Conflict and Courage

Giants in the Land, January 27

Genesis 6:1-8

There were giants in the earth in those days. Genesis 6:4. CC 33.1

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.... CC 33.2

There are many inventions and improvements, and labor-saving machines now that the ancients did not have. They did not need them.... CC 33.3

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.^{51Spiritual Gifts 4a:154-156.} CC 33.4

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. CC 33.5

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.^{52Patriarchs and Prophets, 90, 91.} CC 33.6

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.^{53The S.D.A. Bible Commentary 1:1090.} CC 33.7