Mackay, Harold G: Sons Of God In Gen.6:-01 ~ In Noah's Day

We turn in our Bibles to Genesis chapter six. As I mentioned some time ago, I have felt exercised to take up some of the great crises in human history that we have in the Word of God. We have spent some time on the fall of man, as we have it in chapter three of this opening book of our Bible. Now we pass on from the fall to the flood. I believe that was the second great crisis in human history, and because it is a large subject, uh, we will not hurry through it, but we'll try to learn as much as we can as we move along. So I want us to read the first four verses this morning of Genesis chapter six. And it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants on the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto daughters of men, and they bare children to them, and the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. I'm increasingly impressed, I've often mentioned it, how, uh, adequate the Word of God is in giving us instruction and direction for every period of human history. And, uh, I believe that these difficult days in which you and I are living, I believe that, uh, there is sufficient guidance in the Word of God, uh, guidance to direct us and information to answer those questions that arise regarding present day conditions. But of course, to get those answers, we must know our Bible. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, uh, in his great, uh, what we call Olivet Discourse, because it was delivered on the side of the Mount of Olives, and you get it in Matthew chapter twenty three, twenty four, and twenty five, particularly the latter two chapters, uh, there you have our Lord describing conditions just prior to his coming again to earth. Uh, that period of time that we speak of as the tribulation. We have, uh, again and again studied that because of its importance. One thing, and this is all I have in mind right now, one thing that he did in that remarkable, uh, sermon was to compare the days of Noah with the days of the Son of Man. That is, conditions that prevailed in Noah's day would be prevalent in those days prior to and at the coming of our Lord to the earth. Now, I think we've explained enough times that's clear in your mind that at least seven years before Christ comes to earth, he's coming to the air to catch up his born-again believers to be with himself. Now, the force of that is this. If we can see around us today things shaping up as they, our Lord foretold would exist before he came to earth, then we must be at least seven years nearer to that. You see? Our Lord did not describe any condition prior to his coming to the air, but he did prior to his coming to the earth. And as I said, he likened those days to the days of, uh, Noah. So that in these chapters that are before us, six, seven, and eight, we will see conditions that our Lord selected, with his knowledge, of course, of the Old Testament, and his knowledge of the future as the omniscient Son of God. With that knowledge, he selected out of the whole thing, he selected the days of Noah as typical of the days prior to his coming again. With that in mind, it's well for us to pay attention to the description we have here of these days. We notice, uh, that rather significantly, I believe, our verse and chapter open with the expression when men began to multiply on the face of the earth. Now, it wasn't really necessary to say that. You could certainly deduce that, that men naturally, the human race, would naturally increase. But the Spirit of God, who never says anything unnecessary in the Bible, but who always says what is necessary. The Spirit of God draws attention to the fact that there was a population explosion in those days. Now that sounds familiar, doesn't it? One of the things that unsaved men who do not accept the Bible are worrying about is overpopulation. Now, that could be the least of their worries. All they have to do is read the book of the Revelation and discover the terrible, terrible times that lie ahead for this world. When you read through the book of the Revelation, those plagues that God is going to send, you wonder how there'd be anybody left. Not a question of overpopulation, you'd almost think underpopulation, but I don't want to linger on this. But you'll notice that prior to the flood, their emphasis is drawn to the fact that the human race was multiplied, and it says daughters were born unto that. Well, there again, you would take that for granted without it being said. Uh, when there is a normal birth rate, a certain percentage of those is bound to be daughters. A certain percentage will be boy infants. But again, the Spirit of God is drawing attention to the fact that in this increase, attention now is focused on these daughters that are, uh, born to in the human race. It says in those conditions that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair. Now I want you to keep one or two words in mind as we move along, and I want to go back and explain them very carefully. The sons of God, the sons of Elohim, the very word that we became familiar with in our study of creation in Genesis one and two. the very same word is used, Elohim, not Jehovah. Now I'll explain that a little later. They saw the daughters of man that they were fair. That is, it's just a general word for good. In other words, that that young woman would make me a good wife, or it'd be good to have that young woman as my wife. That's simply the thought in fair here. It no doubt carries with it the thought of good looking or beautiful or attractive and that, but just the ordinary word for good. And they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, my spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh. Yet his days shall be in hundred and twenty years. Now, there's been a mistake made in the minds of some. I've heard it said that at this time, uh, human longevity, the life of men on the earth, was reduced to a hundred and twenty years. Now, that isn't what it means at all. Now, that's very readily seen. They live much longer than that after. But the thing is, from the time God spoke, God was giving them a hundred and twenty years more. Now, how long it had been from the fall to the flood, we have no way of knowing. I've explained about Bible chronology in the past. But we read in verse four, and there were giants in the earth in those days, and the word giant says, has no thought of size. It isn't the word for what we think of as a giant, a big fellow. It isn't that word at all in the Hebrew. It's fallen one. There were fallen ones in the earth in those days, and notice, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children unto them, the same became mighty men. Now there's the word for giant. That's the word that is generally translated in the Old Testament, giant. It means big, powerful, just what we think of as a giant. That's the word there. They became mighty men, or giants, or powerful men, which were of old men of renown. That is, men who had a, a position of honor or dignity given to them, men who stood out, as it were, above the others. Now, that's the situation we're facing. Now, the usual interpretation, which you will find if you have a nineteen seventeen edition of the Scofield Bible, Dr. Scofield's, uh, note there in connection with this is the usual interpretation of it, not the only one, but the popular one, that these sons of God were the godly line of Seth. You remember after Cain murdered Abel, God gave to Eve another son whom she called Seth, and the word Seth means appointed. So she said, now God has given, appointed me a son in place of Abel, and the line of Seth is spoken of as the godly line. The descendants of Cain are spoken of as the ungodly line. And the general explanation is that the sons of God were the Saphites, and the daughters of men were the Cainites. And that what we're told here is that the godly line of Seth began to mingle with the ungodly line of, uh, Cain. The separation between the two was broken down, and that caused the increased wickedness that we have here. Now, that is the general explanation, and that is fully accepted by many, and has been taught by many, uh, able Bible teachers. When I read that, there are certain objections come into my mind. The first is this, uh, were all the Sethite men and all the Cainite women? To me, that seems rather a stumbling block. It says the sons of God took the daughters of men. That doesn't say anything at all about the daughters of God taking the sons of man, or vice versa. But it would lead you to believe that the sons of God were all men. And the daughters of, uh, all that were in the line of kings, they were all women. And then we are told here that the result of this union, and let me just, before I mention that, is you never read in your Old Testament of God's people being individually called the sons of God. Now that's a New Testament term. That's a New Testament position. And, uh, there has been, it's a common mistake of people to read back what they've learned from the New Testament into the old. And so you never read of believers in the Old Testament being spoken of as sons of God. Now, if they were, in all probability, it would be sons of Jehovah, because it's as Jehovah that God revealed himself as the Savior in the Old Testament. But it's sons of Elohim, and that is a term which is always used of angels. I want you to take time to turn to the book of Job. Recognize as possibly the oldest book in our Bible, but in the book of Job chapter one, we will read of these. Job chapter one and verse six: Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among men. Now I think it's not difficult to see right back with the inclusion of Satan here, that this was a gathering of spirit beings. Look at chapter two, verse one. Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. Again, you have a gathering of angelic beings, and Satan comes amongst them. But if we have any doubt, I think chapter thirty eight would remove that. Chapter thirty eight of the same book of Job, verse seven. We read verse six. Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened, or who laid the cornerstone thereof? The, all these verses have to do with creation. When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Here you have two terms that are used for angels in the Old Testament. The, uh, morning stars and the sons of God. Here is angelic praise at the creation of the universe by God. Use joy in the presence of the angelic host at God's wonderful work of, uh, creation. Uh, in connection with the, uh, breaking down of this line of separation between the godly and the ungodly, you'll notice that it says in verse four that there were giants on the earth in those days, and, uh, also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. Now, doesn't it seem strange that the result of, let's use New Testament language, of say a saved man marrying an unsaved, that that produced a giant? What would there possibly be in the physical realm? What would there possibly be that would cause a, a baby to be unusual in size and strength, if it was the marriage of today a Christian and a non-Christian, a saved and unsaved. I have seen those who disobeyed the word of God. And the word of God very clearly teaches it is wrong for a saved person to marry an unsaved. But I've seen some, either through ignorance or willfulness, go against that. But there hasn't been anything unusual about their children. They haven't been unusually big or unusually bright or unusual or anything at all. And there's no reason in the physical realm that these children should be what they were, giants. But on the other hand, when, uh, as I come a little later, uh, to what I believe to be the interpretation of this, I think we can give you a very logical reason for this. But here you have the, uh, uh, let's just follow that supposed interpretation. So far as we have any record, there was no prohibition between marriage between the Sathites and the Kenites. There's absolutely nothing in the Bible that prohibited one who is of the line of Seth from being, uh, from marrying one of the line of Cain. Now you're coming over into New Testament too, you see, and it's so easy to read back into these passages that which we know from the New Testament, forgetting that the Bible is a progressive revelation, a continuous unfolding of the will of God. If they were sons of God, let me ask you this. If these were men that were believers that are called sons of God, then they'd be saved, wouldn't they? They'd be saved, wouldn't they? If they were believers that were sons of God, then they were saved. They were godly. Yes, you say, but they did what they shouldn't. All right. Why does Peter say, in second Peter chapter two that God brought the flood upon the ungodly? Now, what happened to these? Did they perish in the flood? You say they must have, all except Noah and seven others. So you see, if these actually were believers, then they perished. They became ungodly. They became so wicked that God wiped them out. But we're not ready, I don't think, to believe that. And so we run into almost insuperable difficulty in connection with this interpretation. Now, I know the difficulty beginning to build up in your mind, because I've already had it many, many times, uh, thrown at me in question and answer sessions. But wait a minute. If you have a nineteen sixty seven edition of the Scofield Bible, which, by the way, is, I bel- I personally feel, the best reference Bible you can possibly get. Some night, some prayer meeting night, I'm going to ask you to bring along your Scofield Bible, and I'm going to show you how to use it. Because I have known Christians who have had a good Scofield Bible for twenty years, because they have read it, they enjoyed it, they got a lot of good out of it, but they missed a great deal of help that's in it. And I'm going to take some prayer meeting night. How many of you here this morning use the Scofield Bible? Will you just raise your hands, please? Well, now there's quite a... Now, I don't want you to, the rest of you to think that you're heretics and it's all like that. Don't, don't get that notion. But it is a very helpful and a very popular edition. But as I say, uh, a great many have never been able to use the helps that are there in a way that would yield much spiritual profit to them. But now, in the nineteen sixty seven edition, in which the notes, many of them, are much improved, uh, you will find that instead of giving the dogmatic view that Dr. Schofield gave in the nineteen seventeen edition, that the editors of the sixty seven, they have very wisely given both sides, and they stated very clearly, uh, both sides of the question. Now, the alternate interpretation is this, that the sons of God, as I have shown you from the book of Job, were angels. And I want you to turn now to the little epistle of Jude, right before the book of the Revelation, which, of course, the subject of it is the apostasy, and it naturally pictures conditions that exist, uh, prior to the coming of our Lord. Now we'll read in Jude, verse six: And the angels, we kept not their first estate. We kept not their first estate. Now let me try and, and help you to understand just exactly what that means. The word estate here, uh, it's a difficult word to explain to you just what it means, but it, we think of an estate. Well, here's a man, he's got a fifty-acre acre estate. Now, it doesn't mean that much. Uh, that, that isn't the proper talk. Uh, leave the eon, and you're getting near it. State. So that's the first state or the first condition, but it's really a little more than that. It's the word archi, which means to rule, to rule. So it's the area or the condition in which they have the rule. That's why in the margin of some of your King James Version Bibles, you'll find principality. Now, principality is a place where a rule. Now, that's the thought. Now, these angels then that Jude is writing about, let's forget about the ones in Genesis for the moment. Jude is writing here by the Spirit of God about certain angels, and they left their own original state in which they ruled, which they had the authority, and it says they left, they kept that not, but they left their own habitation. That is, they left their own dwelling place, the area in which they, it's really their proper abode. Now they left that. But, uh, why did they leave that? It tells what happened to them, but we're not going to get into that because time's running out. But why did they leave that? Read verse seven. Even as Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities about them, in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh. That is, the Spirit of God links up the sin of sovereign tomorrow with the sin of these angels. And, uh, some of the more literal translations are even a little clearer than this. Let me give you the American Standard Version, which is a very, very good translation. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they, in the same way as these, came by the angel, indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh. Now, there are certain things that I don't think it is good to discuss in detail from a platform. I believe that there's a certain dignity connected to the ministry of the word of God. Personally, I will never lower my standards of decency in word or in any other way when I'm ministering the word of God. It's too holy for me. But on the other hand, there are times when you have to speak very clearly, and when you do, I think it should be done with a delicacy that befits the subject. Now, what was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? It was homosexuality. That's very clear. All you have to do is read Genesis nineteen and verse five and read Romans chapter one and you'll see that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexuality. Now that is strange flesh. As the writer to the Romans makes very clear, that was leaving what God intended. God, as the creator, intended that there should be relationship between man and woman. And when there's relationship between man and man, it's ungodly, it's wicked, it's criminal, and all of this talk today about licensing it, making it decent, is like trying to make the black white. It's, it's just another sign of the time, and yet we know it's on the increase. The terrible extent of homosexuality in America would make you and me shudder if we really knew what it is. Now there's another indication we're getting near the judgment of God. I believe God does it, to use human language, he got so nauseated with conditions in Noah's day and in Sodom and Gomorrah, he wiped the whole thing out. And it won't be very long till he does it again. Not very long. Now, you and I need to know these things because we need to be able to guide our young people. And there's so much of smooth, insidious teaching today by college professors and others that were increasingly becoming ungodly. Now, in Sodom and Gomorrah, they went after strange flesh. That strange flesh was homosexuality. Just like them, these sons of God went after strange flesh. What strange flesh was that? It was the daughters of men. And here you have these angels leaving their proper place and condition and intruding into an area where they had no business, and they were enticed to do that by their attraction to the daughters of men. Now, if that be true, just grant me that for a minute. Can't you see why their offspring were unusual? There's no reason to believe there'd be unusual children born to saved and unsafe into marriage. But there is every reason to believe that it is un- is of unusual children born from a combination of angelic fallen angels and women, and that's exactly what we have. Now, that is why I pointed out to you in Genesis six that when it says there were giants in the earth in those days, that is not the word for a big, strong, powerful man. It's Nephilim, the fallen ones. I see how perfectly it says? There were fallen ones on the earth in those days. These ones who have left their proper state, they've intruded into the human world. There's a lot more that I want to say about this, and I'm going to say it tonight because time is almost gone, and this is so important that I want to build it up just line by line. There's plenty more, and I will answer the objection that, uh, generally I was talking at a youth conference some time ago. Uh, well, it wasn't exactly a youth conference, it was a, uh, Bible conference, and the subject was Satanology, and we were discussing Satan, and there's a question, and, and, uh, the question led up to just what I had been, uh, saying here, and I'd hardly got out of my mouth before a young fellow at the back, and I remembered him from he used to be a student at Emmaus, a very fine brother that we taught about twenty years ago, and he waved his hand and his head the same time. He said, Brother McKay, angels are sexless. Like, where'd you read that? Where'd you read that? He's the Bible says that. I must have overlooked it in forty years. I certainly always ready to learn. Would you kindly tell me where it says that? So he read me, of course, the verse we'll read tonight in Matthew chapter twenty two, and we'll see just exactly what it says and what our Lord says. But I want to close on this note. Mr. McKay, is you're right? Now, this seems a little far-fetched to us, but suppose you're right, why would these, would Satan arrange it? Because he doesn't have to leave behind it. Why? What lay behind it? Do you remember when, uh, our first parents fell, that God spoke to Eve, to Adam, to Eve, and to Satan. And to Satan, you remember, he said, uh, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. It or he shall bruise thy head, thou shalt bruise his heel. In other words, from the seed of the woman, there is going to come your conqueror. There's going to come one who's going to put his heel on your head and grind you into defeat. And from that moment on, Satan began to plot how that wouldn't, could not be brought about. This was his first attempt. Undoubtedly, Satan was behind it, trying to corrupt the human race so that there could not become, there could not be a savior born into this world that would be his conqueror. If this happens and things become so corrupt, God will wipe out the human race. And God did, but he said it. He cried all over it. The grace of God abounded over the sin of man, and all through your Bible, we could trace effort after effort on the part of Satan to make it impossible for the Savior, the Redeemer, to be born. And after he is born, wasn't there an attempt made to kill all the baby boys? Why? Get rid of the Savior. Didn't they try to push Christ over the hill? Why? Keep him from dying on the cross. Didn't the, uh, priests that were set on the death of Christ, didn't they say not on the feast day? Why? To keep Christ from being the fulfillment of the Passover lamb. You see? Satan, from the Garden of Eden, has been doing everything he can to keep God's promise and prophecy being fulfilled and a savior being born. But God has overruled. It's one of the most fascinating studies in the Bible to trace all through the word the effort of Satan and how God overruled him, and eventually he was born. Eventually he died on the cross itself. He's the son of God now. As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. And you can become a child of God by putting your faith, the faith of your heart, in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're interested in hearing a further study of this, I would like tonight to just take you along step by step in the revelation of the Word of God. I believe you'll find it very interesting. I believe you'll find it very instructive. I believe you'll find it very important. Shall we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank thee for thine overhilling grace. Thou hast guided and directed when we think of the enmity of the devil, when we think of his subtlety, his wiles, we tremble, Lord, until we remember that thou, the Almighty God, has been overruling all things. Thy purposes have been and are being and will be carried out to the very last, and for this we praise and thank you. Use thy word for thy glory. Bless that there remain.