Beginnings (Genesis 1-11) / Lessons 9-10: Three Rebellions, the Seed War and the Spirit World

Hey, I'm excited to meet with us again tonight, and man, I hope you're going to be excited about what I'm going to share with you. And let me tell you, as we've been walking through this, I hope it's been as exciting for you as it has been for me. I can tell you that for me, this has been a joy to be able to walk through this, to be able to encourage you. And as I said, when we began, my prayer has been that your Bible is going to wake up, and I hope it has been. But I also know that I have been sharing a lot of information and a lot of details. And so what I want to do tonight is I want to try to do a recap of our first eight lessons. Now I'm not going to go through all the details, because there are some things that I just believe you're pretty familiar with. And then there's a few things that, as we've been walking through, they're just going to take a little time to click in. And don't hear that as me putting you down in any way. It took me years to be able to walk through this and have even a lot of experiences in the spirit world to really begin to understand really what's going on and what the Bible really teaches us. So as we're walking together in this tonight, I want you to be encouraged, and we're just going to try to remind you of what all is going on. Now I'm going to have some pictures up there, and they're going to be maybe hard to be able to watch and understand. I'm going to try to explain all of them. But if you want to take a photograph of any one of them that'll help you out later, that'd be great. So let's go ahead and get started, and let's go to go all the way back to how we started this at the beginning. And that was that we have to realize that whenever we come to our Bibles, that we come to our Bibles basically from a cultural mindset that we really don't want to see ourselves doing.

And so as we're looking at it, this first slide is really going to kind of talk about that whole idea. And what I put on this slide here, actually in this part right here, was about that white car bias. You may remember the story that I told about how a guy told me the most popular color of any car is white. And I didn't believe him when he told me this. He had told me about where I could go to a place to get my car painted white, and he said, you ought to do it white because that's the most popular color. Anyway, as I was driving down there, it was like everybody who drove white cars or trucks were out on the road at that time. That's all I saw. And then I realized that, you know, there wasn't any more white cars than there were before. It was just that my focus had shifted to see them. And you know, all of us go through that. Every woman here, if you've ever been pregnant, you probably remember that whenever you were pregnant, that really, it was like you saw pregnant people everywhere. It's a similar type thing. And so as we come to this, it's just really that mindset of understanding that when we come to our Bible, we're not seeing it in its original context because the ancient worldview context had a different view of Scripture than what we do now, and a different view of really what's going on. And so if you look at what I have here, really up here is what I talked about, how our view has been tainted. Literally, we read the Bible through some glasses that really are keeping us from fully seeing what's being said in the Scriptures. And those things are rationalism, they're individualism, and they're materialism. And these are some things that really keep us from seeing the Scripture in the way it was originally written.

Because the Bible really was written to a people that saw the world as a spirit world that was very active in the midst of our world. It was an ongoing reality that was constantly happening. And as we look at that, they looked at their historical context and as they looked at it, they saw it different than us. And so in the historical context of the Scripture, what we have here with us is really that the Scriptures are written as really a defense against the pagan lies of the pagan world. You see, all those teachings that were going on in Babylon back in that time about what was happening in the spirit world and that the gods that they were worshiping were good, the Bible came out and talked about how they are not. These are evil gods. What's happened in the world is not a good thing. It's a very broken and evil thing that has happened. And so as we come to it, we begin to see that and see it in that way. So we have to understand that we've got to look at the Bible through a context that will really speak to us in the right ways. So what we've been looking at, and I've talked about this since the very beginning, is that Genesis 1 through 11 is really God's preamble to the entire Bible. How we understand these first 11 chapters is really what's going to dictate and determine and really define the way we read the rest of the Bible. So as we're doing that, we've talked about that ancient world. view mindset. We wanted to move beyond that. Let's go to the next part that I've talked about, and really what I've been talking about is the fact that that the fall that we are accustomed to that happened in Genesis 3, very real, very right, and we really see it I think many times in a good way. We miss some things in it, but it is just the first of actually three different rebellions that the first 11 chapters talk about. The first was what I call the the endemic coup, or really where in Eden it was a coup that took place, where really it was where the Nakash is what the serpent is called, and I talked about that, this one who rebelled against God and said he didn't want mankind to be able to have

what they were having. He wanted to come against that. We're going to look at that more in just a minute, but Genesis 3 would be that first rebellion. The second rebellion we see there in the middle is really when the sons of God came down in Genesis chapter 6, and then the third rebellion is what happened at the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11. And so as we look at those, those are some things that we're seeing and want to be able to understand in that. So those three rebellions are really what we have to get our heart around to say what happened in Genesis chapter 3 was a rebellion where mankind was separated from God. In Genesis chapter 6 was a rebellion in which we see where the sons of God literally came down to to taint the genetic or the genome of humanity. And then in Genesis 11 was where mankind chose to worship the sons of God, those demonic beings, rather than God himself. And we're going to look more on that in just a minute. And so God spread us out or sent us out or divided the people around the world. So let's go to that first rebellion, and as we look at that, it was really a hostile takeover. And as we're looking at that, we know that that first of all, Eden was not simply a garden in the sense of they were out there, you know, plowing it up and planting vegetables and that kind of stuff. But the Bible, when it talks about a garden, it talks about more of a mountain. As a matter of fact, whenever we think about Gethsemane, which was a garden, Gethsemane is on a mountain. And it's a beautiful place, but it is on a mountain. And so when they talk about Eden, it is really what would be considered the mountain of God. It was where God set up a place where God and humans could come together, and we could have communion and fellowship one with another. We could connect in a very real and rich way. Also in that garden, though, other spirit beings were able to move around and function. It was just similar to what we're going to have one day whenever we go into the new heaven and the new earth. And as this place was set up, there came a being. We know him as the serpent. But that word that's used there that we talked about, the Hebrew word is nakash, and it literally has three different ways of understanding it. And I think this is important. As a noun, it does mean

serpent or snake. As a verb, though, it means one who practices divination or magic. But then as an adjective, it is a word that means luminous or shining one. And so in that, we know that this being, and we believe it was Lucifer or it was this being who came. The Bible calls him the dragon. It calls him the devil. In Revelation chapter 12, it's that ancient serpent is what he calls him. But in that, that he came to Eve, and in that, he deceived her, the Bible says. And then Adam followed along, and rebellion took place. And he did this not just because he was looking for something to do, but when he heard that God had created a being that was going to have a relationship with God that was unique and different from every other relationship, even the relationship that the angels have with God. And when he heard that we were going to be given dominion, rule over an area, jealousy rose up in him. And in that reality, he came to take that and did. And so in that, his divine envy that he had against how God had made us led us to being deceived, and then he took legal jurisdiction over what we were given responsibility for because we chose to follow Him rather than follow God. And so as we look at that, we need to understand that it was in that moment we lost our dominion. We lost what God had for us. We lost that freedom that is given to us to rule and to reign. And that really brings us to, I believe, the key verse that we find really as we come to this whole story from here on out. And it is found in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15. And it's what's called the seed war. The seed war began. What does that mean? Well, here's what it says in that passage in Genesis 3 15. God said, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your, and we have it translated here as offspring, but it's the Hebrew word seed. And it's in the singular, and even Paul uses that in Galatians to talk about that singular speaking of Christ, because he says, and her seed, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. And so as we're looking at this, we know that what happened here, it was literally God saying, I'm promising, I am going to bring a human Redeemer. This Redeemer that comes is going to come, and He's going to bring back a victory, bring my people, humanity, back to me. He's going

to buy them back. And so that literally began the seed war, and I have it here as a chess match began. And it's not between men and the devil, it is between God and Satan. And in this, this chess match began as Satan understood that a Redeemer is going to come through the seed of a woman. Well, women don't have seed, so he knew it was going to be something supernatural that was going to happen. And so he began in that moment to bring war against that potential seed ever being born, because he knew that was his only way of losing, is if that in fact took place. And so that's where the seed war actually began. And in there, whenever he says in there that you shall bruise his heel, he will crush, is literally what the word means that said there. And whenever we think about that, what is that talking about? Whenever it talks about the seed of the serpent would bruise the seed of the woman's heel, but he would crush that serpent's head. Well, it literally is a beautiful picture of the cross and what took place on the cross. You see, on the cross, Jesus being bruised, being wounded, being broken, being beaten, bleeding, and hanging on a cross was the enemy's attempt to bruise the seed of woman. However, even in his death, and in that death what looked like a victory for the enemy, the bruising of his heel flipped on its head when the resurrection morning came, as we just celebrated recently. And in that, Jesus crushed the enemy's head. And so as we look at that, we see in this the reality of Jesus crushing the serpent's head there at the resurrection. That what began in Genesis 315 all the way through, we're gonna be looking at some of it as we get going, we need to though keep in our mind and in our heart that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. And so as we're looking at this and thinking about these things, we begin to see that as we're going forward, a second rebellion began. But before it came into play, the enemy already started down that road. Genesis chapter 4, we looked at the death of Abel as Cain and Abel came into that argument. It was over worship. Cain had chosen to worship according to the way God had told him to worship. He'd shown them even in the garden. Whenever he, whenever God himself, offered the very first sacrifice, took the skins of animals, covered Adam and Eve, and the Bible says

that in doing that, this was the proper way to worship. Abel followed that. He offered a sacrifice. He knew it was essential and necessary. He was worshiping by faith. However, Cain was worshiping according to his own good works, bringing some apportion of what he had worked to achieve. Even from the, the Bible even makes it specific that it came from the ground of which the Bible tells us in Genesis 3 had been cursed. And so as we look at that, we know that in Cain killing Abel, again, it was the seed war. It was Satan himself through Cain, as the Bible tells us God had told Cain. Watch yourself. Sin is crouching at your door. In other words, he's talking about a spiritual war is taking place. You are being tempted to follow the enemy. And Cain, he succumbed to that. And Genesis 4 then goes on and talks about the lineage of Cain and how it came to a culmination ahead, literally, in Lamech whenever he gave himself over fully to following and worshiping Satan and worshiping those fallen beings. And that began to elevate. However, God raised up another line through a son named Seth. And through that line, we see in Genesis 5 that godly lineage, and we looked at all of that, that came to the culmination in a man named Noah. Before we get to all that, though, let's look and see this second rebellion. Because in bringing us to looking at Noah and being able to understand the flood, the ark, and everything that takes place there, we really have to focus in on Genesis chapter 6. And so as you think about that, if you have a Bible, you want to go back just to refresh yourself those first four verses. Let me just read them as we're sitting here looking at this, thinking about this. It says, When man began to multiply on the face of the land,

and daughters were born to them, and man, the word that's used there is Adam, then it comes after that, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man, and the word that's used there is Adam, were attractive. So these sons of God, they saw that these daughters of Adam were attractive, and they took as their wives any that they chose. And the way the word even used there for took literally means that they took and by force took them. And then it says, Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be a hundred and twenty years. In other words, God says, I'm going to only give you a hundred and twenty years left. The Nephilim, now we go to this verse four, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God, there they are again, came in to the daughters of man, that means the daughters of Adam, they had relationships with them in such a way that they bore children to them. These were the mighty men of old. They were the men of renown. And so as we have looked at that, we know that there's two different views. The one that we're really more comfortable with in our culture, and that's what's called the Sethite view, that literally the sons of God there is the belief that they were just the lineage of Seth, and Noah was the culmination. The problem with that is that there is no way grammatically according to the text, there's no way that even fits in the whole of the context of what happens here. But our cultural mindset, that materialistic, humanistic, individualistic mindset, just can't wrap our head around those things because that sounds weird. And remember whenever we talked about this, and as I was talking about it, one of the problems we have is that we have what I called a selective supernaturalism

mindset. In other words, if you believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, in other words, if you believe that Jesus was born through Mary without Mary having any sexual relationships with another man, that is the most supernatural belief anyone could have. I mean if you are willing to believe that, and by the way if you don't believe that, then you don't believe that He's God. And I would say you're not even saved at that point because the Bible is very clear about that. And so the fact that you believe that says that you believe in the supernatural. So as we're looking at these supernatural events, don't lower that belief. If you believe in the supernatural birth of Jesus Christ, then all of this is easy compared to that belief. So as we're coming to this, we are looking at it from what I'm just calling an ancient supernatural view, and that is that divine beings, the sons of God were divine beings that they crossed a boundary. Jude talks about it in Jude verse 6, that they crossed a cosmic boundary, a boundary that God said, I am making a separation between these two that you don't cross. And in that, the Bible says in Jude 6, that they left or they forsook their proper dwelling, and they came down. As a result, they were condemned. And so as we see this, in this merging, what took place was an attempt by the enemy in that seed war to taint or disrupt or literally change the genetic makeup of humans. And the way the Bible talks about it, about Noah in Genesis chapter 6, it says that Noah was blameless in his generation. In saying that, it's not saying that he was sinless. What it means is that he was genetically pure. He was all human. And those on the ark with him, they were all human and they came onto the ark

so that God could preserve the human bloodline and wipe out. That was what the flood actually was, was to wipe out this genetic mutation that had taken place in humanity. And so that's what happened there. And that has to do with that second rebellion. And so as we have looked at those things, we talked about those things, we saw all of those things. As a matter of fact, as we've looked at them and seen those, we know that in that second rebellion, that the enemy looked as though he had won, but God has a way of always raising up his remnant, of doing the supernatural work that he did to bring about the purity of what he was bringing. So we came down to understanding the flood as not this God being angry because people weren't acting right, but as literally a surgical rescue of the human race, that he was rescuing us from certain distinction. And even as we looked at that, we talked about the ark and about how the ark was made. The pitch that was put on it, the tar or the pitch, it's what it's called, the word that's used there is the word kefar. And that word literally is the same word used in the Bible for atonement. The atonement that happens, the atonement of God, that's the Hebrew word that's used there. And that ark, we know, was like a chest. It wasn't built like a boat, it was built literally like a chest that God could preserve a people. And so as we have been looking through that, we came down to this idea. What I wanted to spend just a few minutes with today, though, as we're going to kind of come to these next few minutes of bringing it together, I want to share with you because I talked about your Bible waking up.

What does this mean whenever we start looking at the Bible this way? Whenever we say, you know what? There really was a genetic mutation that was taking place, that there was something happening that was literally a creation of a being that was destructive to the world, that our genetic makeup was being destroyed so that there would be no redeemer possible for humanity. If there's no humans, there's no redemption. And humanity is eternally forever forsaken and lost. And so God chose to come against that. He did. He won the victory. He destroyed all of that. But the Bible says there in Genesis chapter 4, it says, and the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and then it has three little words, and also afterward. When we read that, there have been all sorts of interpretations that have come out about that. Those who believe in the reality that those were angelic beings, the sons of God were angelic beings. Let me just kind of give you some of the ideas that have come out about that, some popular ones, but really two that I personally don't agree with. One is the belief that, well, what happened was, and this is pretty popular, what happened was that one of the wives of Noah's sons had that tainted genetic makeup in them. The problem that I have with that is the Bible says in Genesis chapter 7, and if I can find it, I'll want to give it to you. But whenever he put them, those that went into the boat, here's the way, let's see, here we go. In Genesis chapter 7, verse 1, it says this, Then the Lord said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. And so here's the problem. If you say that one of those were tainted, in other words, they had some genetic deformity, the problem is God declared the knot, that it wasn't there.

And so we can't really go there. Another one is that the idea that, well, those beings, not all of them died. I don't believe that either, and the New Testament doesn't believe that. We find that in 2 Peter chapter 2 as well. Well, as in Jude verse 6, because he talks about how they were all taken out. They were all destroyed in that moment. So where do they come from? And so I talked about this, I shared this, but I want to share it a little bit more, and then I'm going to kind of take us forward a little bit after this, because I want to show you some things that have just helped me along the way. Some of you might say, man, why are you teaching on this? Honestly, how did I come to this? I didn't honestly come to this through a book at first, I came to it through just experience. I remember being out and was going through various rooms praying on Saturday nights. We did this, I've told you about that. And we began to go into rooms and we knew, we could tell there was a demonic presence in that room. And as we began to go and began to stand against them, some were stronger than others. And we began to even find a place that in the church where I was in Alabama, that we couldn't make them leave. And I began to say, you know, are there such things as spirits over areas that they've been assigned to various areas? And you know, I'm like, it seems like it from my experience, but does the Bible teach it? And sure enough, and I've taught this before, but in Jeremiah, let me just see if I can find the verse because I wasn't even planning on going here, but it's in several places. Here's one is whenever God's beginning to judge nations, and we're going to talk about this in two weeks in the Tower of Babel and the dispersion of the nations. But in Jeremiah chapter 48, verse seven, this is what God, now God is speaking. And through the prophet Jeremiah, He's making a prophetic proclamation. And He says this, for because you trusted in your works and your treasures, you also

shall be taken. And Chemosh, which is the God of those Moabites, shall go into exile. And it says with His priests and His officials. And in there, so I ran immediately when I read that and knew that the Spirit of God was showing me that these gods, He's speaking as though they are personal beings and that these gods, and He uses third person singular about this God and His priests and His officials are going to go into exile. It's found in other places as well in here. And as I began to look at that, I began to realize, oh my gosh, that these were beings, that it wasn't that they were just worshiping idols. They were worshiping gods, those idols represented. And in first Corinthians chapter 10, I remember as I was going through this and all of a sudden it was like a bolt of lightning hit my spirit. Because in first Corinthians chapter 10, whenever Paul is talking about the people eating food that's offered to idols, and you know, well, the idol is not anything, you know, but, and then he says this, he says in first Corinthians chapter 10, he says in verse 19, let me just start there, really verse 20 is the key one. He says, what do I imply then, that food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? No, he said, the idol is not the problem. And then he says this, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. And so as we are walking through here, I began to realize, oh my gosh, there are territorial spirits. There are spirits that are over territories. And how did they get there? And so that's in, of course, in Genesis 11, we'll be talking about it. But how did these people go forward afterward? How did the and afterward take place? So we're going to look at that for just a few minutes and we've looked at it before. And so as we get there, I just, I want to, I want to talk about this persistence of this seed war as it continued and as we continue to see it and it began to move out into nations.

And so as we are looking at this, we, we began to see how these nations began to develop. And so as that war began to escalate, I talked about how in Genesis we saw in, first, we're going to be looking at this actually, whenever I get back briefly, we'll look at it. In Genesis chapter 10, about a guy named Nimrod and the words that are used about him. And in Genesis chapter 10, verses 8 and 9, says Cush fathered Nimrod. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord. The word that's used there for mighty man is the word gibbor or givor. And in Genesis chapter 6, whenever he's talking about these, it says, in verse 4, it says, these were the mighty men, the gibborim, who were of old. And I'm not saying that Nimrod was a giant, but I am saying that there is an obvious reality here that this identical word that was used of the Nephilim is also used of him, and that he was being a mighty hunter is literally, doesn't mean that he liked to go out and kill game, and he was really good at it, and he had the best box blind in town, and anything like that. But he was the ruler of a group of people that were from an area the Hebrew calls the Shinar. It's the area of Nineveh, and it's the area of Babylon. And he was literally, what the Bible is showing us here, the very first world ruler. As God told the people, and we're going to look at this again in a couple of weeks, to multiply and spread throughout the earth, he said, we're going to all stay together as one. And he literally was the one who collected all of them there as they were building that tower to reach into the heavens, not to talk with God, but to have connection and communion. That was their mountain. You talked about Eden being the mountain of God, that the Tower of Babel was the mountain, the false mountain for false worship of the gods who were the fallen ones. And so as that continued, we see that one there. And then I came to a place, and I talked about this, and I know that some of you may have missed it a little bit, or it just wasn't quite making sense,

but in the covenant that God made with Abraham in Genesis chapter 15, you remember he took him out, and Abraham didn't have any children at the time, and he took him out and showed him the stars of the heavens, and there's a whole lot more to be said to that. I'm not going to talk about it right now. But as he looked up into the heavens, and he saw the stars, and he saw those, he said, so shall be your offspring. And the Bible says that Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteous. Now, here we have the righteous seed again as he's going to begin walking in this. And then God made a covenant, and we read about that in Genesis chapter 15. But then it says in beginning of verse 12 of Genesis 15, it says, as the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abraham, and behold, dreadful great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abraham, now I want you to listen to this. Know for certain that your offspring, so he's told him, he's promised him he's going to have them, but he says, as they come, they're going to be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years. Now, this is talking about them being in Egypt. And he says, this is going to happen in the history of things as God's looking out forward. So you've got Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then it goes on down in the lineage. You get to Joseph, then it goes on down, and then Joseph brings them into Egypt. And then they are in Egypt for 400 years until another righteous redeemer, really, named Moses is born. And again, Moses, it's interesting, you know, again, the enemy knew the seed war is going on, and the enemy knew that there was going to be a potential redeemer still. And so what does he do? Let's kill all the male Israelites, all the male Hebrew boys. Let's kill all the babies. And because he was going to wipe out that as a potential possibility. But Moses was one that his parents saw that he was different, and put him in a basket, and the word that's used there is the same word for an ark. And as he was put in that, so again, we see the story.

God's telling his story. But as we move, and he's talking about that, that was the 400 years until this was going to take place. But in verse 14 of Genesis chapter 15, getting back to the story of Abraham and the covenant, he says, but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. So again, this was what God promised, and Moses and the Israelites were seeing come to fruition. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age. Then verse 16, this is Genesis 15, 16, very important. And they shall come back. here, back here talking, he was in the land of Canaan, they shall come back here in the fourth generation, or 400 years, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete, or not yet full. That verse for years bothered me. What in the world was God talking about? There was something going on here that God was telling us that the iniquity of the people had risen to a place that literally God says, I'm going to have to wipe them out. Very similar verbiage that was used in Genesis 6. Very similar verbiage that was actually used of Sodom and Gomorrah, and I'm going to come back to that in a minute, hopefully, whenever we close. But as we're going in this, we know that as they were going, you remember the children of Israel, so they set out, and as they go, they send spies. So the first time they come in, they come in one area, and they go in through a place called Kadesh Barnea, and they sent 12 spies, and you remember Joshua and Caleb are two of them, and 10 came back, says we can't do it. Why did they say they couldn't do it? Well, it says they couldn't do it. They said they couldn't do it because of what they saw there. What did they see? Numbers chapter 13. Listen to what it says in verses 32 through 33. All the people, this is the report from

the spies, all the people that we saw in it are of great height, and there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim, and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, so we seemed to them. Now, I'm not saying they were that tall, but they were huge. They were big, and so that was the bad report. So now, all of a sudden, we're hearing in numbers that there are now and afterward giants, as Genesis 6 talked about in Genesis 6-4, that are in the land of Canaan, where Genesis chapter 15 verse 16 said that the iniquity is going to reach its full. So we're looking at that. Well, what was going on? Well, 40 years pass. They wander in the wilderness, and then Moses begins, or yeah, Moses begins to lead them forward. He couldn't cross over into the promised land, but he begins to lead them into battles, and they came into battles against some kings, and these kings were Amorites. You remember Genesis chapter 15 verse 16, and what does he say? He says, and they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. So who are these Amorites? Well, in Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 4 says, and the Lord will do to them as he did to Sihon and Og, these are two kings, the kings of the Amorites. There's that word. And to their land when he destroyed them. Now, in Deuteronomy chapter 3 verse 11, let's see what the Bible says. King Og of Bashan was the last survivor of the giant Rephaites. His bed was made of iron and was more than 13 feet long and 6 feet wide. It can still be seen in the Ammonite city of Rabbah. So these were giants again. We find them here. In fact, in Amos, the prophet Amos in chapter 2 verse 9 says this, yet it was I, God speaking here, who destroyed the

Amorite, there's Genesis 15 verse 16, before them whose height was like the height, now this is God talking, whose height was like the height of the cedars and who was as strong as the oaks. I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. So God was destroying these giants before they crossed in and the place where they were, now this is important just to remember this, hold this in your back here somewhere as you're going to get everything together, but the place where they are is they are going north from the wilderness about to cross. Now they're on the the east side of the Jordan River and on the on the west side of the Jordan River is present-day Israel and then just to the side of that is the Mediterranean Sea. Before they came from the south at Kadesh Barney, but now they're going around the east side of the Jordan River and as they're going north, they're actually coming to Mount Hermon which is the tallest mountain in that whole region. It's the only snow-capped mountain in that area. It is also from Mount Hermon is where literally the water begins to rush down from Mount Hermon that forms the Jordan River. that goes into the Sea of Galilee that then goes down into the Dead Sea down in the south. So they are going north and they come to that base area of Mount Hermon and that's where they're killing all of these giants on the east side of the Jordan. And then we have the conquest of Canaan. They cross over. Joshua now leads. Moses doesn't go with them. Joshua now leads the children of Israel across the Jordan River. They get across and they begin the conquest of Canaan. And as they go through that conquest, they're killing these people. And we read those stories and, oh my gosh, it sounds terrible. It sounds like God's just mad at everybody. But when you read what the Bible tells us, Joshua 11, listen to what Joshua says in verse 22.

There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel. Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod did some remain. So what's happening? Here's what's happening. As they crossed over, every city, and you can mark this down historically, every city in Joshua in the conquest of Canaan that they destroyed all of the people. They said, kill them all. Get rid of all of them. Don't keep anything there. It was a total wipeout. It was because of the Anakim, of this whole reality of the Amorites, the sins of the giants, the Nephilim, the giants were there. And as they came in, they wiped every area out. It was similar to Genesis 6, 7, 8, 9, the flood, the judgment against it. It was similar to Sodom and Gomorrah, the coming down of the fire. It was God destroying for the protection of humanity. Not because He was angry, not because He liked the Israelite people better. In fact, He often said, look, I'm not doing this because you're good people. You're sinful. I'm doing it because I have a plan to redeem humanity. And so as we go forward and we're continuing on this, we then come into the realities of what we read about David and Goliath. And we talked about that. And listen again, just as a reminder, in 1 Samuel 17 where it talks about, Then Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, came out from the Philistine ranks to face the forces of Israel. He was over nine feet tall. He wore a bronze helmet and a bronze coat of mail, weighing 125 pounds. He also wore bronze leg armor, and he carried a bronze javelin on his shoulder. The shaft of the spear was as heavy and thick as a weaver's beam. The tip of the iron, that means the spearhead itself, weighed 15 pounds itself. I mean, he was a huge giant. And David killed him. And in doing this, you remember whenever God told Saul to kill all of the Amalekites, and he didn't do it, he wound up being killed by an Amalekite.

And then we come here, and you've got David doing this in this place, and he's killing this giant from Gath. And then later on in David's kingdom, as he's king, he's now gotten older. The Bible tells us toward the end of his life, in 2 Samuel 21, it talks about how that Goliath, there were four other giants. Some people have asked, why did David, whenever he picked up that smooth stone, that the Bible is specific in saying he picked up five of them? Well, because it was well known that there were five of those giants like Goliath from Gath. David was just making sure if any of the other ones show up, I'll take them out too. Well, he didn't get a chance at that time because only one came. But later on, the Bible tells us about the others. Let me just read again 2 Samuel 21 verses 20 through 22. It says, and there was again war in Gath. Again, what Joshua tells us in Joshua 11, 22 about there were giants left in Gath. And it says, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, 24 in number. And he also was descended from the giants. And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shammi, David's brother, struck him down. And then he already told the story earlier about the other three. These four were descended from the giants in Gath. So now does all of it start to make sense that what was happening was that there was this... In fact, this is something I've noticed is that when it comes to the worship of foreign gods, there's two basic things you see every time. And God condemns it all the time. Sexual immorality and the shedding of blood. They would offer sacrifices of blood and then they would have even what was called, and even the New Testament had them, temple prostitutes who were having sexual relations with people as an act of worship. We know that even now Satanists do this very thing. They do that to worship those foreign fallen gods. And that's what they're doing. And this is what was happening here. And over time it continues to progress until ultimately they begin to, in some way, some demonic way,

they begin to have relations in such a way that there are beings that are created that are not human. They're partially human, but they're not human. And so as we've been looking at that, we've been seeing that, we've been noting that God's response to them was utter destruction every time to wipe them out. Why? Because He was not going to allow them to taint the bloodline for the Redeemer. And they didn't. And the Bible talks about that. The Redeemer was born. The Bible says at just the right time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, and He was there to redeem mankind. And so we see this constantly. Now, let me share a couple other things with you because I talked about this, I know, last time, but there are several times that this is talked about. But I picked one of them just in particular, and that was out of Matthew chapter 16. And I remember whenever we talked about this, I talked about where Jesus, He had been with His disciples, they were together, and He said, we're going to go on a journey. And they went on a journey, and they walked all the way up to an area. I've been here. It's in the northernmost part of Israel, and it's called Caesarea Philippi. And He goes to this place. Now, you need to know this place. I've been here, and again, I forgot to bring a picture. I need to sometime get a picture of it. But it's at the base of Mount Hermon, and at that base at Mount Hermon, which here we got this area where you've got King Og of Bashan, King Sihon, they were in that same region. This was a region there. As a matter of fact, 1 Enoch, 1 Enoch, tells us that this was Mount Hermon was where these beings, these sons of God, came down to earth, was at that place. So Jesus goes to this strategic location, and while He's there, and there, by the way, there was pagan worship. There were several different gods worshipped there at this same spot. And there was this opening of a cave that was there in that place, and that opening of a cave that was there was called the Gates of Hades, or the Gates of Hell. And Jesus goes to that place, and as He goes to that place, He says to His disciples, He says, who do people say that I am? And you know, in Matthew 16, where it's found there, He says, well, some say this and some say that. And then Jesus looks at them, His disciples, and says, well, who do you say that I am? And the Apostle Peter blurts out,

you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. He says this right there in front of, at Mount Hermon, at the base, at Caesarea Philippi, at a place called the Gates of Hell, where they believed that those came from. As a matter of fact, it was a place where for centuries, there were human sacrifices, animal sacrifices that were thrown down into that water, believing in that cave that had water down in it, believing that throwing those into there, they were appeasing those gods to make them, to bless them to be wealthy, to have their land to be fertile, and their children and families to be fertile. And so in this place, Jesus goes to pick a fight. He goes to let those sons of God know, to let those fallen beings know that I am the Christ, the Son of the living God. And He says to Peter and to the disciples there, He says, I will build my church and the gates of hell, right where He's standing right there, shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth should be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth should be loosed in heaven. And so He goes there and literally makes this declaration right here. So we've many other places here I could go to, but I wanted to get us caught up. That's kind of a recap, and if you don't mind, I'll take it. how much time I have. We may have to cut this off because I don't want to take too much time. But I do want to say this to you, that as we're going forward, we're going to be in Genesis chapter 10, what will be for us next week, whenever you watch this. And we'll be looking there in Genesis chapter 10 at the table of nations. We're going to be seeing what all says there, how we were dispersed. But Genesis 10 and 11 are really a unit. They go together. And in Genesis 11 we see the division, the dispersion of humanity. What I'm going to be focused on is I'm going to be focused on what happened in that dispersion. Was it just that we went into different languages and people went different places? Well, that's not what the Bible says. Listen to as Moses was writing and in Deuteronomy chapter 32, the Spirit of God came over him and he wrote a song. It's called the Song of Moses. And in the Song of Moses, listen to what he says in Deuteronomy chapter 32. I'm going to begin in verse 8. It says, When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when did he do that? In Genesis chapter 11. When he divided

mankind, Genesis chapter 11, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. In other words, they had built this tower to worship those gods and God says that's it. We had Genesis 3, the first rebellion, moved us out of that relationship with God at the mountain of Eden, the Garden of Eden there on the mountain of God. Genesis 6, we rebelled again. We want to worship these gods. And he wiped everybody out to start over again with Noah. Now we come to Genesis 11 and once again a rebellion God said to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. We stayed together. We're going to build a tower for ourselves to reach into the heavens. Again, it goes back to Garden of Eden, goes back to Genesis 6. It's that same mindset. And in doing that, here's what God says. Okay, I'm divorcing you. I'm giving you over. You want to worship those gods? I'm dividing you out. But he divided the people out away from each other because he has another plan. And in dividing them, he gave them over. But then we know Genesis 12 comes in and that's where he chooses Abram to start his own nation. And it says in Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 9, but the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob, his allotted heritage. And so he talks about that. But let me just say that what happened in Genesis 32, it goes on and it paints the picture of everything that I'm talking about here and everything we're going to be looking at over these final two weeks that we'll get to in this study. And in Genesis chapter 32 beginning in verse 16, literally before that, he's got this people. He blesses them. They take Canaan. They've got this land. But he says when you became fat and you began to have it your way, you turned away from me. You begin to worship those foreign gods again. And in verse 16 of Deuteronomy chapter 32, it says, they stirred him to jealousy with strange gods. With abominations, they provoked him to anger. Now listen to what it says. Verse 17, they sacrificed to demons. Notice what he's saying. These sons of God that they were worshiping, that the other nations are worshiping. Right here, Moses declares they were no gods. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods. To gods they had never known. So these were not gods like God, and we'll see that in just a second. He says this. He says to new gods that had

come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. These were these foreign gods that were out there. You were unmindful of the rock that bore you. Now notice that's important. I want you to see that. I want to talk about that in just a second. But he calls God the rock that bore you. And you forgot the God who gave you birth. So he equates the rock with God in that. And it says in verse 21, says they have made me jealous with what is no God. They have provoked me to anger with their idols. And so they're idol worships. They're worshiping these idols. And then it goes on in Deuteronomy 32 as he continues talking about this. Over in verse 31 of Deuteronomy 32, it says, for there, and he's talking about these other nations, for their rock, and he uses a little r here, is not our rock. So their gods, and he's equating them to a rock, is not our God, our rock. Our enemies are by themselves. In other words, what they're worshiping is not God's. They're on their own. They're out here trying to make it. following these demonic beings, but notice what he even connects here. And it's just amazing as you go in verse 32, for their vine, talking about these gods they're worshiping, their nourishment, their nutrition, he says, is following a pattern. Verse 32, for their vine, it comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. In other words, notice where Moses is saying that it's the same thing happening, that all these foreign nations are worshiping these gods that are not gods, they're demons, and it goes all the way back to what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah. He's bringing all that together. Their grapes are the grapes of poison, their clusters are bitter, and notice what he says here, he even adds another one in verse 33. Their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asp. And I believe he's even pointing to this demonic being. In fact, the word serpent that's used there is not nakash, what we had in Genesis 3, but it's the word that is used for dragon. And so in this, we know that he's talking about a spirit, a spiritual idea that is

happening here. And as he continues to talk, he tells more about it. He tells about what's going to happen to them. These nations are going to fall. Verse 37 of Deuteronomy 32 says, Then he will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge, who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? And then he declares, and this is where God says, Look, and this is where the Bible is very clear, there's only one God, all these other gods are not gods, they're demons, but they're being worshipped as though they are gods. You remember whenever the temptation of Jesus, whenever Satan said to him, I'll give you all these nations, they're mine to give to whoever I want if you'll bow down and worship me. He wants to be a god. That's his longing. But in verse 39, listen to what God says, See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is none that can deliver out of my hand. He's the only God. Now here's what I want you to see in this. He talks about God being the rock, about him being the rock. You remember the story that in Genesis, whenever the people were starving in Exodus, whenever they're starving, they're dying of thirst, and God says, Bring them over here and I want you to strike the rock. And when you strike the rock, water will be given and the Bible says that he struck the rock and water came forward out of it. And then everywhere they went, God would bring water from rock. And you say, Well, what do you mean by that? What was he talking about? Just this mountain followed them around? No, that's not what he's saying. Let me show you what he's saying. It's really awesome whenever you see it. It's in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 4, it says this. It says, And all drank the same spiritual drink,

so this is Paul talking, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was Christ. Here in Deuteronomy 32, he talks about God being the rock. Here in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says, I know who Deuteronomy 32 is and so do you. That spiritual rock that followed them, that nourished them, that took care of them, it was Jesus. And I believe that the Apostle Paul, whenever he was writing 1 Corinthians 10, he's got Deuteronomy 32 in his mind because he goes on and even later on, I read it earlier in verse 20, says they were offering to the pagan service, they were sacrificing to demons and not to gods. I don't want you to be partnering with demons. And so as we continue to go forward, man, I'm going to stop right here because I could keep going. It'd be so fun. But I'm trying to clear up and help you see that as we're reading our Bibles, the Bible is a very supernatural book. We live in a world that has a very active spirit world. Now, what the Bible does is clarify it. The pagans take and they think some of those spirits are wonderful and they want to follow them. And we find that even in our nation. We have people in Hollywood that are worshiping demons, saying it's giving them power. Whenever they go on stage, they call on a spirit guide to guide them, not knowing they're worshiping demons. They may have power. But it's deceitful power. It's demonic power. But the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in us as believers. That we are more than conquerors in Christ. That we really are in a spiritual battle. The battle's already been won. The already has happened. But we still live in the not yet of its fullness.

So as you go out tonight and leave and this next week and get ready for your week, I hope you're encouraged and I hope your Bible wakes up in ways that as you're reading, that God's just going to talk to you. He's going to encourage you and He's going to bless you. So let me just pray for us and then we'll go. Father, thank you that your word is true. Thank you, Father, that you are for us and not against us. Throughout history, every time we turned and rebelled against you, you chose to redeem us because you had a bigger plan. And even now, every one of us as your children are your children because you fought and won the battle. You truly are the mighty warrior. The one who won the victory and defeated the enemy. And so now, Father, I pray that you would strengthen us, fill us, encourage us, and lead us out. And we give you the glory. And Father, pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed this week as you serve the Lord and walk with Him. May your Bible wake up.