“When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”  (Genesis 9:16)

IN June of 2015, the Supreme Court ruled to legalize same-sex marriage in the United States, if such a thing were even possible. [Same-sex and marriage are mutually exclusive by definition]

A week later, President Obama showed his overwhelming approval of the ruling by lighting up the White House in rainbow colors. Much of the world celebrated and applauded both the ruling and the bold display of approval in our nation’s capitol.

I’ve often wondered … Why the rainbow? Why was this particular symbol chosen of all symbols to represent the LGBTQ movement? The rainbow flag was first showcased at San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978, and has been a cultural icon ever since. But like all things perverse, there is always a truth behind the lie.

Although, the true meaning of the rainbow as God’s covenant sign to mankind may well have been lost in our secular culture, I happen to believe the leading LGBTQ advocates knew exactly what they were doing when they decided to use the rainbow to represent their cause. And I believe it is one of the most defiant, deliberate acts of rebellion in the face of God that our world has ever seen.

First, let us remember what meaning God has ascribed to the rainbow of many colors. Considering God is Creator of the universe, who spoke light into existence, I think He is qualified as having the authority to ascribe meaning and purpose to His creation. After carrying out the greatest, most comprehensive act of divine judgment in the history of mankind – a global flood – God made a covenant with Noah and the rest of mankind. He promised never to destroy the earth again with a flood , and the rainbow became the sign of His promise.

So every time we see a beautiful rainbow in the sky, two things should automatically come to mind. First, we should remember the holiness and righteous judgment of God, who cannot look upon our sin and who will not leave the guilty unpunished, but second we also should remember the great mercy of God who is patient with us and forever faithful to keep His promise .

Now consider the meaning that the advocates of the LGBTQ movement have ascribed to the sign of the rainbow. The rainbow has become the clarion call, the cultural banner, and political icon of sexual freedom. These are people who choose to establish their identity in every kind of sexual perversion and proudly celebrate for all to see.

In short, the rainbow has become the sign of the sexually perverse and immoral. God has clearly established that any and all sexual conduct outside the proper parameters of monogamous marriage between a man and woman is a gross violation of the created order. Anything else is a perversion – a sin before a Holy God.

Even more troubling is that the very same people who fly their rainbow flags and stamp their rainbow stickers to the bumpers of their cars, are making the most defiant statement before the LORD our God. They are in effect saying to God, “we don’t care what the rainbow means to you. It’s ours now and we will do as we will.”

Writing centuries ago, the Apostle Paul provided keen insight to the cultural patterns and social ideologies that would dominate our world. Consider his words.

“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:26-32)

It’s not enough for sexual sin to be a private struggle or even a personal preference anymore. That’s not enough for the LGBTQ movement. In hijacking the rainbow, they also have attempted to become the self-proclaimed voice of authority on sexuality. Not only do they want full cultural acceptance, they also are demanding full moral approval from all parties. All the whille denying God’s righteous decree that resides within every human heart that “those who practice such things deserve to die.”

The world in Noah’s day had to die in their sins because they refused to repent and believe the gospel and the only way of salvation in their generation. Sadly, many more today are in the same danger of God’s judgment as in the days of Noah.

If only these same people only knew that God made a new covenant about 2,000 years ago that provided the only way for any of us to be forgiven of our sin and brought into relationship with God. That covenant is the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, who freely died in our place and was resurrected to give all who believe in Him eternal life. And God provided another symbol as well.

That symbol, of course, is the cross.

The only way we will ever reclaim the rainbow is by proclaiming the cross to a lost and dying world.

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, 2and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.” (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)

Students, scholars, and skeptics of the Bible all agree that there are some very difficult passages to process. Many people, even within the evangelical community, struggle with harmonizing the Great Yahweh of wrath and vengeance often portrayed in the Old Testament with the meek and loving Yeshua the Messiah of the New Testament.

Any serious student of the Bible knows, however, that the Old Testament is replete with passages showing the goodness, grace, and mercy of the LORD, who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 103). And the true, complete picture of Jesus that we discover in the New Testament is much more than meek and mild. Consider Paul’s description of the return of the Lord Jesus .

“when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)

Even still, there are some divine acts of judgment recorded in the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament, that appear on the surface to be morally problematic. I am speaking specifically about the world-wide flood of Noah’s day, which destroyed all life on earth including children, and the conquest of the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua, where the LORD commanded that all the wicked nations in the land be dedicated to destruction. In other words, God commanded the Israelites to kill everyone — men, women and children — and show no mercy to them.

It is precisely this – total annihilation – that many consider a stumbling block. As one skeptic said, “if your God is a God who would tell His people to ruthlessly murder innocent women and children, then He is a sick, evil, sadistic God who is not worth worshipping.”

Now, there are many approaches when answering and addressing this potentially problematic issue, and many have written in depth from various perspectives to provide a rational solution. But for sake of time, I would like to make one simple observation and also provide one simple solution.

I believe that the key to understanding why God commanded Joshua and the Israelites to dedicate the Amorites and Canaanites to destruction is found in Genesis 6. There is one obvious connection between God’s judgment in the days of Noah and His judgment in days of Joshua — the Nephilim.

When Moses sent the 12 spies on a reconnaissance mission into the land of Canaan, what did they report? Who did they see? Why were 10 of the 12 spies convinced they had no chance of defeating the inhabitants of the land? Read it for yourself.

“However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there… So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, ‘The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33And 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 13:28, 32-33)

In Deuteronomy Moses again refers to the sons of Anak, the descendants of the Nephilim, living in the Promised Land. He says, “Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ (Deuteronomy 9:1-2)

Is it mere coincidence that the only two times the LORD God commanded the total destruction of a race of people involved the Nephilim giants? Not only were these giants defiled spiritually and charged demonically, but also they were utterly corrupt genetically. The Bible is clear that the abominable practices of these wicked nations living in Canaan included demonic practices of sorcery, witchcraft, divination, child sacrifice, and necromancy (Deuteronomy 18) and also every debased act of sexual immorality including, homosexuality, incest and bestiality (Leviticus 18). These are the very same satanic practices that were taking place during the days of Noah.

So to understand why the LORD would have commanded the Israelites to completely destroy every man, woman and even child living in the Promised Land, one must also understand the connection between the demonic incursion of Genesis 6 leading to the flood and the reintroduction of this very same wicked race of giants leading to the conquests of Canaan. Something so profane had happened among theses nations that God knew they must all be utterly destroyed. Anything less would give these demonic beings the chance to survive and potentially eliminate the promised seed of Messiah and usurp God’s ultimate plan of redemption.

When we see the flood and the conquest of Canaan in light of the Nephilim, we gain a more comprehensive view of the Bible. Why else would the LORD command Israel not to intermarry with these nations? They were genetically corrupt and demonically possessed. Any association with them would lead Israel into gross immorality and pagan idolatry. The reason the LORD showed these hybrid giant races no mercy is most likely because they were beyond redemption, having utterly corrupted both flesh and spirit. The only resolution was to dedicate them to destruction.

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. 13And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh,^c for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” (Genesis 6:11-13)

Whatever was happening in Noah’s day was so corrupt and so irreversibly infected with evil that God determined every living thing must die. Only Noah and his family were found to be blameless and pure on the earth. That means that every other living thing with the breath of life in its lungs had been corrupted to its core. What could possibly have caused all flesh on the earth to be utterly ruined at its core?

Although we could attribute this complete corruption of all flesh as merely the natural effects of man’s rebellion and wickedness on earth, does the Bible point to something more defiled that caused the genetic degradation of all biological life and the total permeation of evil? Is there anything in the Biblical text that suggests that Noah was more than just spiritually pure in God’s sight, but also that he and his family were somehow the only people left on earth who were “genetically” undefiled?

It makes one wonder how utterly depraved the earth must have been for God literally to wash it clean and start over with just 8 people. The harshness of God’s judgment during the flood was unusual and unique. Was there no hope for the pre-flood world? Was there no chance for redemption? Perhaps mankind had somehow become so spiritually and genetically defiled before the flood that he no longer resembled the image of God?

Our knowledge of the antediluvian world basically is limited to what we read in the first 9 chapters of Genesis and a few other references in Scripture. Although we can piece together a general picture of the pre-flood world using the Scriptures, there are obviously some missing puzzle pieces that prevent us from seeing the fine details. Fortunately, some of these details can be found in extra Biblical sources that were widely read and circulated in what is known as 2nd Temple Jewish literature. These books, such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees, were highly respected and valued by the community of faith, even though they traditionally have not been recognized as canonical. Some scholars completely reject such Apocryphal works as completely useless to the church, while others consider them quite useful for establishing a historical and theological context for 2nd Temple Judaism and the early church.

The book of Enoch is especially interesting for several reasons. First, we know that practically all 1st Century Jews — including the Apostles and Jesus — would have studied and been very familiar with the book of Enoch. Secondly, the book of Enoch is quoted and included in the Bible by Jude (see Jude 14-15). Again, I am not saying that Enoch is inspired Scripture, but I am saying that many of these extra Biblical books can be of great historical and theological value. Thirdly, the book of Enoch provides a behind the scenes perspective into the pre-flood world of Noah’s day, especially concerning the rebellious angelic incursion in Genesis 6. Let’s take a look at some of these details.

The Book of Enoch proper is divided into several subsections, such as the book of Noah and other parables. Although the book is attributed to Enoch – the 7th from Adam – the historical authorship is unknown. Despite the mystery surrounding the book, I believe Enoch preserves unique and reliable insight of the Genesis 6 narrative.

According to Enoch, the sons of God — called the Watchers (Daniel 4:17) — conspired together to abandon their proper domain in heaven and transgress the God of heaven by taking human wives and producing offspring with them — the giants. These Watchers, 200 in number, descended upon Mt. Hermon and commenced to corrupting the earth in every way imaginable. Enoch explains how these Watchers not only corrupted human flesh by cross breeding but also indicates how they corrupted all plant and animal life in a similar way. It is not difficult to believe that these intellectually superior, angelic beings had the knowledge and advanced technology to set the human race on a crash course of destruction. In other words, the Watchers introduced forbidden knowledge and demonic practices to mankind that would effectively accelerate their own death and destruction.

Consider one passage from the Book of Enoch 9:6-9

“Thou seest what Azâzêl hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were (preserved) in heaven, which men were striving to learn: 7. And Semjâzâ, to whom Thou hast given authority to bear rule over his associates. 8. And they have gone to the daughters of men upon the earth, and have slept with the women, and have defiled themselves, and revealed to them all kinds of sins. 9. And the women have borne giants, and the whole earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness.

In Chapter 8 of Enoch, this very same Azâzêl, one of the Watchers, introduced new technology and metallurgy to mankind to build weapons of war, while the other Watchers taught men and women forbidden occult knowledge, divination, astrology, sorcery, blood sacrifice, and all forms of witchcraft, leading men to the worship of demons (Enoch 19).

The Genesis 6 angelic incursion was an all-out demonic assault against mankind with the intention of destroying the entire human race and establishing the kingdom of darkness on earth. The primary motivation of this rebellion, however, is connected to the greater gospel story, involving enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of Satan (Genesis 3:15). Satan and his fallen ones were ultimately attempting to wipe the seed of the woman from the face of the earth to eliminate any and every possibility for the birth of the future Messiah – Jesus Christ.

This is why Noah and his family were so vital, not just to the survival of mankind, but ultimately for the eternal salvation of mankind that would be made possible through the coming Messiah. It was about preserving the pure seed — the uncorrupted genetic traits found in Noah and his family — which eventually would be passed down through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David and eventually to Jesus Himself. God’s plan of redemption was never to be thwarted, as God has proven time and time again.

In light of this, there are some very disturbing machinations of men that have begun to materialize in our day that seem all too familiar to what was happening in Noah’s day. With the completion of the human genome project in 2003, geneticists have regained the ability to analyze, manipulate, and enhance human and animal genes since it first happened in the days of Noah. Although scientists have insisted that the primary application of mapping the human genome is for the benefit of mankind and to provide medical breakthroughs that will save millions of lives, others clearly have different motives.

News stories are appearing daily around the world revealing the nefarious motivations behind genetic manipulations and biogenetic engineering. Here are only a few that come to mind most recently. The first link involving U.S. Department of Health and Human Services using aborted baby body parts to make “humanized mice,” (with our tax payer dollars no less).

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/hhs-extends-contract-make-humanized-mice-aborted-baby-parts-another

The second story below details how scientists in China have already successfully accomplished gene editing to create the first “designer babies.” And these applications are the ones we are only allowed to see. Who really knows how far the limits have been pushed in the private sector or within top secret government programs?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612458/exclusive-chinese-scientists-are-creating-crispr-babies/

Finally, it has been well documented that the U.S. military has invested millions of dollars in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or D.A.R.P.A., which specializes in advance weaponry, and more recently biogenetic engineering. Many believe the inevitable application of this technology will be the creation of the “super soldiers,” who will be both genetically and robotically enhanced to excel on the battle field.

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/88342/20150926/darpa-investing-32m-into-dna-manufacturing-super-soldiers-on-the-way.htm

For the first time in the modern era, we are living in a generation with the technological capabilities and scientific knowledge that potentially could lead to the corruption of all flesh once again, as it was in the days of Noah.