In the sermon titled 'The Disaster Of Indiscriminate Marriage,' Jason Dohm explores Genesis 6:1-4, focusing on the consequences of indiscriminate marriages where spiritual considerations are ignored in favor of superficial ones. Dohm emphasizes that such unions, where sons of God marry daughters of men based solely on physical beauty, lead to a decline in godliness and an increase in sin and rebellion against God. He interprets the 'sons of God' as believers adopted by God through faith and the 'daughters of men' as those outside the faith. The speaker highlights the importance of spiritual compatibility in marriage, citing biblical passages such as Malachi 2 and Deuteronomy 7, and warns against marrying without regard to spiritual vitality. Dohm asserts that the decline of humanity, leading to the flood, was significantly influenced by these indiscriminate marriages. He concludes by urging believers to prioritize spiritual matters in marriage to fulfill God's mission of raising godly offspring, warning that failure to do so leads to disastrous outcomes.

The title of the message this morning is The Disaster of Indiscriminate Marriage. So I thought I wouldn't hide where I'm headed for this text, I just put it right in the title, just tip my hand. I think this text is more than anything else about indiscriminate marriage. By indiscriminate marriage, I mean when you're considering who you might marry, you set aside and ignore the most important things or thing and You decide who you'll marry based on secondary things. The results of that are disastrous.

I think that's what's before us in our text today. I think it is the disaster of indiscriminate marriage and what that did to planet Earth when people engaged in this pattern. Chapter 5 was the genealogy designed to get us from Adam to Noah and the generation of the global flood. So it has accomplished its purpose and we are to Noah and the generation of the global flood. Here's the last verse we read, the very last verse of chapter 5.

And Noah was 500 years old and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth. So these will now become the central characters of the history that Moses sets before us. And the global flood, it will be Adam and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. And Pretty soon they will be the only human beings left on planet Earth because of the rise of sin that we see happening in our text today. As we enter chapter 6, we are taken back.

I think this is an important point to make. Chapter 6 actually doesn't just start with Noah and his sons. It actually takes us back in time to when men began to multiply on the face of the earth. That's not Noah's generation. That is back with Adam and Eve.

They've been expelled from the garden. They start having children and men begin to multiply on the face of the earth. So don't think of this as strictly sequential as if chapter 6 only considers the time of Noah and forward. It begins with mankind beginning to multiply and fill the earth. That's exactly what the text says.

A fundamental problem is identified which leads to good diminishing to very little in the world. So here's what's happening in our text. Good is diminishing to very little in the world, and evil increasing to a dominant position in the world. This happens largely within the scope of just our four verses, but also in what we'll be studying next week. That fundamental problem is the sons of God marrying and having children with the daughters of men.

So I'll be taking, I'll be talking about my best understanding of what that means. That Problem statement. So this is the problem statement. The sons of God marry the daughters of men and they have children together. And I'll be talking about the consequences of that problem.

Let's ask God to help us. God, Your Word is so profitable. We find ourselves so in need of it, and so helped by it. It's correcting our thinking week by week. I pray that would happen, that our thoughts would be calibrated by your Word, by the truth of your Word.

Oh God, please help us, Lord. Please enter into this time. Let your spirit be our teacher today. Pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Our first subdivision will be to take verses 1 and 2 together, so hopefully Your Bibles are still open to Genesis chapter 6 and follow along as I re-read verses 1 and 2.

Genesis chapter 6 verses 1 and 2. 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." Here in these verses our author speaks of the sons of God and the daughters of men. I think there's a contrast here. That's why they're spoken of these two different ways, Sons of God but daughters of men. I think that the big point of the early part of chapter 6 is this.

I want to sort of erect a framework and then start setting the little parts into the big point. I think the big point of the early part of this chapter is this. People began to increase on the earth and so did rebellion against God. So there's more and more people and with more and more people there is more and more rebellion against God. People increase, sin increases, and disobedience to God increases.

Adam and Eve began to be fruitful and multiply. They had Cain and Abel. Not too long afterward, you have the first murder. So here we're starting to see the rise of sin, even with the first children. Adam and Eve have Cain and Abel.

Not long after that, you have the first murder. Abel is dead. Cain marries and has children. Lamech is one of Cain's descendants generations later. Just this few generations later, you're to multiple wives, you're to Lamech killing a man for wounding him and then writing poetry about it with no sense of remorse, no sense of repenting of having killed a person in that.

It's a very careless way to speak of having killed a man. So we've already seen that sin didn't stop with the first sin. We had the first sin, don't eat of that tree, Adam and Eve ate of that tree, oh but sin didn't stop there by no means. Sin came into the world through that sin, and that sin corrupted our nature, and sin became the rule not the exception. However long Adam and Eve lived in the garden before that sin.

There was no sin and it was all good, all righteousness, but now sin is the rule not the exception. But that wasn't all the story, was it? At the end of chapter 1, Adam and Eve have another son, his name was Seth. Then the text says, then men began to call on the name of the Lord." So we have two things happening at the same time. There is the rise of sin in the world, but also there is this other Son and men begin to call on the name of the Lord.

That's good. That's what we want to see in the world. But now our text talks about something that fundamentally shapes the trajectory of humanity. So if you look at humanity as a whole at a summary level, there's a trajectory and that trajectory is being fundamentally shaped by something as mankind is multiplying. The sons of God see that the daughters of men are beautiful and they take wives for themselves from anyone and everyone." What's the marriage pool?

Who is eligible for unirmarriage? Pretty girls. That's the pool. Pretty girls. Now the key question is, who are the sons of God and who are the daughters of men?

So, commentators have lots of thoughts about how to answer this question. My view is very simple. The sons of God are how we understand that term now, like you walked into the room with an understanding of a son of God and so were the daughters of men. So, sons of God are how we understand that to be now, daughters of men are how we understand that to be now. How do we understand those terms?

I am a son of God. I make that claim without apology. By faith in God through adoption. I wasn't born that, but I've become that. I was one of the sons of men.

So I know how I was born. I was born with Adam as the head of my race, one of the sons of men, but I became one of the sons of God by calling on his name and saving faith. It wasn't that, I became that. I was born, my nature was corrupt, I was born with a corrupt nature, I was an enemy of God. Paul says that about me.

Shame on him. But I was born again. So I was born as a son of man, but I was born again and adopted by God into his family. I am a son of God. That's how we commonly think of that term.

It means a believer adopted by God on the basis of faith. The daughters of men would then be the women who were born, their natures are corrupt, they are enemies of God, just how I described myself before adoption, and they are not born again. They are not adopted by God into His family. They are defined not by their adoption, but by the head of their race, which is Adam, a fallen race. Now marriages are formed and the sons of God, adopted by God, God setting them apart to Himself by faith, are not looking to marry the daughters of God.

If you accept my definition, sons of God are the adopted children of God by faith. Sons of God ought to be marrying daughters of God. They are simply looking to marry pretty women. Oh, that never happens today. We have no frame of reference for that.

Believing men being discombobulated by beauty and being made insensitive to the most important things because of natural attraction and abandoning things that ought to have the priority to marry for beauty? I think we know something about this. The pool for marriage partners is not women who have savingly called on the name of the Lord. The pool is any beautiful woman. Now, why are there other views about who the sons of God are?

Because in Job 1, Job 2, and Job 38, the sons of God are clearly angelic beings. There's no denying that Satan is one of them. The sons of God come before God and God asks them questions and they interact. So It could mean that here, could mean angelic beings here, but it does not have to mean that at all. In fact, across Scripture, so if we just look across Scripture, Old Testament as well as New, the children of God, so a son of God is just a male child of God, right?

The children of God are those who God has set apart to himself and adopted into his family by bringing them into faith. So if I say Son of God, we'll be very tempted to go to Job 1, Job 2, Job 38 and say we have that exact phrase and that's an angelic being, but I'm saying If we just take gender out of it and say, what is a child of God? Nobody has any confusion over that term, and we would say, oh it's a sinner who was adopted by God because God is full of grace. And that's normally in the Old Testament and knew how you see that term used, child of God, one who was adopted by God into his family. I think the gender distinction is made in our text, sons, gender distinct, sons of God, because the crux of the problem that is being described, the crux of the problem that is being displayed, is that believing men, heads of households, marry unbelieving women, and those homes rarely produce godly offspring and often, often overwhelmingly produce reprobates, rebels.

Remember, we are watching the degeneration of the world. That's the whole point of this text is to describe the decline of humanity to where God says, I'm sorry I made them and wipes out all but eight people by the flood. That's the purpose of this text, to describe the degeneration of the world, the decline of humanity into overwhelming rebellion against God. How do we get there? This text is telling us how we got there.

This other understanding of the problem, it's angelic beings procreating with human women, has this text having little to do with us. Like what's that got to do with me? My understanding of this problem, which actually aligns with Poole and Calvin and Henry. So that's not why it's my view, but I'm very comforted to know that the Reformers and the Puritans generally held the view that I'm preaching now. I'm happy when that happens.

I'm nervous when it doesn't happen. My understanding of this problem makes our text have everything to do with us. Does the temptation to marry for beauty and set aside infinitely more important spiritual matters have anything to do with us? You bet it does. You bet it does.

Now, what is the mission for a marriage? We could skip to the end and say it's to reflect Jesus in the church. But I'm saying, in the context of Genesis, love that, but I'm not skipping there. In the context of Genesis, what have we studied to be the mission for a marriage? Genesis 1, 27 and 28.

Just flip back to Genesis 1, look at verses 27 and 28. So, God created man in His own image, image bearers. In the image of God, He created him male and female. He created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." So a man and a woman, two of God's image bearers, both bearing God's image, are to be fruitful, fill the earth, and take dominion.

They leave and cleave. The man's born in a home, he leaves that home, the woman's born into a home, she leaves that home, they cleave, they're joined together, they become one to do that. To be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, subdue it, to take dominion. They are actually to exercise authority over what God created together. These are why new homes are formed, to exercise authority over what God created in fellowship with Him, under His authority and on His behalf.

Leave your homes, join together as one, and exercise authority over God's creation in fellowship with God under the authority of God. Do it on His behalf. It's what image bearers do. Son of God, who are you going to do that with? Believing, adopted men into God's family, Who are you going to do that with?

Believing, adopted men into God's family. Who are you going to do that with? The pretty girl. So, the mission is disconnected from the criteria. Here's the mission.

Exercise authority over God's creation in fellowship with Him under His authority on His behalf. Adopted son, who are you going to do that with? The pretty one. Oh, help us. No!

If she's pretty, that's icing on the cake. But that has to be secondary. Is she a daughter of God? You are a son of God. You are bound by God's Word to marry a daughter of God.

As best as you can tell. You are only going to exercise authority over what God created in fellowship with Him under His authority and on His behalf if you marry a daughter of God. What does Malachi 2 say? Malachi 2 is talking about marriage. Malachi 2 says, did God not make them one?

A man, a woman, Didn't he join them together and make them one? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. So Malachi 2 answers the question in a different way, but it's really the same answer. Like, Why did he make these two one?

He desires not just an expansion of mankind, a multiplication and increase, but an expansion of worshippers, godly offspring, not just more humans. Son of God, you are only going to be able to labor together in a unified way to give God godly offspring if you marry a daughter of God. I know God in His grace, in His goodness, can surprise us and give us what we don't deserve and can reach into all kinds of backgrounds. I got it. I know that.

We're talking about what God has designed here. What is God telling us to do? It's not a question of what God can do, it's a question of what is God telling us to do. By the way, the context of Malachi 2 is God's condemnation of Israel for marrying outside the faith. That's the context of Malachi 2.

Like, it's God condemning these men of Israel for marrying daughters of a foreign God, marrying outside the faith. It's the whole context of that. God's saying, but why does God give you a wife? It's for godly offspring. So this Malachi 2 is directly connected with our text.

Listen to these other passages. This is Deuteronomy chapter 7 verses 1 through 4. Deuteronomy chapter 7 verses 1 through 4. When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you. And when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them.

You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them, nor shall you make marriages with them you shall not give your daughter to their son nor take their daughter for your son for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. This is the people of Israel on the verge of conquering these nations and taking the promised land and God say don't you leave one of them alive. You'll be tempted to take their daughters for your sons and they'll lead your daughters astray and you won't even follow me anymore. It's exactly what we're seeing in our text, the threat of this in our text. The danger was so great they weren't supposed to let anyone live lest this happen and they'd be drawn away from following God.

Here's what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6 14. So Paul writes this to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 6 14. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness, and what communion has light with darkness? And what business do the sons of God having marrying just pretty girls?" I added that last part.

I wasn't Paul, that was me. What business do the sons of God have marrying girls who nothing more can be said of them than they were beautiful? They are defined by their beauty, not by their family adopted by God. Let's test this with a question. Parents, you have children.

You get something like two decades to have tremendous influence in their lives. That's what you get. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. Is it easy or difficult to send sons and daughters of God out into the world. Oh, piece of cake.

It's nothing to send a son of God out into the world. If you think that, you have a newborn. If you've got a teenager, you know the answer isn't. Oh, That's nothing to send a Son of God out to the world. If God gives you grace, you have your hands full.

If God doesn't give you grace, you're underwater. First, only the Spirit of God can make a son of God. Only the Spirit of God can make a daughter of God. But we have been given these duties to at least bring our children under the means of grace. What does that mean?

God tells you to bring them into contact with the Gospel day after day after day, week after week after week, to give them the Bible like it's written on the doorposts. They can't walk through a door in your home without encountering the Word of God. So God gives us these channels for His grace and says, do this to parents. So it takes the Spirit of God, but we've been given these means of grace, these channels, like they are there to hear us pray, they're there to hear us pray for them. They're to engage in going among the people of God, hearing, preaching in our homes, at church, singing the songs.

But are there any headwinds? Anything? Blowing in the other direction, Let's say you do every one of your duties to the nth degree. You got anything pushing in the other direction? Like their nature?

So we're worried about these outside influences and we should be and we should manage all that, but the big problem is in their heart. You can keep them locked up all the time and they would be locked up with the biggest problem. The world is finding inroads that you don't even know about, or you do know about and you're insensitive to and is trying to press them into the mold of the world, which is an anti-god world. Their flesh is going the opposite direction. The devil hates God's children and their natural children.

Now imagine men...try Now, imagine. Men. Try this with an unbelieving wife. Now your mission is to do this, but these children that God gives you are going to have a mom who cares nothing for the things of God. So either she's not going to be teaching them about the things of God, or she's going to be doing it in a lifeless way.

Like, pick your poison. Whatever the rate is among us, we have X number of children and some portion of them, as God gives us grace, as the Holy Spirit works among us, are going to be sent out into the world as a son of God or a daughter of God, whatever that rate is, what would happen to the rate if we try this with an unbelieving wife? What if today a strong majority of real live Christian men, so we're talking about actual Christian men, But a strong majority of them, many more than not, stopped prioritizing marrying real, live Christian women and just married for beauty. And just married for beauty. How many Christians do you think there would be in 30 years?

This is just a thought experiment. Today, Christian men decide, it doesn't really matter whether I marry a Christian woman or not. It doesn't matter whether the woman I marry has any spiritual vitality, meaning life and strength. I just want a cute one. They all marry that way.

Where would be the people of God on earth in 30 years? What would you expect of the children who come out of those homes? Again, God could have them be believers anyway. I know that. That's not what we're talking about.

God can make everyone on planet earth a believer today. I got it. We're talking about what God has called us to. Even how much outreach would you expect from the Christian men outside of their homes? All people who will be Christians didn't grow up in a Christian home.

There are many in this room who didn't go up in a Christian home. And Christians gave the gospel to them and they were saved that way. We have the same condition. Christian men just married the cute ones. Do you think the external outreach would be different?

Do you think Christian men would be strengthened or weakened spiritually by that marital state? I mean the answer is so obvious. Christian men get spiritual vitality from a spouse who loves God and follows Jesus. And that spiritual vitality is sapped away by a woman who cares nothing for God. That is true.

Proverbs 29-16 says this, Proverbs 29-16, When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increases. This is what our text is about. Good is diminishing in the world because of this dynamic. Evil is ascending in the world, is gaining a dominant position in the world, when the wicked or multiplied transgression increases. Here's what Matthew Henry says about that, the more sinners, the more sin, and the multitude of offenders emboldens men." Meaning, when rebellion against God is in the ascendancy, Sinners are what?

Emboldened? They get bolder and bolder. We're watching it happen in America today. Sinners are emboldened. Here's what he says to finish out this quote, infectious diseases are most destructive in populous cities and sin is a spreading leprosy.

Oh yeah it is. This is actually the scenario set before us in our text. Marriage without regard to spiritual state, doesn't matter what your spiritual state is your cute I'll marry you and without regard to spiritual vitality is their life there is their strength there is what's before us in our text. The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. Now before we move on, there's an important comparison that I believe has to be intentional.

It cannot be just coincidental. Look back at chapter 3 verse 6. This is Eve. Chapter 3 verse 6. So when the woman saw that the tree was good, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

She saw, it pleased her eyes, she took. Our text has exactly the same sequence. Come back to our text. The sons of God saw, it pleased their eyes, beautiful, and they took. They married of everyone as they chose.

What God has said, the Word of God, is set aside. Personal judgment is substituted. God's ways are abandoned. The result is devastating in Genesis 3 and Genesis 6. They saw it please their eyes.

They took. They set aside the Word of God. They substituted their own judgment based on what they see. The result is devastating. Brethren, we've been warned.

Set aside the Word of God for your own judgment at your own peril. The end is disaster. It's a road to disaster. Verse 3. Moving on to verse 3.

Genesis 6 verse 3, and the Lord said, the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh. Yet his days shall be 120 years." Here in this verse we have the end of God's striving. Striving fills in the blank if you're filling in the blanks. The end of God's striving. We are not God's peers.

The modern church environment has God as our buddy. He is the friend of sinners, amen. But buddy is probably not the right word. God is not our peer. He is God.

We are only flesh. Made out of dust will be returned to dust. He created us. He has all of the rights over us. So, any and all striving with us is mercy.

You just leave us alone. Just get what you deserve. Any and all striving with us is mercy, holding back from giving us what we deserve. And God describes Himself as long-suffering. So we have God's self-revelation.

How does he reveal himself to be? He says, I'm long-suffering. He's very patient. But here the Lord, the self-existing one, that name, Lord in all caps, makes a declaration. He says, my spirit shall not strive with man forever.

I'm not your peer." We're not having an argument here over how this will end, over what's right. My spirit shall not strive with man forever. When we last encountered the Spirit of God, he was hovering over the face of the waters at the beginning of creation week. I think it was chapter 1 verse 2. Now he is here striving with man.

We should ask, in what way has the Spirit of God been striving with man? Well, I can give you two examples. I think those two examples are simply representative of ways in which the Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin to mankind. In John, Jesus says, when I send the Holy Spirit into the world, He will convict the world of sin and judgment. That's not a new function for the Holy Spirit.

Let me give you two examples. First in Genesis chapter 5 we studied Enoch who walked with God And the New Testament book of Jude calls out Enoch as a prophet that stood in his generation and declared the judgment of God against all ungodliness. The Spirit of God raised up Enoch as a prophet to announce the judgment of God against the rebellion of man. The Spirit of God was striving with man. When the Spirit raises up a prophet to thunder against ungodliness and to announce judgment, it's the Spirit of God striving with man.

Second, in 2 Peter 2 verse 5, Noah is identified as a preacher of righteousness. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a shipbuilder, became a shipbuilder, but he was a preacher of righteousness. That's what Peter describes him as in 2 Peter 2. Peter also touches on this in his first letter.

Listen to 1 Peter 3.20, Peter says, the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared. The divine long-suffering, God in His patience and His long-suffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared. It's something like a hundred years while the ark is being prepared. So a long-term project. Noah, the preacher of righteousness.

Spirit of God was striving with mankind. Now in our text God says mankind's days shall be 120 years. There are two ways to understand this. Lifespan or time until judgment. So you have to make a choice here.

It could mean lifespan. We've been seeing these 900 plus year lifespan. It could mean it's coming down to be capped at 120 years, or it could mean it's a hundred and twenty years until the judgment that God is promising, 120 years to the global flood. I think it could be either. I'm going to make a pick, but I think it could be either.

After the flood, you don't see life spans immediately come down to 120 years, but you do see it come down to 120 years. That really is the hard cap on the lifespan on planet Earth right now. Maybe that's what that means. I think it's actually time until judgment. In chapter 5 verse 32 we see Noah is 500 years old.

In chapter 7 verse 6 we see that the flood happens when he is 600 years old. We don't have a time stamp on this declaration that is 120 years. So 120 years from this declaration to the beginning of the flood fits here nicely, naturally. Also last week we had Methuselah who had a really meaningful name. Do you remember the meaning of his name?

He dies and the arrow, and we can do the math and find out that Methuselah died in the year of the flood. He died and then the arrow of God's judgment was unleashed on the earth. So we know that the countdown clock is ticking just from Methuselah's name. So I think that's what it is actually. I think this is the countdown clock ticking.

God giving time from when he says this and sending a preacher of righteousness in Noah to preach and build while the clock is ticking. Listen to this study note from Reformation heritage. From this we deduce that the warning to Noah was a hundred and twenty years before the flood. Noah preached righteousness for over a century to a lost world that would not listen." That's definitely true. Calvin says this.

John Calvin says, The Lord, as if wearied with the obstinate perverseness of the world, like stubborn wickedness denounces that vengeance as present which he had hitherto deferred." I've been deferring judgment, but now he's announcing it's almost upon you. You. For as long as the Lord suspends punishment, He in a certain sense strives with man." As long as the Lord suspends punishment, He in a certain sense strives with man. Especially if either by threats or by examples of general chastisement, he invites them to repentance. So we're seeing he's sending prophets.

So here in verse 3, God announces the end of his striving with mankind. The countdown clock is ticking until God sends judgment on the world. We think of 120 years as many generations, but they're at this time living till 900 years. So this is actually a fraction of a lifetime of the people that we've been studying in chapter 5, certainly. Okay, final verse.

Verse 4. Genesis 6 verse 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." Here in this verse we have giants and men of renown, mighty men of renown. Now if you believe that the sons of God are angelic beings, you go crazy with this verse.

Demons procreate with human women and the giants are the offspring of that unnatural procreation. But notice, the text doesn't actually say any of that. You have to connect dots that are not even established anywhere else in scripture, let alone connected. What does the text actually say? The text actually says that there were giants on the earth, or Nephilim, you might have a translation that just instead of giants says Nephilim, there were giants on the earth or Nephilim in those days and afterwards, giants on the earth.

When the sons of God married the daughters of men and had children, when the dynamic that is being described was happening and after. For sure you have that. The other thing gets really dicey really fast. The only other place this Hebrew word is used is numbers 1333. This is from the report of the twelve spies that were sent into the promised land.

They're on the edge of the promised land and the people send a representative from every tribe, the 12 tribes, 12 spies go in to scout out the land and bring back a report. This is part of the report that the 12 spies bring back. Numbers 13 verse 33. They say, there we saw the giants, or the Nephilim. The descendants of Anak came from the giants.

So that's in parentheses in numbers 13. This is like an aside from the author. When they say, there we saw the Giants, the author informs you, educates us that the descendants of Anak came from the giants. Here the report of the spies continues, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight. They were so big that we look like bugs.

Strong's definition of this Hebrew word is a bully or tyrant, giant. So that's the Strong's definition of this Hebrew word, a bully or tyrant, a giant. So it is a huge person, but there's more to it than that. It is the character also, a bully or a tyrant, a giant. Goliath and his brothers were descendants of Anak, Goliath being the giant among the Philistines who came out to blaspheme God and taunt the people of God.

So that definitely fits the bill, doesn't it? A bully or a tyrant. A giant. Goliath fits every element of that description. Matthew Poole says this, giants, partly from their high stature, but principally for their great strength and force whereby they oppressed and tyrannized over others.

I think that Matthew Poole nails it. So Those were the mighty men who were of old. They were men. They were a certain kind of men. They were huge and strong and mighty, and they were bullies and tyrants.

They were known as mighty men. They were men of renown. That word renown literally means name. They were men of name. You knew their name.

We actually know one of them literally by name, Goliath. Applications, I'll give you two. If you thought you were going to come here today and hear about a race that was half demon half man, boy you have to be so disappointed in the sermon. Sorry, I don't think that's what it means. Application one, indiscriminate marriage, marriage without prioritizing spiritual state and spiritual vigor.

That's what I mean by indiscriminate marriage. Marriage without prioritizing. This is most important. Spiritual state, Are you a son of God or a son of man, a daughter of God or a daughter of man? And spiritual vigor, is there real life there, is there real strength there, is utterly prohibited for the people of God.

The second is subtle, more subtle, but is arguably equally disastrous. It is arguably more disastrous marrying a person who claims to be a believer but who couldn't be convicted of it in a court. Meaning you're a Christian. We're bringing you before the judge. The lawyers come, they do their lawyer things, they present the best of their evidence, and the judge says you're innocent.

You cannot be convicted based on the evidence of being a Christian. Surely this was a false accusation. Are there people in the world who claim the name of Christian, profess to belong to Christ, but if you drug them into court, there wouldn't be enough evidence and they'd be let go. I want to make the case that the people of God are utterly prohibited for marrying a person like that. It has no spiritual vitality, no signs of spiritual life, no signs of spiritual strength.

And it's happening all the time. And we're countenancing it based on a profession, but a profession that does not match affections. Does it match the affections? Does it match the lifestyle? Does it match any passion in their life?

All the passion is for things that have nothing to do with God. They don't appear to have passion for anything related to the things of God, but they claim the name of Christ and we think it's okay for a Christian to marry them. It is not. It is not okay. This is unequal yoking.

Young people, young unmarried people, it is not enough for a person to say they are a Christian. You need to marry someone who has spiritual vitality and has a life that if they were drug into a court, accused of being a Christian, there would be enough evidence to put them in the slammer for it. Don't accept anyone else. Don't start down that track for anyone else, because once you start down the track, you can talk yourself into anything. Once you start down the track, you can talk yourself into anything, and many do, and many have, to their regret.

Listen to Proverbs 31 verse 30. A king's mother taught this to her son. How would you like to know something a king's mother taught to her son? Proverbs chapter 31 verse 30. Charm is deceptive.

Charm is deceitful. Charm will deceive you. And beauty is passing. Beauty is fleeting. We're all gonna wrinkle up.

We're all gonna wrinkle up. Nothing like we looked in our twenties. A woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. That's what you're looking for. That's what you're looking for.

Don't look for the beautiful, look for the lovely. Aren't those such different words? Application number two. Matthew Henry says this, Matthew Henry says this, reprieves are not pardons. Reprieves are not pardons.

God says, God says, 120 years, that's not a pardon. That's an opportunity, not a guarantee of anything. God strives. If you're born again, it's because the Spirit of God strove with you. Is that the right conjugation of that?

Is that the past tense? I'm getting a thumbs up back there. J-Bez says we're on safe grammatical ground. If you're born again, it's because God strove with you. If He'd have left you to yourself and given you a thousand lifetimes, you never would have pursued Him.

But He will not strive forever. If you're in a place where you have the privilege of coming under the gospel, having Jesus offered to you, just know this. A reprieve another day is no pardon. An opportunity is not a guarantee. The countdown clock is ticking.

It would really be helpful to know how many seconds I ordered up thunder. The countdown clock is ticking. That won't be on the audio. No one will have any idea. That was thunder for the audio.

Reprieves are not pardons. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near." Isaiah 55. God, thank You for this text. Whether I got the interpretation of this text exactly right or not, I know the Bible teaches we must be so careful with how we engage this tremendously important topic of getting married.

I pray that you would help us to help our children. I pray that you would help every unmarried single person in the room, that the seriousness of this would settle upon them, and they wouldn't be willing to be married to anyone who is lacking spiritual vitality. I pray that you would be pleased to work through our generations to give yourself godly offspring. More worshippers, more people who Know who they are and know who you are. Know what you've done for sinners.

Pray in Jesus' name, Amen.