In John's apocalypse, after they had loosed the scrolls, the seals from the scrolls, after indeed the line of the tribe of Judah had done so, then the angels took the trumpets and they proclaimed God's word. Even so, let us stand and hear the word of God read. our Old Testament, rather our New Testament lesson coming from Colossians chapter 2, which is a fitting text given the baptism we just witnessed. Colossians 2, beginning in verse 11. In him, you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. And you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross, having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. This is the word of the Lord. Let's turn now to our Old Testament lesson and our sermon text. from Genesis chapter six, beginning in verse one. Last time we read of the mingling of the sons of God with the daughters of men. Now we read the same passage again, but with reference to the giant offspring of this union. Genesis six, verse one. Now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them. 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. And the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 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. May the Lord bless the reading and proclamation of His word to our hearts. Amen. You may be seated. I wonder how many of the children here enjoy stories about giants. I wonder how many of you would say your favorite Bible story, maybe even more than Jonah and the big fish or Samson taking the gates of the city on his shoulders, that your favorite Bible story is David and Goliath. Well, giants are a big deal in human history, and they're a big deal in the holy scriptures. Giants loom large in the human imagination. If you compare the diverse cultures of the world, one thing they will have in common is stories about giants. You have fairy tales like Jack and the Beanstalk, legends like Paul Bunyan, and myths like the Greek Cyclops or the Norse Frost Giants. Like dragons or sea monsters, giants represent one of our oldest enemies. Before the hero can marry the princess, what does he have to do? He has to kill the giants. Now, some of these stories are clearly fantasy. They're make-believe, but others appear to be historical accounts. For example, in an Egyptian text over 3,000 years old, we find references to a race of giants named the Shasu living in the land of Canaan. The text goes like this, the face of the past is dangerous with Shasu, hidden under the bushes. Some of them are four or five cubits, nose to foot, with wild faces. An Egyptian cubit was over 20 inches long, which means the Shasu may have measured as tall as eight feet, seven inches. Likewise, dating back to the 12th dynasty, we find a text that speaks of the ruler of Anak. This is in the Egyptian records. Another text says these people, the Anakim, lived in the land of Canaan. Now these Egyptian records are fascinating and important not only because they appear to be recording historical facts, not fantasy, but also because they corroborate what the Bible says about the appearance, the size, the name, and even the location of giant people groups. Although there's no substantiated giant skeletons, we do have fossil evidence for giant animals, and again, the human imagination is full of the stories of giants. Congregation, covenant children, everyone here, there's a reason you enjoy stories about giants. And it's because giants really do go back to the beginning. They're not just tall tales, they are covenant history. Last time we looked at the unusual mingling of the fallen angels, the angelic sons of God with the daughters of men. This morning, I want us to consider the unusual offspring of that union, namely, the giants. We're gonna look at giants in three areas this morning. First, giants in the beginning. Second, giants in redemptive history. And third, giants in your life. beginning with the text of Genesis, giants in the beginning. And I want us to explore, especially verse four, with a series of questions. First, where did the giants come from? Where did the giants come from? They are, so to speak, superhuman in height, and it's fitting that they have, according to this text, a supernatural origin. Look at verse four again. 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. This is a review from last week, but that improper union of heaven and earth, that improper mingling of angelic sons of God with human daughters of men, this unusual improper union led to unusual offspring. the superhuman giants. Now there's actually some application here, I believe, for modern science and bioethics, and it's this principle. Just because you can do something, does not mean you should. Just because there can be, in some way or another, a mingling of angels and women, does not mean that should happen. And when you do something that you can do, but you should not do, often there are unintended consequences. Just think about literature. You have Frankenstein's monster or Jurassic Park. And even today, it's not science fiction. You have genetic engineering, cloning, splicing DNA, AI manipulation. Scientists like to play God. The experts like to play God, and they may not be prepared for the monsters they unleash upon the world. Well, that's where giants come from. In some way or another, this mingling of the sons of God with the daughters of men. Second question, are they actually giants, or are they merely larger than life heroes? Well, let's look at this text. Verse four uses an interesting Hebrew word. It's the word nephilim. Nephilim, it's a word that only comes up three times in the Hebrew Bible, and one of those times is here. Some scholars argue that it comes from a word nephal, which means fallen ones, which would be true. These giants appear to be wicked, but it more likely refers to figures of gigantic stature. And I say that because the Greek translation of the Old Testament translates nephilim as Gigantes, or giants. I said it's only used three times. In the other two times, Nephilim clearly refers to giants. The other occurrence is in Numbers 33, 13. There we saw the giants, or the Nephilim. The descendants of Anak came from the giants, or Nephilim, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight. When the people of Israel scouted out the land, they encountered Nephilim. They encountered giants, and they felt like little grasshoppers before them. Nephilim, which means giants, is parallel here to the word gibberim, or mighty men. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Literally, these were the mighty men of valor from old times. These were men of name. Men of fame. You think about a later figure in Genesis, Nimrod, a mighty man, a hero who built cities. You might think of Gilgamesh among the Sumerians and the Akkadians, whom some legends say was a giant. Or Heracles among the Greeks. Often you find in Greek mythology a distortion of something that actually happened. That the old stories, however mythic, might actually reflect real historical people who lived upon the earth. Now you might say, do we have giants today? Like the Nephilim of this passage. Well occasionally you will find unusually tall people. I'll give you a couple examples. In 1940 they measured a man named Robert Wadlow at eight feet 11 inches. That's remarkably tall. If you're 6'11", that's tall. You could probably be a center in the NBA, but 8'11". In 1966, they measured a man named John Carroll at 8'7". So very tall, and within the measurements of the Bible's description of giants. However, I think there's some key differences. Usually when you encounter someone today as tall as that, there is some sort of medical condition, an excessive growth hormone, and often they have serious impairments in other ways. Very tall, but they often have struggles medically. For instance, a heart that is weak. And not only that, but these unusually tall people do not pass on their giantism to their descendants. It's not hereditary. What we find in Genesis 6 is different. These giants have a supernatural origin story. They are mighty warriors in no way impaired, and they pass on their genes to their ancestors. It is a hereditary trait. We have the giant's origin. We have the fact that they really are giants. Third question, what was their fate? What happened to these giants? Look at verse three. It says, and the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. We'll look at this more next week, but there is a timeframe in minds. that the Holy Spirit's not gonna continue to abide or restrain man, that there is going to be a watershed event, an event we read of in verse five. And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry. that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart, 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. In other words, what happened to these giants is they got wiped out. They were extinguished by the waters of judgment. Whereas the waters bore up the ark and Noah's family, even as little Johnny was included into the visible church through the waters of baptism, the enemies of God are destroyed by those same waters. Now if that's true, fourth question, if it's true that the giants were wiped out in the flood, Then why do we have giants after the flood? Why do giants pop up again when the Israelites come into the land of Canaan? Again, you get references to the Nephilim, same word, in Numbers 33, 13, and verse four almost suggests that this is gonna happen. It says, there were giants on the earth in those days and also afterwards, after the flood. How do we explain this? I wanna give you four proposed solutions for why giants appear after the flood has destroyed the earth. First, some people argue that later giants were called Nephilim only by analogy and association. In other words, when the Israelites come to the Promised Land, they see remarkably tall people, and they say, that reminds us of the story of the Nephilim. In other words, they encounter people who are not superhuman tall, but they are like NBA-level giants. and who have a natural origin story, and are not literally descended from the Nephilim. They're only like the Nephilim in their heights. That's an interesting theory, but it doesn't really account for the language of Numbers 33, 13, which says the sons of Anak were descended from the Nephilim. It doesn't quite account for what the text says. Second solution. Others have argued that some of the giants survived the flood. Now there's a problem with this idea, and that is that people who argue this usually assume that what is described in Genesis 6 through 8 is a local flood, a regional deluge, but not a massive flood. global or worldwide flood. Now what's the problem with that? The problem is the Bible teaches a worldwide flood. That's the universal language of verse seven. No survivors, only eight exceptions to the rule, and that's Noah's household. And this is actually confirmed by modern geology and even pagan mythology. If you look at the fossil record, if you look at the Grand Canyon, and you read it through the lens of a global, worldwide flood, it makes remarkable sense. When you read the book of nature through the lens of the book of scripture, it makes sense. Not only that, but in an interesting, fascinating way, people groups all over the world have flood stories. The Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Greeks, and even the Chinese people have a collective memory of a great flood that destroyed the earth. So that doesn't solve our problem. Clearly these giants could not have survived the deluge. Third solution. And that is that the same kind of thing that happened with the sons of God and the daughters of men happened again. A deja vu, that whatever produced these giants happened at least a second if not a third time. And some will argue that this is implied by verse four. There were giants on the earth in those days and also afterward when, or you could translate it, whenever the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. The argument is made that this could have happened again. Now, the Bible doesn't record that happening again, but that's the argument. Finally, there's a fourth proposed solution to the problem of giants after the flood has occurred, and this is the one that I am at least tentatively favorable to. Although it's possible that the same kind of thing happened again, and I'm open to that possibility, there is a fourth solution, and that is that somehow, giant DNA was smuggled aboard the ark. perhaps as an unexpressed trait. For instance, there was a woman aboard that ark, Ham's wife, and later she bore a cursed son named Canaan. Later, the land of Canaan, named after him, is going to be filled with giants, giants descended from the Nephilim. Now I don't have a clear, full, convincing argument for exactly how it happened, whether it's the analogy or the association, or the same thing happening again, or the possibility that somehow giant DNA was smuggled aboard the ark, but some way or another, There is a remnant of this older world, the world that then was, that pops up again on the other side of the flood. There were giants in the beginning, and there will be giants later on. Well, that brings us to our second point. Not just giants in the beginning, but giants in redemptive history. And here I want to give you a case for why we're even taking time to talk about that, about this topic this morning. You might think this seems like a very fringe study. The congregation, I want to convince you that this is actually at the driving plot line of the Bible, the rest of the Old Testament. is in some ways a history of godly heroes fighting against giants. Giants were wiped out, somehow they live on, and eventually we find them occupying the promised land, the land that God promised to Abraham and to his descendants. It is infiltrated and occupied by giants. Giants of various kinds. We've already mentioned the Nephilim, but there's also the Anakim, the sons of Anak. You also have the Rephaim, Imim, Zamzumim, possibly another name for Zuzim, along with Amorites, Horites, Avim, and Kaphtarim. Now these labels are somewhat fuzzy categories. Sometimes they're used synonymously, they're used of whole people groups or even generically of giants in general. But the two big categories besides Nephilim that come to the surface when you're reading the rest of the Old Testament are the Anakim and the Rephaim. And in fact, most of the time in your English Bible where you see the word giant or giants, it's either Rephaim or Rapha. Big idea, though, is you have all these giant races throughout this part of the world. And the crisis is this. If Abraham and his children are gonna inherit the promised land, they're gonna have to deal with the giants. They're gonna have to face these giant foes. And that brings us to three eras in redemptive history where giants are significant. Conquest, kingdom, and Christ. Yes, Christ dealt, in a sense, with giants. First, in the conquest of the land, we find God's people face-to-face, toe-to-toe with giants. Initially, why did the children of Israel wander for 40 years in the wilderness? and that entire generation, with two exceptions, Joshua and Caleb, die out. Why? It was because they were afraid of giants. They got to the land, and the Bible says, nevertheless, the people who dwell on the land are strong. Their cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. There we saw the giants, descendants of Anak, from the giants, and we were like grasshoppers in their sight. Deuteronomy 128, our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying the people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. Moreover, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there. And as a consequence, they spend 40 years wandering in the wilderness. 40 years later, under the leadership of Joshua, they try again. And here's where it gets really interesting. And you have to read the Bible with this giant question in mind. Occasionally, not always, God will tell Joshua and the Israelites to completely wipe out everyone and everything in a city, to devote it to destruction. Holy war, total war. And often, we'll get back to this later, people struggle with this apparent genocide of the people groups in Canaan. But I want to draw your attention that more often than not, this is not an arbitrary or indiscriminate holy total war. Rather, it is focused on the giants. Let me give you a few examples. Before they ever even crossed the Jordan River, which is a picture of baptism, The Israelites defeat two kings, Sihon the king of the Amorites and Og the king of Bashan. You wonder why? Why does the Bible spend so much time talking about the defeat of these two kings? Well, the reason is that both of them are giants. This territory was even called the land of the giants. According to Amos 2.9, the Amorites presumably including Sihon their king, it is said of them, yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was as strong as the oaks. This is even clearer when you get to Og, the king of Bashan, where it says, for only Og King of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants, or the Rephaim. Indeed his bedstead was an iron bedstead. Is it not in Reba of the people of Ammon? Nine cubits is its length, and four cubits is its width, according to the standard cubit. Og is one of the giants, and it describes the dimensions of his iron bed. It says it was nine by four cubits. How long is that? How wide is that? Well, it's about 13 and a half feet by six feet. This is a giant bed for a giant king. This is much bigger than a California king bed. This is made, this is designed for a true giant. And so once they, even before they cross the Jordan, they face these two giant kings, and then once they cross the Jordan, God continues to target the giant people groups. Deuteronomy 9, one to three. Hero Israel, you are to cross over the Jordan today and go into dispossessed nations greater and mightier than yourself. Cities great and fortified up to heaven. A people, what are these people like? It says great and tall. The descendants of the Anakim whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, who can stand before the descendants of Anak? Later Joshua is speaking to Ephraim. and the half-tribe of Benassah, and he's telling them, he's exhorting them to go in and possess the land, and here's how he does it. He says, if you are a great people, then go up to the forest country and clear a place for yourself there in the land of the parasites and the animals. the giants. We studied this a few months ago, but when Caleb, one of those exceptions to the rule from that first generation, Caleb who followed the Lord with his whole heart, when he finally goes to claim his mountain inheritance, what does he have to do first? He has to defeat three giants, Shishai, Haman, and Talmai, the sons of Anak. It says in Joshua 11, and at that time, Joshua came and cut off the Anakim from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debor, from Anab, from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel. Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. None of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel. They remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod. So giants, it's not just a curiosity piece from Genesis 6-4. These giants who pop up on the other side of the flood, this is part of the whole drama. How are God's people gonna take the land when it's infested with giants? And then, when God tells him to wipe everyone out, he tends to focus on giant people groups. And this is actually an apologetic tool for us. Often, atheists and unbelievers will take What they see as a moral problem in the Old Testament, the genocide of Canaan, and they will say, how can a good God destroy whole people groups? Well, we can answer that in several ways. We can say that God is the only foundation for moral judgments. God is the judge of all the earth. He is the standard of right and wrong. We can say that every sinner deserves to die. Every sinner deserves to die. We baptized Jonathan Kim this morning, not as a picture that he's perfectly innocent, but rather as a reminder that he, like all of us, are born in sin and need a savior. We need the cleansing of the blood of Christ. Every sinner deserves to die. And if God had judged all of us, and not provided a savior, he would have been perfectly just in so doing. Also, the conquest of Canaan was a picture of the final judgment, the utter destruction of the wicked. But in addition to those answers, we can also point out to the unbeliever that this was not an arbitrary or indiscriminate, holy, total war. Rather, it was focused on the giants. In general, the pagans were defeated, the giants were destroyed. And one reason for that might be, going all the way back to Genesis 6-4, that God wanted to wipe out the unusual offspring produced by the improper mingling of angels and women. Regardless, the judge of all the earth does what is right. Now, as we get to the end of the conquest, I quoted a verse which said, none of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel. They remained only in three places, Gaza, Gath, and in Ashdod. And that sets us up for the kingdom of Israel, because who's from Gath? Who's from Gath? The most famous giant in all of history. It's Goliath. And that brings us to the second era of redemptive history. Not just the conquest of the land, but then the establishment of the kingdom. The most famous monarch in all of Israel's history was King David. who won his spurs, so to speak, by defeating this giant. And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was 5,000 shekels of bronze. And he had a bronze armor on his legs, and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his iron spearhead weighed 600 shekels, and a shield bearer went before him. I'm not gonna take time to show you my work, but if you look at the Bible and you take the Masoretic text seriously, this man was nine feet, nine inches tall. The giant of a man. His coat of mail weighed 125 pounds, and the tip of his spear alone weighed 15 pounds. And David, the shepherd boy, goes out against a man who is not quite 10 feet tall, takes out his sling and strikes him in the head with a stone. And don't forget what happens after that. When the giant falls to the ground, David goes and takes the giant Goliath's own sword out of its scabbard and cuts off his head and brings the head of the giant to the king. as an emblem of victory. And it's from this point on that David's ascent to the throne begins, because Saul has killed his thousands, but David, his 10,000s. He killed the giants. And you might think that was the end of the giants, but periodically, even in the era of the kingdom, we find more giants. In fact, Goliath's relatives that the men of Israel fight against, particularly David's mighty men. I'll give you a few examples. Abishai rescued David from the hand of Ishbi-binod, who was one of the sons of the giants. The weight of whose bronze spear was 300 shekels, who was bearing a new sword. Sibachai, the Hushethite, killed Saph, who was one of the sons of the giants. Elhanan, the son of Jer, Oregim, the Bethlehemite, killed the brother of Goliath, the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. And then finally, Jonathan, the son of Shimea, David's brother, killed a man of great stature who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, 24 in number, and he also was born to the giants. One final example, and I love this one. This is Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man from Kabzeel who had done many deeds. He had killed two lion-like heroes of Moab. He also had gone down and killed a lion in the midst of a pit on a snowy day, and He killed an Egyptian, a man of great height, five cubits tall, in the Egyptian's hand there was a spear like a weaver's beam, and he went down to him with a staff, wrested the spear out of the Egyptian's hand, and killed him with his own spear, a man roughly seven feet, six inches tall. So whether it's in Genesis 6, which is the backdrop to the flood, or the conquest of the land under Joshua, or the establishment of the kingdom under David and his mighty men, giants are the chief enemy of God's people. They loom large in redemptive history, and yet as we get to the end of the Old Testament, any reference to them basically disappears, and they appear to be killed off, until we come to Jesus Christ. And when Jesus Christ comes in the fullness of time, we have one who is going to deal with all of the evil in the worlds, who's going to deal with the serpents. the dragon, who's going to deal with his minions, his beasts, and his demons. And when Jesus comes, what does he do in his life, in his death, in his resurrection, in his ascension? He comes to have victory over the evil one and his forces. And just as David cut off the head of Goliath with his own sword, Even as Benaiah killed the Egyptian giants with his own spear, when Jesus came, what did he do? He defeated him with death, who had the power of death. By his death on the cross, Jesus defeated the devil. He crushed the serpent's head. Figuratively speaking, spiritually speaking, he slew the giants. And then we read in 1 Peter this, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, by whom also he went. and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient when once the divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved through water." Jesus declared his victory over the evil one as he cast out demons. He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He was buried, he descended to the place of the dead, and he declared his victory over the fallen angels and over the spirits of the dead giants. Jesus is the ultimate giant killer, dragon slayer. Victory belongs to the lamb, to the lion of the tribe of Judah. Giants in the beginning. Giants in redemptive history. Finally, congregation, giants in your life. Giants in your life. How is this story, this history, applicable to how you live your life today? We can say this, that although the historical giants have died out, They represented real spiritual enemies. They represented chaos and tyranny, civilization gone awry. They represented all that is wrong in the world. Two applications as we close. First, identify the giants in your life. Identify those sources of fear and discouragement in your life. And yes, we could point to big governments, big business, big tech, big science, big pharma, but just realize, congregation, that that is but a proxy war being waged by puppet kings. That there is a puppet master, even the devil. and his angels, and they are the real spiritual enemies. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the forces of wickedness in high places. Even as we saw Herod go to kill the Christ child, we know that there was a great fiery red dragon behind him who wanted to see the Messiah dead. The real giants that you face and that I face are the world, the flesh, and the devil, we're like Pilgrim and his friend in the castle of giant despair, facing discouragement. And it's important that we need to identify the spiritual giants that we face, who make us afraid, who make us discouraged. But there's a second application, having identified the giants, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid, but trust in Jesus. This was a message that Joshua's generation had to hear. We're like grasshoppers in their sight. And the answer was, do not be afraid. When Moses and the children of Israel stood at the Red Sea, and the forces of the Egyptians were coming upon them, the message was, do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Regardless of what you're facing today, you're afraid you're gonna lose your job. You're afraid you're going to lose your house, that you're going to be bankrupt, you're afraid that there are literal enemies at your door, whatever it might be, whatever fears, whatever discouragements, my message from this text is do not be afraid. But trust in Jesus, trust in Jesus who killed the giants for you. He crushed the head. He used death to defeat him who had the power of death. And he's already proclaimed his victory, a victory that we proclaim each Lord's Day, that Jesus is king, that Jesus has won, and Jesus will bring his victory to consummation. Trust in Christ for salvation. trust in him who killed the giants for you, but also trust in Jesus to fight these giants with you. You're not alone in the fight. You're not only surrounded by a great host, a great company of fellow believers, but we have a captain of our salvation, one who is greater than David, Jesus, who fights with you, so that we, by faith, can say, with David, you come to me with a sword, with a spear and with a javelin, But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know there is a God in Israel. Then all the assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into my hands. Trust in Jesus, who has fought for you and who fights with you against the deadliest of giants. Let us look to him, amen.