Please take your Bibles this morning and turn with me to the book of Genesis, to Genesis chapter six. It was my intention to cover the first four verses And we will read those first four verses of this chapter, but we're only gonna actually spend our time in the first two verses of this chapter. Now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful. And they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, for indeed he is flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. There were giants on the earth in those days, or there were the Nephilim on the earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Before we look at these words more closely, let us pray for God's help and direction. Most blessed and glorious God, we do thank you and praise you that you granted to many of us the privilege of being numbered on your side. And we remember the great sin that took place in Israel when the cry went out, who is on the Lord's side? It was necessary for people to take a stand, even sometimes against those whom they loved. And we pray that you would enable us to openly and consistently and boldly stand with you, stand with the people of God, stand with the company of God's people throughout the ages. Help us, O Lord, for we are weak, we are vacillating, we are tempted this way and that. Make us firm, O Lord, in our faith and in our walk with you. Grant us, therefore, help by your spirit in this evil day. Guide us, we pray, therefore, by your word. We pray in Christ's name, amen. Five years after a devastating fire seemed to have burned the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris beyond repair, On December 8th of 2024, the cathedral's restoration and reopening was celebrated with a ceremony and with an inaugural mass. And the pictures of the restored masterpiece are stunning. But when its architectural glory was shown to the world on that day, while I was marveling at the achievement of how they did this so quickly in five years with such a magnificent structure. I wondered with sadness at the same time, how many people that were walking into the cathedral that day had a genuine relationship with the great God who made them, who supposedly was being celebrated in that place. According to the September 13th, 2022 issue of the Catholic World Report, in France, which was once one of the great historic centers of Catholicism. By the 1950s, attendance at mass had already declined to being only 25% of the people. But since that time, it has dwindled now to 2%. As we read of this precipitous decline, We're compelled to ask how many even of this tiny Catholic remnant are really new creatures in Christ, worship God in spirit and truth, and are themselves the temples of the living God. Jones-Very's poem, Enoch, it concludes with a depiction of mankind's tragic habit of building temples to God while making no room for him in their hearts. God walked alone, unhonored, through the earth. For him, no heart-built temple open stood. The soul forgetful of her nobler birth had hewn him lofty shrines of stone and wood, and left unfinished and in ruins still the only temple he delights to fill. This poem, it vividly depicts the situation in the world at the time of Enoch. That's why it's called Enoch, this poem. A situation that despite the temporary spiritual boost that he must have had and must have given to his contemporaries as they heard of his being translated to heaven, Perhaps at that time, a good number of Enoch's contemporaries were for a time stirred within about the event and maybe they too began to walk with God. But with the passing of time and the explosion of the population, the memory of Enoch's heavenly walk began to fade. And no doubt after some time, there were many who dismissed the whole story about his translation to heaven. They began to say, well, it was just a fantastic dream that a few crazies told us about, but we don't believe it anymore. It was so long ago, they thought. It's just a feel-good story that people made up. We make everybody religious and help you get through hard times. We know better, though. And besides, we've got a whole lot of other things that we've got to take care of and give attention to. And in this manner, The pre-flood culture began its descent into unbelief and plodged headlong into such depravity that the whole society deserved to die. The history of the pre-flood world, it contained in the early chapters that are in Genesis that we've been looking at, is something of a microcosm, a little picture of the entire history of the human race. In chapters four and five, we have witnessed a manner in which after the fall, the human race was split into two different companies of people. Chapter four displays the line of the ungodly descendants of Cain, proudly reveling in their worldly achievements while the children of Seth, by way of contrast, began to call on the name of the Lord. Two different races, so to speak, on the earth at the same time. The seed of the woman, the seed of the serpent. And in the millennium and a half that covered chapter five, there are bursts of spiritual light here and there in the history of the line of Seth, the godly line. But when we come to the opening verses of chapter six, we are sadly informed that during those centuries, even among the descendants of Seth, there was a ripening of sin that eventually was so drastic that God decided to cleanse the world with a massive flood. And sadly, we are seeing the same kind of decadent trend in post-Enlightenment Western culture. Jesus himself draws a parallel between the world at the time of the flood and before the flood and the world that will be at his second coming. As were the days of Noah, he says, so will be the coming of the son of man. When we come to chapter six now, this chapter opens with what all commentators agree is the most difficult passage in the book of Genesis. It contains statements that are so strange to modern ears that some people have concluded that this is mythical, it's legendary. And yet I would argue that in no uncertain terms that this account is neither a myth nor a fable and that it is rather an integral part of the ancient history of God's people and of the human race from God's perspective. It sets the stage for one of the greatest events in the history of redemption. It relates three developments that took place. These first four verses. And if we had time, we were going to look at all three. We're going to look at the, actually the first one, but the three of these marriage corrupted violence, idolized and restraint removed. We're just going to look at the first. It's a very complicated matter as we look at the first two verses where we have categorized this as being a state in which marriage was corrupted. Let me read those verses again. Now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful. and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. Now verse one, it forms a link from this chapter back to chapter five. It notes that in the earliest ages of the earth, when men were living at that time around 900 years on the average, there was a rapid increase. Population exploded because people lived so long they could keep producing. Men were multiplying, we are told, on the face of the earth. And likewise, daughters were being born in great numbers. And because of this, women available for marriage were plentiful. And we have no problem understanding the basic picture, therefore, that's conveyed by verse one. Verse one tells us that when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, that daughters were born to them. That's the situation. But now enter the problematic reference in verse two to the sons of God. What are these sons of God? Who are they? Where did they come from? They seem to come out of nowhere. It seems like there's no explanation as to who these sons of God are. Moses seems to take it for granted that, well, his readers, they must be very well aware of what he's talking about, but As we read it, we feel sometimes some of us, we're left in the dark. We wish we could go back and ask Moses when he wrote this, what were you referring to when you talked about the sons of God? But if the identity of the sons of God was obvious to ancient readers, it's lost to many of us. And therefore we're left with the task of listing various possibilities and trying to discern which possibility has the greatest number of strengths and the least number of weaknesses. Now the entire thrust of this passage, it hinges on the identity of what is called the sons of God in verse 2. Now I could just tell you what I think is the right interpretation and just move on, and just trust that you're gonna say, well, Pastor Sarver studied it out, and so he must know what's right, and so we're just gonna believe what Pastor Sarver tells us. That's the approach I could take. I could just tell you what I think is right, and we could just move on. But in this church, we don't believe in priests that tell you what to believe. And you just blindly trust whatever the priest has to say. Now obviously that doesn't mean that we have to go into every nuance of Hebrew grammar and all the details. There's a bewildering amount of that when you read the technical commentaries on this passage. There are times when it is best, yes, just to let you know what a certain word means in the original, but there are other times when it's appropriate to explain to you why we believe a particular interpretation is correct. Part of good preaching involves training God's people how to read the Bible, how to interpret the Bible. So then, who are these sons of God in verse two? And I'm giving you this little bit of apology for this explanation because we're gonna have to do a little thinking here this morning. I'm gonna ask you to put your thinking caps on. There are four possibilities that have been suggested. And the first possibility I want to examine is this. Are these fallen angels? Now this is perhaps the oldest interpretation, and it's the interpretation reflected in the Septuagint. Now some of the rabbis and some of the early church fathers, they came to the conclusion that the sons of God were heavenly, angelic beings that came to earth. And these angelic beings had unnatural relationships with human daughters. In this interpretation, it was largely popularized by the apocryphal book, the Book of Enoch. I want to read you just a few excerpts from what Enoch says. And it came to pass, when the children of men had multiplied, that in those days beautiful and comely daughters were born to them. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another, come, let's choose for ourselves wise from among the children of men, and beget children for ourselves. And then they all swore together, and they bound themselves by mutual imprecations, And they were all in all 200 who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon. And these are the names of their leaders. And then the names are given. And all the others together with them, they took for themselves wives. And they began to go into them and defile themselves with them. And they became pregnant and they bore great giants whose height was 300 elves who consumed all the acquisitions of men. Personally, I am really surprised how much weight has been given to this book, the Book of Edom, by readers, even scholars. It's filled with extravagant outlandish tales. And for instance, in just what I read to you, this assertion that there were giants that emerged, and this passage does talk about giants, even in Genesis, and these unions brought forth giants. There were 300 elves, and elves is another word, an ancient word for Cubans. In other words, these were men that were 4,500 feet tall. Now, is that a believable thing, that this was something that God caused to happen on earth? Not only does this book deserve no place, I think, in the Bible, it doesn't deserve to be considered a reliable historical source. But, upon immediate inspection, The text of Genesis chapter six, verses one to three, it does appear to give us some support to the idea that these sons of God are not humans. We would naturally assume that daughters of men, they represent human women, and that they're being contrasted with non-humans, which are called the sons of God. And if the contrast is just between human men and human women, we would simply read that there are sons and daughters, the sons of men, the daughters of men. And furthermore, it's argued, those who adopt this view, that in the rest of the Old Testament, this phrase, sons of God, it usually refers to angels. For instance, in Job chapter one and verse six, and in Job 2 and verse 1, where we read of the sons of God appearing before God to make a case to argue before the Lord in His heavenly court, this phrase, sons of God, clearly refers to angels in that context. And likewise in Job 38.7, we read that when God laid the foundations of the earth, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Clearly a reference again to angels at the creation of the earth. And likewise, in Psalm 29.1 and Psalm 82.6, these texts refer to angels as mighty ones. Not the exact same construction, but they use a similar Hebrew construction. And this is probably, I think, the strongest argument for this position, that the sons of God in this text refer to angels. And yet it is weakened by the fact that all of these references that I've just quoted and others, there are a few others that I could have added, they're outside the five books of Moses. And so they don't tell us a whole lot about what Moses was thinking about when he used that phrase, the sons of God. And there's another thing that's characteristic of all these other texts. They're all in poetic portions of scripture where figurative expressions abound. And in the immediate context of Genesis chapter six and verse two, it doesn't provide any support for the idea that the sons of God are angels. You have to put this in from somewhere else and go to all these other verses, but right to context, there's nothing that suggests that they're angels. They just appear out of the blue. This reference, sons of God, there's no introduction. But then also defenders of this view, they add that in the Bible, Angels sometimes took bodily form. And here I'm referring especially to the appearance of the angel of the Lord, Gideon, and to others, the appearance of three visitors to Abraham. And so these certainly were pictures of not just human beings, but in this case, they were actually examples of the appearance of the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus. And on the darker side, the assertion of this idea into Genesis chapter six and verse two, it reminds us not of the Lord Jesus and his appearance as the angel of the Lord, but of the idea that's adopted in magic in which the incubus or a male demon assumes a male body and has intercourse with an unsuspecting woman while she's sleeping. And it should also be added that references to the angel of the Lord, they usually refer to the incarnate Christ, pre-incarnate Christ. And so it should be noted that while we don't have any descriptions of the Bible of a demon assuming a visible form, it'd be strange to expect that in this one place, that that's what happens here. Instead, every time you read a description of evil spirits, They're evil spirits that don't have a body themselves, but they have to search for a body. They have to search for human bodies to inhabit. It's also argued, to defend this view, that the sons of God in Genesis 6 are angels, and that this is supported by 2 Peter 2. So maybe you could hold your place there. This is a major text that is cited. You could turn with me to 2 Peter 2. We want to be fair to this view and state the most strong arguments that are used for this interpretation. 2 Peter 2, we read in verses 4 through 6. We read in verse 4, for if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and deliver them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward should live ungodly. and delivered righteous Lot who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. For that righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds. Then the Lord," all that is an if, then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment. Now in this passage, it's assumed by the people that take this interpretation that because in one verse, Peter refers in this place, verse four, to the angels that sinned and fell. In the next verse, he refers to Noah being saved out of that world by the flood, that this is referring to the same event. But I submit to you that these are three separate events, the fall of the angels, the fall of the people in Noah's time, and the fall of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, each of which were destroyed. And in the case of Noah's time, in the case of the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, the whole point that Peter is making is that the Lord knows how to deliver his people from those times. Only in the first case, the fall of the angels, was there no deliverance, but God knows how to deliver his people as they go through evil times. That's the point that Peter is making. And he mentions these cases, these two instances of those that sinned and were judged, but in both cases, how God spared the elect. He spared Noah, he spared Lot. And because this passage, it refers to three very separate events, I do not believe it supports the position that angels fell when they lusted after beautiful female humans. Well, I've given you the main arguments for this idea that the sons of God in Genesis 1 and verse 2 were either angels who fell by lusting after women or that they were fallen angels that did so. And what I want to say is that I find these arguments unconvincing at best. Exegetes that I have great respect for, I didn't want to quote them because some of them have been helpful to me in many ways. And yet, they have made a valid case but they have not convinced me. Now let me just pass over the second option just briefly. I don't want to get into so many details here. One, this is kind of a minority view, not where many interpreters take this view, but it leads us to ask whether the sons of God in Genesis 6 are rulers. There's this theory that the sons of God were dynastic rulers. And this was an early royal aristocracy in the ancient world. And basically what this is describing is rulers having a harem. They took wives and they, and it's a, therefore a passage that condemns polygamy. And there are reasons why I don't think that this is a very sound view. And yet I think I don't want to get bogged down with this view because it's not something that is very well believed. But let's pay attention a little bit to a third view that we have in your notes. Are the sons of God in Genesis 6 just simply men in general? It's been proposed that in this phrase, this phrase the sons of God, it's just a reference to the fact that all men are created in the image of God. Adam was a son of God in that way. And he was in his father's likeness, in God's likeness. And so this is just a reference to mankind in general that he's created in God's image. And the sin that's being condemned here, it's not an unnatural union between angels and women, but rather the fact that in choosing their wives, this is their sin, they weren't looking at any higher thing than the fact that these women were beautiful. You notice in verse 2, going back to Genesis chapter 6, what do we read there? It says, sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, and they took wise for themselves of all whom they chose. So this interpretation, it says that this is what it's saying here, is these were just men in general, that the only thing they did was look to the beautiful appearance of women, and they married them. And they took themselves, took wise for themselves. It's a simple, normal way in which in Hebrew, there's a reference to marriage, For example, in Genesis 11, 29, we read, then, Noah and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah. So they took wives. They got married to them. In other words, that's what it means. And in describing the events that are prior to the flood, Jesus, he doesn't mention anything out of the ordinary in terms of the weddings that took place back then. It's precisely the ordinariness of everything that was going on that Jesus highlights. He says, for in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and did not know until the flood came and took them all away. Matthew 24. Well, I want to say that I'm somewhat open to this third view. However, It does seem that if Genesis 6.2 is merely referring to men marrying women, that the contrast would simply be, this is the way it would be put, between the sons of men and the daughters of men. And it seems a strange way to make that contrast, to have the one be sons of God, if that's referring to just all mankind, and the daughters of men, a way of contrast. Now, you might have guessed that I've kind of given away what I believe is the right view because we've only got one left, right? I've saved the one that I really believe in for the last. Okay, you figured me out. And it's the view, the fourth view, that in this text, the sons of God are the godly line of Seth and the daughters of men are the ungodly Cainites. The sin, therefore, it was a forbidden union. It was a yoking together in marriage of believers with unbelievers. According to this interpretation, Moses refers to men in general in verse 1 and then in verse 2 he refers to a specific division within mankind. That division is the division between the line of Seth and the line of Cain. The sons of God being the line of Seth and the daughters of men a representation of the line of Cain. And I wanna ask you to give me a few minutes to tell you why I believe this interpretation is most likely the correct one. And here, various writers have been very helpful to me, but I would especially commend the summary that's provided by John Murray in his book, The Principles of Conduct. In the first place, this fits the context of the book of Genesis the best, this interpretation. Interpretation in interpretation context is king. And even when we interpret a word, individual words, context dictates which meaning we will choose. A word may ordinarily, and it may be the most common meaning to a certain word, but in a specific context, another meaning maybe fits better, even though it's a minority in terms of how often it's used in the Old Testament. We do this in the English language. Take the word with. You could say, I went to the store with my wife. What do you mean when you say that? You say, we went together. But what about if I say, the Americans fought with the British in the Revolutionary War. What am I saying there? I'm using that exact same word with. And instead of together with, it means against. Totally different. Now somebody was just hearing that statement, the Americans fought with the British in the Revolutionary War, and they knew nothing of the history of the Revolutionary War, they would instantly, naturally conclude, well the Americans and the British must have been on the same side. And obviously that's not the case, because context is being ignored to come up with that interpretation. Now in the two chapters that immediately precede Genesis chapter 6 and verse 2, The line of Seth is distinguished by the significant observation that within that lineage, men began to call in the name of the Lord, chapter four and verse 26. And this is set in stark contrast to the ungodly line of Cain. Cain's descendants became famous for their inventions and for their building cities. In Cain's line we read of Lamech who boasts about him murdering a young man just because that young man injured him. But when we get to the story of the line of Seth in the next chapter, what do we read about? We don't read about people boasting and murder. We read about Enoch who walked with God and how the Lord took him to heaven prematurely. How he translated him while he was still alive. And then we have a story that we looked at last time of Godly Lamech in chapter 5 and verse 29, where he called his son Noah. And he says, this one is going to comfort us, or this is the one that's going to relieve us concerning our work and the toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord has cursed. He's looking in faith. to what God is going to do. He thinks that maybe this promise about the seed of the woman is finally going to be fulfilled. And maybe Noah is the one to be an agent of change in this awful situation that we're in, telling the ground and all the rest. Now throughout, so we have this example of Noah. We have also Noah in chapter six and verse nine, not only what's said about him, but We read about Noah, this is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. These are the stories told about people that are in the line of Seth. Now, all of this prepares us therefore for a distinction to be made between one lineage and another. the godly line being referred to as the sons of God, and the ungodly women being merely referred to as the daughters of men. Now, throughout the Bible, God calls his people his children. It should come as no surprise when we read, therefore, in Genesis chapter six and verse two, where these godly ones, this godly line, are called the sons of God. They're the children of God, at least externally professing so. They're the sons of God, the children of God. Throughout the Bible, that's what God calls his children. And so it should not be surprised then when we therefore come across this phrase. And sadly though, after centuries of spiritual declension, even this godly line had declined. And we read here about how the way in which they sinned in their marital choices. And also underscoring the distinction between these two lines that we have just described, the line of Seth and the line of Cain, let's not overlook how these two lineages were the early fulfillment of the promise that was made to Eve in Genesis chapter three and verse 15 of two seeds. There are two lineages, the seed of the woman and she's ultimately gonna be here, her seed is gonna ultimately bring forth a savior. And then there's the seed of the serpent, which will forever be at war with the seed of the woman. There's enmity between them and it'll be enmity forever. So this is the first and I think a powerful argument for understanding this to refer the line of the sons of God to being a reference to the line of Seth. But then a second argument, Genesis 6.2 applies that a grievous wrong has been perpetrated in the marriages that took place. As we read this chapter, we don't read, therefore, of a judgment coming on the angels. If these sons of God and the great crime was committed by them, you'd think that there'd be a great judgment that's described on the angels. But nothing is said about that. It's all about how God judges man. The judgment falls on sinful men and sinful women. And we read of God identifying mankind as the reason for the judgment, not fallen angels in verse 3. He says, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. And as we read this whole section of Genesis 6, we discover a society that's become so degenerate that even the Sethites, apart now from the one godly family, the family of Noah, eventually had apostatized. The sons of God, they were the initiators here of the great declension that took place. And this declension took place when they married unbelieving Canaanite women. governed merely by the beauty of these women that they married, and by no higher considerations, they were engulfed by the ungodly society into which they married. Now if the great sin that's being punished was that which had been perpetrated by angels, if that was the case, it seems obvious that God would have named them as the great criminals that need to be held to account, and he has to bring a great judgment upon them for this. And the fact that they were apostatizing from such a high and holy privilege, falling from being angels that are pure and now degrading themselves to do what they supposedly did here, this would have cried out even more for a great judgment. They apostatized from a pure holy heaven, from being with God and having no excuse, therefore, for what they're doing here. Everything works in favor of their remaining heavenly and holy. And this would have cried out for severe judgment, but instead all the focus is on the sin of human beings, crying out to heaven for judgment. If the angels were the chief culprits, why the complete destruction of mankind while the angels go unpunished? Verse three makes it abundantly plain that it's with man that God has a controversy. And then thirdly, there's not the slightest hint in all the word of God that angels or demons are capable of sexual functions. Jesus categorically refutes the notion of the Sadducees that if there is such a resurrection of the dead, that this would introduce confusion about who is married to who. That's what the Sadducees, they thought Jesus had over the barrel over this. If you get to heaven and you have more than one person you're married to, who's the one? And Jesus declares in no uncertain terms in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven. Angels don't marry. And yet this theory is that this is what they're doing here, they're marrying. And this is contrary to what Jesus says there. Marriage necessarily involves marital intimacy, but the whole idea of angels being involved in such physical intimacy It was totally foreign to Hebrew thought. And the expression in Genesis 6 in verse 2, that the sons of God took wives for themselves, this is the common Old Testament reference to marriage. It's not an expression that a Hebrew would have ever used to describe the abnormal, bizarre, and monstrous relationship that is imagined by those who conceive of the idea that what we have here is a sexual union between angels and women. Therefore, John Calvin uses very strong language. When he says of that view that this is the sin in view is perpetrated by angels, he says it is abundantly refuted by its own absurdity. It is surprising that learned men should formerly have been fascinated by ravings so gross and prodigious. And then one more argument here. Men are sometimes called sons of God in scripture. It's noteworthy. that some of the instances of men being called sons of God, or of God referring to his people as my son or my sons or my children, it's interesting that whereas these references to the sons of God being angels are in theoretic books, these references, some of them, to God's children being his, God's people being his sons, are in the books of Moses. In Exodus chapter four, verses 22 and 23, the Lord says to Moses, You shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my son. So I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me. Deuteronomy 14.1, you are the children of the Lord your God. Hosea 1.10, God promises that when he restores his people, it will be said of his people, you are the sons of the living God. We could cite several other texts, but in Genesis 6, In the context where two lines are assumed throughout the narrative, the seed of the woman, through the line of Seth, and the seed of the serpent, and you realize through the line of Cain, it shouldn't be thought out of place for Moses to refer to those from the God line as being the sons of God. In fact, it seems that Moses, he does this on purpose, because he wants to stress the heinousness of their apostasy. These were the ones that had special privilege. These are the ones that were called God's children. These are the ones that bore God's name. These are the ones that therefore should have known better. And they went and they married the wrong people and descended therefore into great wickedness along with them. Well, I want to take a few minutes as we conclude to give you a couple of practical lessons from this passage. First of all I want to stress is a solemn warning against romantic relationships and marriages between believers and unbelievers. The consequences of rejecting this principle are immense. What are the consequences? Verse 5, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he grieved in his heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy men whom I've created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. The intermarriages that took place back then polluted the whole human race except for eight people. It was so polluted that eventually only eight people were spared the awful deluge. And the emphasis of this passage, it's not that at that time gross abhorrent unions were taking place between angels and men. The emphasis you see of this passage is the terrible danger to one's soul if one marries an unconverted person. It's a danger to your soul. It's a danger to your children's souls. It's a danger to your grandchildren's souls. It's a danger to society and the wickedness that goes on from generation to generation. That's what happens when you make that awful choice. This is what brought Solomon down. This is what brought Samson down. And this was the great sin that Moses warns about again and again in the books of Moses, the temptation to marry beautiful women among the pagans. And when this began to take place among even the remnant that came back, when they were having somewhat of a revival and yet they slipped back into their old ways, this is the sin that made Ezra and Nehemiah weep. They knew the history of this. They could see centuries of what this had done. Now the subtlety of the serpent of this chapter is remarkable. In chapter four, the seed of the serpent tries to end the line of the woman's seed through outright murder. And so Abel is murdered by Cain. That was Satan's plot at that point. It didn't work very well though, because God raised up a son, Seth. And so here, Satan, it seems like he's learning a little bit better how to destroy people. He demonstrates far more subtlety that has far more success. He seduces the godly line into unholy marital unions. He uses the charm of beautiful women that didn't know the Lord to ensnare the godly. And then having ensnared them into lifelong relationships, relationships that surrounded the godly with ungodly people and relatives, it constantly set traps for them, enticing them to please their beautiful wives and their wives' relatives of the like. And more and more, they became like the ungodly people into whose houses and societies they married. Paul is crystal clear about this matter as he writes about whether you should get married or whether you shouldn't get married. And what happens if your spouse dies? What about remarriage? He says in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 39, a wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives. But if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes Only in the Lord. That's categoric, my friends. Only in the Lord. In his little booklet, Whom Shall I Marry, Andrew Swanson, missionary to Cyprus, the father of our dear friend who comes and preaches to us, his son from time to time, he wrote a little booklet about this whole issue about whom I should marry. And he addresses the difficulty faced by Christians in a Muslim country. What if there are no Christians to marry? What do you do? In such places, Christians are sometimes left with this as their only choice, either marry an unbeliever or don't marry at all. Those are your two choices. Which are you going to choose? And expresses in this book his deep sympathy for people that are left with this alternative, and not only this alternative, But he emphasizes that God's rule cannot be broken without the most serious consequences. The matter is so urgent that in some cases the believer has to decide, well, I guess I'm never gonna get married. That's what God left me with. I'm not gonna marry. Mr. Swanson sets up a syllogism. Major premise, the believer must not marry an unbeliever. That's what the Bible teaches. Minor premise, there's no believers around here to marry. Conclusion, therefore the believer cannot marry. Simple as that. Now consider the reality that we're dealing with here. This is the enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And this being the case, in any attempt to marry an unbeliever, there can never be complete peace. There's an enmity that's there. To marry an unbeliever, dear people, is to marry a child of the devil. Jesus said to the religious leaders that were opposing him, you are of your father the devil and the desires of your father you want to do. They were the seed of the serpent. Later in the same gospel, he went on to warn his disciples of the world hates you. You know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. He says in John chapter 15. Listen to me, young people. Marriage to an unconverted person is marriage to a potential enemy for life. Do you get the seriousness of that? I want to repeat this. to an unconverted person is essentially committing yourselves to marry an enemy for life. There's enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Now I don't doubt for a minute that God is able to save an unconverted spouse. And there are cases of which, and I know of cases where this has happened, and it's caused great joy among God's people when this takes place. But usually when there is such a conversion, it's usually because they were both unconverted to begin with and then one got converted and then faithfully tried to be a testimony. Or the case sometimes can be that there is a marriage in which they thought the other person was converted and it turns out that person was not converted. But usually these rare cases happen as such a result. But when a believer marries an unbeliever, willingly doing this, it usually is the case that the unbeliever remains unconverted. And when this takes place, the believer is trapped in a situation in which he is joined in the most intimate of all earthly unions. But this union turns out to be a union with a lifelong enemy. If only believers could just see this, if they could only see the lifelong trials that await them if they make this kind of a choice. And again, please listen to me. I don't want you to have a lifetime of misery. You say, Pastor, I don't know how I can ever find somebody. I gotta find somebody. Do you really wanna have a lifetime of misery? Marriage to an unbeliever, it will constantly hinder your spiritual life. In Genesis chapter 2 and verse 20, we read that God gave Adam his wife that she could be a suitable helper. And God made the man and the woman to help one another. Each partner in the marriage needs the help of the other. There's strengths in the wife, strengths in the husband. And the husband, even though he's the stronger vessel, he needs the help of his wife. He needs a companion that's gonna share his life and somebody that he can confide in about everything. He needs a mother that's gonna raise their children in a godly way. And likewise, the wife needs a partner that's gonna provide for her and care for her, give her companionship, and above all, lead her in the ways of God. In a Christian marriage, each partner needs the other. Each partner helps the other spiritually. How, I ask, how will this ever happen? If in a divided house, you try to take your life spiritually, your faith spiritually, and go to church regularly, contribute to the church, and your spouse hates the fact you're giving money to the church, and you want to use your home as a witness, and your spouse doesn't want to have those people around, how is that going to happen? Do you see what it's going to do to your spiritual life? It's going to keep you from church. It's going to keep you from being among God's people. It's going to keep you from serving the Lord like you wish you could. And so before you marry such a person, consider the lifetime grief that you're going to have. At every turn, your spouse will oppose what's most dear to you. And worse yet, your unconverted spouse eventually will wear you down, just like it happened in the ancient world. In his commentary on Genesis, John Currid relates, my wife and I know a number of couples that have spiritually mixed marriages, that is between a Christian and a non-Christian. And invariably, the Christian is the one who is caused to stumble. who ends up not pursuing the things of the Lord. What an evil ploy of the devil. Students of mine used to call such relationships missionary marriages. My question was always, which one is the missionary? Now remember, too, that your choice of a spouse, it's gonna affect your ability to raise a godly seed. We're talking about cultures and societies. A seed that brings up families that bring up godly children and train them in the ways of the Lord. And remember the history of Genesis 4 to 6, therefore. When the sons of God married the daughters of men, what was the long-term result? It was catastrophic. In his wonderful little booklet, Andrew Swanson, he gives examples of various cases. And I want to just read one of these examples. I wanted to read two, but we're running out of time. Ali is a young man from a Middle Eastern village. His father is a very devout Muslim. So when Ali became a believer in Jesus, he told the rest of his family, but not his father. And when it was time for him to marry, he could not tell his father that he did not want to marry a Muslim wife. He said he must have a girl who did not cover her head. You see, he's trying to do, he's trying to subtly get a Christian woman, but not show that he's a Christian. And the engagement went ahead. And when Ali's believing friends warned him, he assured them that the girl was not as very strong Muslim. And after they were married, he was sure if he were a good loving husband that she would see this came from his faith and she would believe too. Ali was married nearly two years ago and they've been very hard years. He has to work long hours to provide for his wife and now his son. In the little free time that he has, his wife rightly wants his attention. He's never able to meet with his believing friends to worship. His wife has never shown any interest in his faith, and he is a very sad man. We could cite many other examples like that. Because of the consequences at stake, I would also urge you young people to take care of the guardrails that God has given you. the consent of godly parents, and the quality control of church membership. Many people pass themselves off to be Christians that are not really true believers. There's a quality control process where people have to be interviewed by elders and be received by the people. Take advantage of that quality control and your choice to make sure that you are married and you are going to marry a believer and a believer only. The passage that we have studied, and here I just want to close with just a brief comment here, it also provides us with a warning against the preoccupation with external beauty in such matters. Verse two, it stresses that this is what governed their choice of who they were going to marry. Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful. That's what swayed them. It describes people ensnared by the beauty of women, rather than prioritizing other considerations, spiritual faithfulness, spiritual godliness. And so they thoughtlessly plunged themselves into dangerous relationships. And the result was the corruption of a holy seed, corruption of a holy remnant, and a corruption that spread so badly from generation to generation that eventually only eight souls were saved. I'm not saying that it's wrong to be attracted to a beautiful woman. In most cases, a guy's eye is first caught by the appearance of the woman that he's interested in, as long as that woman loves the Lord. And indeed, often that's the case. But young men, you need to look deep. You need to look for the hidden beauty of your heart, that which is precious in God's sight. that which will be a far greater value and a far greater source of blessing and happiness as you go on in life. And young ladies, beware of young men that are just looking for beauty and external things. Concentrate on what, by God's grace, you can cultivate that's better than that, that will attract a young man that's looking for a godly woman that loves the Lord and wants to raise a family for the praise and the glory of God. And remember that that beauty can only come from Christ. If you're out of Christ, you disqualify from this discussion at all. And the way to have a godly home, way to have a happy home, really, is to become a Christian. To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart, follow him, repenting of your sin, turning from it all, turning from the way of Cain, the way of the seed of the serpent, and all the misery that's brought upon the world. and come to the blessing and the joy and the wonder of being a child of God. Let's pray. Father, we thank you and bless you that you give it to us. This graphic picture of the danger that we have preached about And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to have some sense knocked into our heads that we would be protected against that which will be destructive to our families, to our churches, and to our society. And beginning with us, a destructive thing in our own hearts and lives. Oh, Lord, we pray that you would protect our young people, enable them to make godly choices, we do pray. Enable them especially to make that first godly choice of following the Lord Jesus and having Him to be their Savior, and then that second godly choice of who they will marry. Help us as parents to be a guide to them, as a church to be a help to them. Help us, O Lord, that we will not degenerate as that old society did back then, but that as we heard in the first hour that for centuries, as a result of the ministry of this church, There will be faithful people that love you and follow you. Obey your commandments and don't compromise on these issues that we have spoken about. Help us, Lord, to be on the Lord's side, your side and not alone, the side of the seed of the woman. Grant us grace, we pray. We pray in Christ's name, amen.