How has been the Bible reading plan going for you so far? Doing good? Wonderful. Praise the Lord. And you know, if that is a challenge in the beginning, that is nothing new. There's an old saying, jeder Anfang ist schwer. If you say it in German, you may say every beginning is hard or is challenging. You know, that's just a fact of life, right? That was true when you started to learn how to ride a bike, when you had your first job, when you learned a new language. And so when we get into a new habit of reading three chapters each day, we may struggle at first. So that's no reason to give up, anyone? just because, oh, I'm behind a day or two, or I forgot, or, well, it's a struggle. That's no reason to give up. Amen? That's just a reason to keep going until it stops being a struggle and until we learn that new habit. Amen? You didn't stop brushing your teeth the first time, you know, you forgot, right? It's like, oh, never mind. Now I won't brush ever my teeth again. No, you just kept brushing again and again and then you forgot another day. You keep brushing again and eventually, you know, you don't have to think about it anymore. That's what you do every morning or every night or whatever, right? Folks, that's the same thing with every new habit, especially good habits. It seems it's almost much harder to learn than bad ones. Amen? The experts, wherever they are, tell us that apparently it takes our brain usually around six weeks for sure to kind of get a new habit established where it becomes muscle memory, so to speak. What are some things that the Lord's been teaching you out of your Bible reading. We've read till Genesis chapter 18. Today we're in Genesis 19 to 21. And it's still not too late to start. You can just jump on where we are, or I can encourage you if you can. It's still very possible to catch up, you know. It should take maybe half an hour or 45 minutes, one on a Saturday or so. Anything the Lord's been teaching you through this study of the Bible in the first chapters here? Any special blessing you'd like to maybe share? Yes? Well, I've been reading the Bible through for over 40 years. Amen. So I'm not on a particular plan because I do the whole Bible in 50 to 60 days. And I just keep doing it over. But one thing I've found is that it's very true what they say. Every time you go through the gate, you see things. Things are brought to your attention that you didn't see the time before. And the depth of it is completely endless. You could do it for 100 years, and you won't stop learning. Amen. Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. I'm stunned sometimes, you know, what we miss. You know, it's like I've read this passage dozens and dozens of times and all of a sudden it's just like, here it is. I'm like, where was this the other times? It was there all the time. And it's just, we've grown. Amen. The Holy Spirit teaches us more, illumines His word. Amen. Yes, brother. Where he made some coats of skin and clothed them? Yes. That's an excellent question. A lot of people believe that and I think that's definitely possible. The one struggle that I always have with this passage, where I feel we're reading into it a little bit, is nowhere does it actually say that the Lord killed an animal there for the first time. And with that, you know, the shading of blood would be commenced there. Now it's very well possible, but it's also possible that the Lord just created skins. It just says he made them skins, right? made him close out of that. So I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just saying it doesn't specifically necessarily say that. And so we're somewhat reading into that, but at the same time we would certainly fit that line we see from Genesis all the way to Revelation of the atonement of sin through the shedding of blood, right? Yeah, that's a very good point. Where we definitely do see a foreshadowing and a prophesying of the Lord Jesus Christ is through the seed of the woman, right, in verse 15 of chapter 3. Right, that's what we, what experts, again, whoever those experts are, amen, would call the proto-gospel, right? the first form of the pointing towards the Savior. Yeah, good point there. Did I answer that at all, brother? Okay, all right. Yes. Oh, there's lots in there, isn't there? Yes, brother. Yes, that's Leviticus as well as Hebrews, yeah. That's how serious sin is to God. Anything else that's stood out to you that the Lord's been blessing you or teaching you through your reading this last week? I want to encourage you, if you haven't yet, you can pick up a Bible reading plan. I think we have them on the table here on the side, so right when you exit even. And we've got it nicely color-coded and everything. I actually fit it onto one page now. You should also have it in your email inbox. Once again, if you missed it, if you don't have it, let me know. I'll send it to you. Or you can pick up a paper copy here, all right? I want to encourage you to grab that. Anyone else wants to share something that stood out to them in their reading? And everybody in one, same one. I have a few things I can mention, but you know, I can always talk about something. I want to give you the opportunity as well. Yes, Brother Liam. The Bible's just packed with so much information, so I always find that when I'm reading, I pick up on little nuggets that tie into other passages in other parts of the Bible and really expound upon and give you more revelation of the depths. And when you discover those things, even if you, as you mentioned as well, read the passage multiple times in the past, when those things stand out to you again, it's such a joy. And it's such a really great feeling. You get excited. And I think that that's such a special thing about the Bible. It also illustrates the majesty of the Bible. And sometimes I just have to sit back and think and say, well, there is just no other book ever conceived certainly by man, on the face of this planet, that could ever hold a candle to the Bible. And there's no book on the planet that you could read so many times and still get so much out of it. There's some great novels out there, and you might read that novel, it might be your favorite novel, you might read it maybe two or three times in your lifetime or something like that, but in no way, shape, or form, could anyone but God have written something like this? And sometimes I've just got to shake my head at those that don't believe, or those that are atheistic in their approach, and that even have a lot of mutual toward the word of God, because how can they not see, you know, And there are experts that will say, well, yes, I can see that the Bible is the most printed book in the entire planet. And I can see that it has quite a lot of poetry to it. And it's an extraordinary book. But you know, but. And so it's just amazing to me that people don't see what seems clear. Well, even I think is it Romans chapter 10 mentioned that, that, you know, they received the word of God, but it was not mixed with faith, right? And you mentioned that, you know, I'm thinking about every year there's so many just tremendous choirs and concerts of Hanel's Messiah, right? Which is from front to cover, from front to back, composed of King James Bible verses. I mean, it's tremendous. And yet, people will sing that with passion, with a tremendous skill, and go home believing that there's no God and they're just highly developed monkeys. And it's stunning to me. We can harden our hearts and our minds and blind them if we reject the truth, right? Yes, Lina, go ahead. One thing I read, I can't remember the name of the man who was buried and his son saw him naked. Noah. And then the other two boys came in backwards and covered him up. But the son that saw him naked was going to be a servant forever. Why was it his fault? Yes, that's actually a very interesting story that I was actually going to mention a little bit as well that stood out to me too in Genesis chapter 9. Then verse 20. Yes, and it's a very good question. I appreciate you pointing that out. Why don't we read those couple of verses here together in Genesis chapter 9 and verse 20. So this is after the great worldwide flood, the sin flood or flood of Noah. This is after God established a special covenant with Noah and all of his descendants, which includes you and me, Haman. in which the rainbow is still a sign of the covenant, of course. And then in verse 20 we read, So from the context there, we know this was alcoholic wine, right? In the Bible, we always have to look at the context to know was this alcoholic wine or was this basically boiled down grape juice? That was a very common drink because, you know, not all water sources were that clean. Anyways, that's a different topic. Clearly he was intoxicated, he was drunk here. It says in verse 22, And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backward. and covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants, shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, And Canaan shall be his servant. Then he also talks about Japheth and Shem as well. So Canaan was actually Ham's son. And so basically what we see here is a first example of what we would call today a generational curse, right? Exodus chapter 20 talks about it as well. And this is really nothing new even to the unbelieving world, right? Monkey see, monkey do. In other words, what happened here is one of Noah's sons dishonored him, and the same would happen to that father, to him. His son, Canaan, would dishonor him as well. And there'd be a consequence for those actions. Of course, this passage is often really, really grossly misused to some excuse of a slavery or racism against certain ethnicities, which is completely unbiblical. But what we see here, Linda, is that that came true, right? Canaan, of course, is a familiar name. You know, we know the land of Canaan, right, which today we call Israel. And that was promised to Abram, Isaac, and Jacob. And the Israelites, the Hebrews, went to Egypt for 400 years, then returned as God brought them back through Moses and delivered them. And they indeed then brought God's judgment upon the Canaanites. that become so wicked and really followed in their father Ham's attitude toward God. And while we're exceedingly wicked, God said there's only one solution, and that's deal with you guys, you know. And he used the people of Israel to accomplish his judgment upon them. I find it interesting here that Ham has been contrasted with the other two sons, right? And so they were concerned about their father's honor and appropriateness, you know? And I think also what we often don't understand in our modern Western context is a lot of this idea of honor and shame. Those don't really mean that much to us anymore. Whereas back in the biblical day, and even today, in the Middle Eastern context specifically, honor and shame is everything. I mean, people will kill because somebody brought dishonor upon their family. People, I mean, kill, you know, for example, a lot of terrorists, a lot of martyrs, they do that to bring honor to the family, right? I mean, it's honor and shame is everything, right? Even today in some cultures. And so, but for us here in the West, we can't always relate that much to that because we think a little bit different, right? Does that help at all to understand it a little bit? Oh, Noah, the dad, got drunk for the same reason that you and I sin. He was a sinner. And I think there's actually a stunning example here how God used Noah, I mean, at the, I think it's in chapter 6 there, where Noah sticks out as being a righteous man and being a man who found grace in the sight of God. And so we know he was a godly man, he was a man who loved the Lord. But nevertheless, even he, after all he went through with the Lord, trusting the Lord by faith through this whole flood and everything, and after God delivered him and his family, he still fell as well, just like you and I. And so I think that's really a sobering warning, isn't it, Haman? That, you know what, if that can happen to Noah, it can happen to the best of us, or any of us. Right? Yeah. Does that help at all in that or? Okay, sorry, what are you still wondering about? Because he made fun of him. Yeah, and he told that to the other ones and right, he was, yeah. It was an opportunity to mock Otherwise gone, I'm mad, right? Yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, well it says here in, where is the verse? Oh, I'm a chapter, the wrong chapter, that's why I can't find it. Thank you, yes. And Ham, the father of Cain, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without. Right? And so he spread the gossip, so to speak. He shared their far and wide. Whereas the other two sons, they did the appropriate thing, and they covered him up and didn't look at him that way. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what we have to understand is, in the Old Testament, many times, even more so than maybe what we're associating with that today is, you know, for example, we have some prophets even that were quite mistreated by some people, and God judged that very harshly as well. And, you know, many times we see how people treated a man of God was really an expression of the attitudes of the heart towards the God they served, you know? And so I think God often sees a bit further there than what you and I just see on the surface, right? Yeah, you were going to say something, brother? Well, I was just going to mention because the point about Noah being a sinner, even though he was a righteous man, it's a bit like Genesis 19 and 20 with Lot. Peter refers to a righteous lot, and yet he sinned so badly with his two daughters, incidentally by alcohol as well. Yeah, that is a continued problem that we see in many instances. We'll see the same thing with Abraham, right? Abraham, I mean, what a righteous man of God. And yet he lied, twice. Noah and others fell through drunkenness. Abraham and Isaac fell through lying. You know, there's none that do us righteous. There's none that is righteous. No, not one, right? The Bible says. Yeah. And so Linda, really, we see all throughout the beginning of the Bible already that the only way for us to be redeemed from the curse of sinful state we're in is if God helps us, right? And sadly, sin continued immediately even after God had wiped off all the bad people, so to speak, with the flood. Yeah, any other questions on the chapters you read? There's maybe a couple of things I'm thinking of pointing out. And again, as you read these chapters, ask yourself questions. What does this mean? It's not about a reading exercise, right? You do that in school. The Word of God is given for us to profit, the Apostle Paul said, all right? So we live in the dispensation of the New Testament where we've been given the Holy Spirit of God, where we've been given the full revelation of God, the entire Bible, and so God wants us to profit from these things and see the applications in there for our lives, right? We may not be able to relate a lot to the times of Noah or his family, but we certainly can relate to the point that, hey, there's the dangers of sin that lurk out there for us just like it did for him, right? And so there's already an application in that case, right? Was there somebody else? Oh, I miss you. All right. There was one passage that I wanted to talk about a little bit in Genesis chapter 6. In Genesis chapter 6, I want to read the first four verses there. A passage that a lot of people have questions about. It's often considered very controversial. And I just quickly wanted to explain this a little bit, give you my take on that. Now, Yeah, let's just read this there in Genesis chapter 6. Who wants to read for us this morning? Here, how about Brother Shields? Why don't we begin with you in verse 1 and we'll just go around each read one verse down to verse 5. Genesis chapter 6 beginning in verse 1. Oh, it's all good, brother. Okay, verse one. And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them. Would you like to continue? Verse two. That the sons of God saw the daughters of the men, that they were female, and they took them wives, all of which they chose. I'd like to continue reading. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. Who wants to take first five Thank you. Then we see him, of course, introducing the judgment of the worldwide flood, which, by the way, there's tons and tons of archaeological evidence for that historical fact as well. I thought it was very interesting. Apparently, I read in the news that this week the word Nephilim was actually trending on Twitter in the United States because it was this apparent video that somebody posted of some giant person walking around on a police action where they were putting out a fight of some teenagers or whatever in one of the states, in one of the cities in the states The details don't matter. Either way, I thought it was interesting, though, that people immediately react to that in this viral way. And you say, what in the world is Nephilim? Nephilim comes from the Hebrew word nephil, which is translated to giants or fallen ones or tyrants. depending a little bit on the context here. The King James Bible, of course, translates it correctly as Giants in Genesis chapter 6. We see giants mentioned on several occasions throughout the Bible. They are mentioned in Numbers chapter 13 verse 33 as the sons of Anak that were in the land of Canaan and that the Israelites had to conquer. Some of you think they may be referred to in Ezekiel 32 as well. You're of course familiar with David, excuse me, not David, Goliath, Amen, the Philistine. as well as his brothers who were giants. And, you know, there's plenty of historical and archaeological evidence that there has been different forms of giants throughout history, so nothing is really unusual or that strange about this. What is different is how some people interpret these verses of Scripture or have throughout history. and that focuses specifically on the phrase, the sons of God, who came and intermarried with the daughters of men, and so forth. And the reason for that is because there's other passages of Scripture, such as Job, where that phrase, sons of God, is referring, or usually understood to refer to angels as well. And so some people wonder, well, is this some angels intermarrying here with humans and, you know, putting up some wicked giant race that God eventually has to wipe out through the flood? So that's what Nephilim is about, and so that's why people think about Nephilims when they think they, you know, picture a giant somewhere. By the way, the interesting thing is most of these sightings are always very grainy, very unclear videos or photos. You know, it's very strange how that happens. But I wanted to give you my take a little bit on this. Now, if you agree with on this, you know, this passage of Scripture, for some people this is a passionate cornerstone of their personal theology. And you know what, if that is a part of your convictions, that is fine with me. I don't have a problem if you want to believe that. But I do, I personally do not believe that the Bible makes it clear that these Nephilim were some mix between demonic angels and humans. And I'll give you a few reasons why. One of it is historically. Historically, the main reasons why people believe that is primarily extra-biblical literature. And so that is a lot of books like Judith, Sirach, Baruch. It's like the book of Enoch especially that give these ideas of some kind of demons intermarrying and having an offspring with humans and this kind of in-between race. So those are extra-biblical sources that I don't really trust much, amen? And yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes, there's actually a slew of literature and videos that, especially in the last few decades, have made this be very popular. And like I said, if that makes sense to you, by all means, I won't be offended if you believe that. But I want to tell you why I don't. One reason is that I believe trying to blame the flood on some kind of intermingling of you know, different races here and demons and whatnot, really takes away from the actual problem, which was sin. And we see in Matthew 24, verse 38, what was happening before the days of the flood. In other words, humans just doing normal human things. That's how the Lord Jesus Christ described it in Matthew 24, verse 38. And so there's those four things that are being mentioned, eating, drinking, marrying, and being given in marriage. That's what they were doing and being sinful in that. There's no mention of any outside demonic in-between race that was corrupting the human gene pool and therefore God had to bring the flood. No mention of that at all. Like I said, really all of those ideas, as far as I can tell, really do seem very extra-biblical. Now, you say, what does the phrase sons of men then mean? Just like always when we have phrases like that, we look at the context. in the book of Job. When we look at the context, there's some credence to think that this is clearly referring to angels there. For example, the phrase, son of man. many, many times refers to the Lord Jesus Christ, especially in the New Testament. But there's also passages of Scripture such as in the book of Ezekiel that doesn't refer to the Lord Jesus Christ. It refers to Ezekiel. And so, again, just because a phrase is used in the Bible in some way doesn't mean that's always what it means. We have to look at the context, right? In Genesis 1, verse 24, and in the following verses, we see a fundamental principle of nature, of God's creation, and that is that each brings forth after his own kind. And I think that's very important to consider because I believe that's one of the primary reasons why it's very unlikely that angels would have gone out of, or demons would have gone out of their kind and somehow reproduced with humans outside of their kind. It would go against God's fundamental principles in nature. We see, for example, that didn't work with animals. When God was looking for a companion for Adam, in Genesis chapter 2, He didn't find anything that was fitting. And so He had to make Eve to make a help that was meet, that was suitable, that was fit for Him. Amen? Because the animals were out of His kind, right? In Matthew 22, the Lord Jesus Christ, I believe, really gives a clear answer to this. He's rebuking the Pharisees there and says, And then in Matthew 22, verse 30, And so I think that the Lord is teaching us there that unlike humankind, before the flood was marrying and given to marriage, angels do not. We believe that angels don't reproduce, they don't have that kind of sexuality and such. And so, again, these are just some of the considerations we need to have as we look at this passage. Because you'll find, especially online, people come up with the wildest ideas in regards that they base upon Nephilim. And once again, if people want to believe that, it's a free country as I say, but I just want to give you a few considerations for that. Primarily because I want to be careful to take a bit dubious passage like that, that doesn't clearly say these were demons intermarrying here with humans or whatever, and use that as a cornerstone of huge theological construct. Folks, that's why I'm not scared. I'm not scared of aliens. I believe the only extraterrestrial life that is out there is angels and the Lord himself, of course. I'm not scared of some human-robot mixture with AI. I'm not scared of that. I mean, you look at the Tower of Babel. We read it this week, right? The Lord knew how to stop things when mankind was getting out of its bounds. You know, it just takes a little bit of climate change, if you want to call that, or it just takes a little bit of a crazy person triggering a nuclear bomb somewhere and we're back in the stone ages and AI has gone with it, you know. So I'm just trying to give a bit of context here and explain maybe some of the more difficult passages as we read through this together because A lot of people are in a lot of fear, and I don't think the Nephilim ought to be a reason for that. Oh, I was going to talk about Lot a little bit, but I guess we're out of time. And so we'll leave it off with that. I want to encourage you to finish reading Genesis 19-21 today. And if you're falling behind, that's okay. Catch up or just jump in where we're at. But keep reading the Word of God, folks. And ask the Lord, Lord, what does this mean for me? Lord, how does this help me get to know you better? Because ultimately, that's what it's about. All right? So with that, let's close in prayer. Dear Father in Heaven, I want to thank you that your Word, Lord, grows and encourages our faith. Lord, your Word never causes doubt or confusion. It always causes clarity. And Father, I pray that as we seek to feed on your Word, I ask that you would encourage us, Lord, to trust you more, to know you better, to love you more. Father, help us to get a hunger, a thirst for your Word, Lord. And we pray that you will bless us as we go in our morning service, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, we'll take a bit of a break here.