Thursday, May 3, 2018

spiritual battle: Sons of God (Gen.6:1-7)

We have come to a very interesting circumstance in the Bible.  Before the great flood, there were a few "sons of God" who had taken earthly woman as their wives.  Their children were known as the Nephilim.

The sons of God were most likely a particular group of fallen angels.  We will see elsewhere in the Bible that the term "sons of God" are most often used to refer to angels.

Also later in scripture we will see that at some point, the angels had already made a decision to be for or against God, and THAT decision had already been established for all eternity.  So now, angels remain angels, and the angels who fell away became demons and remain demons.

So (here I'm speculating that) this particular group of spiritual beings could have maybe committed a different sort of sin, maybe not wanting to follow Satan, but something or someone else other than God?  Maybe their sin was desiring earthly women over everything else?  So perhaps this unique group of fallen angels, due to a unique sin, were confined to earth and maybe given slightly different bodies???  Again, as we will see elsewhere in the Bible, angels do not procreate, so this would have been a unique situation, and we are left to speculate who EXACTLY were these "sons of God". .

"Nephilim" means "to fall" - or - "to fall upon others".

This term is also used in Numbers 13:33, when the insecure spies who went to scope out the land of Canaan returned to Moses and described the people as being "Nephilim" - but they only would have been very large people.  The great flood that followed the scripture account below - destroyed all of mankind - except for Noah and his family (and within Noah's lineage there are no Nephilim named)...

(Genesis 6:1-8)  Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were 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.
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

From this we see that:
- demons are mighty (NOT almighty)
- demons are wicked
- they influenced mankind to be wicked
- they are able to touch us to some degree (they were, or one kind of demon was able to, but NOW they are not able to impregnate anyone)

Personal experience:  demons can mess with a personal sexually.  The first exposure to this was when a girl friend of one of my brother's came for a visit.  We had a chance to chat privately later that night.  I shared with her that I was a Christian.  She shared with me that she was not, and that she was into having sexual experiences with demons.  I could tell that she was very serious about this.  Fortunately my brother stopped hanging out her.

Today's takeaway:  God created us and knows us best.  He wants us to have the most amazing experiences as He has designed it,  So why would we not want to focus on God's guidance around marriage and sex?...

(Genesis 2:24-25)  For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

(Hebrews 13:4)  Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

(Proverbs 5:18-19)  Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. 19 As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; be exhilarated always with her love.

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