Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #7 of Genesis, chapter 6 and we will be looking at Genesis 6:4:

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

I will stop reading there. We looked at this verse in our last study and we saw that God is relating “giants” to the sin of mixed marriages wherein believers marry unbelievers. Historically, the “giants” were men that were 1 ½ to 2 feet taller, but it spiritually relates to children born of the “sons of God” that married the “daughters of men.” God speaks of “giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in into the daughters of men, and they bare children to them.” Do you see how God is connecting the “giants” with the children that were born of mixed marriages between those in the line of true believers who professed to be God’s people and those that were the daughters of men that had no association with God? As a result, they bore children that “became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” It appears that the “giants” are related to these mighty men because a giant is a mighty man and he becomes “renown” or famous, so there is some connection between “giants” and mighty men of renown.

We also looked at how God often brings judgment when His people disobey His command to marry in the Lord. God has commanded all His people to marry others that are children of God and qualified to be married. There is a commandment to the people of the world that they should not marry divorced individuals and a man should marry a woman, and so forth. Man has just pulled the idea of men marrying men and women marrying women out of his own imagination and that is not allowed in the Bible. A man can only marry a woman and God would permit a man of the world to marry a woman of the world or a professed Christian could marry another professed Christian that is not truly saved. The Bible permits a union where they are “equally yoked” and that is in accord with the teaching of the Bible, so an unsaved male or an unsaved female may marry a member of the opposite sex that is also unsaved. The only restraint is that they marry a person that is not divorced. They must be a single individual or someone that is a qualified widow or widower.

For the true believer, we have those same laws of God where a man is to marry a woman. We also must marry someone qualified to marry; a single man cannot marry a woman that is divorced and her husband is still living. The children of God have those same guidelines, but they have an added command that we must not be “unequally yoked.” Let me read about this, again, in 2Corinthians 6:14:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

It goes on to say in 2Corinthians 6:17-18:

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

God has given further instruction to the child of God that he is not to be “unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” Again, that Greek word translated as “unbelievers” is “ap-is-tos,” which means “no faith” or “without Christ.”

God also speaks about marriage in 1Corinthians, chapter 7 and He gives various guidelines to help us. For instance, it says in 1Corinthians 7:27:

Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.

This is interesting because most people do seek a wife or a mate. Here, God is saying not to seek for a wife. Then it says in 1Corinthians 7:28:

But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.

Then it says in 1Corinthians 7:36-39:

But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry. Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well. So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better. The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.

This goes along with not being unequally yoked together with unbelievers. The elect people of God may marry other qualified people, as long as the person is not divorced and the previous spouse is still living; in God’s eyes marrying a divorced person whose spouse is still living is not permitted because God still views that person as married to their former spouse. This is because God’s Law says that what God has joined together man is not to put asunder, so when people get a divorce in an earthly court it is acknowledged in the eyes of the world, but it is not allowed in the higher and supreme court of God. The Bible is the supreme Law Book and the higher supreme court of the Law of God denies your request for divorce. You might say, “Well, I am already divorced because I already was granted a divorce in an earthly court.” However, that does not matter because the Law of God is unchangeable and unalterable and no matter what earthly judges rule they have no power to overturn the Law of God. What God has joined together man has no power to put asunder, so the reality is that in God’s sight the two that divorced are still married. Therefore, the solution is that if the former spouses have not remarried, they should return to one another because they are still man and wife in the sight of God.

God’s people follow those particular laws, but we have an additional Law of God and God has this added protection and benefit because all of God’s Laws are helpful for the children of God. If we are able to live in accordance to the Law of God (to the degree we are able to do so), our level of peace and joy will increase. God has provided this protection for His children that are qualified to marry. It is extremely important that someone we are thinking about marrying is someone that is “in the Lord.” Is that person truly a child of God? Of course, we live at a point in history that is unlike any previous time in history. During the church age it was actually much more difficult for a child of God to determine if a prospective spouse was a true child of God. They may both have gone to the same church and listened to the same sermons and sang the same hymns and attended the same Bible studies, but that was a time when the “wheat” and the “tares” were still growing together and God had commanded that the tares were not to be uprooted until the time of the end, so true believers would have had a difficult time in trying to figure out the true spiritual condition of the person they were interested in marrying. Oftentimes, the “sons of God” might marry someone that turned out to be the “daughters of men,” who were professed Christians and, yet, they were not born again. They wore the name of Christ, but they had the same old heart of unbelief and they just covered it over with religious trappings. As a result, there would be a marriage where there was trouble in the home.

Today, God has helped the elect children of God that live on the earth in this time after the Great Tribulation and in the Day of Judgment. Things are not easy for us and it is a troublesome time and a severe time of testing and, yet, there is an area where we have been helped because God has ended the church age and He has separated the wheat from the tares. During the time of the Great Tribulation He set in motion His mechanism to separate them by issuing His command to His people to depart out of the midst of the (corporate) church and flee to the mountains, a figure that pointed to God and His Word, the Bible, and God’s people did come out. Of course, not everyone that came out was truly elect, but everyone that did come out was separated from the tares that were bundled for the fire. For example, let us say there is an elect man who is now outside the churches and he is waiting upon the Lord to open his understanding to certain things and he is continuing to search the Scriptures. However, this man has a normal desire for marriage and children and, yet, he wants to be faithful. He meets someone at work or he meets a neighbor that introduces a nice “Christian” woman to him and she is a member of a Presbyterian or Lutheran church or any other church. She is a nice person and they get along. However, we have to consider the time in which we are living because God has already made the separation, as it said in 2Corinthians 6:15-17:

And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in_them_; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

We are to come out and be separate. You see, now this can be another area of testing because let us say that the woman is still within a corporate church and she is single and never been married and she is qualified to be married. She says she is a “Christian” and since he is a Christian, are they then equally yoked? No, they are not. If it was during the 1,955 years of the church age, then they would have been qualified to marry one another, but we cannot overlook the time in which we live. So, here is someone that firmly believes the church age is over and here is someone that still attends a corporate church, but God has left the churches and bundled them as tares. Therefore, there is no union and there is no “agreement” and the Bible says, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” It is certain that these two cannot enter into the union of marriage unless they be agreed in the things of God in the Bible.

Just because someone says they are a Christian, it does not mean anything. There are all kinds of “other gospels” where people say they are Christians, but they believe in speaking in tongues or they believe the Pope has God-given authority to supersede the things of the Bible. A professed Christian can be as much of an unbeliever as anyone that is of the world and you would have even more headaches and more troubles and more disputes with someone who professes to be a true believer and is not. Then when it comes to doctrines it really touches our lives and affects the things that we do. For example, there is the Sunday Sabbath and it comes around every seven days and the professed Christian wants to go to church, but you do not because you believe the church age is over. One spouse says, “What about our son? What about our daughter? I want to take them to church.” The other spouse says, “They are not going to church because the church age is over.” The other spouse says, “I insist they go to a church. They have to grow up in the church.” The (unsaved) spouse believes that a church is where God works and saves people and they believe this strongly and the children are taken to a church, but a child of God wants to raise children according to the commandments of God. God has ended His salvation program, but that does not mean that we stop doing everything we possibly can to raise our children in a faithful way as God would have them to be raised, praying all the while, “May the cup pass from my son and daughter, dear Heavenly Father.” But, again, there would be all kinds of trouble in the marriage and family if a believer outside the churches marries a professed Christian that is still in a church. There would be an unequal yoking of the two.

Let us go back to Genesis 6:4:

… and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

The Hebrew word translated as “mighty men” is Strong’s #1368 and it is sometimes used in reference to God and it can be used in reference to the people of God. Remember that King David had his “mighty men” and I think that is why those Jews that were circumcised in the flesh (but never saved) or those New Testament Christians that were physically baptized with water (but not baptized in the Spirit) become like “mighty men” due to their relationship to God and the Word of God, the Bible. God does use that figure. For instance, it says in Jeremiah 5:14-16:

Wherefore thus saith JEHOVAH God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them. Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith JEHOVAH: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men.

Of course, the nation God is referring to is Babylon, historically, and it spiritually represents Satan and his emissaries that are described in interesting detail in 2Corinthians 11:13-15:

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

This describes what the Babylonians represented as they came as a “mighty nation” against Judah, the people of God. It is the infiltration of Satan’s emissaries into the churches and congregations. That is what happened over the course of the church age as the tares were sown by Satan, the enemy, amongst the wheat. Then when the time was ripe and God came to visit at the end of the church age, the tares were already in positions of authority and power. They were the Pope, bishops, elders and deacons. Once the Holy Spirit of God departed out of the midst there was no longer any restraint upon them and they made the churches and congregations of the world desolate as the “abomination of desolation” stood in the holy place. These were the men that were utilized by Satan to bring spiritual destruction to every church in all the world.