Giants

Good morning. Good morning to each one. And yes, it is a joy to be here together, gathered together in the name of our Lord Jesus, to purpose to glorify Him and to edify one another, to be encouraged in the faith.

It is a great joy. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Words, my motives, Lord, as I share this message to our brothers and sisters here, Lord, that you would fill me with your spirit, use me as a channel only to present your word to your children.

Father, encourage us and bless us and keep us and be with us as your word has promised. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Okay, well, if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Genesis chapter 6, verses 1 to 5. We're going to go in a little bit of a different direction than we've gone before. The title of the message today is Giants. So, I was encouraged to study and to just meditate throughout the week to see what the Lord had put on my heart and I'm excited to share with you what I've learned about giants.

So, Genesis chapter 6, verses 1 to 5. It says here, 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 that the daughters of men, 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 is also flesh, yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days.

And also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bear children to them, they became mighty men, which were of old men of renown. And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thought of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for it repented me that I have made them. So I would like to give a little bit of context here out of this scripture. If we look at the previous chapter, there we see the genealogy from Adam all the way up to Noah.

The current date as we enter into Genesis chapter 6 would be about 1600 after creation, or 2400 BC, or about 4400 years ago from today. It says there in verse 1 that it came to pass when men began to multiply on the earth. The word multiplying, I guess I added here that the world was becoming populated.

And I had a question, as I always do as I go through the scriptures, I ask myself questions. What would this have been like? Or what was the scene like? What did it look like? And one question I asked was, how many children do we suppose Adam and Eve would have had? Because the world at 1600 was already populated. Who would like to give a guess? How many children do they think Adam and Eve would have had? Like a good Mennonite family, seven or eight? The Bible mentions three, Cain, Abel, and Seth.

And then it mentions Anne's other sons and daughters. Josephus claimed, I don't know if it was a claim, but he believed that Adam and Eve would have had 56 children, 33 sons, sorry, yeah, 33 sons and 23 daughters. So we can see how 1600 years later, the earth truly could have been very multiplied.

What could the population have been in those days? I don't have the answer, but sometimes we think, and I've heard of many people think, oh, maybe a couple hundred million. Answers in Genesis explains that it could have been easily double the population we have today, 17 billion, easily. It could have been far more.

It could have been less, but it could have been far more yet. I did a little bit of a population growth rate calculation. Today's current world population growth rate is 0.89%, so not quite one-tenth of a percent that it's growing, about 74 million people more every year.

The Amish population growth rate is 3.23%, which is a very high growth rate for today's world. The Eagle congregation growth rate over the last year is 10%. If all of your births go well, Lord willing, there's four pregnant ladies in here today, and by the time we've gone one year, there's a 10% growth rate.

The world population growth rate today, remember, is 0.89%, so not quite one percent. An overall good growth rate today is 3.23%, that's the Amish. The Old Order Mennonite growth rate is 3.7%, so they about double every 20 years.

I did the math for the growth rate from Adam and Eve through the year 1650, if they would have had two children by the time they were 130 years old, and then started that growth rate at 1.5%. It's a high number, but it would have been like 100 billion, and I know that's a lot, and it might not have been that. We're not assuming, well, it's a 1.5% growth rate. It would assume deaths, because in the Amish growth rate, it assumes death, it assumes sickness.

At 1.5%, it would be well over 100 billion. So the ancient world could have had far more population, far greater population than today, but we can't claim that to be true, we don't know, but we can kind of think about that a little bit. So now imagine a world fully populated, where lifespans of 900 years was normal.

Today we live 80 years if we're strong. Back then, in that world, 900 years was normal. 56 children, if Adam and Eve had 56 children, there would have been many more that would have had the same.

The world was populated, people were evil. I believe the ancient world, the time that we're reading in, was far more wicked than it is today. Now there were still righteous people in the earth in those days.

I think about Methuselah, his son Lamech, they have good testimony of being righteous. Noah, Noah's sons, so there was still righteous people, but we could see, according to this, that by the time the giants get mentioned, shortly after, the decline, the moral decline was very rapid. It was about 120 years and then God said, that's it, we will get rid of mankind.

The definition for giants is Nephilim, which means fallen ones. Nephilim means fallen ones. And now I want to talk about two views that the church has generally held of who these giants were and their origin of these, and the origin of these giants.

So there's two main views, there's more, but two main views. And the first view was that the sons of God were fallen angels who had interrelated with human women and the offspring produced giants. That's the first view.

So the sons of God were, or the second view is that the sons of God were sons of righteous Seth, because we had Cain who killed Abel, and then several years later, Seth was born, and now you had Cain producing children, and that continued to be an evil line of people, following Cain's example, and then Seth had children, and that continued to be a righteous line of children. And the second view says that eventually, the sons of God, which is our Seth's lineage, intermarried with the sons of Cain, and then they married, and then that begat giants. So there's two views.

And I want to talk about them a little bit, one by one here. So let's look at the first view. Fallen angels who had interrelated with human women and created a breed of giants.

I know it sounds crazy, but one thing we remember is that ancient world was different. They were far smarter, they lived far longer, they had far more opportunity for wickedness, and it was, they were far more advanced in evil than the world that today is. And the Bible says that, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be, for as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark.

So, I believe that today's world has yet to see a far greater evil than it's ever seen before. And the Bible confirms that. It says, the love of many shall wax cold, because iniquity shall abound.

In Revelation 13, it talks about the beast that will rule over this world, that will actually overcome the saints. I don't want this to be like a scary message, like, don't worry. Giants are scary, but we don't need to fear them.

But I'm just trying to give an explanation of what I believe has happened here, different views, and so this isn't supposed to be like a fear-mongering message. Thinking about what the world was like back then, and then thinking about what it is like right now, and that there's far more evil that I believe this world will see yet. And I'm thinking about the new technological revolution that we're facing right now, with AI coming in, and with Neuralink coming in, and with what Brother Henry shared at the funeral message about men seeking immortality, and how that could come to pass.

Well, it wouldn't, but what they're trying to do. There are currently human beings who can telepathically communicate with technology in their brain. So Elon Musk has created something called a Neuralink.

It's a chip in the brain that allows people who are otherwise paraplegic to control computers with their brain, and they can play video games, and they can do things with their brain. Okay? It sounds crazy, but it is. It's for sure.

It's true. It's happening. And now where is this going to go? Put that together with AI and the race for superintelligence.

AI currently can far exceed human intelligence in some areas, and it's only getting better, and it's getting better faster. And there's a race between the American and the Chinese governments to attain superintelligence. Now put together superintelligence with chips in the mind and telepathic communication, and now put together their strong desire to become immortal.

What Brother Henry was sharing there a few weeks ago was that they're coming up with a nanobot that can be put into the human body that will repair the body as it decays. And if they're not going to get immortality, it sounds like they're for sure going to be able to expand human life, the lifespan of humans. So now we almost have what we had in the days of Noah.

Superintelligent human beings, telepathic communication, and a very long lifespan, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days when the son of man returns. So as much as it sounds crazy, yet more and more we can see that it might not actually have been that far-fetched, and that it could easily come to pass that this world will see some of the same things that the ancient world did. So there's a bit of an explanation.

There's some support for this view in the scriptures, and now here's the support. We get it out of Job and some of the other Old Testament scriptures. The term sons of God, see it says the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men.

The term sons of God in the Old Testament always refers to angels, unless it doesn't refer to that here, but in every other passage it refers to as angels. Here it says, Job 1 6, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. So that's clear that the sons of God refers to as angels.

Job 2 1, again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. And then again in Job 38 verse 7, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. So the term sons of God in the Old Testament always refers to angels.

The only other times in the Old Testament when the term sons of God is used outside of Genesis, well let's assume that this may not be in Genesis 6, every other time it is referred to as angels. So which leads us to believe that it could also very likely mean angels here, hence you have that view. So then you could say angels took for themselves wives, whomever they chose.

But wives doesn't mean wives necessarily, it means women, it means female. And when I looked up the Hebrew word wives, it said woman, female, married, unmarried, harlot, adulteress. It was a long list, but it's related to anything, anyone that was female.

So you could say the angels married women, human women. I've said a lot, I know there's a lot going on here already, but this is something that I'd like to plug in here just as a side note, because a lot of times I've understood this to mean so, but now I have the opportunity to share it when you have a little bit of context. In 1 Corinthians 11 when it says, for this reason ought a woman to have power on her head because of the angels.

That means for this reason ought a woman to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. I believe it's referring to this incident. The angels, when they see that the women are respecting the authority of God and staying within that authority, remember when the women have power on their head.

Oh yes, I remember back then what happened. So I believe that's a powerful statement. We can't really say for sure what it means when it says because of the angels, but it says because of the angels.

And I believe very likely it could be referring to this time here. Now all of this is happening so far and God's response in verse 3 is, my spirit shall not always strive with man. That's his response.

For that he is also flesh and his day shall be 120 years. So there's like an immediate judgment. As though he knew, okay, the world is evil.

It's going evil continually and now we have these fallen angels that producing these giants and he says, okay, there's an immediate judgment here. The giants did not live very long. They lived about 120 years instead of 90 or 900 years.

So moving forward, he says, I will shorten man's lifespan. So when men are persuaded to do evil, they are better off not to live very long. Better for them to live short.

And God knew that the offspring of these sons of God and daughters of men would exceed all previous evils before. Before it would exceed anything the world had ever seen before. There are some New Testament supporting scriptures.

One of them is in 2 Peter 2 verses 4 to 5 and it says this there, for if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment and spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. So you can see it's tied in together with the ancient world right before the flood and God did not spare the angels that sinned, but cast them into hell and it ties it in right into the context of what we're reading here in Genesis 6. Now that word hell, there's actually four words. If you look up the word hell, there's four words of hell.

There's Sheol, there's Hades, there's Gehenna, and there's Tartarus. And Tartarus is only used one time in the entire Bible. Tartarus is a special place, not very special at all, but designated for the angels that have fallen in the lowest parts of hell.

That's Tartarus. So this is, there's a special place of judgment for them and they're reserved in chains of darkness. Another verse that's a supporting verse in the New Testament is Jude verses 6 to 7. It says here, the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

So that's as far as I'll give for support from the Old and New Testament. I did want to share some support from the early church writings because this view was actually held among the early church. This was a common view held among the early church.

So I wanted to share a little bit about what they saw here. They're using the same verse. There were giants on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and they bore children to them, those were the mighty men who were of old men of renown.

In other words, ancient heroes or ancient mighty men. Here Justin Martyr wrote, the angels transgressed this appointment and were captivated by love of women and they begat children who are those who are called demons. So there's a difference between fallen angels and demons.

According to the early church belief, fallen angels begat giants and when those giants perished, their spirits were the demons. I know you guys are looking at me funny right now. Keep listening.

Athanagoras wrote, these angels then who have fallen from heaven and haunt the air and the earth are no longer able to rise to heavenly things and the souls of the giants who are the demons who wander about the world perform similar actions. Similar actions than the fallen angels but yet they're different. There's a difference between fallen angels and demons.

Now one more from Commodianus written around the year 240. From the seed of fallen angels and women giants are said to have been born. By them our arts were made known in the earth.

They taught the dying of wool and everything that is done. When they died, men erected images unto them. Yet because they were of an evil seed, the almighty did not approve their being brought back from death when they had died for that reason.

For that reason they wander and now subvert many bodies and in these whom you pagans presently worship and pray to as gods. There's a lot more here but there's three that I picked out just to read. So we have some early church support there.

Then I just want to give one more view from Josephus. Josephus was not a Christian but he was a reputable Jewish historian and he wrote on this too. He said for many angels of God accompanied with women and begat sons that proved unjust and despisers of all that was good on account of the confidence that they had in their own strength.

For the tradition is that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians called giants. So all of this gives me a different perspective on giants. It kind of reminds me of the fee-fi-fo-fum giant.

I'm not sure if anybody knows what I'm talking about. But evil, evil giants. They're not big friendly things.

They were evil. There are sports teams named after giants and to me it just seems like oh yeah that makes sense. They're named after some evil thing.

So so far I've had a very big difference in perspective on these giants. I want to share now the second view. The view that the sons of righteous Seth who had rebelled against God and intermarried with the sons of wicked Cain's lineage and that begat giants.

If that's true that would explain a few things. So there's another very reputable historian. His name is James Usher and he wrote the annals of the world and he would hold to this view.

And he says here in the annals of the world he says here the fact that the worship of God was even then wretchedly corrupted by the descendants of Cain indicates the lamentable condition of all mankind. Hence it came about that even the distinction was made that those who continued in true worship of God were known by the name of the children of God. Those who forsook him were termed the children of men.

So you have the two different names here. So so this view could explain why there were giants after the flood. Because there were giants after the flood too Here it says there were giants in the earth in those days.

So I wonder if the giants were something different than what the giants were in these days. Because who wrote the book of Moses or who wrote Genesis? It was Moses right? But Moses fought giants too. And yet he says there were giants in the earth in those days.

So I wonder if the pre-flood giants were way bigger way stronger maybe far more weak than the post-flood giants. Because we're going to read how Moses also faced giants. But it says here there were giants in the earth in those days.

So that leads me to believe that there was some sort of a difference still. I want to read a little bit about the giants that Moses that Moses defeated as in Deuteronomy 3. It was the Rephaeum. It says there in Deuteronomy 3 verse 3. So the Lord our God delivered into our hands Og, he was a giant, the king of Bashan and all his people.

And we smote him until none was left to him remaining. And we took all his cities. At that time there was not a city which we did not take.

Sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og and Bashan. For only Og the king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants. Behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron.

Is it not in Radbeth of the children of Ammon? Nine cubits was the length thereof, four cubits was the breadth thereof. So to give an example of how big this giant was, he shares how big his bed was. His bed was 13 feet, 13 and a half feet by six feet.

And it was made out of iron. So Cornelius and Anna just got a king-sized bed and that is six foot eight by six foot four. Don't ask me how I know.

I didn't go measure it. I did google though the size of a king-sized bed. Six foot eight by, and I don't think anyone in here, almost none of us have a king-sized bed.

We're more like queen-sized. But okay, so a king-sized bed is six foot eight, maybe like from here to there, and the average man stands six feet tall. So can we do the same comparison? Here's a bed 13 and a half feet long by six feet wide and if he would stand a few inches less than the bed, maybe let's say six inches less than the bed, he'd be at 13 foot tall.

Og was 13 feet tall, just according to some of my imaginations, I guess. I can't confirm that. So a 13 foot tall man, his head would stick through the roof.

This is a 12 foot ceiling and or he would be going like this. Now if he was two and a half times taller than me, or a little bit, let's say 2.2 times taller than me, would he be 2.2 times heavier? No, he'd be way heavier. Okay, so because he'd be twice as wide or twice as deep, twice as wide, twice as tall.

He'd be eight times heavier. Okay, if he was a skinny giant like me, a little skinny giant. Well, I'm not a giant, but you know what I mean.

I want to give you a picture. I think it helps when we have a picture. So here's this giant.

He's going like this. He can't, his head is touching the roof. He's a skinnier giant.

Not like me, but you know what I mean. He's eight times heavier than me. So a little giant would have been about 12 to 1300 pounds.

Hence, it was made out of iron. I thought about Daniel Gierek. What if he was a big muscular giant like Daniel? He's not a giant.

You know what I mean. Is he about 250 at least? And he's solid. That's a solid big man.

So that would equal like a 2,000 pound giant. So I believe the small giants were anywhere from 1,300 to 2,500. 1,300 pounds and the bigger ones were like 2,500 pounds.

These are the giants that Moses fought post-flood. And yet, Moses said there were giants in the earth in those days. I think those ones might have been even bigger.

I hope I gave you a picture. Huge. And they were creepy, ugly looking beings, some of them.

Six fingers, six toes. Probably some scary looking things. And Moses defeated them.

Did we read that already? Yes, Moses defeated them. But you know, it was the last thing he did before he died. It happened weeks.

And I was just reading out of the annals of the world that gives everything in chronological order. It happened possibly weeks before Moses died. He feared to fight these giants, the post-flood giants.

But he did because God says, I have given them into your hand. And so he fought them. And it says he took all the cities.

He destroyed everything, all of them. And yet there were giants that we would continue to read about later. David faced a giant Goliath.

He was, it sounds like, a bit smaller than Og. Where they sometimes think he was like 11 feet tall or something like that. But David faced a giant Goliath, a fearless young man.

I picture someone, a Kai, and he goes and takes a little stone and cracks the giant in the head, probably about a 1,200 pound giant, and kills him dead. Was that a Kai that did it? Or was that God that worked through him? Was that a little David with that little stone that killed David? Or was it God that worked through him? And it was. It was God that worked through him.

We're going to read the end of giants, Goliath's brothers. 2 Samuel 21 talks about the last of the giants that we read about in the scriptures. Moreover, the Philistines had yet war again with Israel, and went down and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines.

And David waxed faint. And Ish-bi-ben-ab, which was one of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear weighed 300 shekels of brass in weight, he being girded with a sword, thought to have slain David. But Abishai, the son of Zariah, rescued him.

It says it different in the Bible. It says a different word in the English King James Version, but here's Abishai. I changed the word to rescued.

Rescued him, and smote the Philistines, and killed them, the Philistine, and killed them. Then the men of David swear unto him, saying, Thou shalt not go out with us to battle, that thou quench not the light of Israel. They were worried that if they killed David, that the light of Israel would go out.

And so they were rescuing David. They were caring that David's warriors were there for him. And they wanted to make sure that David wouldn't die by these giants.

And it came to pass after this, that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sebekai, the Hashashite, slew Sath, which was of the sons of a giant. And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan, the son of Jerogem, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath, Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.

And there was yet a battle in Gath, where was another man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, 24 in number. And he was also born to the giant. And when he defied Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shemiah, the brother of David, slew him.

These four were born to the giant Gath, and fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants. That's the last we read about giants in the Bible. And to clarify, I'm not making any statement that this and this is how it was, because we don't know.

The origin of the giants is a mystery. But there are many reputable Christians and historians who believe one or the other of this view. But the truth remains that there were giants pre-flood.

They were incredibly strong, they were incredibly influential, and they were wicked beings. And they caused the ancient world to hit rock bottom of moral decay very, very quickly. But God destroyed them.

There were giants in the earth post-flood. They also had incredible strength, and they were also very wicked beings. Moses defeated Og and the Rephaeans, although he was terrified to attempt it.

But God gave them the victory over the giants. And Moses, through his faith in God, moved into action and destroyed the giants. There were giants in the land of Canaan.

And we're getting a little bit closer to home now. There were giants in the land of Canaan. They had incredible strength.

They were very wicked beings. But David destroyed Goliath as a fearless young man because of his faith in God. And it was God who destroyed the giant through the faith of a young man.

There were more giants among God's people in the land of Canaan. And although it says there David waxed faint, he had support from his fellows. And together, by God's strength, they defeated the giants that were in the land of Canaan.

I want us to take that and picture that example in the church. We don't hear of physical giants anymore. At least I don't.

But I believe that the spirit of those giants is still in this world today. And they still work to defy God. And they still work to corrupt humanity and bring them into moral decay.

And they still wage war against the saints today. What are the giants that we are facing today? Maybe one of us, maybe many of us, are facing giants. There are giants, although we cannot see them.

Is there a giant of pride? You know it was pride that first caused the fall of angels. Is there a giant of lust, as these giants had plenty of? Is there a giant of fear? Is there a giant of doubt? Is there a giant of discouragement, of despair, of envy, of jealousy, of bitterness, of unforgiveness? Which giant are we battling today? Are we waxing faint like David did? Do we need the support from each other to help win the battle? Of course we do. That's why it's such a blessing to be part of a congregation who has faith and loves God.

I face giants. And I believe we all face giants. But God can give us the victory through faith in Him.

These giants, they want to destroy God's people. And they can destroy God's people. And if they would only get the chance, they would destroy God's people.

But God is stronger than the giants. Remember brothers and sisters, that this work of the giants was a work to destroy humanity. And it was a work to blaspheme God.

It's an anti-God work. They corrupted the pre-flood world to a point of no return. But God destroyed them.

This work of the giants in the post-flood world was to destroy humanity, was to corrupt God's people. But God's people through faith in Him, through faith in God, and through the power of His name, were able to destroy them. And I believe these giants, although they're not physical, they're as real today as they were back then.

And we would do well to know that. Even in Canaan, even among God's people, they're real. And the method to defeat these giants is the same.

God is able to defeat them. But we must have faith in God that He will. And if He wants to use us to fight the battle, and then give the battle to us through our actions and through our faith, and that's the way He chooses to do it, then let's be ready to fight.

If God calls us to fight, let's prove our faith with actions. With God on our side, we can face these giants. First John 5.4 says, For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

It will be through our faith in God that we will be able to overcome these giants. And I believe as the world comes closer and closer to its end, God's people will face many giants yet. But our faith in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ, if that remains true and firm and strong, then we have nothing to fear.

But without that faith, who wants to go against a giant? I would, with God on my side, but I wouldn't want to face a giant outside of that. And the truth is, many people do try to face the giants. They do want to do better.

They do want to live right. But they try it in their own works, in their own strength, and they find out that the giant beats them down every single time. That's just the reality.

But when we plead for God to fight for us, and we move into action and say, God, I'm going, please help. We win the battle, but it had nothing to do with us, only that we had faith in God that He would do the work. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

Jude 9 speaks about Michael the archangel, who wouldn't dare rail an accusation against the devil. Here you have one of the most powerful angels, and then he doesn't even want to fight against the chief of the giants. Who are we to think that we could ever fight a giant without God on our side? It says, yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, the Lord rebuke thee.

And that is our strength too, brothers and sisters. The Lord is with us. He can rebuke these giants.

Only we have to have faith in Him. So let's be encouraged to stand true and firm and faithful to God, and to be under His protection, and let's never dare to fight these giants on our own. Because although we are no match for these giants, these giants are nothing to God.

So that's all I have for you. I was encouraged to see how God fights for His people throughout history He has, and He wants to fight for you too, and He wants to fight for me. God bless you, and Lord willing, we'll see you in one and a half or two weeks.

So we're going to be leaving to Florida right now. Just really wanted the opportunity to share one more time before we went, and it's been a blessing to study this and share that with you. I hope it can be a blessing encouragement to you all.

So God bless you, and see you later.