Lindsey Blair and Bobby Gilles recap and discuss Pastor Jonah Sage's sermon from Genesis 6:1-4.
Lindsey Blair and Bobby Gilles recap and discuss Pastor Jonah Sage's sermon from Genesis 6:1-4.
Bobby: Welcome to the Midweek Checkup. My name is Bobby Gilles and I’m joined by Lindsey Blair. This past Pastor Jonah preached Genesis Six, verses one through four. He taught us to see Jesus as the ruler of heaven and earth, seeing him as not only the forgiver of our sins, but the liberator of our souls from spiritual oppression.
He said that yes, demons are real. Yes, spiritual forces seek to invade, distort, and disorder. But greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. So we can stand firm, remembering who secured our victory.
Lindsey, what did you think?
Lindsey: I think we would all agree that life is HARD. Jonah asked us to consider if everything wrong with the world is our fault. Can we blame all of our struggles and hardships on our sin or the sins of others? He said “to blame everything on our own personal sins does not account for all we face in life.” We must open our eyes and grow in our awareness of the spiritual forces that have been and are still at work in the world.
Now, for anyone who missed the sermon or needs help remembering, let’s do a quick recap.
Bobby: Pastor Jonah began by saying that God’s enemies - powerful spiritual beings - launched a full-scale invasion in Genesis Six. The “sons of God” see that human women were attractive, and so they “took” them. Jonah noted that this phrase “sons of God” is used in the Old Testament to refer to spiritual beings. We see this is places like Job Thirty-eight and Psalms Twenty-nine, Eighty-two, and Eighty-nine. When these spiritual beings “took” human women, it produced a hybrid offspring the Bible calls “Nephilim,” an Aramaic word that meant “giants.” This is a demonic invasion from the heavens to earth.
Lindsey: In the New Testament, Jude Six says, “I remind you of the angels who did not stay within the limits of authority God gave them but left the place where they belonged.” And Second Peter says, “God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell, in gloomy pits of darkness, where they are being held until the day of judgment. And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and the seven others in his family.”
Bobby: Even after the flood, a few Nephilim persist. Numbers Thirteen tells of the tribe of Anak, who “came from the Nephilim.” They’re described as one of the giant clans, along with several others. God sends another flood…but it is a flood of soldiers led by Joshua to wipe out those clans. So why is this in the Bible? Because it happened, because it prepares us for spiritual warfare, and because we need to learn that no one is like the Lord.
Lindsey: God’s people made sure to tell this story so they could say to the world yes, there were giants like your own religious writings claim. Yes, they were there before the flood and built civilizations. Yes, they demanded your worship…but these beings were rebels who were defeated by the One True God. If you go to the New Testament and look at all the places where Jesus cast out demons, you’ll find the places where the giant clans of the Old Testament lived, and you’ll find the places that the Babylonians believed were ruled by their gods. You’ll find Jesus Christ asserting his authority over the rebellious angels, announcing his victory and authority over the heavens and the earth.
Bobby: This coming Sunday we’ll continue our series called Desecrated, looking at the famous story of the Tower of Babel. And in this Sunday’s Bible Fellowship we’ll study Psalm 99 together.
Join us, and bring a friend.