Return Of The Nephilim

Fallen debuted in 2007 on the ABC Family network as a mini-series. The tagline: “18-year-old Aaron Corbett struggles to come to terms with his newly discovered identity – that he’s half-angel.”

In fact they call him Nephilim in the show. Turns out he is the Nephilim’s savior. What Jesus is to humans, he is to fallen angels.

The show ran its course but is now a video game.

And let me emphasize that this was considered a “family” show, geared to youth.

Names like “Nephilim,” “the Watchers,” and “Azazel,” are prominent in the many current shows and movies that portray the supernatural.

While Hollywood has discovered these things, and is banking on apocalyptic themes in some of the most popular series and films ever, the church is shying away from prophecy altogether.

One of the leaders of our movement not too long ago said the following at a pastor’s conference:

I believe in the rapture, I believe in the Second Coming but I think all of us should have learned by now that none of us know when that’s gonna happen and if we get up every week or if we’re constantly banging that drum of you know Ezekiel 38 and all of this stuff, that you’re indirectly sending a message to the younger gen.

That there’s nothing left for you to do it’s all been done so just hold on tight the rapture’s coming and you know, my experiences is that they don’t want to hear that. They want to hear that we can do something for God just like you guys did. Our generation can do something, there’s a world to reach. There are people to touch there are missions to be accomplished, there are churches to be planted, and so I’m really you know kind of challenging you guys if you’re beating the prophecy drum, just tone it down because you don’t know.

The Bible is at least 25% prophecy. Geno told me that Mark Hitchcock says it’s more like 30%. Any Bible teacher should be talking about prophecy at least 30% of the time.

In addition, you need to know the times you are in. The world is extremely interested in future things. This is NOT the time for the church to abandon prophecy. There is good justification that we talk about it more.

Before we finish out the days of Noah, let me say this. I have found that whenever I bring up things like giants or signs in the heavens, the average Christian immediately gets offended – as if I had just told them there is some other way to God besides Jesus.

Talk about the Nephilim – even directly from the Bible – and you are labeled by other believers as fringe at best, conspiratorial at worst.

The world is hearing about these things from nonbelievers. They own that space right now. Building on truth, they introduce errors.

We have the truth about these subjects. We need to be ready to give nonbelievers a real, biblical answer – not ridicule them for asking about it.

Your Christian friends probably don’t know much about the Nephilim. That is partly the fault of Bible teachers; I take some responsibility. But I’m trying to rectify our shortcomings here in this series.

I’ll share a very brief review, and then I have one more insight into the days of Noah.

We saw in Genesis 6:1-4 that certain “sons of God” married and mated with “the daughters of men.” We showed you that the “sons of God” can really only refer to angelic beings.

Their offspring were renowned mighty men of old called Nephilim. They were men of great stature; they were, in fact, giants.

They were also quite dangerous. When Jesus said that the days of Noah were characterized by “eating and drinking,” His audience would have understood that He meant the Nephilim were notorious as insatiable cannibals, eating people and drinking blood.

We further discovered that after the global flood Nephilim were prominent again in the Promised Land. The children of Israel refused to go in to the land, primarily on account of the fact that ten of the spies saw giants.

Many different groups of giants continued to resist the Israelites, until the time of David and Goliath, when the last of them was slain by David and his mighty men.

Something to ponder: When Jesus said it will be as in the days of Noah, could He have meant giants would again roam the earth?

Could Nephilim reappear in the last days?
There are a lot of anecdotal stories about there be giants on the earth right now – both dead and living.

Let me relate two of the most credible incredible stories:

There is a report that Gilgamesh was retrieved from Babylon. In 2003, archeologists claimed to have found the the tomb of Gilgamesh. The Book of Giants, recovered from the Dead sea scrolls mentions Gilgamesh as one of the mighty pre-flood Nephilim who ruled. He was said to have been ⅓︎ man and ⅔︎ god; his father was a “phantom.” Hittite sources place his height at 11 cubits, or 16 – 18 feet. The life-size Statue of Gilgamesh at the Louvre in Paris gives us an idea of his strength and size. He holds a lion by the neck, which looks like a small house cat in comparison. The mystery deepened when reports surfaced that his remains were removed from Babylon by the US military prior to the outbreak of the war in Iraq.

There is a more recent incident called the Kandahar Giant. I’ll quote from WorldNetDaily: “It’s one of the most bizarre stories to come out of America’s longest war – an allegation United States Special Forces engaged and killed a red haired giant in Afghanistan. But it’s being reported by multiple sources. Several eyewitnesses claim the battle not only took the life of an American soldier, but that the government flew the huge corpse of the attacker back to the United States.” The father of one of our soldiers serving over there told me his son says it’s a true account.

We can’t verify those accounts. They can’t help us answer our question about whether or not the Nephilim will make a reappearance.

There is, however, a Bible verse that may help us. It doesn’t seem, at first, to directly mention the Nephilim; but what it does say perhaps points to them. It is part of the interpretation Daniel gave to Nebuchadnezzar of his dream about a statue:

Dan 2:37  You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory;
Dan 2:38  and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all – you are this head of gold.
Dan 2:39  But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.
Dan 2:40  And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others.
Dan 2:41  Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay.
Dan 2:42  And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.
Dan 2:43  As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.
Dan 2:44  And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
Dan 2:45  Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold – the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.”

Here is a quick interpretation of the interpretation, by the guys over at Dallas Theological Seminary:

The image represented the four Gentile powers that would exercise world dominion, ruling over the Jewish people. Nebuchadnezzar, an absolute monarch (Babylon), was the head of gold (v38). Persia was the arms of silver, one arm representing Media and the other Persia. Greece, the third kingdom, was the belly and thighs of bronze. The Roman Empire was the two legs and feet of iron, the legs representing the eastern and western wings of the kingdom. The feet of iron and baked clay depict the Revived Roman Empire, the toes representing ten kingdoms… The Lord Jesus is the stone… cut out… without hands. He will destroy the four kingdoms and rule over the whole earth, his kingdom standing forever.

Take a closer look at verse forty-three: “As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.”

The human kingdom portrayed in verse forty-three is the one immediately preceding the return of Jesus to set up His Kingdom on the earth. We often refer to it as the Revived Roman Empire.

What is interesting is the phrase, “they will mingle with the seed of men.” He uses the personal pronoun, “they.” Just what (or who) will “mingle with the seed of men” in the time of that kingdom?

The Bible in Basic English renders these words, “they will give their daughters to one another as wives…”

The ESV says, “so they will mix with one another in marriage…”

The ISV says, “so they will mix themselves with human offspring…”

This sounds eerily similar to Genesis chapter six.

One commentator then asks, “Could this be a hint of a return to the mischief of Genesis six? It staggers the mind to consider the potential significance of Daniel’s passage and its implications…”

Meanwhile, in the real world… In 2015 Popular Mechanics said this:

U.S. adversaries are already working on something America is reluctant to: Enhanced Human Operations (EHO).

EHOs entail modifying the body and the brain itself, creating what some have called “super soldiers.”

At a press conference laying the Defense Department’s future research and development strategy on Monday, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work warned that America would soon lose its military competitive advantage if it does not pursue technologies employing artificial intelligence.

Why would the US military want Gilgamesh, or a Kandahar giant? For the DNA, in order to produce a super soldier.

We live on the verge of some crazy stuff happening…

It is, “as in the days of Noah.”

Be careful sharing this stuff; but don’t hold back what is definitely in your Bible.

Tall Tales

Finish this rhyme: Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum [I smell the blood of an Englishman].

Do you know the next line? “Be he alive, or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”

Two children’s movies featuring hungry giants were recently released:

In The BFG, unlike the Big Friendly Giant, the evil giants want to eat humans. They have names like Bloodbottler, Manhugger, Fleshlumpeater, Childchewer, Meatdripper, Bonecrusher, Gizzardgulper, and Butcherboy.
In Trolls, the Bergens are large creatures who never feel happy. They discover that they can feel happy for a moment if they devour a Troll. The Bergens put the Trolls and their tree in a cage, and hold an annual festival, called Trollstice, in which each Bergen gets its feeling of happiness by eating a Troll.

Do you see a pattern among giants? It might surprise you, but this idea that giants eat people comes from the Nephilim of the Old Testament.

If you missed our last study, let me try to quickly catch you up. In Genesis 6:4 we read,

Gen 6:4  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.
The word “giants” translates to Nephilim. They were a race of superhuman beings of great stature that were produced by fallen angels marrying and mating with human females.

They were a primary reason for the global flood wiping out all of humanity, save Noah and his family. The fallen angels were corrupting the DNA of the human race in an attempt to prevent the birth of the Promised Seed of the Woman – the Savior, Jesus Christ.

We see Nephilim – lots of them – post-flood, in the Promised Land. It seems their strategy there was to prevent Israel from possessing her land.

Back to Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum. By all extra-biblical accounts, the Nephilim ate the flesh and drank the blood of humans. One researcher of ancient texts on the subject summarized, saying, “their crimes, which include murder, cannibalism and the consumption of blood, are driven by their insatiable appetites.”

Much of the information about the behavior of the Nephilim comes from the Book of Enoch.

Enoch you know from the Bible. He’s introduced in the Book of Genesis. He was the great-great-great-great-grandson of Adam. He appears to have been a nonbeliever until the birth of his son, Methuselah.

Genesis 5:22–24 says, “After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”

Hebrews 11:5 gives more details: “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: ‘He could not be found, because God had taken him away.’ For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.”

Enoch was removed from the earth prior to the judgment of the global flood. He is thus a type of the rapture of the church, as we will be removed from the earth prior to the judgment of the Great Tribulation.
Noah and his family, kept safe on the Ark through the flood, are typical of the nation of Israel being saved through the Great Tribulation.

The book attributed to Enoch was circulated widely in Jewish and Christian circles for several centuries. It is divided unto five major sections. The first section, called The Book of the Watchers, is the one pertaining to the events in Genesis chapter six.

According to the Wesley Center:

In The Book of the Watchers, Enoch is a righteous man who has received heavenly visions. The book is a collection of revelations regarding divine judgment. It describes the rebellion of angels. The fallen angels, called “Watchers,” have sexual intercourse with human women, who give birth to a race of wicked giants. The giants lay waste to the earth and humanity, and so become the occasion for the flood, in which they are destroyed. But once their demonic spirits are released from their dead bodies, these demons wreak havoc in the world until the end time of judgment.

The book itself was considered to be “lost” until the 18th century, when European travelers to Africa discovered that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church had preserved a version in its biblical canon.
Since then, fragments of the work in its original Aramaic have been discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Portions of the text in Greek and Latin have also survived.

By the 4th century, the Book of Enoch was mostly excluded from Christian canons, and it is now regarded as inspired by only the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

If it isn’t inspired, why refer to it? One scholar, who rejects it as inspired, nevertheless says this:

The fact is, the entire New Testament shows such a multitude of allusions and linguistic echoes of the entire corpus of… Enoch, that one can safely say, the book and its basic interpretations may not be Scripture, but are surely legitimated by the Bible and are therefore worthy of study and high regard by the Christian Church.

James Montgomery Boice said, “Enoch… could be wrong in many places… Nevertheless, it is significant for our interpretation… because it was apparently known by Peter and Jude who, in their oblique references to the same subject, seem to put their stamp of approval on it, at least in this matter.”

Enoch is referred to, and quoted, by Jude, in his letter:

Jud 1:14  Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints,
Jud 1:15  to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”
If you read Enoch alongside Second Peter, you’ll see many similarities when Peter is discussing the days of Noah.

When both Peter and Jude wrote about angels who sinned in the days of Noah (Second Peter 2:4-5; Jude 6), they were alluding to history in Enoch that is not part of the Genesis flood account. Genesis, for example, never tells us that the sons of God were imprisoned until the end of days, but Enoch does (Enoch 6: 1-4; 7: 1-6; 10:4, 11-13), and Peter and Jude take it as true.

The historian, Josephus, refers to Enoch. Many church fathers, from the first through the fourth centuries, quoted from Enoch, some as inspired, but all at least as being accurate and authoritative.

Modern scholars we would trust can show passages in the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John, Colossians, Hebrews, and the Revelation that bear similarity to passages in Enoch.

Since Peter and Jude believed that Enoch was in part an accurate and authoritative source of historical information regarding the Days of Noah, we can at least seriously consider what it says.

Back to the Nephilim giants. Enoch identifies the “sons of God” by name, claiming there were two hundred of them. Collectively he refers to them as “the Watchers,” whose mission it was to watch-over human beings but not interfere.

“Watchers” is in fact a title that appears as a description of supernatural persons in the Bible. Daniel 4:17 says, “This decision is by the decree of the watchers, And the sentence by the word of the holy ones…”
In Enoch, one of the Watchers is named Azazel. He is, in fact, the worst of them. Azazel appears in Leviticus 16:8. The word is translated “scapegoat,” but that’s a stretch. The Jews in Jesus’ day understood it to refer to the fallen Watcher by that name.

We started by describing the Nephilim as eating humans. Enoch reads, “ The women became pregnant and gave birth to great giants… They ate the labors of men. As [men] were unable to supply them, the giants grew bold against them and devoured the men. They began to sin against birds, animals, reptiles and fish, and to eat the flesh of each other. And they drank the blood.”

Other ancient extra-biblical books also attest to this eating of flesh and drinking of blood.

This tradition was known to the Jews in the first century, and believed by them to be true, giving context for the words of Jesus when He pointed back to the days of Noah:

Mat 24:38  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,

We hear, “eating and drinking,” and think of dinner out at Figaro’s. Those same words to a Jew meant flesh-eating, blood-drinking Nephilim.

The point I want to make is that we have generally ignored what is an important part of the days of Noah, and of the conquest of the Promised Land:

The Nephilim figured prominently in the flood account.
They were major players in the conquest of the land.
They factor in to the New Testament, especially in Jude and in Second Peter.

When Jesus said, “they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” He wasn’t saying folks will be attending weddings and enjoying the menu at the receptions.

He was pointing to a great evil in Noah’s day that would have a similarity to the end times.

I think it is the messing around with human DNA, which is on a fast track ever since the discovery of the technique geneticists call CRISPR.

Google it – C-R-I-S-P-R. It’s frightening.

In Noah’s day, fallen angels were messing with DNA. Today, fallen humans are doing it.

I’ll give you a preview of Sunday’s Prophecy Update. A recent article on a science website was titled, Human Ancestor Mated with ‘Ghost Lineage.’

Excerpts:

A protein that helps make human spit slimy reveals signs that the ancestors of modern humans interbred with an extinct human lineage…

Previous research… suggested that the ancestors of modern humans may have interbred with other human lineages not known from the fossil record. For example, a 2011 study analyzing modern human DNA found that the species may have bred with a now-extinct lineage of humanity before leaving Africa.

Now, researchers suggest that a “ghost” lineage of ancient humans may have contributed the DNA for a protein called mucin-7 found in the saliva of modern humans living in sub-Saharan Africa today.

https://www.livescience.com/59931-human-ancestor-mated-with-ghost-lineage.html

I’m no scientist, and I don’t want to read anything into it, but when I read, “ancestors of modern humans interbred with an extinct human lineage…” I can’t help but think sons of God and daughters of men producing Nephilim.

“As it was in the days of Noah.”

Promised Land Of The Giants

The tallest man in medical history, the guy in the record books, is Robert Wadlow, who when last measured June 27, 1940, was found to be 8’ 11.1” tall.

Goliath whom David fought and killed stood at least nine feet, nine inches tall. I say “at least” because the Hebrews used three different “cubit” units: the common, the royal, and the long, measuring (respectively) about 18, 20, and 22 inches.

By the long measure, Goliath could have been nearly 12’ tall.

If we go with the 12’ measure, Goliath was fully six feet taller than a tall man; and fully three feet taller than the tallest man on record.

There were other remarkable giants in the Old Testament. Og, the king of Bashan, is said to have slept in an iron bed measuring at least 13.5’ by 6’. Using the long cubit, Og’s bed could have been as much as sixteen-and-a-half feet long.

In the Book of Numbers we read of the Anakites:

Num 13:33  There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

In Deuteronomy we read of the Emites:

Deu 2:10  The Emim had dwelt there in times past, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim.
Deu 2:11  They were also regarded as giants, like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim.

“Rephaites” or “Rephaim” are an ancient race of biblical giants. According to Genesis 14:5, King Chedorlaomer and his allies attacked and defeated the Rephaites at Ashteroth-Karnaim.

Rephaites are also mentioned in Genesis (15:20), Deuteronomy (2:10-21, 3:11), Joshua (12:4, 13:12, 15:8, 17:15, 18:16), Second Samuel (5:18-22, 23:13), and in First Chronicles (11:15, 14:9 & 20:4).

Zamzummim is another biblical name for giants. We learn in Deuteronomy 2:20 that was the name given to them by the Ammonites who displaced them.

What we call gigantism is usually caused by a tumor on the pituitary gland of the brain. It affects only about 1% of the population. Giants typically suffer from many physical limitations and disabilities; and they don’t live that long.

Robert Wadlow moved so slowly and with such difficulty that his day-to-day activity was severely limited. As one account put it, “The human body is not well-suited to deal with the demands that such a large frame places on it, and Robert began to experience problems with his lower extremities. Leg braces helped him overcome the difficulties he had with the feeling in his legs and feet.”

Robert was only twenty-two years old when he died as a result of a septic blister on his right ankle caused by a brace, which had been poorly fitted only a week earlier.

Unlike Robert Wadlow, Bible giants were warriors, lived long lives, and demonstrated remarkable agility and strength. They didn’t require leg braces, but instead were almost superhumanly strong.

Goliath, for example, was outfitted with two hundred fifty pounds of armor for battle. He wore it nimbly. He and the other giants of the Bible seem to be very different from, say, wrestler Andre the Giant, who stood a mere 7’ 4” tall and died at age forty-six.

I mentioned Og. At his height, keeping everything in proportion, Og would weigh-in at close to two thousand pounds. Obviously his skeletal structure was much, much different from that of a normal human struck with gigantism.

The giants in the Bible were not just taller men, suffering from pituitary tumors. They were unique.

Where did these Bible giants come from? And how were they so mighty?

Gen 6:4  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.

Before the global flood and again after it, these giants were the product of the sons of God marrying and mating with daughters of men.

We established in our last study that “the sons of God” were fallen angels. They married and mated with human females, both before and after the flood, and the result were “giants.”

The word is Nephilim. It means fallen ones. It isn’t describing their size. By itself, Nephilim doesn’t indicate they were giants. The word is intended to tell you this is a new race of beings had come into existence.

They are then described as “the mighty men of old, men of renown.” The word here is gibborim, and it speaks of their exploits.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum says of them, “They were superhuman… They had human characteristics but were, at the same time, superhuman. They had extra capacities, both mentally and physically…”

Francis Scheaffer wrote, “More and more we are finding that mythology in general though greatly contorted very often has some historic base. And the interesting thing is that one myth which occurs over and over again in many parts of the world is that somewhere a long time ago supernatural beings had sexual intercourse with natural women and produced a special breed of people.”

It is only later in the Old Testament that we learn that the Nephilim were also of giant stature.

If you’re like me, you are willing to admit that there were Nephilim before the flood. But how can there be Nephilim post-flood?

I should mention that not everyone thinks post-flood giants are Nephilim. They think them run-of-the-mill giants, like Robert Wadlow and Andre. But the mechanics of their size, and their warrior exploits, seems to favor Nephilim.

The Bible doesn’t say how there were post-flood Nephilim, so we can’t be certain. The one way we know that Nephilim are produced is by fallen angels marrying and mating with women. Most likely more fallen angels again married and mated with human females post-flood.

The post-flood giants seem to be concentrated in and around the Promised Land. Perhaps it was a more localized strategy of Satan’s to discourage Israel from conquering the land. It was no longer a plan to corrupt the gene pool so much as it was to produce a race of super-soldiers to turn back the Israelite conquest of the land.

It seemed to work. One of the major reasons the ten spies had for saying “No!” to going in to the land was that there were giants.

Num 13:31  But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.”
Num 13:32  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.
Num 13:33  There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Their evil report kept Israel out of their land for forty years.

When Joshua led them in, they encountered giants over-and-over again.

Jos 11:21  And at that time Joshua came and cut off the Anakim from the mountains: from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel; Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities.
Jos 11:22  None of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel; they remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod.

God is criticized for ordering Israel to destroy all the inhabitants of the Promised Land. It seems cruel. But what if we factor-in the presence of Nephilim, dug-in to the Promised Land?

Extermination makes more sense if there were Nephilim.

There were giants well after the conquest of the Promised Land. It is thought that David and his mighty men finished the work of exterminating the Nephilim. For example, we read of this encounter:

2Sa 21:15  When the Philistines were at war again with Israel, David and his servants with him went down and fought against the Philistines; and David grew faint.
2Sa 21:16  Then Ishbi-Benob, who was one of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose bronze spear was three hundred shekels, who was bearing a new sword, thought he could kill David.
2Sa 21:17  But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid, and struck the Philistine and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him, saying, “You shall go out no more with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.”
2Sa 21:18  Now it happened afterward that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbechai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was one of the sons of the giant.
2Sa 21:19  Again there was war at Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
2Sa 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, twenty-four in number; and he also was born to the giant.
2Sa 21:21  So when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him.
2Sa 21:22  These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.

When you start to pay attention, you see that giants are a ‘big’ part (pun intended) of the Old Testament history.

Why don’t they find giant skeletons? One writer said, “Search the Smithsonian galleries, for example, and you will see not a single giant bone or footprint cast on display. The clear impression given is that evidence of giants has never been found, and, intentionally or not, this tends to cast the Biblical record in an unfavorable light.”

Scores of giant skeletons have been allegedly unearthed in the past couple of centuries. There is some evidence that these were ignored, destroyed, or hidden by places like the Smithsonian, because it defies the current theories of anthropology. It’s not beyond the scientists to overlook or hide evidence contrary to their theories.

Truth is, the bones of giants have been reported. Here is one:

Eureka, NV, 1877: “…the prospector was surprised to find a human leg bone and knee cap sticking out of solid rock… When the surrounding stone was carefully chipped away, the specimen was found to be composed of a leg bone broken off four inches above the knee, the knee cap and joint, the lower leg bones, and the complete bones of the foot. Several medical doctors examined the remains, and were convinced that anatomically they had indeed once belonged to a human being, and a very modern-looking one. But an intriguing aspect of the bones was their size: from knee to heel they measured 39 inches. Their owner in life had thus stood over 12 feet tall.

In Egypt, archaeologists have found writings that mention the Anakim inhabiting the Promised Land. They are described as being very tall – upwards of 8’ 7”.

According to the folks at Answers in Genesis, most cultures around the world have stories of giants. “Greek and Roman mythology mentions the Titans, Kyklopes (Cyclops), and several other giants. Norse mythology contains stories of the Frost giants of Jötunheim. African and Asian peoples also have legends of giants, as do Native Americans.”

In his autobiography, “Buffalo” Bill Cody wrote the following words about a legend recounted to him by members of the Sioux tribe:

It was taught by the wise men of this tribe that the earth was originally peopled by giants, who were fully three times the size of modern men.

They were so swift and powerful that they could run alongside a buffalo, take the animal under one arm, and tear off a leg, and eat it as they ran.

As we close, let’s go back to the reason we are interested in getting this right, and are spending time on it. It’s because we believe we are living in the end times, and thus take to heart Jesus’ words,

Mat 24:37  But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Mat 24:38  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,
Mat 24:39  and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

The kind of “marrying” Jesus had in mind was the marriages and mating of fallen angels with human females that produced the Nephilim in an attempt to edit human DNA to prevent the Messiah from being born.

We don’t expect a new wave of fallen angels mating with women. But we do see the editing of human DNA, and recent bold claims by geneticists that we now control the destiny of what it means to be human.

DNA editing was happening before the flood; it is happening again today. It is, therefore, “as the days of Noah,” at least in that very important respect.

Sons Of Anarchy

While trying to solve the mystery of who fired on the Klingon ship in the film The Undiscovered Country, Mr. Spock uttered the quotable line, “An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the solution.”

[BTW It is an adaptation of something Sherlock Holmes said in The Sign of the Four (1890)].

Upon reading the opening verses of Genesis chapter six, we encounter a situation we immediately find to be improbable. We’re told that certain fallen angels called “the sons of God” married and mated with “the daughters of men” producing “giants.”

It so challenges our thinking that commentators try to argue that “the sons of God” aren’t fallen angels at all, but, rather, the human descendants of the godly line of Seth. They marry ungodly, nonbelieving women from the line of Cain, and the kids from their union aren’t really “giants,” just rebels against God.

I think I can show you how that interpretation, and all other natural ones, is, in fact, impossible – leaving us with the improbable but true interpretation that fallen angels did, indeed, marry and mate with human women.

Listen to this quote by Arnold Fruchtenbaum:

Verse 2 describes an intermarriage. The first key phrase is, “sons of God.” The term “sons of God” is a general term which means to be brought into existence by God’s creative act.
Because the term carries this meaning, it is used very selectively. Throughout the Old Testament the term “sons of God” is always used of angels. This is very clear when the usages of the term are compared in the Old Testament… No one debates that the other places where “sons of God” is found in the Old Testament clearly refer to angels. But some want to make Genesis 6:1-4 the one exception, and there is simply no warrant for making an exception here.

In the New Testament the term “sons of God” is expanded. Adam is called the son of God (Luke 3:38) because he was brought into existence by creation. Believers are called sons of God (John 1:12) because believers are considered to be a new creation (Galatians 6:15).

But in Genesis, the text is dealing with a specific Hebrew expression, benei elohim, and, as it is used in the Hebrew Old Testament, it is a term that is always used of angels. The distinction in this passage, then, is not between the descendants of Seth and the descendants of Cain, but between humanity and angels. The word “men” here emphasizes humanity. The term “sons of God” emphasizes angels.

The phrase in question is rendered as “mighty ones” in Psalm 29:1; “heavenly beings” in Psalm 89:6; and “angels” in Job 1:6, 2:1, & 38:7. It always refers to celestial, heavenly beings.

One scholar pointed out that the phrase refers to gods in extra-biblical writings.
The earliest commentary on these verses is the Book of Enoch, which identifies these as fallen angels.

The Jewish historian, Josephus, refers to them as fallen angels.

Early church fathers referred to these as fallen angels, up until about the middle of the fourth century.

When Jesus’ original audience heard Him refer to the marriages in Genesis six, referring them to “the Days of Noah,” they would have immediately understood that He meant they were fallen angels.

Something else to consider: If these guys were human, from the line of Seth, they can hardly be called godly if they intermarried with the nonbelieving descendants of Cain. Would truly godly men marry ungodly women?

You must keep the big picture in mind. The verses clearly describe intermarriages that are not just unusual, but also unnatural – leading to the judgment of a worldwide flood.

The argument that these were mere men marrying women doesn’t hold-up biblically or logically.

Let’s notice a few other things in these verses, about “the sons of God” and “the daughters of men.”

Gen 6:1  Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them,

The word for “men” is generic and means humanity in general. Men and women from both the lines of Seth and Cain were marrying and multiplying.

“Daughters” means females in general. There is no distinction between the daughters of Seth, and the daughters of Cain. Any such distinction is forced upon the text.

Gen 6:2  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.

You notice that it is always “the sons of God” marrying “the daughters of men.” Nothing is said about “the daughters of God” marrying “the sons of men.” If this were about intermarriage among humans, it would go both ways.

Gen 6:3  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.”

The situation was so bad, God decreed the judgment of the global flood. It would destroy what we read about in verse four. It’s hard to understand how believers marrying nonbelievers would invoke such a radical judgment on the part of God.

Gen 6:4  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.

The verse literally reads, “there were Nephilim on the earth in those days…”

We’ll dedicate at least one study to these guys. For now let’s simply notice that there was something unusual about them.

Here is another quote from Fruchtenbaum:

The second word to note in this verse is giborim, which is translated as “the mighty men… the men of renown.” Again, because this was a product of fallen angels and human women, they were unique. They were the giborim. Notice that there is no mention of mighty women, which would be strange if this were a product of a normal union. After all, a normal union produces both males and females.
If this were a natural union, then the product should have been mighty men and mighty women. But there are only mighty men because this is a new race of beings that is neither human nor angelic. The only way to explain the origin of the giborim is that they were the product of this union…

These bizarre events are also echoed in the legends and myths of every ancient culture upon the earth: the ancient Greeks, the Egyptians, the Hindus, the South Sea Islanders, the American Indians, and virtually all the others.

The more you get into these verses, the more impossible it becomes to say “the sons of God” are merely men.

The New Testament agrees with the interpretation that “the sons of God” were fallen angels. Here are four verses – two in Second Peter, and two in Jude – that indicate these were fallen angels:

2Pe 2:4  For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;
2Pe 2:5  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…

Jud 1:6  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;
Jud 1:7  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.

We know from other verses that certain fallen angels are temporarily confined in a place called the Abyss. They will be released in the Great Tribulation.

Peter describes fallen angels who are permanently confined in a prison in “hell.” The word for “hell” is Tartarus. It is not the Abyss. These angels are in Tartarus permanently, until the final judgment, at which time they will be cast into the Lake of Fire.

Their incarceration has something to do with the global flood; by that I mean that what they did is connected to the judgment of the flood.

Jude tells us what they did that deserved such strong condemnation. They “did not keep their proper domain,” but instead gave themselves over “to sexual immorality [by going] after strange flesh.”

Jude is describing a sexual union that is unnatural – in this case, between fallen angels and human females.

It’s at this point that folks say, “Wait a minute! Jesus said, ‘For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven’” (Matthew 22:30).

It is argued from that statement that angels are sexless and incapable of reproduction.

That isn’t at all what Jesus said. We are reading more into it.

First, Jesus was discussing life in Heaven – not on the earth. He was answering a question about humans in Heaven, and if marriages would continue.

He said, in Heaven, there would be no marriage, and therefore no reproduction – not for angels, and not for humans.

When angels appear on the earth, they are always in a body, and it is always masculine. They are nowhere in the Bible declared to be sexless.

Humans on earth do marry and reproduce. Jesus’ words do not go so far as to say angels cannot marry and reproduce. They are dealing with future life, in Heaven – not life on the earth.

Interestingly, when God’s angels came to Sodom and Gomorrah, the wicked men of those cities wanted to have sex with them.

So, we conclude that when Jesus said that angels in Heaven do not marry and produce offspring, it does not mean fallen angels on earth cannot do so.

God promised Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, that He would send a Savior for the human race. The Savior would be born of a human female.

A theme that is developed in the Old Testament is Satan’s attempt to thwart the plan of God to bring a Savior that would be born of a human female. Polluting the gene pool certainly was a strategy of Satan’s, and it would have worked if not for God saving righteous Noah and his three sons. In the flood, all the unrighteous perished – including the Nephilim.

After the flood, the earth was repopulated by the righteous family of Noah – preserving the line of the promised Savior.

Listen: God didn’t decree the global flood simply because mankind was spiraling into deeper-and-deeper sin. It wasn’t on account of the proliferation of violence, or any other such characteristic.

It was because the human race was itself in jeopardy on account of Satan’s fallen angels tampering with our DNA, producing weird offspring.

God intervened to save us.

I’ve been documenting, in our Prophecy Updates on Sunday morning, that scientists now have the gene-editing technology to, as they are saying, “change all biological life,” and to “control human evolution.”

Thus it is “as the Days of Noah.” and, just as then, God plans to intervene in the Great Tribulation.

Last Man Saved

Asked about the end times, Jesus said, “as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

Jesus pointed us back to those days to encourage us to study their characteristics, because these would also characterize the days preceding His return.

A little review from our previous study is in order.

Mat 24:36  “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”

We said that Jesus was referring not to the resurrection and rapture of the church, but to His Second Coming.

The church is not in Matthew twenty-four and twenty-five, at least not directly. Jesus was talking about God’s future dealings with the nation of Israel – the physical descendants of Abraham through his son, Isaac.

It is important in studying prophecy that we understand that God is not through dealing with Israel as a nation. The church is not Israel; Israel is not the church.

If you confuse the two, you won’t have a clue how to interpret Bible prophecy.

According to theologian Charles Ryrie,

Promises made to Israel are still going to be kept in the future. We can be sure that all God has said is true and will take place, because of His character and consistency. The Church does not replace Israel and should not expect a symbolic fulfillment of the promises of the Old Covenant. As one reads Scripture, it is necessary to keep Israel and the Church separate.

In Romans 11:1 we read,

Rom 11:1  I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

God has not “cast away” the Israelites. He is still dealing with them as an identifiable people group, separate from His dealings with Gentiles.

The apostle Paul goes on to explain that Israel, as a nation, is under God’s discipline. In the mean time, the Gospel is going out to all men everywhere, Jew and Gentile. He says of this, “through [Israel’s] fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!”

Currently the word that characterizes Israel is “fall.” One day the word that characterizes Israel will be “fullness.”

Their “fullness” means their salvation. It comes at the end of the Great Tribulation.

The Great Tribulation is called, in the Old Testament, “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” It will be the time predicted by Daniel – the seventieth week of seven years by which God saves His people. It is specifically geared to end the “fall” and bring in the “fullness” of Israel.

We know that at the end of the Great Tribulation, all the surviving Jews will look upon Jesus and see Him pierced for them. They will receive Him as their Savior. That is their “fullness.”

Then, in Romans eleven, Paul says,

Rom 11:25  For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Rom 11:26  And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “THE DELIVERER WILL COME OUT OF ZION, AND HE WILL TURN AWAY UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB;
Rom 11:27  FOR THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.”

These verses are very clear. The nation of Israel is being disciplined, but God will save them in the end.

Currently He is saving “whosoever will believe.” These saved whosoevers he refers to as “the fullness of the Gentiles.”

Now if in this chapter the “fullness” of Israel meant their salvation, then the “fullness” of the Gentiles means their salvation.

Israel will remain under discipline until a specific group of believers is saved. We identify that group as the church. It will be “full” when the last believer of the church age is saved, and the Lord raptures us home.

The church is not on the earth during the Great Tribulation. We are safe in Heaven, having been resurrected and raptured.

BTW This “fullness of the Gentiles” is another reason I believe the rapture is presented as an imminent event. The rapture will happen when the last believer of the church age receives Jesus Christ. It isn’t tied to any calendar event, or any feast of Israel. It could happen at any moment – just as soon as we are “full.”

Perhaps this is why Peter, in his letter, said we could “hasten” the coming of the Lord. One of the meanings of the word is to accelerate. You should think you can accelerate the coming of the Lord.

If the Lord was coming on a particular calendar day, it would be impossible to speak of accelerating His return to rapture us.

You can accelerate His coming by telling more people
about Him because among them is the last one before we are snatched away.

G. Campbell Morgan, a great expositor of Bible prophecy and the Word of God, wrote,

I never lay my head on the pillow without thinking that perhaps before I awake, the final morning may have dawned. I never begin my work without thinking that He may interrupt it to begin His own. Every night before we go to sleep, we ought to say, ‘He may come tonight.’ Every day when we get out our tools and go to work, “This may be the last day’s work I’ll do.”

We said that the phrase, “no one knows the day and hour,” was a familiar Jewish idiom. The Feast of Trumpets began each year when two witnesses saw the first sliver of the new moon. Until they told the priest they had sighted it, he could not announce the Feast.

Anticipating the announcement, he would tell folks, “no one knows the day and hour,” until the moon was seen.

That being the case, it seems Jesus was saying He would return at the end of the Great Tribulation on the Feast of Trumpets.

Jesus fulfilled the four spring feasts in His first coming, so it is understood He will fulfill the three fall feasts in His Second Coming.

Matthew 24:37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Matthew 24:38 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,

We’re going to get back to Genesis chapter six where we see the kind of marriages Jesus was referring to. The Sons of God, whom we will show are fallen angels, somehow married and mated with human women, producing giants, called Nephilim.

First we want to finish looking at Jesus’ reference to the Days of Noah.

Matthew 24:39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

A key to understanding the next few verses is to ask, Who was taken away at the time of the flood? The answer is, Nonbelievers were taken away to judgment.

Noah and his family were kept safe through the flood to be left on the earth and repopulate it.

Read the next verses with that in mind.

Matthew 24:40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left.
Matthew 24:41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.

It might sound like the rapture but it isn’t. It’s the Second Coming.

The men and women who are taken are taken away to judgment – just like the people during Noah’s flood.
The men and women who are left are left to repopulate the earth – just like Noah and his family.

BTW This is a strong reason why the rapture cannot be post-tribulational. If all living believers at the end of the Great Tribulation are raptured; and all nonbelievers are judged and sent to Hades; then there is no one left on the earth, in a human body, to repopulate it for the Kingdom Age.

Matthew 24:42 Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.

The Bible is very precise in describing the timing of the Tribulation. Daniel called it the seventieth week on God’s prophetic calendar of four hundred and ninety years. It means a ‘week’ of years, or seven years.
The two halves of the Tribulation are described as a time and times and half a time in Revelation 12:14. The two halves of it are described as one-thousand two hundred and sixty days in Revelation 11:3 and 12:6.

It has a distinct beginning, middle, and end:

It will begin when the antichrist signs a peace treaty with Israel guaranteeing their safety and allowing them to rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem.
At its mid-point the antichrist enters the Holy of Holies in the Temple and desecrates it by demanding he be worshipped.
The Tribulation ends with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ during a great battle on the earth in the Valley of Megiddo.

Daniel and John (in the Revelation) both speak of an expanded period of one thousand two hundred ninety days, or thirty additional days after.

Daniel also uses the figure one thousand three hundred thirty five days.

It seems that those additional days are when Jesus judges the nations, separating the sheep from the goats, in anticipation of the one thousand year kingdom on earth.

The sun will be darkened; the moon turned to blood. It will be impossible to tell time.

The believers alive after nearly seven years of Tribulation will know the signs and the general timing but not the exact moment itself. It speaks of having a great sense of anticipation that builds and builds.
But those who survive will know it is near, and will keep looking up for Jesus in His Second Coming.

Noah Time Like The Present

It’s going to happen first in England.  The article was titled, Surgeon behind world’s first human HEAD transplant says the operation could take place… next year.

Excerpts:

A neurosurgeon planning to carry out the first human head transplant has revealed the daring operation could happen in the UK.

Sergio Canavero wants to carry out the operation next year and believes it could lead to people paralyzed from the neck down being able to walk again.

The surgeon said the UK is the ‘most promising place’ in Europe to conduct the procedure, after a virtual reality system that will prepare patients for life in their new body was unveiled in Glasgow last week.

Russian wheelchair user Valery Spiridonov has volunteered to take part in the first operation, which would see his head ‘frozen’ to stop brain cells from dying and tubes connected to support key arteries and veins.

The spinal cord would then be cut, repaired and fused on to a donor body and the skin stitched back together.

Leading up to the first human head transplant, scientists have attached the head of a rat onto the body of another.
In the disturbing experiment, researchers in China affixed the heads of smaller, ‘donor’ rats onto the backs of larger recipients, creating two-headed animals that lived an average of 36 hours.

The team, which involved the Italian neurosurgeon, managed to complete the transplant without causing blood loss-related brain damage to the donor.

A year ago, China was ordered to ‘rein in’ scientists who have edited the DNA of human embryos for the first time, a practice banned in Europe.

The first attempts to bring people back from the dead are slated to start this year as well.  Bioquark, a Philadelphia-based company, announced in late 2016 that they believe brain death is not ‘irreversible.’  And now, CEO Ira Pastor has revealed they will soon be testing an unprecedented stem cell method on patients in an unidentified country in Latin America, confirming the details in the next few months.

Newsweek ran an article at the same time titled, We Need to Talk About Human Genetic Engineering Before It’s Too Late.

They said,

Human genetic engineering is coming.  Science is about to solve some of the worst problems that can happen to people: cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, Alzheimer’s and the many other devastating results that can come out of the random genetic lottery that is reproduction.

But that power means we are also about to set the bar on what it means to be a person and have a productive life.
What will the society of the future think needs repairing?  If we “fix” blindness will we also “fix” deafness?  What about baldness or being short?

I want to say that we are seeing the manipulation of what it means to be human, especially on the level of DNA, like never before in human history.

I can’t say that, however, because there was one other time in the history of the human race that genetic manipulation was happening on a planetary scale.

It was about 4400 years ago, just before the global flood of Noah recorded in the Book of Genesis.

As the writer, Moses, begins to tell of Noah, he says,

Gen 6:1  Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them,
Gen 6:2  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…
Gen 6:4  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.

I will present all the different theories of exactly what these verses mean.  But rather than keep you in suspense, we’re going to discover that the most biblical, scientific, and logical theory is that the “sons of God” were certain fallen angels and these “giants” were the offspring of fallen angels mating with human women.

In doing so, the fallen angels were messing with what it means to be human; messing with us at the level of DNA; in order to distort or to destroy humanity.

It was so prevalent that God decided to send the flood, saving only eight souls.

This realization that we have been here before is more than interesting.  It is prophetic, because of something Jesus said.

Talking about the Last Days, and especially the days just before His Second Coming, the Lord said,

Mat 24:36  “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.
Mat 24:37  But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Mat 24:38  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,
Mat 24:39  and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

First of all, we note that Jesus spoke of Noah, and the flood as presented in Genesis, as a true, historical account.  If you think otherwise, you are disagreeing with the Lord, Who the Book of Colossians reminds us was the Creator of all things.

Jesus said that just before His coming it would be “as the days of Noah were,” “as in the days before the flood.”  Then Jesus picked out one particular aspect of those days.  He said the people would be, “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.”

Typically we say of His statement that people will be unaware of the Second Coming, and will be going on with their normal lives.  They’ll be partying, and getting married, as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

Wait a minute.  What is the world going to be like just before the Second Coming?  Will it be business, and pleasure, as usual?

Hardly.  In the Revelation of Jesus Christ, during the Great Tribulation, seven seals of a seven sealed scroll are opened, one at a time, to reveal the wrath of God upon the earth.

Things get progressively worse on the earth after each seal.  With the opening of the seventh seal, seven trumpets are blown.  With the blowing of the seventh trumpet, seven bowls of wrath are poured out upon the earth, in rapid succession.

Listen to how the bowls are described:

Rev 16:1  Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth.”
Rev 16:2  So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.
Rev 16:3  Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died.
Rev 16:4  Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood…
Rev 16:8  Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire.
Rev 16:9  And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.
Rev 16:10  Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain.
Rev 16:11  They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds.
Rev 16:12  Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared.

Question: Does that sound like the kind of world in which people will be partying and getting married?  Do you imagine you’ll be receiving ‘Save the Date’ notices, to put on your refrigerator?

Of course not.

Let’s revisit what Jesus said, and what He most likely meant by what He said.

He said that just before His Second Coming men would be “eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage,” similar to the days of Noah.

What kind of marriages were taking place in the days of Noah?  The sons of God were taking human women as their wives, messing with what it means to be human at the level of DNA, and producing monstrous atrocities – called in the Bible the Nephilim.

It reads, “the “sons of God” (B’nai Elohim) took wives of the “daughters of men,” which gave birth to the “giants” (Nephilim).

Did Jesus mean this terrible mating between fallen angels and human women will once again occur?  I’m not saying that; I don’t know, because it’s not directly revealed in the end times passages.

I will say that something like this seems to have occurred again, on a small scale, after the flood.  That is supported by the many places in Scripture where you see giants still on the earth.

For example the Israelites overcame giants in their conquest of the Promised Land.  In fact it was partially their fear of giants in the land that caused the ten spies to give a bad report of their chances at conquering the land.
David and his mighty men finally eradicated the giants in his day (Second Samuel 21:15-22).

I do know that Satan was messing around with our DNA in the days of Noah, and that he is doing it again today, through the agency of scientists willing to ignore medical ethics.

It is the second time in human history that such a direct manipulation has occurred – the first being the days of Noah.

It is not yet widespread, but that could change at any time.

It seems, then, that we are on the brink of the days of Noah prophecy of Jesus coming true.

The days of Noah were also characterized by violence, and corruption, and widespread unbelief.  But to suggest that, for example, the days in which we live are the most violent since the time of the flood is to ignore the human history of violence.

I mentioned Hannibal in Sunday’s Bible study.  Hannibal killed more people in one afternoon that all the losses the United States sustained in the entirety of the Vietnam Nam war.

Commentators have suggested other characteristics of the days of Noah.  James Montgomery Boice lists,

An explosion in population.
An explosion of knowledge.
And, a rapid acceleration of vice and lawlessness.

I think we can see those things in the past, in history; they are not unique to our time.

Almost a generation ago, in 1968, Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist, wrote, The Population Bomb.  In it he said humankind stood on the brink of apocalypse because there were simply too many of us.  Dr. Ehrlich’s opening statement: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over.”

He later went on to forecast that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 1970s, that 65 million of them would be Americans, that crowded India was essentially doomed, that odds were fair “England will not exist in the year 2000.”

The thing most uniquely similar between the days of Noah and today involves manipulating our DNA.  It happened then; it’s happening now.

Homework:

Read and re-read Genesis 6:1-5.  If you’ve got a copy of Dr. Henry Morris’ The Genesis Record, read his commentary on those verses.
Read and re-read Matthew 24:36-44.  You might want to read all of chapter twenty-four, as well as chapter twenty-five.

We’ll probably take a look at the days of Noah passage in Matthew next time we’re together, Lord willing.