

[69:16] I think it's simply giving us a reference to other men who could have been used of the Lord in positive ways but instead they're following their own hearts and they're being used by Satan in the same way that his demons are using these men and women.

[69:34] Again, it's all contextual. While the sons of God or these demons were possessing human men and then marrying human women so that human babies were being born to them now we have also these Nephilim or fallen ones also at this same time following their sinful desires to dominate other people.

[69:56] Now when you pull all this together here's what it looks like. Taken together these verses paint a terrifying picture of unprecedented evil. of prideful rampant selfish ambition without restraint.

[70:11] It is a time of unparalleled widespread wickedness at every level of society. Society has been completely infected with this rampant selfish ambition.

[70:28] Everyone is doing what is wise in his own eyes. And friends please hear this now and at the center of it all is the dehumanizing issue of sexual immorality and perversion.

[70:42] Do you see that? What is at the center of all of this sin? Sexual perversion. That's always the case.

[70:55] and we see it today. What is driving the train of the wickedness and the evil and the rebellion that we see happening in our own country?

[71:11] An emphasis on sexual perversion. Well here's the deal. the flood tells us that Satan came very close to his intended goal of corrupting humanity beyond saving.

[71:29] Because how many people were saved? Eight out of millions? That's how bad it is. But the ark tells us that God's sovereignty and salvation is much greater than Satan's schemes to enslave.

[71:49] Praise God. We have verse 8. But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh. God will bring humanity the Savior he promised and all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved from the power and penalty of sin.

[72:08] Amen. And that's coming. We'll leave it where God left it. Let's pray together. dear Lord Father in our weakness as human beings we find before us a passage of difficulty.

[72:36] It strains the limits of our understanding as we try to comprehend these spiritual matters couched for us in these terms.

[72:50] How in the world could we ever put our minds around demons possessing human beings on this level and then creating such havoc and such a dehumanizing effect on so many people.

[73:10] people. But we take this word for what you say and we believe by the power of what you've shown us in the New Testament that this is exactly what happened to these people at this time and this is the backdrop for your judgment with the flood.

[73:30] Lord how else could we possibly understand such catastrophic judgment across an entire globe. millions of people dying but this is your judgment as you gave them over to what they wanted.

[73:46] And so we pray for our nation. We are compelled in these moments to pray for a godless nation. A nation of people who constantly parade themselves in front of you mocking your truth that you have made us male and female and that you have blessed us and sent rain on the earth and food for us and clothing.

[74:09] You have blessed them with children and lives and jobs and yet we mock you and we turn away from you. We degrade ourselves and dehumanize each other as we turn away from your truth and your mercy and your love in Christ to embrace lies that come from the pit of hell.

[74:33] And so Lord as a preacher of righteousness seeking with my brothers and sisters to strive in personal holiness to say no to sin and to look to Jesus and live out his character.

[74:46] We ask you almighty God to be merciful in the United States of America. We are not Christian nationalists Lord. We do not see in Donald Trump or any other human being our salvation or hope for a future.

[75:00] We see the salvation of our nation in Jesus Christ alone. and we know that each person will be saved individually one at a time as that gospel is brought to bear on their hearts and in their families.

[75:15] And so I pray for Grace Church and our prayer is that you will make the fathers and the mothers sitting here today fully and wholeheartedly committed to being people of the truth.

[75:28] People who want to honor Jesus by living the truth of the Bible in their individual lives and among the lives of the people that they're responsible for in their families and that we would be a thankful people full of the goodness of Jesus as we look to you to be our peace.

[75:47] So help us to deal with sin. Help us to be people who repent quickly. Make us more sensitive if you would Lord to the sin of our own hearts that we would recognize it as sin and that we would repent of it immediately and that we would seek the forgiveness of others in humility and strive to be people who are being conformed to the image of Christ.

[76:10] This is a tough passage of Scripture Lord. It's hard to be made to think about these things but we see it playing out in our own society and we know that the remedy is what you tell us in verse 8.

[76:23] But Noah found favor. God there are people in this world who are finding favor in your eyes because they're trusting in Jesus. Jesus. Please help us to be those people and please help us to be people of prayer seeking to live out the love and truth of Jesus in a dark, dark place.

[76:42] We look to you. We cry out to you. We put ourselves God in the best hands that we know and that's in the hands of Jesus. Help us to walk with you being fully devoted to you standing against the schemes of the devil while we wear the spiritual armor that you've given us.

[77:01] Our hope is in Jesus. Our help is from Jesus. And we thank you God for making us your people. In his name we pray. Amen.