The Days of Noah: Part 2 :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR10 Category:General Articles, Sean Gooding

Genesis 6:1-8 & Matthew 24: 37-39

“Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 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. 3 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.”

4 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 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. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have 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.” 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”

I saw a picture this week of two of the tallest men that I have ever seen standing next to each other. One was Andre the Giant, a famous wrestler from the WWF. He was 7 ft 4 inches tall and weighed in at about 520 lbs. Robert Wadlow was the tallest man ever in our ‘modern’ age. He was 8 ft 11 inches tall and had a size 22 shoe. He died in 1940 at just 22 years of age.

I grew up watching Andre the Giant, and to see him paired in a picture next to Mr. Wadlow was astonishing; Andre was dwarfed by this man who was more than 18 inches taller. The famous Manute Bol was an NBA player; he was 7 ft 7 inches tall, and he was one of the tallest to ever play in the NBA. These men are modern-day giants, yet Goliath was about 12 inches taller than Mr. Wadlow and more than 2 feet taller than Andre the Giant. Not only was Goliath tall, he was a big man, able to run and fight.

We meet a king named Og as the Jews journeyed from Egypt to the Promised Land, and he was a very large man; we see this in Deuteronomy 3:11:

“For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? Nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.”

Nine cubits works out to about 13 ft 6 inches, which is almost 5 ft taller than Mr. Wadlow. I want you to picture this. Go get a tape measure and see if for yourself. I have seen estimates that he would have weighed about 1,000 lbs, a man of war, fit, strong, agile and fierce. Too often, we do not really picture what these men looked like. We read and we don’t really take in what the Bible is saying. God wanted us to know this, so He included these details. The Jews encountered giants all the way up to the days of David. Here are some verses about giants: see Numbers 13:33:

“There also we saw the Nephilim [the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim]; and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Remember these were seen after the flood, and look at how the Jewish men describe themselves; they looked like ‘grasshoppers’ compared to the size of these men. I have heard many a sermon making fun of these men, but what would you and I do if we saw 10 ft, 11 ft, or 13 ft men who were seasoned warriors? We, too, would think we were grasshoppers. I pray that I would be like Joshua and Caleb, able to stand boldly and trust God even after seeing these men. These men were not alone. They often had a number of them together, as we see here in Deuteronomy 2:10-11:

(“The Emim lived there formerly, a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim. Like the Anakim, they are also regarded as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim…”)

Goliath, we are told, has 4 brothers. In 1 Chronicles 20:5, we meet one named Lahmi, and he too is a giant:

“And there was war with the Philistines again, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”

Notice his spear was like a weaver’s beam, just like his brother’s. We see another man in 2 Samuel 21:16 who has a large spearhead, about 300 shekels of brass; this is about 7.5 lbs. A traditional spear, according to what I can find, is about 1.8 lbs. That is 4 times the size; think of the man who would fight with this in a battle all day. He would have been big and strong.

“And Ishbibenob, which was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of brass in weight, he being girded with a new sword, thought to have slain David.”

Here is an insight: what if Goliath was the little brother? I don’t know, but it crossed my mind. Let me offer another verse out of Amos, chapter 2: 9:

“Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, though his height was like the height of cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; I even destroyed his fruit above and his root below.”

Some cedar trees can be as much as 30 feet tall; let that sink in. Here, we are told in Amos that some men they fought had height like a cedar. Now, maybe this is a bit of an exaggeration, but maybe they were half a cedar; that’s 15 ft tall. The Bible tells us these little beautiful details, and there is evidence to support this in archeological digs all around the world. We will explore some of these the next time.

We were told that the last days would be like the days of Noah. Will there be giants running around killing men? No, I do not think so. But there was genetic interference in man’s DNA that made very visible and lasting changes to us. In an interview with Tucker Carlson from last week, Dr. Lapado, the Surgeon General of Florida, talked about how the mRNA vaccines that were forced on a large portion of the population of the world were designed in such a way as to alter the DNA of those who took the vaccine. It is a detailed interview with very good technical and, at times, harrowing information.

There is a determined effort amongst the leaders of our world to affect the very genetics of the people they are charged with serving. I do not know the end game of the powers that be, but long ago – some 2,000 years ago – Jesus warned us, and we took it to just mean the level of evil. But the evil had a catalyst: genetic manipulation and misconduct. Satan wants to be God; he can’t be. But he tries to copy God, and he is up to his tricks again.

Look up; our redemption is near, but the world may get a bit eviler before we hear the trumpet call. Keep the faith.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

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The Purveyors of ‘Peace and Safety’ :: By Paul J. Scharf

Published on: by RR10 Category:General Articles

To me, one of the strangest oddities of the year 2020 was the call for safety in the face of COVID-19.

“Stay safe,” we were cautioned. Here in Wisconsin, our governor even issued an order titled “Safer at Home.”

This seemed to me to be an extraordinary choice of wording—because COVID-19 results from a virus. I’m sure that experts disagree on the best methodologies for warding off infection from a virus. But one thing that you certainly cannot do to escape it is to stay safe. Your only hope is to stay healthy.

So, the expression itself was bizarre but yielded little public scrutiny. I wondered from the beginning if it was setting us up for some future use of safety as a new cultural buzzword.

I share all that to illustrate—not necessarily form a connection with—the fact that the Bible tells us of a time when the universal catchphrase will indeed be “Peace and safety!” (1 Thess. 5:3). It seems to me that we are seeing a precursor to that even now.

Since the events of Oct. 7, 2023, when Israel was attacked by Hamas terrorists, Bible prophecy teachers of all stripes have been on high alert.

Being a dispensational premillennialist who loves Bible prophecy, I have certainly tried to do my part to warn and teach that I believe we are witnessing what Jesus called “the signs of the times” (Matt. 16:3). I believe that such signs (of His second coming, and of future prophetic fulfillment in the tribulation) are intensifying as never before, and I am certainly not alone in that view. Many pretribulationists are on the very same track.

I’ve noticed that those who hold other eschatological views have also been turning up their own volume in response. Postmillennialism seems to be on the march once again. Amillennialism remains popular in many realms. These camps often present a more sophisticated appeal than we dispensationalists seem to be able to muster. And our theological opponents are very quick to seize on those kinds of advantages—and sometimes disrespect our views in a manner that borders on mockery.

Granted, some of this criticism is deserved. We certainly have some within our broader pretribulational prophetic circles who have devoted their ministries to speculation and sensationalism—including far-out subjects, wild predictions, spiritualizing the text of Scripture, engaging in unbiblical date-setting, and sometimes just offering nonsense.

But this is not the dispensationalism that I have received, nor that which I preach. Every time I speak, I attempt to handle the Word of God reverently and responsibly, emulating the scholarship which has been bequeathed to me by “faithful men” (2 Tim. 2:2).

Sadly, dispensationalists have not always done a great job of policing their own. The temptation is always to accommodate those who might be considered borderline even in their faithfulness to Christian orthodoxy—if we feel we might benefit from reaching their audiences. But transgressions committed by those on the outer edge of the movement do not warrant throwing the baby out with the bathwater. No matter where you’ve been or what view you hold, the ultimate issue is the literal, clear meaning of the text of Scripture.

To those brethren who disagree with my prophetic position, I would simply state that I was raised in an amillennial environment and understand that system quite thoroughly. I have been involved in ministry contexts where varying end-time views had to be respected. I have read and listened to—and certainly benefited from—many great Reformed teachers who embrace a different understanding of eschatology. While I disagree with them, I deeply respect them and would never malign their motives.

So, I would also throw out a caution to the men in these other camps: Feel free to engage with dispensationalism—and even to criticize it. But, in your criticisms, watch out so that your voices do not begin to meld, to the undiscerning ear, with those of the outright skeptics, even atheists, who have nothing but utter disdain for a pretribulational rapture. Beware that you do not begin, like them, to offer a baseless hope of “Peace and safety!” (1 Thess. 5:3), almost as if to cry sneeringly, “Where is the promise of His coming?” (2 Pet. 3:4).

Of course, such contempt only leaves me wondering if the signs are intensifying even more.

I close with a plea to my dispensational brethren: We must do a better job of representing the cause of Christ and heralding His imminent return with integrity and valor.

This is our time to explain to the world that what lies ahead will be anything but “Peace and safety!” (1 Thess. 5:3).

***

Paul J. Scharf (M.A., M.Div., Faith Baptist Theological Seminary) is a church ministries representative for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, based in Columbus, WI, and serving in the Midwest. For more information on his ministry, visit sermonaudio.com/pscharf or foi.org/scharf, or email pscharf@foi.org.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version.