Transcript Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s And unto God

IN THE BEGINNING
Genesis from the Creation
to Abraham
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• v. 1-4
• Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply
on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to
them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of
men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives
for themselves of all whom they chose. And the
Lord said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man
forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be
one hundred and twenty years." There were giants
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. Those were the mighty
men who were of old, men of renown.
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Three interpretations:
– 1. The sons of God were the relatively good
offspring of Seth, the daughters of man were the
more evil offspring of Cain; they intermarried
– 2. The sons of God are symbolically the followers
of Jehovah and Christ; the daughters of men are
symbolically the followers of evil
– 3. The sons of God were fallen angels and the
daughters of men humans
• Their union resulted in the nephilim (fallen ones)…
mighty men of old (giants)
• The merits and problems with the interpretations
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Why would the offspring of Seth and Cain
descendants automatically become mighty
men?
– Recall, nephilim means “fallen ones” (is a
better rendering), not giants (that term
follows)
• The context implies that the children of these
unions were special, different, perhaps
descended from fallen angels
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
•An interesting New Testament verse:
•II Peter 2:4-5
•For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but
cast them down to hell (Greek: Tartarus) and
delivered them into chains of darkness, to be
reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient
world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a
preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on
the world of the ungodly…
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Misinterpretation of this verse has led to a
profound misunderstanding of Satan and
demons
• The picture of Satan in literature and media is
that of an evil being reigning and ruling a place
in the center of the earth called Hell
– With Satan at present enjoying his reign while he
torments lost souls
• This is a very incorrect concept
– The confining of Satan to “Hell” is a future event
– And one he will certainly not enjoy
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• The next verses document Satan’s future
• After them we will look at Satan’s
present location and activity (and the
relevance of this to the Christian)
• Carmen quote:
– “Whenever the devil reminds you of
your past, just remind him of his
future.”
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Matt. 25:41
• Then He (Jesus) will also say to those on the left
hand, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the
everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his
angels.”
• Rev. 19:20
• Then the beast was captured, and with him the
false prophet who worked signs in his presence,
by which he deceived those who received the
mark of the beast and those who worshiped his
image. These two were cast alive into the lake of
fire burning with brimstone.
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Rev. 20:1-3
• Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven,
having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain
in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of
old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a
thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless
pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he
should deceive the nations no more till the thousand
years were finished.
• Rev. 20:10
• The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake
of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false
prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night
forever and ever.
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Where is the devil today?
• Job 1:6-8
• Now there was a day when the sons of God came
to present themselves before the Lord, and
Satan also came among them. And the Lord said
to Satan, "From where do you come?" So Satan
answered the Lord and said, "From going to and
fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth
on it." hen the Lord said to Satan, "Have you
considered My servant Job, that there is none like
him on the earth, a blameless and upright man,
one who fears God and shuns evil?"
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• I Peter 5:8-9
• Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the
devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking
whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the
faith, knowing that the same sufferings are
experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
• Eph. 2:1-2
• And you He made alive, who were dead in
trespasses and sins, in which you once walked
according to the course of this world, according to
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who
now works in the sons of disobedience…
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Satan is in the “fifth dimension”
– Ruling the “second heaven”
– A realm that he rules, but good angels can enter
– The three heavens
• Dan. 10:12-13
• Then he said to me, "Do not fear, Daniel, for from
the first day that you set your heart to understand,
and to humble yourself before your God, your
words were heard; and I have come because of
your words. But the prince of the kingdom of
Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold,
Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me,
for I had been left alone there with the kings of
Persia.”
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Satan is not omniscient or omnipresent
– He and his demons are stuck in time
and even space, somewhere in the
fifth dimension
• There are a finite number of demons
with finite influence and ability
– Perhaps why the demonic activity of
Gen. 6
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• The main difference between demonic and
holy spirituality
– The Holy Spirit only comes and influences when
invited
– The demonic comes uninvited, bullying
– It is currently “restrained” only by the Holy Spirit
– And our resistance to him and obedience to God
• James 4:7
• Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and
he will flee from you.
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• II Thes 2:3, 7
• Let no one deceive you by any means; for
that Day will not come unless the falling
away comes first, and the man of sin is
revealed, the son of perdition... 7 For the
mystery of lawlessness is already at work;
only He who now restrains will do so until
He is taken out of the way.
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Jude 6-7
• And the angels who did not keep their proper
domain, but left their own abode, He has
reserved in everlasting chains under darkness
for the judgment of the great day; 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 set forth as an example,
suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Apparently, some of the fallen angels were sent to a
prison (unlike the still somewhat free demons that
tempt us)—perhaps for their particularly evil act of
having children with humans
• Rev. 9:1-3
• Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen
from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to
the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit,
and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a
great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened
because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke
locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given
power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Why would demons have relationship with humans?
• Perhaps to counterfeit what God would do by His
Spirit in Mary to create Jesus
– Who is the only begotten son—the only one born
of the flesh, unlike the angel sons-of-Gods
• Why do we think Jesus referred to Himself as the
Son of Man
– Because He choose to serve us
– But also because He was the Son of the Holy
Spirit and the Son of a woman (like we are)
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Perhaps Gen 6 was a crazy demonic
attempt to increase their number
(outnumbered 2:1 since the angelic fall)—
they can’t reproduce
• Possibly Gen. 6 was an effort to corrupt the
descendants of Eve so Christ could not be
born through mankind
– Satan may have reasoned that a demonhuman hybrid could not birth Jesus
• Will “cloned” humans have a soul?
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Again: Gen. 6:4
• There were giants (nephilim) 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. Those were the mighty men who
were of old, men of renown.
• Note the phrase “and also afterward”
– This could predict further nephilim after the
Flood, which was supposed to wipe them out
– Why not successful?
– Further demonic-human breeding?
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Recall the “bad report” of the Israelite spies who
were sent by Moses to the Promised Land:
• Num. 13:32-33
• And they gave the children of Israel a bad report
of the land which they had spied out, saying, "The
land through which we have gone as spies is a
land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people
whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There
we saw the giants (nephilim) (the descendants of
Anak came from the giants); and we were like
grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in
their sight."
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Deut 3:11
• For only Og king of Bashan remained of the
remnant of the giants (rapha). Indeed his
bedstead was an iron bedstead...Nine cubits
is its length and four cubits its width,
according to the standard cubit.
• Joshua was to eliminate the Nephilim in the
Promised Land, but did not
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• I Sam. 17:4
• And a champion (benayim) went out from the
camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from
Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.
• II Sam 21: 20
• Yet again there was war at Gath, where there
was a man of great stature, who had six fingers
on each hand and six toes on each foot, twentyfour in number; and he also was born to the
giant (rapha).
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Josephus (a 1st century Roman Jewish
writer) wrote:
• For many angels of God accompanied with
women and begat sons that proved unjust,
and despisers of all that was good, on
account of the confidence they had in their
own strength: for the tradition is, that these
men did what resembled the acts of those
whom the Grecians call giants. But Noah
was very uneasy at what they did...so he
departed out of that land.
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Finally, Jesus says that the Coming of the Son of
Man will be like the days of Noah, featuring a lot
of wickedness
• Matt. 24:37-39
• But as the days of Noah were, so also will the
coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days
before the flood, they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that
Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the
flood came and took them all away, so also will
the coming of the Son of Man be.
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Everyone will be living and sinning as they wish
without thought for the judgment of God that is
predicted to come
– There will be a taking away and a leaving of
people on earth
• Perhaps Jesus’ reference to the days of Noah is also
tied to the Genesis 6 events
– Consider all the scientific hybridization
experiments in agriculture and zoology
– The technology is developing that can clone
humans, or even produce human-animal hybrids
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• The antichrist will come from the pit (where
the fallen angels are held?)
– The dragon (Satan) will give him his power
• Rev.17:7-8
• "Why did you marvel? I will tell you the
mystery of the woman and of the beast that
carries her, which has the seven heads and the
ten horns. The beast that you saw was, and is
not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit
and go to perdition.”
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• In Gen. 6:3 God vows that He will not
strive with man forever because he was
flesh (spirit vs flesh again)
• God limited life spans to about 120
years in the years after the Flood
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• V. 5-8
• Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth, and that every intent of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on
the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the
Lord said, "I will destroy man whom I have
created from the face of the earth, both man and
beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am
sorry that I have made them." But Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord.
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Man’s wickedness: every intent of man’s
heart was only evil continually
– And the world was filled with violence
• God repents. God repents!
– God is holy. We are supposed to be the
one repenting, not Him
• The Lord vows to destroy man from the face
of the earth, with the animals and birds
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• With one exception: the man Noah who finds
favor in God’s sight
• Recall that Noah’s name prophesies his role in
delivering us
• Gen. 5:28-29
• Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years,
and had a son. And he called his name Noah,
saying, "This one will comfort us concerning our
work and the toil of our hands, because of the
ground which the Lord has cursed."
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Noah is described as “perfect”
– Heb. tamiyn: without blemish re: to breed or
pedigree; unimpaired; spotless
– Implies physical, not spiritual perfection
– Maybe untainted by demonic DNA
• Lev 1:2-3
• Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,
If any man of you bring an offering unto
the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of
the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock. If his
offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let
him offer a male without blemish (tamiyn)
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• v. 9-10
• These are the generations of Noah: Noah was
a just man and perfect in his generations,
and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat
three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
• Both Noah and Enoch were righteous,
walked with God, and were spared:
– Enoch was spared physical death
– Noah was spared death by flood
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Noah is called a preacher of righteousness
in the New Testament
• II Peter 2:5
• ...(the Lord who) did not spare the ancient
world, but saved Noah, one of eight people,
a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the
flood on the world of the ungodly;
GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
• Noah build an ark to save his family.
– The ark is a symbol, a type of salvation and
baptism
• I Peter 3:20-21
• ..the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that
is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is
also an antitype that now saves us--baptism (not
the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer
of a good conscience toward God), through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ,