HOW IS IT WHAT BE VI: I THINK ITS GONNA RAIN FALLEN ANGELS

“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.

For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.

For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God.

For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you.

In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer.

“This is like the days of Noah to me: as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, and will not rebuke you.  (Isaiah 54:4-9)

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For Just as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, and destroyed them all so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the

day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. (Matthew 24:36-39 and Luke 17:26-33)

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus and committed them to pits of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. 2 Peter 2:4-10

Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Jude 1:5-7

In the last chapter we saw the development of the first descendants of Adam and Eve. Cain’s line turns to worldly concerns while Seth’s called on God.

However, To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD. (Genesis 5:26)

But as each succeeding generation passed these too began to drift. Finally something tragic happened. Here we come to controversy. I think a lot of times this passage gets skipped over because it is a little strange, but it also challenges us to realize we do deal alongside a spiritual world as well as our own sphere.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

This is why Paul warns us to put on the whole armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-20. So, let’s consider Genesis 6:1-8, a passage that may seem strange and misplaced; even scary. Genesis 4 and 5 listed the early generations, tracing Cain’s issue in 4 and Seth’s issue in 5 up to Noah and his three sons and In Chapter 6 beginning in Verse 9  through Chapter 8, we have the description of the Great Flood. But in-between we have this passage that breaks with the continuing narrative:

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Genesis 6:1-4. 

What is going on here and who’s who?

There are two main theories about this. One is that the Sons of God were the line of Seth and the Daughters of Man were of the line of Cain. Then for some reason the God-fearing line of Seth couldn’t resist taking as their wives the daughters of Cain’s worldly line and the result of this corruption of Man drove God to the point that He first limited the life span of humans and eventually decided to wipe everyone out.

However, the notion of the “Sons of God’ being the line of Seth was not the earliest view in either Jewish thought or the early manuscripts of Christian belief, but somehow it is the view that seems to have prevailed with the majority in this day. Possibly because we have a hard time accepting the idea of supernatural being intermingling with humans. It comes too close to Stephen King stuff.

Yet the earlier viewpoint was “Sons of God” referred to the Angels. Outside of Genesis, Sons of God is not a common expression. Even where it sometimes is used, the proper translation would have been “Sons of Israel” or “Sons of Jacob”. In the New Testament the phrase is used several times throughout the Epistles, but in these it is saying that  Saved Christians are considered “Sons of God” as in John 1:12, Romans 8:14, 1 John 3:1 and other Epistles. But in the oldest Christian writings this term was also considered referring to Angels.

There are a few Old Testament passages where the term Sons of God was used and did obviously refer to Celestial Beings.

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

And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou?

Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. Job 1:6-7.

This shows that Lucifer (Satan) was able to transport himself between Heaven and Earth at that time. Even though he had already rebelled against God, he had not yet been thrown out of Heaven. He will lose that Heavenly access during the end times. (See Revelation 12:7-10)

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. Job 2:1

Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Job 38:5-7

In this passage, where God is lecturing Job, we see the Sons of God reference as Celestial beings. Certainly here Sons of God couldn’t have been the sons of Seth shouting for joy because these events were before God created man.

We can see something outside of normal human experience is going on when we read  such passages as Genesis 6:1-8, so, the second viewpoint of the passage must be considered, which is that the Sons of God mentioned were Angelic Brings. 

    In the past I got into arguments with some people who held this view because I used to firmly believe it was the Sons of Seth wedding the Daughters of Cain. Yet the more I read this passage that view made less sense to me.

As man began to multiply there were daughters born to them and we know this because over and over it says so-and-so lived a great number of years and had sons and daughters. But here is where I ran into problems. “The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.”

First of all, would not Seth also have daughters and why wouldn’t the sons of man be attracted to them? Were they that ugly? Were only the worldly daughters good looking? 

Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”Genesis 6:3

If we look at the beginning of the passage we see it refers to man multiplying and daughters born to them. When we come here it says God’s Spirit shall not abide in man, so it is referencing the opening line. He speaks of man as flesh and He limits his days. Up to this point man lived close to 900 years, but after this point the life span of man dwindles. We have Moses dying at 120 (Deuteronomy 34:7) and less than 120 years has remained the limit up to today. Somebody took the trouble to calculate it, but from the time of Moses through the of Scripture, the average age of man was 70 years.

Now we jump to a another point in Genesis 6:4.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

But who are the Nephilim and who are the mighty men? The King James Bible and some other versions translate Nephilim as “Giants”, but the entomology of the Hebrew is uncertain. Earlier translations of the word rendered it as “The Fallen” or “Rebels”. 

Here is how Young’s Literal Translation renders the passage:

And it cometh to pass that mankind have begun to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters have been born to them, and sons of God see the daughters of men that they [are] fair, and they take to themselves women of all whom they have chosen.

And Jehovah saith, `My Spirit doth not strive in man -- to the age; in their erring they [are] flesh:' and his days have been an hundred and twenty years.

The fallen ones were in the earth in those days, and even afterwards when sons of God come in unto daughters of men, and they have borne to them -- they [are] the heroes, who, from of old, [are] the men of name. Genesis 6:1-4 YLT)

I am not positive that Nephilim were the fallen angels, that is, those that had followed Satan. Actually, Nephilim may have been a word given to the offspring of the Angels who mated with the Daughters of Men and these could have been giants.  Nephilim only shows up one more time in scripture, in Numbers 13:33, when Joseph sent spies into Canaan, who came back in fear because of whom they saw there.

And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” (Numbers 13:33)

I’ll try not to get us too confused here, but Anak was the son of Arba (a man also known as Hebron).  Hebron was a parcel of land purchased by Abraham. It became the oldest city owned by the Jews. It was later given to Caleb as his inheritance by Joshua. Caleb drove out all the sons of Anak. (Joshua 14 and 15) A city was there, also called Hebron. The city of Hebron is 19 miles from Jerusalem in the West bank and today is a contested city. The Jews rank Hebron as the second holiest city next to Jerusalem, while some Muslims regard it as one of their four holiest cities. The population of Hebron today is over 215 thousand Palestinians and 500 to 850 Jewish settlers.

In Numbers we see the Israelites called the sons of Anak the Nephilim and their description was of Giants, but if so how did such survive the great flood. Wouldn’t all Nephilim be wiped out in that event? Yes, those existing on earth then, but their  genetics may have been contained in the DNA of Noah’s sons' wives. Or the Sons of God, being Angels, could have escaped the Great Flood and tried mating with daughters of men after the flood.

Why would they have done that? Because it is Satan’s purpose to despoil mankind and disrupt God’s salvation plan.

Some object to the idea that Angels could have mated with humans on the basis of Matthew 22:30: For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

But where do Angels not have sex? In heaven, given the powers we read of by demons (Fallen Angels) we cannot rule sex by Angels here on earth. There is some hint with Scripture that the men of Salem and Gomorrah were related to the Nephilim. It may be well to keep in mind that all Angels were male.

At any rate, after this introduction of the Nephilim into the mix, humans became very, very evil.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6:5-8)

After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Genesis 5:32)

These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Genesis 6:9-10)

Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. (Genesis 6:11-16) 

Now can you picture this? There is Noah and his family suddenly building this giant boat, 450 feet long by 75 feet wide by 45 feet in

height or over 1,500,000 square feet.  People surely thought he was nuts. He must have spent a good while working on this thing. Even gathering enough gopher wood would take time. (By the way, no one knows what gopher wood was, only it came from some unidentified tree.) Scripture never tells us how long Noah worked on the Ark, but one can assume it was awhile. Knowing how people can be they probably traveled for miles just to laugh at this fool. And what could Noah tell them. “Hey, God told me to do this." What he did tell them was that God said:

For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. (Genesis 6:17)

That probably just brought more derision. "A Flood? What’s a flood?" It hadn’t rained yet. The earth was still watered by underground springs and little streams, hardly any kind of threat and certainly nothing big enough for the Queen Mary Noah was putting together. Besides people had grown so wicked they probably didn't even recognize God anymore.

"Who did this Noah guy think he was anyway? Why would some God talk to him and promise to protect his family while killing us? How was he any different than anyone else?