Q&A 26 Who are the 'sons of God' in Genesis chapter 6?

We have a handout which I'll have to explain why it is the way it is. But before we get to the handout that I have to explain, I have some other explaining to do. I have a lot of things to explain. So excuse me this morning while I explain myself. I'm going to catch up on odds and ends from prior weeks. leftovers, things that have cropped up or that sort of thing.

One of the things we said, because we went over three weeks of passages that demonstrate that a believer cannot lose his or her salvation, and then two weeks addressing passages that are supposedly pointing to loss of salvation. One of the points that we made was that since the believer is identified with Christ, we said that there isn't any passage that says you get booted out of Christ. There isn't a passage that said that somebody is taken out of Christ. There isn't some passage that says that somebody who is a believer gets unseated from the heavenlies. Boy, that's a long fall.

So now I said that, and nobody's come up you know, to me and said, Vern, what about this? But I found something and I thought, well, I better bring it up before somebody does. Right? So, can we get kicked out of Christ is the question, which comes back to a question from weeks ago. Galatians 5, 2 through 6 I'm going to zero in on verse 4. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law. You have fallen from grace. So does that mean that what I told you was mistaken? Okay. Does it? Yes? No? Okay.

One of the distinctions that is often overlooked Frankly, seminaries don't teach it, churches don't teach it as they ought. But rather, one of the distinctions that is important to make is the distinction between position and condition. And I would submit to you that this passage here in verse 4 is not about is not about someone losing their salvation, it is not about a loss of the position that a believer has in Christ, but a loss in their condition. See? Important distinction.

It is one of the main reasons that, as we have said, that people mistakenly arrive at the conclusion you can lose your salvation they fail to distinguish between position and condition now what are some reasons that this is not pointing to the idea that these believers who and he's he says have fallen who have fallen from grace they've been severed from price what are some other reasons why you would say that's about our condition, and I like to preface it with the word daily to emphasize that, it's about our daily condition, not our eternal position. What are some of the reasons why that would be the case? Okay, it was our being placed in Him was not because we did something. It was because God did it, right? Okay, so that's part one and an excellent answer. Gary? Okay. That's right. And that's interesting.

He never went and said, well, look, you guys aren't Christians anymore, right? As a matter of fact, right after this passage, He is writing to them, still urging, but he puts in a comma and he says, brethren, okay? Comma afterwards. So there is an ongoing recognition, even as he has this rather intense exhortation. I mean, this is the book where he says, who has bewitched you? He gets very intense in the book of Galatians. He's rather blunt.

But as he does so, He doesn't turn around and say, you guys have lost your salvation. He continues to call them brethren. He continues to call them a church. And his urging is not that they re-believe. His urging is not that they come about and get saved again. His urging later on in this very chapter is walk by means of the Spirit. It's about your walk. not your salvation.

So anyway, this is a passage that brings that point. Here is the way I put verse 4 in verse 5 when I did expand and explain this. We were teaching through this a few years ago. If you take but one step to place yourself under the law, you will have been severed from the awesome spiritual advantage of being in Christ daily. You are in Christ daily, but you'll lose the advantages of it. See? That's the point. You who are seeking to be declared righteous by law, you have fallen in your condition from the grace in which you stand by position. You already stand there in your position. You have fallen in your daily condition.

See the distinction there? For we, through the spirit of which the law has no part, by faith, in contrast to the law, are waiting for the certain future hope that we have in Christ, founded on a righteousness that we already have." So anyway, this is a passage that can be thrown at Christians and say, But, remember the distinction. He's not saying, you guys aren't Christians anymore. He calls them, right in the same chapter, brethren. So it is abundantly clear. One of the word pairs that we have used to help illustrate the point. We always, eternally, have a relationship with Christ. That doesn't change. What changes is our fellowship. What changes is our fellowship. The illustration that I've given in the past is Randy is always my son. That's going to be the way it always is.

If I were to do something that were to offend Randy and his family greatly, that might damage our fellowship. He might say, Dad, that was terrible for you to do that or say that. And that would damage our fellowship. But the relationship, I'm his father, he's my son, would not change, would it? So we can do something, as the Galatians were doing, by going back to the law, we can do something to interrupt and disrupt our fellowship. But the relationship still stands and always will. That theory? Yep, and it is absolutely clear.

He is blunt. He does not compromise. He doesn't back off. He doesn't tap dance around it. There's one gospel. The gospel is by grace, period, nothing else. They are in Christ. They are believers. He calls them brethren. right in this very chapter. Why? Because they have believed the gospel that he presented. Are they confused? Apparently. But are they lost because of this? No. They still have the relationship even though the fellowship has been broken.

I saw that. I also, a few weeks ago, told you about this fellow because we were talking about people who are unbelievers and how do we deal with them. This fellow here who showed up on Facebook just a couple weeks before I brought him up here and we mentioned that on his Facebook account, his religious views, he says he's a Christian.

His favorite quote is John 3.16. Since this, I told you about this, he's had a heart attack. And I wrote to him, and I said, Bill, we'll let it go this time, but never do that again. And he said, it's OK. I'm ready to meet my father, which is amazing. This guy, when I knew him in high school, was just gross. He grossed me out all the time. He was terrible. And I don't mean just eating frogs or something. He was a really terrible guy. The Lord has changed this man phenomenally.

And it's a neat thing to see. I also told you, was it last week or the week before that, two weeks ago? about this tree that had been cut down in the 1920s and had been turned into rock, become petrified already. And I showed you pictures, there's a sample of it right over here afterwards. You can come and take a look at it.

It's heavy as can be. I would not want to try to use a saw on it. I would not want it to drop on my foot. It's no longer wood, not even remotely. But feel free to come and take a look at it afterwards and check it out and don't bite it. Not good. Yeah, it's hard. So that's one.

Another point, because we're going to move on from here, there are some questions. If we have time, we'll consider it. But we could spend the rest of the year talking about some of the scientific arguments about origins and things of that sort. But one of the points we made, and I just would like to underscore it, is in the questions of origins, there will always be unverifiable assumptions. And the problem is, like, even we've had speakers, you know, speak here in this room about creation and, you know, a very well-qualified scientist. And I've also, you know, spoken to a number who don't believe in creation, including back when I was thinking that the Genesis account, it spoke of long days that the earth was old. I was involved with a Christian organization that promoted the idea that the earth was old. Bottom line, no matter what perspective you're coming from, everybody gets involved in the discussion and all each debate and point.

The bottom line is there will always be unverifiable assumptions. We will always have to assume If you're going to go through and look at history before there was anybody around, you are always in the position of having non-repeatable events. You're always in the position of having to assume things about rates, original amounts, always. how things were accomplished. Has the gravitational constant, which determines how things operate in the universe, has that always been the same? We can only assume that we cannot go back and check it out, test it, repeat it.

One of the reasons I have this shot here from Jurassic Park, even if we were able to take dinosaur DNA and oddly enough, we actually do have some. But even if we were able to take some dinosaur DNA and create dinosaurs and have them reproduce, would that tell us anything about how dinosaurs reproduced in the past? No. If we created a number of dinosaurs, which I would say is probably not advisable, but if we created a number of dinosaurs, It still would not give us insight into what happened in the past with certainty. We would have to project back with assumptions.

Because nobody was there, we can't reproduce the original process. We simply cannot go there. And so there will always be assumptions. Here is the formula, and it's the one I used when I worked on the carbon-14 dating project when I was majoring in geology. Here's the formula for the carbon-14 dating. It looks like I've got mathematical precision, right? But what that formula is based on is several assumptions, which can never be fully verified. and the farther you go back in time with other radioactive ratios, the more assumptions you have to make and the longer a period of time you have to assume those assumptions hold without the ability to verify them. Not really. I will always have to operate with unverifiable assumptions. You go through and run through the calculations. You still always have unverifiable assumptions. You cannot go back and verify them.

The horse series, I mentioned that because we went out and dug up most of these fossils. I'd dig up these horse fossils and we'd dig up hundreds of them. We'd go around places where there was horses and rhinoceros and camels and bear and all sorts of things. We couldn't crossbreed the fossils and test what descended from what.

You never could. You just can't do it. So even as we get a creationist scientist or a non-creationist scientist or someone who is a believer but believes in the long age, as I once did, all those people as well qualified as they are in the realm of science, are all dealing with unverifiable assumptions. All of them. The creation scientist, he's assuming things that he can never verify scientifically. The one who believes in evolution is assuming things that he can never verify scientifically. Can't do it. They all must assume something. You know why? We're not God, right? Only God was there. Only God was there. And not anybody else.

And it doesn't matter what kind of degrees they have after their name, how many of them they have after their name. It doesn't matter how well-renowned or well-respected they are. They still have to make unverifiable assumptions. So a high degree of expertise does still not get around the idea that you've got unverifiable assumptions to make.

As a matter of fact, someone will say, well, this person is a scientist. Yes, but that person is also, if they're talking about origins, has faith in their assumptions. They all have faith in their assumptions. Ultimately, I came to realize that God's Word gave me more certainty because I put faith in God's Word instead of assumptions that cannot be verified. It is a way of knowing something apart from what science can arrive at.

Okay, now we have Q&A 26. Who are the sons of God in Genesis chapter 6? And for that you'll need the handout and I still have some explaining to do. You have two different pages. One of them says 1 of 1 and the other says 1 of 2 and 2 of 2. Now, why did I do it that way for the same handout?

The reason is because I got permission on, what was it, on Christmas Eve, 1997. I got permission from the author, whom I've met and talked to, but anyway, I got permission from him to copy this chart. I've made some edits to it, but his permission did not include posting it to the internet. So I, you'll find this on the internet, but not the chart. So that's why I have them separate, so I can post the, two-page part to the internet, but this other part I can't.

But you have it on paper. Okay. What the chart shows, and that's where I'd like you to start, what the chart shows is three columns. Who are the sons of God in Genesis chapter 6 is the passage. And let's have you turn to that. Get your Bibles out. And Genesis chapter 6 begins like this. I'm reading from the New King James Version here.

Now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and the daughters were born to them that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful and they took wise for themselves for all of all whom they choose and the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years. There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown." When the chapter goes on to talk about the wickedness on the earth and things of that sort. Some of the things we'll point out is the word for men in the original language in verse one and the word for men in verse two are two different words.

That's part one. The next thing I'll point out is this word for giants is Nephilim. Nephilim. You may have heard, when you hear the I am ending, Im, from a Hebrew word that's plural, they don't add an S to things to pluralize it, they put I am at the end. So Nephilim.

And then the question, who are the sons of God? About that, there's been quite a bit of discussion, and this is one I've actually been looking at for some years, investigating it and checking things out, including when I first got permission to use this chart from Wayne House. So at any rate, the three views are that the sons of God are angelic creatures, and particularly fallen angels that cohabit with human women. The second view is apostate Sethites, those who are descendants of Seth. The idea with this is that the line of Seth was supposed to be a godly line, and the line of Cain was supposed to be ungodly. And then the Sethites, having degraded themselves, started intermarrying with the Cainites, and therefore produced these Nephilim, these offspring. The next one were ambitious despots, despotic chieftains marrying a plurality of wives, that that was somehow the problem.

What I, in looking at it, have concluded, and one of the things you'll see, the proponents at the bottom indicates that there are people who support all three of those positions, some supporting all three. What I have concluded is that the first interpretation, the angelic creatures, is the correct understanding. Some of the reasons why that is shunned are, one, that it seems like it's very strange, right? Here are these angelic creatures intermarrying with human women. And while certainly that does, on the face of it, seem strange, I think it fits the facts. And so we'd like to step our way through that.

One of the things that you see coming out of there is what is the perversion of each, the angelic creature understanding, the perversion of the human race by the intrusion of fallen angels, fallen angels who have embodied themselves as men. The second column, apostate Sethites, has the perversion as the pollution of the godly line by mixed merit. And then the ambitious despots view, or despots, is dynastic rulers, is progeny, but it's polygamy of the Cainite princes to expand dominion. Here are some of the fundamental difficulties that I see with the Sethites and ambitious despots view.

And that is that I don't see some command to the Sethites, well, you guys stay holy and stay apart from the Cainites, right? Certainly, you see the curse on Cain, but there's nothing to indicate that the line of Seth is godly at any point. It's just they're not as bad as Cain, right? Cain's worse, but that doesn't indicate that the line of Seth is necessarily godly, and there is no command, don't intermarry with this other group. You don't find that, right? The ambitious despots thing, I failed to see anything that calls these ambitious despots or the apostate Sethites the sons of God anywhere.

But angels are called the sons of God several times in the Old Testament. It is a term used for angels in the Old Testament, including the Book of Job. And the Book of Job was a book written about the same time as the account, the original account of Abraham. Job and Abraham were contemporaries. So the Book of Job is an ancient book that seems also to use this term sons of God for angels.

Now, where would we get the idea that the fallen angels still must be regarded as having been created by God and having a status? Where would we get that idea? Why wouldn't you just speak ill of fallen angels and Satan? Why don't we sing songs that just speak badly about the fallen angels? Should we sing some this morning? Well, maybe not, right?

If you look at both 2 Peter and the book of Jude, both of those books warn against reviling angelic majesties, even though the angelic majesties include Satan. Which, by the way, should give us a warning about trying to bind Satan or rebuke him. For it says, even Michael, when he was in battle with Satan, didn't try to revile Satan, but instead said, the Lord rebuke you. I'll let the Lord do it. But it calls these fallen creatures angelic majesties. So very interesting. There is still a recognition of their place in hierarchy, even though they are fallen, and even though their eternal destiny is for the Lake of Fire.

So that's the quick summary. Let's take a look. now at the two-page handout, the separate sheet. We start off by summarizing these three positions and there are of course some variations between those positions. Different people have suggested different things.

One of them, for example, Henry M. Morris, whom I think he's actually spoken here years ago. I'm not certain of that. I know Hal talked to him over the phone once and he told me about it, but at any rate. Henry M. Morris, and I've heard him speak and met him.

He's home with the Lord now. He proposed a variation in the angelic creature's interpretation that fallen angels, that is demons, possess bodies of human men. That demon possession is the explanation of what this is talking about, which would be a slight variation from fallen angels directly embodying themselves as men. In other words, they take existing humans and possess them.

There are a few reasons why, while that's an interesting thing to entertain, I think it doesn't seem to hold up. The Hebrew structure and word choice of Genesis 6-4 is identical to the direct cohabitation of Abraham with Hagar, with Judah, with Shua, etc. in the book of Genesis. So it also does not explain the giant offspring or why demon possession of human males in other contexts, as in the Gospels, doesn't produce this kind of a creature. And also, the other thing is these beings appear, and we'll look at 2 Peter 2, 4, and 5 shortly, appear to be sent to Tartarus, also known as the Abyssos, to be held in spiritual imprisonment until final judgment. So what are we talking about?

Demons, fallen angels, were relegated to the planet Earth when the angels fell with Satan. Revelation chapter 12 says that a third of the angels fell with Satan. So we have a number. Two-thirds of the angels stayed faithful to the Lord. The other third, the angels fell. Those are the fallen angels. They include, pardon?

That fall occurred early and the reason that we know that that's the case is that we have Satan who was one of the angels and the head of the angels that fell showing up in the instrument of the serpent there in the garden. And that was very early, obviously. That happens in Genesis chapter 3. Satan does go back and forth and accuse men. He has access to heaven.

It does not appear that the rest of the fallen angels do. They appear from any revelation we have to be relegated to the planet Earth. Except there is a group of angels who are held in this spiritual prison, Tartarus in 2 Peter or Abbasas is the synonym in the book of Revelation. Those beings are held in the spiritual prison and not free to roam the earth. So essentially right now fallen angels fall in three categories. One is Satan who is a fallen angel but does have access to heaven to accuse. The other fallen angels appear to be relegated to the planet Earth.

And then the third group is those who are imprisoned. I believe this description in Genesis chapter 6 explains why some of the fallen angels are imprisoned and others are not. So let's read, and this is on page one of your handout, the lower part of the page, 2 Peter 2, 4, and 5. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell, and this is not Hell as we typically think of it, but it's the special designation Tartarus is the word and Committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment Okay, so this is not the ultimate judgment of the of the demons who have fallen, but this is a place where they are held pending judgment and There are, however, or at least were during the times when the Gospels were written, there were demons who were on earth and who were afraid of being judged. As a matter of fact, the Gospel of Matthew, Mark also records the same account. Remember the demoniac who has these many demons, legion? The first thing they do is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew is come up to Jesus.

They know who he is. Because He's going to be their final judge, right? They know who He is and what do they do, but they plead with Him, don't send us to be tortured yet. So they want to stay on the earth as long as they can. They know the torture is coming. They know that their punishment is coming for having made the decision that they make. And here's another interesting thing.

The Lord made an opportunity for salvation for all of the human race which has fallen, there does not appear to be any opportunity for salvation, no means of salvation for these fallen angels. So it's interesting the Lord has dealt differently with them.

So you have right now Satan who has the ability to access heaven to accuse, but the other Fallen angels demonic creatures are relegated to the earth except for this group who have been committed to the Tartarus Okay, and put their pending judgment the the these fallen angels know that judgment is coming and That's why in Matthew they plead with Jesus don't start torturing us yet, okay So So as we look at this, then look at verse 5, "...and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, the preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly." This statement here of the angels who sinned that were cast into Tartarus, the spiritual holding place, occurs right before the statement of, then the world was flooded. which is the exact same sequence you see in Genesis, right? Here you see the sons of God intermarrying with the daughters of men. And so what happened?

These angels left their assigned domain. And the Lord says, you're not doing that again. you are going to be committed to Tartarus, or as Revelation calls it, the Abyssos. Now here's something very interesting as an add-on. These angels that are in Tartarus, or the Abyssos, get a release time during the tribulation period for five months. They get to embody themselves in scorpion-like creatures, and they only are allowed out for five months in those strange tortured embodiments, they're only allowed to torture unbelievers. Isn't this amazing? And then they go back. And you know who lets those beings out? Satan. Satan is told to let those beings out of this Abyssos prison. So that's their only release from back in the time of Noah, as I see it. Let's turn over to the flip side.

Some people, including some people for whom I've otherwise had quite a bit of regard, have concluded that no, it can't possibly be these fallen angels because In Matthew 22-30, Jesus says, For in the resurrection they neither marry, that is, people neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven. That is, in the heavenly scene, human beings will not have gender, at least in the ability to reproduce, nor marriage, and neither will the angels. The distinction, however, is overlooked, and I don't know if anybody else has made this point, but Jesus said angels in heaven, specifically those, not angels in general. The angels who embody themselves as males, and by the way the angels do appear as males, right? The angels who embody themselves as males and then intermarry with the human daughters of men have violated their domain.

It's kind of like their sentence. All right, you're going to go to planet Earth. Here's your sentence until we have final judgment. You're going to stay on planet Earth. But you don't get to embody yourself as a human male. and intermarry with the people. If you do, you're going to spend, you know, the time up till your final judgment in this Tartarus, in this Abbasas.

The angels in heaven are those who are faithful to the Lord. This is the two-thirds that are faithful to the Lord. And one of the things you see as a pattern in Matthew and Mark and Luke is that if you look for the word angels and heaven together, you'll find that that's a particular category. These are the angels who are faithful to the Lord.

So the statement that angels can't possibly intermarry with humans or anything of that sort is only true of the angels of heaven and not of those angels who are fallen. So as I see this, I still continue to see the first interpretation on the chart, the angelic creatures interpretation, makes the most sense, not just in the passage, but also in the rest of the Bible. In terms of why do we have this special group of angels that's in Tartarus, and the others are not? The fallen angels, right? makes good sense of that.

It makes good sense of the second Peter 2, 4, and 5 passage. Oh, and by the way, remember the account, I think it's Genesis 19. Here's Lot. And Lot's here in Sodom, right? And the human men in Sodom, seemed to have a very distorted and corrupt pattern of wanting to gang rape strange, that is, visitor males.

And they saw the angelic guests of Job as being a suitable target. for that corrupt practice. They saw them essentially as sexual beings, which would fit with the understanding, at least somewhatly, it fit with the understanding that angels can be seen as human males and embody themselves that way and be seen as sexual beings.

And as a matter of fact, the term that's used in the book of Jude is strange flesh. It was incompatible flesh. So what I have here at the bottom are conclusions. Though the evidence presented above has admittedly been concise, that is, I haven't gone through all the different pieces of evidence, It appears that the best understanding of all the relevant scriptures in full consideration of the elements of language, history, and culture is that the sons of God in Genesis chapter 6 are fallen angelic creatures who have embodied themselves as males, as presented in the first column on the accompanying chart.

And by the way, I got to have a chance to talk with Hal about this before the Lord took him home, and he had concluded the same thing. So, real interesting. Now, one point I didn't make, and I can see that I have enough time to do it, I think. One point I didn't make, and I would put you back on the chart. First column, and this is the last item under evidences.

The antiquity of the view, including that the Greek Old Testament, and this is in some versions, not all, has sons of God as Angelos. That is, it is translated in some Greek Old Testament versions, translated between the time of the Old Testament and New Testament. It is translated not as sons of God, but angels of God in the Greek, which would which would tend to indicate that the translators understood that these were angels, angelic creatures. Now I have a question for you.

How important is this doctrine? Whoever they were, they were eliminated in the flood, except that we seem to find some evidence of the Nephilim showing up in Israel during early Old Testament times, during the early times of Israel. You find Nephilim, that same term, same word, showing up. So those that were talked about here were eliminated in the flood, but even Genesis 6 talks about later times, the Nephilim showing up. So it seems possible that it could be happening now, except that it was recorded early in the Old Testament, but not later.

So very interesting. And so the implication would be that after the flood, some other angels tried the same thing. And my guess is it didn't turn out so well for them either. Right? Probably a few of them said, hey, I'd like to try this. And the other fallen angels said, that didn't work out so good, did it? And didn't carry it on. So while it seems possible, it also seems like the fallen angels that remained haven't felt that that's a good idea.

It is interesting that the demonic creatures do have certain drives and awareness. In that, you know, that instance we mentioned of the man who, the Gadarene or Gerasene Demoniac, who who had the legion of demons within him. They feared not having a body. So they pleaded to go into the pigs. Remember that part of the account? That didn't work out so well either. So anyway.

Matter of fact, if you can imagine, if you've been to Lake Tahoe, you have an idea. Sea of Galilee is about 2 thirds the size of Lake Tahoe. And you can imagine a couple thousand pigs you know, dying in a lake like that, you have an environmental mess.

You've either got to do a lot fast, and you're not going to get any Jews to help you, right? Help clean this thing up. You've either got to do a lot fast to go clean this thing up, Or you've got to introduce piranha to the Sea of Galilee or something. Or else you're going to have an environmental mess. 2,000 dead pigs in the Sea of Galilee is a lot of rotting meat. So, boy. Any other thoughts, questions? Yes?

Yes, what Henry Morris proposed is that those who were male human beings, as we have now on earth, were simply demon-possessed and then intermarried with human women. So you essentially had demon-possessed human men intermarrying with the human women.

I guess my objections to that are, one, that we never see demon possession expressing itself in that way, and so that would be odd, and it would also fail to explain the appearance of giants. So it would be a curious thing. Plus, what I see it is angels embodying themselves as men, just like the angels did that came in and were guests of Lot and led him out of Sodom. Angels have the capacity to embody themselves as human males. in a miraculous way rather than taking an existing human male and that existing human male becoming demon possessed. Demon possession of an existing human male as we see it spiritually a human male but demon-possessed was what Henry Morris proposed. What I would say that the passage is talking about is like what we see in Genesis 19, the angels embodied themselves as human males, they apparently have the capacity to do that, but then overstepped their bounds and became sexual beings. as the angels from the Lord never did.

Does that get the point across? Yeah. It is embodiments as a miraculous capacity that angels quite apparently have. They can look like men, as opposed to an existing male born of women and then becoming demon-possessed, which was Henry Morris's idea. Other thoughts? Yes. I think you told us that it was your faith as far as old earth versus new earth. Yeah. Is that the answer of why you went from thinking long of old earth versus new earth?

Does the Bible say so? Originally, I had thought that science had demonstrated that the earth was old. And so therefore, I have to interpret the Bible in a way that fits with that. But as I began studying it, I found that science had not proven that the earth was old. It had assumed that the earth was old and therefore developed all the science around that assumption.

And so I began to lose faith in the assumption once I realized that distinction. And I also began to see that using the conclusions of modern science to interpret scripture, especially to interpret scripture differently than what it's ordinarily understood to be, was not a good idea. So I had decreasing faith in the assumptions that are behind an old earth, and I had increasing faith in the truth of God's word. And that's how I move from one conclusion to the other.

I also realize even for those scientists, as well qualified as they may be, as well trained and well regarded as they may be, even those scientists who believe in a creation, are doing so based on scientifically unverifiable assumptions. It's ultimately based on faith in God's Word and carrying out assumptions based on that rather than faith in the unverifiable assumption set of assumptions that would be consistent with an old earth. So it comes down to my more clear understanding of things and as to where I could put my confidence. I'll put my confidence in the Lord. Yeah, I looked at that and I said, okay, that does not look consistent to me with an old earth viewpoint.

Now the reality is I still I wasn't there to watch the process, but the evidence seems to be better explained By a younger earth and the same thing with this petrified, you know wood up here A younger earth better explains the rapid Petrifying process than an older it doesn't it certainly does not require an old earth in order to have petrified wood that can happen within one person's lifetime. Yes? The wood is replaced by minerals. Very interestingly, you'll have wood that's even older that is not petrified. but the wood gets replaced.

Same thing happens with fossils. The original material gets replaced, even if it's an animal fossil, the original material gets replaced by minerals in order to preserve it. But it doesn't always happen to be the case. Fossils have been found, even of dinosaurs, where all the original material has not been replaced, and they still have some soft tissue remaining. Petrifying and fossilization are both, with some exceptions, a replacement with mineral content. Which is why I don't recommend chewing on this piece of wood here. Hard, heavy stuff.

Now, the other question that I asked was, is what difference does it make whether I believe the sons of God are angels or despots or ungodly? Yeah? Okay. Yeah, in other words, it does give us insight into how God treats angels. What's interesting, God could have just left the whole angel thing out, right?

It's not absolutely essential to our salvation. What God has revealed to us and for us, what God has revealed is what God has determined is the truth that we need, right? So a part of it is it impacts our worldview. God revealed these things for us to have a biblical worldview. So one of the reasons for arriving at this, you might say, well, that doesn't impact my daily life. And in one sense, you could agree with that. But our worldview should include all that God has revealed. And so that's a part of the picture.

It ultimately also explains better what the rest of the Bible said. We mentioned passages there, like 2 Peter and Revelation. It explains better what the rest of the Bible says, which, in other words, if I understand this correctly, I also understand other parts of the Bible correctly, and we should be pursuing what is the truth that is revealed in Scripture. And we take it on faith that all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable, right?

Including this. So even though on the one hand people might dismiss it, it does have a relevance. And it's partly just simply because it's a part of God's Word, it's a part of the worldview God intends us to have. And it explains and makes clear some other passages. That second Peter passage, for example, that we looked at is a little more puzzling.

We don't have good explanations for why are there demonic creatures who are on the earth and some that aren't. So it makes a clear understanding of scripture far better. We're kind of running out of time here. I don't see too many noses pressed up against the window. We'd probably better call it. Feel free to come up and take a look at the wood or take a look at me. I'm not petrified.

But anyway, let's pray. Lord, we do thank you for what you've revealed. We thank you for not just this answer on the sons of God, but also, Lord, on these other matters too. We thank you for the position that we have in you that is fixed and unchangeable, untaintable in the heavenlies. We thank you, Lord, for your work in hearts and lives.

And Lord, even as we talked earlier about a man that I would never have expected would come to the Lord and would be deeply impacted. Each of us knows people that we are concerned about, and we continue to bring them before you. People who either have at one time expressed faith and now do not, or perhaps don't live it. And on the other hand, those who at no time have expressed faith. People that we love and care about. And we bring that before you and entrust those people's hearts and lives into your hands. We just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.