God’s revelation unfolds through Scripture, from the early mysteries of Genesis to the clarity of the New Testament. The term “sons of God” in Genesis 6 describes a troubling event about both angelic rebellion and human corruption, provoking God’s grief and judgement through the Flood. Yet in Noah’s finding grace, we glimpse the mercy of God illustrating His ultimate act of salvation in Jesus Christ, the true and eternal “Son of God”. Through His death and resurrection, the face of God turns from wrath to welcome, forgiveness, belonging, and a new life.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Now, in our study of the scriptures in the Old Testament, which we’ve been doing in recent weeks, we’ve been looking there and noticing that the topic of the Holy Spirit is very much mentioned in the Old Testament. But there’s other things that are to be learned by our journey through the scriptures, and taking into account we don’t only have the New Testament, but we have the Old Testament, and both are a part of our scriptures that speak to us from God. and in the Old Testament there’s what you need to understand if you’re going to really come to grips with the Bible is that there is, as I’ve been describing a progressive, progressive revelation where God builds up his truth and gradually takes us through to see the whole counsel of God you need the New Testament to get there in the end

[00:00:52] but the Old Testament is important as well and one of the things in this progressive revelation through the Bible is that God introduces ideas and gradually has them come more and more clear and one that many people are not aware of is the meaning of the term Son of God now from the New Testament if I were to ask anybody who is the Son of God you’ll get the immediate answer that it is Jesus and he is in particular the Son of God in fact, we’re used to John 3.16 that famous verse for God so loved the world that he gave his what’s the next part? only begotten Son there is a singularity a uniqueness of how Jesus is the Son of God and that’s in the fullness of the revelation of the New Testament but the term Son of God in the first instance was used through the Scriptures to represent not God but the next tier down

[00:02:03] and so any person who walked with God and represented him on earth was acting as the Son of God or in the case of the heavenly scene the creatures who were the next step down were the angels. And so they also are referred to in the scriptures in different spots, particularly the book of Job and other places. Job was one of the most ancient of the books we have in the scriptures. We don’t really know when it was written. But the term Son of God means somebody who represents God and his first persons on creatures representing him. And in heaven, they are the angels. And so the angels get referred to as sons of God and that’s what’s happening in this passage in Genesis 6 and verses 1 to 8. This is a passage about an event back when things were new as far as the personnel in heaven were concerned.

[00:03:09] And just after the creation of humanity, this event occurred where it says in Genesis 6, as you’ve got it on the screen, when man began to multiply in the face of the land and daughters were born to them. You can see the men all calculating how much this is going to cost. No, no, it doesn’t mean. When man began to multiply in the face of the land and daughters were born to them. Why refer to daughters just there? Because they’re humans as are the men. But what’s going on? Well, it says the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. Now, if you read it in the Old Testament, I’ve got an old King James I sometimes use and it’s very fascinating to see the choice of words. But there at that spot, it says, when the sons of God, they are the angels, they saw that the daughters of men were,

[00:04:06] and it uses the word fair, because the King James comes out of England and the word fair had a meaning over in English language just a few generations back to mean good, beautiful, and particularly because of their culture, that usually meant fairer skin. So fair took on the meaning of being beautiful. Now, that’s a bit of a prejudice you can hear, but nonetheless, that’s what the word fair meant. But actually, in the Hebrew language, which stands behind this, the original record of this storyline, is the word in Hebrew, tov. And tov means good as well as beautiful. It’s good in every respect. And what’s happening here is that the angelic figures saw that when the humanity was created, that the women were very attractive. And we have immediately there a piece of information

[00:05:11] that it’s normal for women to be attractive. Their womanliness is a part of their attractiveness. It doesn’t mean that all the women are exactly the same, but there is something about what the angels saw when they looked at the human race that caused something to go wrong. And those sons of God, the angelic figures, got a scheme that they were going to cohabit with the women. Now, if you try to study this passage, because it’s so dramatic, and because it seems to have a storyline that one hardly knows how to take it, when you look up a commentary as to what’s going on, one commentary will have an interpretation quite different from another. And the choices that you have from all those very learned commentaries, I have sufficient of them in my library, that when you read on through,

[00:06:03] it’s quite fascinating the difference in interpretations. One of them is, just as I’ve told you, it’s depended upon the fact that the term sons of God, in the first instance, did not mean what it means in the New Testament to be Jesus only, but it meant those that were the next tier down from God himself. And in heavenly scenes, that were the angels. And the rest of the scriptures do back up this account, that there was a rebellion amongst the angels of heaven, and about a third of them were led in rebellion to go against God. And a part of what they did was to do what we’re reading here. And so that interpretation is that this is about some enormous event of angelic figures creating children from the daughters of men. And that needs to be tested against some of the other possibilities.

[00:07:04] An easier one to take is that the record is trying to speak about the sons of God to be the people who were the leadership amongst humans. They had the title sons of God because they were the chief leaders. And they took their opportunity of being the leaders to pick the best of the women to have as their wives. That’s a lot more easier interpretation to swallow because it’s more natural to think of this as being about what happens. And it’s true, you know, in most societies that I remember when one of the royals said to Prince Charles about his being the Prince of Wales, he says the Prince of Wales could take any woman, he could have any woman who was encouraging Charles to know that he’d be popular. And it is a fact of human governorship that when people have got a status

[00:08:01] or they’ve got a position of authority, that sometimes they use that in order to have their pick of the best of the women in their estimation. And so that’s another interpretation again that is much more easy to accept as what might naturally happen. The only trouble with that easier to pick interpretation is that what is then said that follows doesn’t fit it. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever for he is flesh and he shall just be 120 years. Later on that gets made 70 is the one perhaps that people only get into, but there are exceptional cases like Joshua and his friend who went up a mountain when they were in their 80s. Anyway, but then it says in verse 4, the Nephilim. Now that term Nephilim is referring to giant creatures who were very warlike

[00:09:03] and everybody was in great fear of. Verse 4, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. So whatever is happening, that statement about Noah finding grace in the eyes of the Lord certainly casts back on that previous scene of the sons of God going into the daughters of men as something not so favorable to God. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord but the ones before were doing the wrong thing. And I found it fascinating reading through the different commentaries to try and explain this and certainly the explanation needed isn’t only as who are the sons of God. I have to admit that I think it were the angelic figures because the supernatural result needed something very unusual to cause it.

[00:10:12] When these men of renown became known and this is actually a part of the explanation in chapter 6 of Genesis as to why God wanted to blot out the whole human race start again only with Noah and his family and it’s because something was going wrong. And so the commentaries try to give an explanation as to what exactly is happening and why this is such a drastic scene. And one explanation of one commentary and I would agree with it is that Satan has already got himself in a place of fear because in that earlier chapter, the first three chapters of Genesis, the commentary says, it tells us there about how God gives a prophecy that one day there would come a redeemer, one day there will be the offspring of the woman and this offspring was going to bruise the head of the snake

[00:11:09] and the snake is going to bite his heel. It’s a prophecy that one day would come a representative of the human race who’s going to do business in arguing and fighting Satan and there will be a wounding of the hero, the promised redeemer but also there will be a victory over the Satan because his head would be crushed. and given that prophecy in the first three chapters of Genesis it begs some understanding of this one as to what might be on the mind of Satan and his evil hordes and one suggestion that is given is that in order to stop their coming a Redeemer into the history of the world Satan thought that he would poison or he disturbed the human mechanism that would allow that person to come he wanted to corrupt the human gene pool by what’s going on here.

[00:12:07] Now that’s a suggestion that you can’t prove from the Bible it’s a suggestion that commentaries have as to maybe what’s going on in the whole scene and what is the purpose of Satan in this event. In any case, because there are these it’s just word of verse 7 there verse 6 The Lord regretted that he made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart so the Lord said I’ll blot out man for whom I’ve created on the face of the land man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens for I am sorry that I have made them but no, I found grace in the eyes of the Lord the whole scene backs up that this is a very wicked supernatural event to cause there to be these giant-like figures who would be men of renown that would be very terrible fighters that were going to come on the earth.

[00:13:00] We have here a picture of what it is for sons of God to be going wrong, the angelic figures. As you travel through the Bible, you’ll discover that any person in the Old Testament, particularly who seeks to walk uprightly before God, can be referred to as a son of God because of them willing to follow God and do what he would want of us. And eventually in the New Testament, we learn there’s only one person who succeeds at doing that, and it’s Jesus and his sinlessness is a part of why he alone is the representative of God on earth. We also get taught from the New Testament not only is it that Jesus lived a sinless life and really represented what it is to be a representative of God on earth, but it is because he is a part of the Godhead. he is God the Son and that is why our famous verse I got you to remember

[00:13:59] right at the beginning for God so loved the world that he gave and the old King James read he gave his only begotten Son for Jesus was not created he was eternal and by the Holy Spirit God took this eternal second person of the Trinity and put him into a body so that he became born and Jesus was born of the Spirit that he might be the Son of God in a way that no other son has ever been nor ever will yet the scriptures also teach that when we come to Christ and we make do business with Christ as Saviour when we ask him to forgive our sin and we get right with the Father that something happens in our hearts by the Holy Spirit’s doing that we get then made sons of God the actual verses that talk that way use a little less. Sons of God, can I ask you the question this morning, has there been the moment

[00:14:59] when you did business with the Father? You did business with the Godhead where you came about your sins and said I need to be forgiven. Please make me right because of what Jesus has done and all of our service this morning has been aimed to put it very clear that there’s a focus on what God has done and he did it in Christ. The book of Hebrews tells us that in these previous days God spoke through many different prophets across the years but in these last days he’s spoken to us through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ and he set him as the Saviour and by what he did in bearing our sins on the cross and dealing with it and turning the face of God that previously had rejected the human race, you can see some of that rejection and God’s resolve in this passage. The face of God has turned against us all

[00:15:56] because we’ve sinned but when Jesus Christ came and took on humanity and lived without sin and went to the cross and bore our sin and took the punishment of all that we deserved, he turned the face of God around but instead of being against us, God looks at us with love and that’s what that verse means for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but will have everlasting life. Every single person in this building this morning is a person who has been born into a sinful race, who’s been born with a rebellious heart, who’s been born with a need to be redeemed and you’re the person for whom Jesus died. You’re amongst those that need to come and get right with God through what Jesus did. There is a moment of truth in the stage of life

[00:16:53] on which all of us are asked to be a performer. There’s a moment when we’ve been given a part. Have you realized that God and eternity has given you a part on the stage of life and in that play that God has set out for us to be involved with, you’re given a choice to come back and be reconciled to God through his son’s death and resurrection. And the message of the gospel is given that you might know this is the case and understand that you’re given the invitation to come and put your trust in Jesus to save you. In these last days, God has spoken to us. The book of Hebrews says, through his son. And he speaks to you this morning. And he calls you to come and make peace with him. It’s a one, some people know it as a very climactic moment in their life.

[00:17:49] It’s the one part of the speech they’ve been given to make to God to come back and say, Father, forgive me. I know that I have sinned. Please make me a Christian. Please allow Jesus to be my saviour. That’s the one part you’ve been given to play. Some of us know it so well at the moment that it happened. And I’m one. I don’t know when I came to Christ, but other people I’ve met. It’s just a gradual process of coming to recognise what Christ has done for them and that they must rest in him. It doesn’t matter whether you have a dramatic conversion on what the emotions are. They’re not the points that count. What counts is that you’ve come to Christ, whether slowly and gradually or within one great moment when you give in. But if you’re not certain that that has happened,

[00:18:45] could I ask you this morning to say to God when you get an opportunity to bow your head in his presence and say, God, I want to be in. Please take me because of Jesus. If he died for me, yes, please. Please forgive me from all of my sin. Please make me clean in the deepest part of wrong in me. And in that moment, you get in the door. You don’t have to know it like you write in your diary that you felt this way or that. You just need to have rested your case with Jesus as your saviour. Have you done that? Are you certain? Should it be that you should find some place alone when this service is over and tell God you’re in because of Jesus? You want him. Let him take away that lack of assurance you may have had. There’s nothing more wonderful than having gone through this uncertainty. Am I actually in the door?

[00:20:04] I remember as a child thinking these thoughts. And then it did happen. And then one of the songs they used to teach us in the kids things that I got taken to, things are different now. Something’s happened to me since I gave my heart to Christ. Things I loved before have passed away. Things I love far more have come to stay. Things are different now since I gave my heart to him. and this is the very central core aspect of evangelical Christianity that we get reconciled to God and the God who once was against the human race as you’re reading here getting ready to wipe out the whole of the race just save Noah and his family and start again this God has been turned around to accept us he wants us he calls us he establishes us as Christians and brings us together in a church and it’s when you really know Christ

[00:21:17] and have that commonality with Jesus amongst all the others that you suddenly find that you belong in the church even though, you know, sometimes the people who come because I sit up the back sometimes I get to talk to them before they know who I am it’s not a bad scheme but as people talk to me they sometimes say, you know, a bit scared coming to church the social side there’s a bunch of people they don’t know but very quickly they can feel at home because they’ve got what makes you a Christian when Jesus lives in your heart when Jesus’ spirit is the one that’s changed you when you’ve rested your faith in him the social side might take you a while to get to know a few people but you’ve already got the internals that make you belong and there’s nothing more beautiful when you’ve just come to Christ

[00:22:19] to find a group of people sometimes it happens to folk who come from another country and they come and everything’s a bit weird you know, they wrote that book They’re a Weird Mob written by Italians about us Australians being a weird mob but a part of what happens in the book is that he finds himself included not only culturally in Australian culture but in becoming a person who’s a Christian that’s also what happens to people who come from overseas and when you find yourself amongst a group of Christians you can be in another country altogether but you find somehow a connectiveness they know Christ and you know Christ and even though you’ve got different backgrounds of countries and different cultures, that knowingness of Christ makes you one. And there’s something blessed of finding the church

[00:23:18] when you come from another country and you find Christ and then you find the church. It’s a marvellous thing to know you’ve found where you belong. Can I ask you this question too? Have you found where you belong in church? Which is weird, I shouldn’t say weird, as unusual a lot of churches are to people who have not been familiar with them. And it can be quite an unusual, quite a challenge to come along to a church when you’re not used to how things happen with us. And you see, sometimes you think the church is going to be perfect and you have to have someone tell you that the churches are like a hospital. you don’t get annoyed at the hospital for having sick people so you don’t get annoyed at the church when you discover spiritually sick people who are seeking the medicine that’s all of us

[00:24:16] we’re here seeking the medicine of Jesus and so you don’t blame the church for all of its faults there’s actually something very beautiful about when you find a church I’ve got a good mate called David Andrews who lives at West End and he was the person that started the West End Waiters Union. Strange name. But he didn’t want his little group to be people who are all bossy and he called it the Waiters Union because we’re to have an attitude of serving each other like waiters. And if you go along to the group that he meets with, because there are a lot of people in West End that he works on getting there, I don’t know how much he’s doing it now because this has been a while he’s been running this type of show but you go there and there’ll be someone vomiting on the floor next to you and there’ll be another person

[00:25:16] who goes off their head and swears for 10 minutes. It’s very difficult worshipping actually when they’re sitting next to you. And we’re used to churches where there’s people all smelling all right but when you go to his church they don’t smell all right. but I found something very beautiful about that church because it didn’t matter where you crawled in from you were loved and you were accepted because of Jesus because he’s the saviour that makes you acceptable to God you don’t have to have a big record of keeping out of jail in some cases but you’re someone that’s found acceptance because of Jesus there is nothing more beautiful I was leading up to tell you about when at last I found I was in the door properly I had a few attempts that didn’t make it and then at the Billy Graham crusade I got in the door

[00:26:32] and they taught us that song things are different now something’s happened to me since I gave my heart to Christ things I loved before have passed away things I love far more have come to stay things are different now since I gave my life to him and I’m asking you this morning have you joined the difference have you discovered that God has been turned around by Christ’s death and resurrection to be coming to you with acceptance and love and grace and you can be secure in that grace and know that you belong in the place we grace people are all saying the same thing well anyway Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord and that’s the answer to God solving that problem those people who were the giants disappeared God did not let the human race get corrupted so that the Redeemer could not come

[00:27:51] but Jesus was born as we know the New Testament story to be that Redeemer and because of him this attack by the evil one to try and stop there being redemption for the human race was thwarted and it brings us down to today and the opportunity to belong to him it’s quite a story isn’t it I know that I will not have said enough to necessarily relieve you of the choice you’ve either got to take it as a human story about leadership doing the wrong thing but then you can’t explain the rest or this is a story of something terrible that the evil one tried to put on the human race and got thwarted and eventually the Redeemer came and that you are able to find him as your Saviour and Lord let’s have a moment of prayer shall we pray Heavenly Father we thank you for the storyline about the men of renown

[00:28:56] it says specifically that after the sons of God had gone into the daughters of men that these were the men of renown they were in the earth they were called Nephilim we can track that down to be great giants our fighters Nephilim and that era has passed we thank you too that the flood came and went you’ve given promises in the New Testament that you’ll never again totally destroy the world by flood there will be little floods but not total apocalyptic ones like happened to Noah oh Father we give you praise for your grace and we pray that in this era of grace where Jesus is available to become one saviour that there’ll be many people who will so discover that in Australia would you move amongst our nation we pray and bring many to come to Christ would you continue blessing our church and there’ll be people that find the saviour here we ask in Jesus name Amen