Beginnings (Genesis 1-11) / Lesson 6: The Second Rebellion (Part 1)

Let's get ourselves ready for tonight. Hey, and let me just go ahead and kind of say, you know, for those of you that were here two weeks ago and I shared at the end about our grandson, Jace, thank you, thank you for praying. I know many of you have been able to keep up with it. They did have to remove his right eye. And praise God on the next Tuesday, we got the miraculous really report back that there was no cancer that had spread in that area. So we're rejoicing. So Kathy and I on Tuesday night, we're already planning to leave Wednesday, head over while they flew out. And about eight o'clock that night, we get a text from Beth, my daughter-in-law, just, you know, praising God saying no cancer, no chemo, it was a miracle, we're just rejoicing. So again, thank you for praying. I will tell you this, this is not funny, but it's five-year-old, he's five. And so on the morning that they were going in for surgery to remove his eye, he was in pre-op, he's laying on his mama, she was laying on the little bed there and laying on her. And so my son, Caleb, I had texted him to ask what was going on, so he FaceTimed. And so I'm there and I'm looking at Adam there. And so Jace is laying there on his mom and he goes, hey, D-Daddy.

I said, what? He said, they're gonna take my eyeball out. I'm just kind of, I'm still broken at this point. And he says, I'm gonna be kind of like a pirate. So that was a five-year-old look at it. So anyway, let me pray for tonight and let's get started. So Father, we come and I know that, Lord, you are wanting to share with us truths from your word that have always been true. You're just helping us discover things that maybe we haven't seen for many different reasons. But Lord, I pray that you would guide us. Holy Spirit, you would guide us into all the truth. I pray right now for the anointing of your spirit to be upon this night, upon my speaking and teaching, upon the word that's spoken and upon our ears and hearing. And so we ask you to do this in Jesus' name, amen. Let me just say that if this is your first night, well, buckle up. But we've been walking through Genesis. We started in chapter one. We're doing one through 11. And I've been taking it down a road that is not, it is the path less traveled, how about that? And I'm gonna be walking through that. We've been looking at what the first 11 chapters share with us what I'm calling the three different rebellions or the three different times that we had confrontations and shifts that took place that God had to unleash judgment in those.

And so we looked at the first one, which is the one most of us know about in Genesis 3. And this week, we're looking at the second rebellion, which is found in Genesis chapter six. Now, let me just tell you, as I was preparing this, I began to put together the mound of information that I have. I have taught this actually twice here before, and I've taught it overseas before, but I'm gonna share it in the context of Genesis. So some of you have never heard it. Some of you may not have heard it in a way that it's gonna be coming. So I think the first time I shared it here, I shared actually, I did two weeks on it. The first week, I did it the way everybody's comfortable with. And then I said, I did this so that next week when you come, you won't think I'm loony when I share the way I believe that it teaches. And so as we come to this, I wound up saying that dividing it out into two lessons. So this week, I'm gonna cover the first half. Next week, I'm gonna cover the second half. So let me just kind of show you, this is a way, kind of a roadmap where we're going. I'm gonna be covering over the next two weeks, five different realities. And tonight, we're gonna cover the first two and a half. So I'm gonna hit these tonight.

Now, let me just go ahead and just hit it in the nose that this section is the weird section in the scriptures. This is the one that in Western culture, we either avoid it altogether or we attempt to come up with explainable ways to kind of make it fit within our cultural norms. And so we do that so that we can intellectually comprehend it and understand it. However, it just messes up the rest of your Bible. That's why there's so many things in the Bible that we struggle with. So tonight what I'm going to do is start us down the path of seeing this. Now I showed this a couple of weeks ago and I know you probably can't see it very well, but let me just kind of tell you what we have. I just call it the progressive escalation of the war. We saw the war really take off in Genesis chapter three at the temptation that happened there. And then God making his statement that he made to the serpent in Genesis 3 15. And in that moment, the war began, which some call, and I'm calling it in this, the seed war. Whenever God says to the serpent that the seed of the woman will crush your head and your seed will strike his heel. And so our war ensued. And then two weeks ago, we looked at this war progressing in that we saw the, the killing, the murder of the first, what was declared righteous person, uh, in the, in when Cain killed Abel. And then after that, we saw how that progression went forward through the line of Cain. And it began to expand in, in just rampant worldliness as, as the, as, um, what we're, what, what I'm going to be helping you see tonight where, where Satan began to infiltrate mankind with, um, I'll say it this way, um, knowledge that, uh, comes from the wrong mindset. And we're going to move forward because tonight we're going to that fourth section on there, which is Genesis chapter six.

Now, as I come to this, I just thought that it'd be good to just start off and we're going to, I'll tell you whenever we get to the outline. Okay. We're gonna get there in just a few minutes, but I feel like I need to help you understand how I got here years, years, years ago, as I was. And by the way, just to tell you the danger of reading your Bible through every year and spending time with God and his word every day for 40 years, you wind up seeing things that you didn't see before, because the Bible says the word of God is living and active. It's sharper than any two edged sword. It's it plumbs to the depths of the ocean that we will never plumb. I mean, we just cannot plummet that the depths of all of God's word, but he wants to open it to us. Here's some things that, that really in the context of Genesis six, one through four have helped me understand. And the first thing that I would say is three things I'll give them to you here real quick is that the first is that mankind's, it talks about mankind's total depravity that we see. And it says it in, in verse five of Genesis six said, 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 he, and God saw this. And so as we look at it, we go, okay, man, there's just total depravity here. But then he says something after it that messes with you. And that is, is that the second thing is Noah's proclaimed purity. And this really caught me because it says in verse nine of Genesis six, it says that these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless, and I'm going to talk about this later, but the word that's used here for blameless is the exact same Hebrew word that was used for the sacrificial lamb that was found without blemish. And so what it's saying here is something it's making a statement. God is making a statement where he's showing two different categories of people here.

And so as we look, Noah is one, and then it says that mankind is in this other. And so that began to really bother me. Look at this. Cause he's, he's not saying that Noah was sinless there, but there was something about him that was blameless. And so then, then we come beyond that. And the third thing that as we go through that, you think, okay, God wipes out everybody in the flood. So, okay, now he's starting over from scratch, but that's not what he says. When they get off of the ark, one of the first things he says in Genesis chapter eight, verse 21, it says, and when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, in other words, Noah offered a sacrifice, this is before they've really done anything. The Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man. Now look at what he says for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Well, no, wait a second. So in other words, there was. something he was saying about Noah that was not the fact that he had never sinned. There was something else about him. Does that make sense? Because we're going to begin to understand that as we get looking in this. And he goes on and he says, neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. So the flood didn't remove humanity's inclination to sin, but something irreparably was tarnished. And so as we look at this, I'm going to share these five realities. So let's just go ahead. And the way I'm going to go into it, I'm telling you, you're going to, it's going to be a little geeky for just a minute, but hang with me. All right. Because the first reality I'm calling the interpretation, the interpretation, whether we believe it or not, all of us come to the Bible with filters on our glasses on in which we read it. We all do it. Everyone does it. So we need to know what glasses we have on. And if the glasses that we have, the filters in which we are reading it through, are they the same as those to the people that God initially wrote it to and those that it was sent to in the same way that Jesus looked at it, or the apostles looked at the word. We need to understand in that contextual way, are we

seeing it the same way? If that makes sense. So here's the question. How do we allow the Bible to speak for itself without filtering it through our own cultural prejudices, traditions, and modern assumptions? How do we do that? That's what we're going to look at for just a few minutes. Okay. So as we come to it, let me just kind of go and hit it in the nose of how, of the culture you and I are in and the assumptions that have been literally, we are indoctrinated in. I would say if you want to call it, I would say it is the paradigm of the Western culture. And that means this is the way we look at the world. And if you have ever been to another culture, you see it. It just pops you in the nose. I remember a first time I went to India and let me tell you, everything's backwards there. I'm just have to us as normal to them. But I was there and I've told you, I know this before, but I was teaching a group of about, I think, I don't know. I think it was about 90 house church pastors. And, and we were in there and I remember, and in it, there was this one Indian man who was over on the side over here. And while I'm talking, he just keeps going. Well, to me, that's like, who cares? Well, I'm, I'm at the point of saying, okay, break time. I'm going to ask him, why are you even here? Fortunately, I didn't do that. But I found out that in India, the way they agree is they go. So I began to realize that. And before long, I was watching all of them. How many of you believe Jesus is the one? But to them, it was normal. In fact, to us is, I thought this was funny. One of my other times I was there, you know how, whenever somebody says, man, how you doing? You go, good. They do it this way. That's their quick one. Instead of, you know, Hey, I'm doing good. We just got to do that. They go, instead of going like that, they go. So anyway, what I'm telling you is different cultures look at the world differently and we need to see how we do. So basically I just want to give you, here would be a picture that I put together on the modern rationalistic worldview. This is the culture we live in. This is what you've been trained with ever since you were little. This is what you were learning in the TV. You learned it in schools. You learned it everywhere. It is what everything in the textbooks that you read from the Western culture is talking about. And basically it's this, there is for, for even for the church, by and large, there is this heaven area. It's off up somewhere. There is then the earth that functions pretty much in a closed system. And then in between, there's just kind of this vast void of nothingness. Even by and

large, that's the word. That's the way the church has been. That's why with me, whenever 35 years ago, whenever I began to be confronted and deal with demonic activity, I was a weirdo. In fact, it's, it took me a while to be able to deal with it. I don't talk about it very much because believe it or not, even though the Bible talks about it everywhere, I mean, in every chapter of the book of Acts, there are miracles, there are angels, there are deliverances in every chapter. And yet if I talk about that, people kind of start getting the wiggles and they don't know what to do with it. They just kind of, oh, it's just kind of, I don't want to ... Why? It's not because we don't believe the Bible, it's because of the filter of our culture that we don't even realize. In other words, if somebody says, man, I saw an angel, we kind of go, oh my gosh, he just weirded out on me. And yet the Bible says to us to show hospitality for some in doing that have been entertaining angels not even aware of it. In other words, it was a much more common reality than what we even want to believe. It's not because we don't believe the Bible, it's because of our culture. So as we move on, let me just kind of quickly, and this is going to be ... But just hang with me, all right? Because I'm going to break down three basic things. First, and I have them on here, scientific rationalism, materialism, and then empiricism. What do I mean by those? Well, let me just give them to you, all right? If you want to take a picture, you can of that. It's not in your notes and I'm going to break it down in bullet points. But basically, here's what scientific rationalism is. It is the belief that reality can only be known, explained, and validated through human reason, empirical observation, and repeatable experimentation. It holds that the natural world operates according to fixed discoverable laws and that anything real must be measurable, testable, and explainable without appealing to forces beyond nature.

Now that is what you've been taught. You may say, well, I don't believe that. Well, I'm going to talk about that in just a minute. Let me just kind of break it down. Here's what I'm saying. Here's what scientific rationalism is. The universe is a closed system. Anything outside nature intervenes in natural processes. It's why whenever somebody says that they experienced a miracle, we immediately go to, well, maybe it wasn't. That's not because we don't believe in miracles. It's because of our culture has indoctrinated us into that thinking. Human reason is the highest authority. In other words, truth is determined by logic and evidence, not revelation or tradition. Now believe it or not, that's where you are. That's why I'm spending so much time going over this, because you and I have to kind of break free from some of that to be able to even begin believing what the scripture actually teaches. Next, the miraculous is inadmissible. In other words, supernatural explanations are rejected as a priori, not because they've been disproven, but because they fall outside of what science can test. I don't want this to sound ugly, but that's why your doctor has trouble believing in miracles. I'm not trying to throw money. In fact, many of us have Christian doctors and praise God because many of them believe in miracles, hallelujah. But I can tell you that by and large, their medical school training did not. Next, progress is linear. Humanity advances by replacing superstition and religion with knowledge and reason. That is what happened in the Enlightenment. Back in the 1600s, 1500s, 1600s, the Enlightenment in the European area, which became Western

culture, literally made that shift. By and large, let me just say this to you, some of the main players in making that shift were all atheists. Just to let you know, that's where we get a lot of this. Let me go to the next one, is materialism that I talked about. What is that? Materialism is the belief that matter is all that exists. Reality is entirely physical. Every thought, emotion, experience, and event is ultimately reducible to atoms, chemistry, and physical processes. There is no soul, no spirit, no God, and no unseen realm. is just the brain firing neurons. If you can't touch it, measure it, or detect it physically, it simply isn't real. So if you want to know why some of your friends or colleagues just think you going to church is foolish, there you go. You believing in a miracle, there you go. So what do I mean by that? Let me give you some of the things. Here's materialism. Only the physical exists. The mind is the brain. Death is final. Meaning is constructed. In other words, there is no inherent purpose because there is no creator who assigned one. Now that is what, at its core, that is what evolution is. Evolution, if you're honest, is an incredibly dark faith, and it is a faith. So that's materialism. Let me go to the next one, empiricism. What do I mean? Empiricism is the belief that all genuine knowledge comes from sensory experience. You can only know what you can observe, test, and verify through the five senses. Abstract reasoning alone doesn't give you real knowledge about the world. Only experience does. It's less about what exists, like materialism, and more about what we can know, how we can know anything at all. So let me just kind of give you some things out of this. Empiricism is this. The senses are the gateway to truth. Abstract or revealed knowledge is suspect. Theory is speculation, or theology, excuse me, is speculation, and science is the gold standard. So if you say you believe in a young earth creation, our culture will burn you at the stake, and sadly,

many in the church will as well, even though you can show it. So I'm letting you know that because I'm going to go to the supernatural worldview, but I have put on the back of your outline, because I thought, there's no way you can see any of that, and there's no way I can go over any of that. So I just thought I'd put on the back just a basic diagram of comparing the first three on there, and then the last one is the supernatural biblical worldview. So you've got that, you can take it with you. I'm not going to go over it right now, but it's something that you can have to think about, because whenever we come, let me go back to the other one first. So if this is the world that you and I have been indoctrinated to believe in, and by the way, let me just say this real quick, is that my dad, for instance, went to seminary in the 60s. And let me just tell you that, and I may have told some of you this before, his main professors at a Baptist seminary didn't believe in the miracles. They didn't believe that Moses actually part of the Red Sea. Some of them did not believe in a literal hell, nor a literal devil. These were at a Baptist seminary that you and I have paid money for them to work in. And where did that come from? That came from German theologians, and German theologians back in the 1800s who began to put all kinds of stuff, and I've told you that before. And so as a result of that trickling down to our pulpits, the vast majority of churches don't teach about a supernatural realm. They may talk about the devil, they may even talk about angels, but to talk about it being an active reality in our everyday, nah. And it's not because it's not taught here, it's because they have been trained different. So this is, this would be that one. However, here would be kind of a picture of a supernatural biblical worldview, and in it, you see the two mingling together. There is an active spirit world that is happening. Angels, demons, activities are going on constantly, and you see it everywhere. And we have it around us at all times. It is just part and parcel of where we are. And so as we think about that, let me just kind of give you a basic idea Some things I want to say about the biblical supernatural worldview that we'll kind of be looking at. Basically the biblical supernatural worldview doesn't abandon reason or observation but grounds them. That's all we're doing is grounding those things. God made the mind to think and the senses to perceive. However, the biblical supernatural worldview refuses to let human limitation set the ceiling on what is real. The spiritual world the Bible

unveils is invisible to materialism, unprovable to empiricism, and irrational to rationalism yet more real than all three combined. Now that's the Bible. That's the world that God created. We need to see that and know that and understand that if we're going to be able to move into this. Now as I told you before, I told you this and many of you have heard me tell this and if you've read my book you've heard me. I used it in there. How that focus changed for me and an idea of kind of helping us understand how we move into more of a supernatural biblical worldview focus is I tell the story about whenever I was counseling a couple and as we finished the marriage counseling he worked as a used car salesman and we began to talk about the fact that I owned at that time an 85 Honda Civic. It was started out kind of a goldish tan but the hood and the roof and the trunk tops were all kind of a grayish silver. I mean it had all worn off and I was just too cheap to change it and I just didn't want to pay the money for that. Cars paid for and I didn't want to put any more money in it. He tells me, he says, well hey man you ought to go get it painted. Place downtown Birmingham was called Mako and he said, man they're running a special this week $150 to get your car painted. I'm like, literally I did ask him, I said, what do they use a roller? I mean $150 and he said, it's a deal they're running. He said, it's a deal they're running. I said, and then he said, you ought to go get it painted white. I said, white? He said, yeah that's the most popular color. I'm like, no way, I mean I don't believe it. He said, it is. He said, as a matter of fact if I have a car on my lot that won't sell I just go down, take it to Mako, get it painted, I can sell it the next week. And then he leaves. So I'm like, I don't know about that. But I called Mako, sure enough, $150. I set up an appointment. I drive down and it was from where we lived to where it was, was about a 10 to 12 mile drive. And literally I felt as though some white car cult had just called everyone who owns a white vehicle to come and drive on 65, I-65 South from Gardendale where we lived South into Birmingham. That's, I saw them everywhere. In fact, I quit counting after I got up over about a hundred. Now here's the reality as I got through with all that. There weren't any more white cars than they'd always been. I just happened to see them now. My focus had shifted. I mean, how many of you ladies here, whenever you were pregnant, you just, everywhere you went, there were pregnant women everywhere. You know, you just saw it. I mean, it was just, it's because our focus shifted. We, we had a shift that

took place. Our attention shifted. So as we come to the Bible in this, we're going to, we want to learn how to take and have a shift in our focus to be able to see the scripture from a supernatural biblical worldview. Okay. So how do we do that? Let me give you six things. And we're going to be looking at here real quick. Six principles for what I'm just calling reading the Bible without bias, the best we can. The first one, recognize your modern and traditional filters. Just recognize them. It's one of the best things that's happened and helped me through the years is to realize that I come, I live in a culture that is naturally skeptical to supernatural things. I come from a culture that is skeptical about things that my senses can't detect. That's the culture. So, so what I'm going to do, I want to recognize that, that idea. I want to recognize that I have that in me that, that I naturally have on those kinds of filters and I need to recognize. Next, number two, reject. And what I call selective supernatural reading of the Bible. I'm going to explain that. I need to take a minute to explain that. This is, well, every true Christian in the West has this to a point, most every. What do I mean by selective supernatural reading of the Bible? Here's what I mean. If you've given your life to Christ, you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, right? In other words, when we say that, we don't mean she was a young girl. We mean what the Bible tells us, and that is that Mary had never had sexual intercourse with a man, but that she was overcome by the Holy Spirit, the Bible says, and she became pregnant. You believe that? Why would you have a problem about there being angels if you believe that is the weirdest thing to believe? Do you see what I mean? If you believe that, my goodness, either you are incredibly gullible or the Bible teaches it and it's true. So you believe that, right? Amen. You believe that. How many of you believe that there is a creator that created, spoke, and all creation came into existence? You guys are crazy. I didn't know you were that weird. You see, you believe in those supernatural things. How many of you believe that there can come times that you pray over somebody and God works a miracle? Hallelujah. So see, you do believe in supernatural activity. But what happens to us is, we have in our cultures this way, our Christian culture in the West is, we are selective in that. We just kind of, well, and so what happens, and this is the sad part about the Western church. Because we have selective supernaturalism, the world looks and they start, they don't believe in a virgin birth. So then they start saying, well, do you believe like that a guy

named Moses actually parted the sea? I mean, he just parted it. Well, yeah. Well, how, how did you, what do you, and then we, well, you know, and then you believe in angels and here's what most of us do. Well, I mean, yeah, but I mean, I'm not crazy about, see what we do. It's what I'm saying is, if you believe in angels and angels and angels and angels and angels, let's reject that selective supernatural reading of the Bible and just say, look, you know what, the Bible is filled with supernatural activity. It's everywhere. It is where, in other words, so the American culture, even though many would claim to have been Christians that started this nation, many of them were what was called deist. Do you know what a deist actually rose up out of the enlightenment and what it was? They still believe that there was a God who created everything, but that first picture I showed you, he's up in heaven. He wound the clock of creation and he just stepped back and we're running it. That's what deism is. In fact, the sad part is we have many pastors in our Western church that I would, I would call them a Bible deist. God gave the Bible and then he just kind of backed off and so he doesn't do miracles and definitely don't have any spiritual gifts because my goodness, that's just weird. But man, we got the Bible. We just have to teach it and say that we believe it, but believing it is up here, not the activity and reality of it here. See what I'm saying? So that's what deism is. We got to break free from those things. Let me go to the third one. I'm sorry, I spent too much time on that. Let me go to the third one. Adopt the true ancient context. What was the context that was the people whenever it was written? In other words, if I showed you a letter that I wrote Kathy when we were dating, I didn't get weird about it because I didn't write Harleen letters, but if I did and you were to just read the letter, not knowing anything but David and to Kathy, there are things that I say in there that you could take them a thousand different ways because in your context, you don't know what I was meaning when I was wrote it, but Kathy did. Does that make sense? So when God had, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, had Moses write, you know, the penitent write Genesis and Exodus, write those things, the people who it was written to, now we, it's, it's written to us, but in that moment, it was for a people that understood things that our culture just may be missing. That make sense? So we just got to say, okay, let's help us understand these things as we go along, because the Holy Spirit, you know, will guide you into all the truth. So we need

to fourth, embrace the Bible's supernatural worldview. Just embrace it. Don't ignore what the Bible teaches, or don't even marginalize what the Bible teaches about an active supernatural world around us, spirit world that's active. Fifth, allow the Bible to speak for itself. Just let the Bible talk. You may not understand what it's saying. There are some things in the ancient context that just may not make sense to us, but, but just let it speak. It's okay to, to let it talk. And there's a lot of times in the Bible that it does use metaphors to explain a supernatural reality. Just let it do it. Don't try to turn it into something literal if it's not, but let it speak on a bigger realm and let us, and help us understand what it's saying. Number six, trust the Holy Spirit to guide you into truth. In other words, take those first five. I put this one six, this kind of this, if you don't remember the other ones, remember this. The Holy Spirit will guide you. You say, oh my gosh, I'll never understand my Bible. Sure you will. Holy Spirit will guide you into all the truth. Just let him, let him guide you. So if you have your outline and you want to write this, it's kind of, we've got a lot of blanks. I'm going to leave it up here for a while, but I didn't want to break it down into seven different pictures. The first and most important approach for understanding the Bible is not intelligence, education, nor traditions, but humility and dependency. I am not throwing intelligence, education, or traditions under the bus. I'm just saying they are not primary. Humility and dependency upon the Holy Spirit is first and foremost. Approach the Bible that way. And when you do, he'll begin to talk to you. Okay. All right. We got through the boring stuff. I can already tell I'm not going to get as far as I was hoping to, but we'll, we'll get going. Has everybody got that written down? Okay, good. All right. Let's go to reality number two. The invasion. Genesis six. I'm going to begin in verse one and read down through verse four. So let's just go to it. Here we go. 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 into the daughters of man, and they bore children to them, they were the mighty men who were of old men of renown. Okay. Now, let me just go ahead and, and I'm just going to throw this out. Okay. Most of

us have heard a view of this passage right here. If you've heard anything, you've heard a view that is called the Sethite. view and I just say this that the Sethite view is comfortable but wrong, it's comfortable. You say what is the Sethite view? Well if you go and read back as we looked at briefly back before the Sethite view that we see there is that you have in Genesis chapter 4 you have Cain, you've got his lineage and then in Genesis chapter 5 you have and Seth was born, in the end of chapter 4 Seth was born and then you have his lineage following down. And it even says at the end of chapter 4 at that time men began to call on the name of the Lord. And so what came out of that was an idea that was called the Sethite view and here's what basically it is. The Sethite view says the sons of God in that Genesis chapter 6 passage we just read were the godly descendants of Seth and the quote daughters of men were the ungodly descendants of Cain. So basically in this summer I had a guy that believes this and he even spoke to it not knowing what I believed and I just had to choke back from just saying things that would have embarrassed him publicly. But in this what it's saying is that basically and this is going to be, that these guys who were godly guys started going after the evil women. And as they started going after the evil women they just started following them and doing bad things too and God just said you know what I've had enough of that I'm just going to start over. So basically I look at it this way and this is going to sound terrible I don't mean it to but I do kind of mean this. It's almost like God stripped a gear over people marrying unbelievers and many of us have even used that as kind of a moral teaching. But there's just incredible problems with it and so let me just walk through here for the next few minutes. What I'm just going to start off with I call it the supernatural view and I just say it's biblically accurate. We say we want to stay with the Bible and you say well how can people believe the other? Well I can tell you that my Hebrew professor that I had in seminary I took three years of Hebrew with him. I love him deeply, Ken Matthews. He wrote in the commentary series that the I think it's New American something commentary that Southern Baptist put out. He was the general editor of the Old Testament part of it and he wrote the two volume commentaries of Genesis and in the second he was writing the second commentary written the first one which is Genesis 1-12-3. He was writing the second one when I was taking a Hebrew readings

class with him. In fact he used my class we had a small little class of us as kind of his guinea pigs to test out as we read through that semester Genesis chapter 37-50 the Joseph story and he was writing his commentary. So I love him but in his first volume I disagree with him because in it he caves to the Sethite view and I know why he did it. I said I don't know. I know in my mind why he did it. But let me just let me give you out of this I want to give you in this I want to give you three key what I'm calling textual realities. I'm going to give you three key textual realities of why I believe in the supernatural view of this passage. Key number one the phrase sons of God. The phrase itself in Hebrew is b'nei ha Elohim b'nei ha Elohim. You know what the word Elohim is? God right? b'nei ha Elohim and here's the truth that phrase in Genesis chapter 6 that we just read is a phrase used only of heavenly beings throughout the Old Testament. Sons of God when it's referenced in the Old Testament it's only used for angelical beings or supernatural beings. Let me give you a couple of, just out of Job, let me give you what Job said, which arguably, but I believe it's true, is considered the oldest book in the Bible. He was living, he was around about Abraham time. In Job chapter 1 verse 6 it says, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And we go on and read that passage there and we know they were presenting themselves in heaven. And listen to what it says in Job 38, now we know this passage we're getting ready to read is telling about an event before Adam was created. Here's what it says in Job 38 verse 7, it says, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. That was at creation is what it's talking about. At creation, when God was creating the universe, they said the morning stars were singing and the sons of God shouted for joy. And it's talking about angelic beings. And so as we look at this, to say that that is talking about humans is putting on the text what the Old Testament does not teach. Let me give you the second key. Key number 2, the phrase, When man began to multiply, it's found in Genesis chapter 6 verse 2, uses, here's the Hebrew word, you need to see this, ha-adam. The ha in front of it is, it would be like our English word like the, you know we're, but ha-adam. And ha-adam is what is used for man. This refers to the whole human race. In other words, it says, When man began to multiply, it's talking about when the human

race began to multiply. Now it's important to see that you say, okay, I'm okay with that. I say that because I want to give you key number 3. Because in key number 3, he says, has the phrase, the daughters of men. And in verse 2 of chapter 6, it uses a Hebrew phrase is benot. You can see the T on the end is benot. You could say benot, benot. It's almost a TH sound, benot ha-adam. If it was referring to the daughters of Cain, it would have said, benot ha-Cain. But in referring to it as benot ha-adam, it's referring to women of the entire human race. Does that make sense? So the 3 keys, sons of God, always in the Old Testament is referring to angels. Ha-adam is not talking about the sons of Seth as a, as a subculture of that, but as mankind as a whole. And then the 3rd key, sons of God, always in the Old Testament is referring to angels. Ha-adam is not talking about the angels. And then the daughters of men is referring to the daughters of Adam. That means human women. Does that make sense? So if you're going to take the text and textually take that and say, okay, what does it say? That's what it says. Let me give you a parallel, just as a side note of what's going on here. Because it's an interesting parallel between Genesis chapter 3 verse 6 in the first fall rebellion and Genesis 6 chapter 2 in the second one. Let me just, let's just look at it quickly and I don't want to spend too much time, but I do want to, I want to hit it just briefly. It says, and I highlighted the word. So in Genesis chapter 3 verse 6, you remember Eve? She says, says here, so when the woman Saul, use the word Saul, that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight. So uses good delight to the eyes. She was desired to make one wise. Look what it says. She took, that means took as in grabbed and took it for herself and ate. Now you go over and look at what the Hebrew wording in chapter 6 verse 2, and it says, when the sons of God saw. that the daughters of men were attractive, good, pleasing, attractive, they took, grabbed any they wanted. Does that make sense? Just a side note there. Here's the reality in this. The reality is this. Heavenly beings crossed a boundary and took human wives. Now that's what it teaches and that's why our culture just kind of freaks out over that. And I know right now you may be having piles of arguments coming up in your mind. I did too. I remember just 11, 12 years ago now whenever I taught it here, I was like, oh man, I got to know. I don't want to just side issue this. I need to know. But here's what kept pushing me.

One, the scriptures, but another one was the spiritual activity that I was running into all the time. It was something that for 30 plus years, 35 years now, I was running into. And here's the way I would say is that basically here's what we have, is there is a conspiracy against the supernatural in our culture. I call it a conspiracy because I believe that our culture doesn't mind you saying you believe in God because to our culture that's kind of, well, okay. You just haven't been enlightened enough. Oh, you believe in Jesus? Okay. That's why you can have people in our culture even say, I've come to the place that I believe in God. And they think it's a big deal. And I'm like, well, I call that demon belief. You know, the Bible says you believe there's one God, you do well. Even demons believe that and tremble. So you've made it to demon belief. Whenever I say about conspiracy, we all feel pressure. It's cultural pressure to avoid anything that sounds weird, fringe, odd, even if it's so clear in the scriptures. One of my biggest struggles, it literally, it's honestly why I didn't write the book Stand until I became the age I am now. Listen, I've wanted to write it for years, but then I haven't wanted to write it for years. Because if I wanted to see the waters part and people leave, just start talking about the demonic. And man, I'm talking about Christians. I'm not talking about unbelievers. Start saying, well, maybe you're being tempted and there's a demonic spirit in your home. And boy, that'll freak people out. I believe there's two major reasons why we avoid a supernatural interpretation. First, our intellectual longing to be academically acceptable. We may not think we believe this, but I want to tell you, and I'm not throwing them out. I worked at universities for eight years. All right. My goal actually, before God changed it was to go get my PhD and teach in seminaries. That was my kind of, I've got enough egg head in me that I wanted to do that. And so here's what happens though is, you want to be accepted by academia, even though academia is literally under the control of doctrines of demons. You want to be accepted by the biology professor. And so what happens is we do. So that's first. And the second is, is I just say it's our, what I call our elusive pursuit for power and control over our own lives. I don't want to think that demonic spirits might be attacking me. Well, I didn't make it to number three. I sorry about that. I really have some good stuff I wanted to share that, uh, that I just need to wait till next week. And, and because I don't want to, I don't want you to miss

what what's coming because in. Next week, I'll start off, and I was only gonna do it halfway through anyway, but it's about the Nephilim men of renown. It's verse four, focus on, and I really, I can't give it four minutes and 20 seconds and you guys be, you know, I think adequately informed. So I'll wait till next week, okay? But I hope that you're being encouraged to read your Bible, because what I will just kind of leak out a little bit is, and why I kept saying that my goal is that your Bible's gonna wake up, is as you start understanding these things from a supernatural, biblical worldview, it's Bible, you're gonna be blown away by realities about the David and Goliath story. I could name so many more. Why did David pick up five stones? About why did Jesus make the trek to Caesarea Philippi to then ask there, who do you say that I am? There's, believe it or not, it goes back to Genesis six. And so as we start looking at it, there's so much more, I mean, I don't even wanna take the time to talk about John 10 whenever he says in there, there's so many more. Says in there, they're wanting to stone him to death because he's claiming to be God, and then he quotes out of Psalm chapter 82 about the sons of God, you will be called gods,

this idea, and most of us don't even know what in the world that's talking about. But Genesis six will wake it up. And so what I'm hoping to do over the next several weeks is I wanna refer to those things. I'm gonna be going to the New Testament, be going to some of the places in the Old Testament, things that happened there. Now, there are so many stories that whenever you see this supernatural activity going on, all of a sudden, it's gonna make sense. All of a sudden, you're gonna realize, you know the flood wasn't God being PO'd at people, it was a divine protection for the coming of a Messiah. He was protecting humanity from the direction Satan was leading us. And it's just, you're gonna, oh my goodness. As we move on, all of a sudden, Acts chapter two is gonna wake up. And that's why I'm hoping we can go. All right, let me pray for us. And we'll be finished. Father, thank you that your word is true. And even as you tell us in the word, though every man be a liar, your word is true. Lord Jesus, I thank you that you, the truth, sent the spirit of truth, divinely gave to us the word of truth to guide us in the truth that you said that we would know and it would make us free.

So Lord, I just thank you for that. Guide us as we continue. I pray blessings over all of us as we leave here, that this next week, Father, even as we spend time in your word, God, just, would you just open our spirits up, maybe even to some things we read this week through the word. And in all of it, Lord, we give you all the glory. And pray this in Jesus' name, amen.