The Catalyst of Ushering in the Flood

[0:00] Last week we spoke about Adam and Seth and Enosh and Kenan and Mahalalalai, Jared and Enoch and Methuselah.

[0:20] ! I want to start there and pick it up in Genesis chapter 5 verses 21 to 32. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah.

[0:34] Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years.

[0:47] Enoch walked with God and he was not before God took him. He had his own rapture. When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech and Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years and had other sons and daughters.

[1:07] Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years and he died. When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered his son and called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.

[1:26] Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years and he died.

[1:41] After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth. So tonight we come to one of the most important figures in all the Bible, a man named Noah.

[1:56] And before we move forward and look at key aspects of his life, or I should say begin to look at, I want to reveal something to all of you. I can't take credit for this.

[2:08] Diane came up with this years ago when she was the teaching director for community Bible study here in Bartlesville. And she did that, I think, 17 years. This week and last week combined, we have looked at 10 men from Adam to Noah.

[2:27] I've said this many times in the past. Names in the Word of God are very important. God's sending a message when He names somebody. God made statements, positive and negative, through a person's name.

[2:43] The 10 men and the meaning of their names from Adam to Noah are very important. And here's a list with the meaning of their names. Adam means man. Seth means appointed.

[2:57] Enosh means mortal. Kenan means sorrow. Mahalalal means the blessed God. Jared means shall come down. Enoch means teaching.

[3:09] Methuselah means his death shall bring. Lamech means the despairing. And Noah means comfort or rest. And I like it, comfort and rest.

[3:23] In the first 10 generations of Genesis, we see in these names a clear picture of the gospel of Christ. That's the gospel right there.

[3:35] Now let me read it to you. Man is appointed mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down, teaching that his death shall bring the despairing comfort and rest.

[3:50] That's the 10 names. And what they mean. I think that's a beautiful picture. And I certainly am not smart enough to come up with that. But it's a fantastic message God has for his people, and we're only five chapters into the word.

[4:08] And already, he's preparing us for the gospel, as he did in Genesis 3.15. The last verse of Genesis chapter 5 says this, and Noah, when he was 500 years old, he fathered Sham, Ham, and Japheth.

[4:28] I'm sure along with Mrs. Noah. Now there was a lot going on in the surrounding cultures that surrounded Noah and his family.

[4:43] We can read about that in the first eight verses of Genesis chapter 6. 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.

[5:04] 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 a hundred and twenty years.

[5:17] The Nephtalim 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.

[5:30] 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.

[5:47] 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.

[6:09] And thank goodness for this next verse, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And your translation may say grace, and that's okay.

[6:22] Noah found favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord. Well, as I said, there's a lot going on in these first eight verses of Genesis chapter 6.

[6:35] We know from Genesis 6-4 that Nephilim were the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men. When we discuss the details about the Nephilim in Christian circles today, there's always disagreement.

[6:52] Is there a correct answer for exactly the identities of these Nephilim? Scholars and theologians find the subject rather fascinating.

[7:06] The actual word Nephilim is found in the Bible two times. The first that we just read in Genesis chapter 6. It shows up again in Numbers 13-33.

[7:17] And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who came from the Nephilim. We seem to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seem to them.

[7:30] The guys that saw these guys, these Nephilim, thought of themselves like little grasshoppers, and the Nephilim looked down at them and said, yeah, you guys are like a bunch of grasshoppers. Scholars and commentators translate the word Nephilim as giants or fallen ones.

[7:51] And even among the most brilliant scholars, there is debate on translating this term. One reason that Nephilim is often translated as fallen ones is the relation to the Hebrew word Nephal, which means to fall.

[8:13] One school of thought associates these beings with fallen angels or their offspring. Now, we're going to have to really explain that. That's going to take some work.

[8:28] Genesis 6, 1-6 never states that the Nephilim were giants, but it does say they were mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

[8:39] I'm going to inject something here. I didn't put it in the notes. I probably should have. I had this thought. I don't have very many original thoughts. This was an original thought several years ago, meaning it's probably wrong.

[8:52] But you remember when the Greek culture came along thousands of years after this, and they built on their culture all the gods and Apollo and Zeus and Aphrodite.

[9:04] Remember all that stuff? We had to read some of that in school. Oh, I hated that. But anyway, I'm wondering... Of course, they were all false. They were all fake. But I'm wondering if they built that around these men of renown.

[9:20] Because that's how they treated those guys in the Greek culture. That's just a thought. The verse that clues us into them being giants is Numbers 13.33, which again says, Here, Scripture indicates that they were possibly giants, men large and bigger than normal.

[9:48] It makes me wonder about a few times we see large people in the Bible. Goliath was a big guy. Does he relate back to these?

[10:00] I don't know. But Anak was apparently the father of the descendants of the Nephilim. He was a Rephite, which were considered to be giants in their day.

[10:11] No one really knows who or what were the Nephilim. However, Scripture gives us clues about who the sons of God and the daughters of men were.

[10:25] But I want to point out, there are four views, at least four views. For centuries, scholars from Judaism and Christianity have presented different views on who the Nephilim were.

[10:39] The first view is, that fallen angels had relations, and I guess most of us in here are old enough, some of you ladies are not, but they had sexual relations with the daughters of men, which resulted in a part human, part supernatural being, the Nephilim.

[11:03] That's one theory. The second position held by some is that demons or fallen angels possessed men, earthly guys.

[11:14] They possessed them and then had relations with the daughters of men resulting in the Nephilim. A third position called the Sethite view, obviously named after Seth, is held by some scholars.

[11:32] The Sethite view defines the sons of God as the righteous line of Seth. Remember, that righteous line from Ab and Eve went to Abel.

[11:44] It didn't go to Cain. He's a reprobate. It went to Abel, and Abel was murdered by his brother Cain, and Seth was born to take the place of Abel.

[11:55] So he's the godly line. And we actually trace ourselves back through that godly line all the way back to God. You can read about that in Matthew and in Luke.

[12:06] But Seth's in there. Lastly, a fourth view held by a minority is the sons of God were simply fallen men. Well, why call them sons of God if they're fallen men?

[12:18] I never understood that, but that's a view. Now, let me expand on this a little bit. Theory one. Nephilim were offspring of fallen angels and human women. The view has increased somewhat in favor today, believing that in the position that the sons of God were fallen angels who had relations with the daughters of men.

[12:44] These fallen angels had relations with human women. And as a result, a whole different class of being was born, the Nephilim. That's probably overall the most popular view in the church today, if churches even have a view.

[12:59] What about support for this theory? A verse that supports this position is Job 1.6. I say one, it's verse 6. There's only one chapter.

[13:13] Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them.

[13:24] And we're going to expand on that in a minute. But in connection to this verse, Job 38.7 says, When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.

[13:37] These verses use the same term found in Genesis 6 in the Hebrew language. Theologians have historically interpreted the sons of God as angels which fit right into the context of these verses.

[13:55] One main passage you should defend this view again is Jude verses 6 and 7. Let me read the first part again and then we'll get to verse 7. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain but left their own abode, He has reserved an everlasting change under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

[14:21] As Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in a similar manner to these having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh are sent forth as an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

[14:41] Not too long ago I saw a documentary on they think they have found Sodom and Gomorrah next to the Dead Sea. And there's a lot of there's what they called brimstone there and there's all massive destruction.

[14:54] It was a pretty good documentary for a secular you know like the History Channel or whatever. And then at the very end I mean like the last sentence is but we know whatever happened to Sodom and Gomorrah God didn't destroy it because He loves and embraces homosexual people.

[15:11] I mean they had to get that in. You know. So the Jude passage indicates there were angels that went after strange flesh.

[15:25] And one of the strongest proponents of that particular view is Dr. MacArthur. I'm assuming he hadn't changed his mind in his footnotes at least. Opposition to this theory.

[15:38] One pushback for this position and it's a strong pushback angelic beings don't have the DNA to combine with humans. They're a whole different living thing.

[15:54] They are spiritual beings therefore it is not possible that they can produce offspring. Angels don't procreate among themselves.

[16:07] How are they going to do it among human women? Again this is all assuming that angels can't have the same DNA as humans. And some would argue well it's possible because we see two angels who took the form of a human in Genesis 19 1 to 13.

[16:24] I meant to look that up but I think that's Lot when the two angels went. Who is to say that the argument goes that those two didn't carry full reproductive capabilities?

[16:37] Well the Bible's silent on that. Theory 2 A person many of us know and respect Dr. Don Coleman our former pastor he held to this second theory.

[16:56] Nephilim were descendants of Seth as part of the Sethite view which is growing rapidly within the church. it may overtake Theory 1 among Bible scholars but here the sons of God were defined as the righteous line of Seth Genesis 5 that disobeyed God and married women from the line of Cain.

[17:20] And we know the Bible says don't be unevenly yoked with an unbeliever and that's this second theory that the descendants of Seth who were in the godly line were getting married to women in Cain's line and this was a form of disobedience to God some scholars believe these women were not exclusively in Cain's family line but other unbelievers children or descendants of Adam and Eve.

[17:50] This view says the women who married the line of Seth followed other gods and rejected full allegiance to the true God. The offspring as a result fell away and turned to the system of the world.

[18:07] Jewish scholars have favored this view according to Jewish historical writings and literature as early as the first century. Famous scholars and theologians have also held this position.

[18:19] St. Augustine, John Calvin, Don Coleman, the giants of theology there. So here we are assuming that from Seth to Noah and you've got all those guys in there all the past members were obedient to God to preserve a righteous lineage.

[18:41] But Don was pretty emphatic that they can't procreate. How do they have a union? So that was his position.

[18:54] Of course he also believes that Paul wrote Hebrews. This is the third theory. Nephilim were children of human men who were possessed by fallen angels.

[19:06] We've got a little fine tune it here. When we discuss this third view that men were possessed by fallen angels, it may begin to connect with some of us because we can really see the reality of demonic possession in today's world.

[19:23] From the movies in Hollywood to witchcraft around the globe, it's real. What is today? St. Patrick's Day? You know, one of the channels, and we ran into Dr.

[19:35] Moreland and his wife Judy at a restaurant and he's a retired physician here, and they were watching like the Turner Station today that had leprechaun movies, but nice that Hazel wouldn't be afraid, but another channel had they would look demonic, and I didn't want to watch that one, I don't want to watch the other one.

[19:57] The heart of the question, are the sons of God, if human, able to become possessed? If you are a true blood-bought born-again believer, can a demon possess you?

[20:12] I want to state strongly here, I don't find any support or evidence in the Bible that purports this idea that God's children can become demon-possessed, where a demon goes in and just takes them over.

[20:30] Now, we're talking about true believers, where the Holy Spirit has taken up residence, never leave you, never forsake you. However, I do think it appears through a practice of sin, believers can become oppressed by demons.

[20:47] And there's a difference between possession, which is internal, and oppression, which is external. I would guess that some of us here remember that game Dungeons and Dragons.

[20:59] Any of y'all remember that thing? I never played it. I barely played dominoes. That was a real popular game a few years ago, very popular.

[21:11] And a lot of people don't know this, there were various levels of play. You could buy that for your preschool children. And they could play Dungeons and Dragons.

[21:22] Or you could buy it on an adult level. Several versions on an adult level. And on the adult level, there existed an ever deepening levels dealing with demons and the occult.

[21:38] and I saw this myself on a Christian program. They were interviewing a man who was a professional in his field. He was successful.

[21:52] Claimed to be a born again believer, served in his church, loved the Lord, but he'd gotten deeply involved in Dungeons and Dragons and he ultimately ended up at this deepest level.

[22:05] And one night, he was with the group of participants he was involved with at a home. They would have dinner and then they'd begin the game.

[22:19] And their assignment that night was to sit on the floor in a circle, hold hands, now this was their assignment, and concentrate and chant and try to conjure up a demon.

[22:38] Can you imagine that? That was their assignment. And this man, who was very respected, said, I quit the game and I stopped experimenting with the occult forever when a demon walked into that room.

[22:55] And that gives me chills to this day just thinking about that. Dr. McBride, in his 50 plus years now, 60 years of ministry, on three or four occasions, dealt with demonically possessed unbelievers.

[23:13] A woman brought her boyfriend here because they wanted to get married and Mike started talking about Jesus and he looked up and the guy had picked up one of those oak chairs in the old office and was coming down toward Mike's head.

[23:28] And Mike raised his hand and just said Jesus. Jesus. And that chair broke in a thousand pieces and that guy went running out muttering an unknown language under his breath.

[23:42] And Mike told that girl, you better get away from him, he's got a demon. He's got a demon. And I don't know whatever happened to him. But this man said a demon walked into that room in that home where we were meeting and he said, I'm out of here.

[23:57] I would have gone too. Theory four, Nephilim were offspring of strictly fallen men.

[24:07] This last view claims that the sons of God were godly men who married ungodly women. Not from the line of Seth though, just common men. The result of this union was the Nephilim, a group of offspring that fell away.

[24:23] Once they were born, they fell away from the true faith. What about the debate on that theory? Again, we must go back to the fact that there is still debate as to what the term Nephilim means as it's related to the verb to fall.

[24:39] This view relies on the verb series Nephilim, which means fallen or to fall. And this position is consistent with scripture, both pre-flood and post-flood.

[24:53] That means before the flood, these offspring were fallen men. After the flood, when God destroyed everyone but the family of Noah, these Nephilim start showing up again.

[25:05] Numbers 13, 33, which I read. Therefore, the Nephilim were simply fallen men. And we know after the flood, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, and they all started having kids again, and grandkids, a whole race of fallen people are born again.

[25:22] Not born again from above, but on earth. Why are the Nephilim on earth after the flood? This is a question asked by many people. If God flooded the earth, killing all mankind besides the family of Noah, how is it they are still alive?

[25:38] And scholars have responded in a number of different ways. One answer is this, the Nephilim were giants, offspring of fallen angels, sons of God, and human women, so fallen angels simply continued to reproduce with human women after the flood.

[25:54] Another answer would be the sons of God are fallen men. After the flood, different godly men had relations with different ungodly women, produced Nephilim once again. Now it's very interesting, the book of Enoch.

[26:08] Probably not in your library, it is not inspired, it's not part of the canon of scripture, but the book of Enoch describes angels marrying women on earth, and their offsprings were a giant type of being.

[26:26] Now the book of Enoch, which is not part of inspired authoritative scripture, but the Jews and early Christians held the book in fairly high regard.

[26:38] It was a good read. That means it wasn't fully accurate, but it still had nuggets of truth. Now here's something interesting.

[26:50] Some say that because Enoch is quoted in Jude, verse 14, and it is, it should even be part of the biblical canon. But other writings are also quoted in scripture that are clearly from extra-biblical sources.

[27:06] Acts 17, 28, Titus 1, 12, and there's some others. Some of those were quoted by Paul from extra-biblical sources. Now, we don't know which theory was correct.

[27:18] We don't know. I tend to believe the first one of these were fallen angels cohabitating with human women, but we can't know that for sure.

[27:32] And it's a strong argument that they don't reproduce. Strong argument. Whichever theory is the correct one, whatever was going on, here's the summation for tonight, it infuriated God.

[27:48] whichever one of those theories is right, God was not happy. God said, Genesis, one man, one woman.

[28:01] One man, one woman. And He didn't say Steve and Bruce or whatever. He said, one man, one woman. This was at least in part the catalyst of ushering in the flood.

[28:24] Not solely responsible, but it contributed, I think, to the destruction of all but eight people that were on the face of the earth at that time.

[28:37] And let me make one final comment. If in fact demons cohabitated with women, in my opinion, their offspring would be out of bounds when it comes to redemption.

[28:55] Christ did not go to the cross for demons and He did not atone for half humans and half fallen angels. Nor in Scripture is that supported.

[29:09] And if that is true, then you can understand the fury of God. This would be a whole race of living beings that came up through no action of God, but it came up through this cohabitation of fallen angels and humans.

[29:29] And Christ did not atone for them. And they have no hope for heaven.