The Nephilim 

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. 

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”  But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6: 4 to 8) 

We are all familiar with the story of Noah and the great flood.  However, we don't quite talk about it because it had happened a long time ago and God promised that it won't happen again.  There are great lessons we could learn from it. 

Firstly, why did God destroy the world like that?  The Bible says that's because men became greatly wicked.  As a matter of fact, we could find even greater wickedness in history.  I think the big difference is that during Noah's time, there were Nephilim on the earth when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them.  The Nephilim were also mentioned below. 

And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” (Numbers 13: 33)  

When Moses sent twelve leaders of Israelites to explore Cannon, ten came back and reported the bad news of how impossible to take the land from them because they were so big.  Indeed, how could regular human beings against giants like that.  Don't even mention that those giants had the spirit of God in them to make them the heroes of old, men of renown.  It's impossible for men against them to reconcile with God, don’t even mention that men were wicked too.  Therefore, God needed to wipe them out with the big flood to give humans the chance to be saved in the future.  So, the ark and big flood are for our sake so that when the salvation came, men could be saved. 

Secondly, why did God only save Noah's family?  Or why did Noah only save his own family?  Apostle Peter described Noah as: 

"a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2: 5).   

God commanded Noah to build the ark when Noah was 500 years old after having three sons.  The flood didn't come until Noah was 600 years old.  During that whole 100 years, Noah not only built the ark in a hostile environment but also preached righteousness to people so that they could be saved.  But no one would listen.  That's how broken and hopeless the world was.  Even though salvation was opened to everybody it's up to people to take it or not. 

Today, God sent an even more powerful and merciful message through Jesus.  We don't need to build an ark or make any effort to be saved.  All we need to do is to accept Jesus as our savior.  Not only that, with the Holy Spirit being bestowed to us through Jesus, the Holy Spirit could lead our ways and give us the strength to resist the temptation from Nephilim created by this world.  Emmanuel. 

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