Basic HTML Version
Giants in the Land, January 27
Genesis 6:1-8
There were giants in the earth in those days.
Genesis 6:4
.
The first people upon the earth received their instructions from that infinite
God who created the world. Those who received their knowledge direct from
infinite wisdom were not deficient in knowledge....
There are many inventions and improvements, and labor-saving machines
now that the ancients did not have. They did not need them....
Men before the flood lived many hundreds of years, and when one hundred
years old were considered but youths. Those long-lived men had sound minds
in sound bodies.... They came upon the stage of action from the ages of sixty
to one hundred years, about the time those who now live the longest have acted
their part in their little short life time, and have passed off the stage
There were many giants, men of great stature and strength, renowned for
wisdom, skillful in devising the most cunning and wonderful works; but their
guilt in giving loose rein to iniquity was in proportion to their skill and mental
ability.
God bestowed upon these antediluvians many and rich gifts; but they used
His bounties to glorify themselves, and turned them into a curse by fixing their
affections upon the gifts instead of the Giver. They employed the gold and silver,
the precious stones and the choice wood, in the construction of habitations for
themselves, and endeavored to excel one another in beautifying their dwellings
with the most skillful workmanship. They sought only to gratify the desires of
their own proud hearts, and reveled in scenes of pleasure and wickedness
They became corrupt in their imagination, because they left God out of their
plans and councils. They were wise to do what God had never told them to
do, wise to do evil.... They used the probation so graciously granted them in
ridiculing Noah. They caricatured him and criticized him. They laughed at him
for his peculiar earnestness and intense feeling in regard to the judgments which
he declared God would surely fulfill. They talked of science and of the laws
controlling nature. Then they held a carnival over the words of Noah, calling
him a crazy fanatic
[34]
51
Spiritual Gifts, vol. 4, part 1, 154-156
.
52
Patriarchs and Prophets, 90, 91
.
53
The S.D.A. Bible Commentary 1:1090
.
32