Taken from sermon streached on July 26, 2020:
In Genesis 1:31 “31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!
And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day,
On the 6th day, the world was very good. So, what happened? Is it possible that angels were somehow involved?
’What are angels? Why did God create them? When did God create them? Why did God create the devil? Are they relevant to us at all today?
What are angels? Angels are beings who have greater power and ability than humans.
Why did God create them?
He created them to assist him in a variety of ways—as messengers, warriors, and protectors; and as ministers to Christians.
When did God create them? Angels existed prior to the creation of the earth because God tells Job in chapter 38:1-7 “Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind:
2 “Who is this that questions my wisdom
with such ignorant words?
3 Brace yourself like a man,
because I have some questions for you,
and you must answer them.
4 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell me, if you know so much.
5 Who determined its dimensions
and stretched out the surveying line?
6 What supports its foundations,
and who laid its cornerstone
7 as the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?”
This is a question I’ve pondered for years. Several preachers have told me that they didn’t know the answer; and I respected them for their honesty. Recently, maybe within the past year, it has come to my attention that angels, like humans, were created with 
. There is the answer.
Lucifer believed he was God and no longer wished to serve the real God. For this transgression, he and his followers were cast down to earth where they immediately began to wreak havoc on the beautiful world God had created. The devil, and the other fallen angels who followed him, were created, like those who still serve God—before the creation of the world.
The first thing satan did, of course, was get man to sin. He succeeded in getting Adam and Eve cast out of the beautiful and perfect garden God had created for them.
Just after that, satan learned that God (Genesis 3:15) was going to use one of the woman’s children to strike his head (kill him). So, he set to work trying to eliminate this possibility, first by getting Cain to kill Abel thereby eliminating both of these children as contenders. Of course, Adam and Eve went on to have more children, including Seth.
By Genesis 6, there were many people on the earth. In those days people lived for hundreds of years and kept having children well into their hundreds. Imagine how many children that might have produced. These children would have included the descendants of Seth from whom the Savior would come.
According to Genesis 6:1-4, the angels who had followed satan in his desertion and had been cast to the earth chose the fair women of earth to be their wives; thereby polluting human DNA with that of angels. The offspring of the human and angels were giants who became the “heroes and warriors of the ancient past.” These were called Nephilim and later Rephaim and Anakim.
God saw that between the natural proclivity of humans to sin and the additional scourge of the presence of both the fallen angels and the Nephilim, Rephaim, and Anakim, the world he created had been completely corrupted and needed to be destroyed. Yet, there was a man in the lineage of Seth who had found grace in God’s eyes. This is the same grace God bestows on us through faith in Jesus. Noah was not a perfect man any more than we are perfect.
It is speculated, and this is not stated in the Bible, that neither Noah nor his wife nor their 3 sons had Nephilim in their bloodlines. Considering the way the patriarchs who would come later would choose their wives, this would make sense.
God saved these 8 people from the destruction of the rest of the world including the humans, angels, and Nephilim who all drowned in the flood.
One purpose of the flood usually overlooked was that it preserved the fully human bloodline from whom the Messiah would come. The fact that God put Noah’s story in the Bible immediately after the story of the Nephilim backs this up. How many of those killed in the flood were tainted with Nephilim DNA? It is not possible to know, but it could have been a majority. Those who were not were undeniably still affected in the negative by the acts of the godlike creatures because Genesis 6:5-6 says “5 The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.”
Do you not think God’s heart is broken today by what he sees going on in the world. Two of the greatest evils, abortion and the children kidnapped and/or sold into the sex slave industry, alone have to be so much worse than anything that was going on in the pre-flood era. But. . . to my knowledge there are no half-human/half-angel hybrids living among us.
So where do the Nephilim and Anakim mentioned after the flood in the Bible come from? Remember, Goliath whom David slew, was such a giant. Were those who existed before the flood tall enough to survive it?
That is doubtful because even mountains were covered by the flood.
Although this is not stated in the Bible, consider this: What if one of Noah’s daughters-in-law carried the Nephilim blood line? Her children would also carry the Nephilim DNA. The Bible does say in Genesis 9:25 “25 Then he (Noah) cursed Canaan, the son of Ham:
“May Canaan be cursed!
May he be the lowest of servants to his relatives.””
This curse was pronounced by Noah just after Ham had discovered him drunk and naked in his tent. So why not just curse Ham? That would cover Ham and all his sons, of who Canaan was the 4th.
Is it possible that Canaan displayed some characteristics of the Nephilim? Canaan, the son of Ham, settled in the land that would become Israel. Before it was known as Israel, though, it was known as the Promised land, and before that it was known as Canaan. Remember, in the time of Moses, the spies sent to explore this land reported that “the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak!” (or Anakim). Where did these Anakim come from if they were all killed in the flood?
In between the time of Noah and the time of Moses, we have the time of the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Remember, each of them (or their parents) were very careful to choose wives for them who were not Canaanite.
Jesus was to come from the seed of the woman. Woman is called “woman” because she was taken out of “man”. Nephilim were not “men”; therefore, they were not women. The Seed promised by God could not come from them. The patriarchs themselves may not have known why they were to stay away from the Canaanite women, but God made sure that they did.
What is the relevance of angels in today’s world?
The fallen angels are no longer capable of breeding with humans, and presumably Goliath was the last of their offspring. Clearly, though, they are still hard at work in the spiritual realm sewing seeds of evil throughout the world in whatever way is deemed most effective.
The messengers of God are also still active in the spiritual realm and sometimes are even visible to us (Hebrews 13:2). But remember, although angels and fallen angels have more power than we do, God is much more powerful than any of them.
One of the jobs of the angels is to serve Christians, or followers of the Way. Jesus is the Way and every word in the Bible (God’s love letter to us), including the verses concerning Nephilim and Rephaim/Anakim points us to Him. He is the reason we are here today, and it is in Him that we live and move and breathe. Glory be to God the Father, Jesus the Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
It was raining when I woke this morning, and it is still raining now, well into the evening hours. A steady rain, not a storm, but heavy enough that streets were passing from the unexpected puddle stage to the full-blown flooded stage. A similar rain was falling my soul.
Although my memories of that day are nearly all good, I anticipated having a good cry when I arrived.
much more casual—customary attire.
so from where Rod’s truck was parked that night when I climbed into the passenger seat next to my new husband who was old-fashioned enough to insist on driving the whole way, I allowed the memories full reign.
I could breathe a little easier.
Even this one, the one I was about to marry, had let me down 5 years earlier by breaking my heart when he came to realize it was too soon after his wife’s death to be involved with another woman; he wasn’t ready.
JLM in Euroclydon 