Chronicles of the End Times
Occasionally, people say, are we really in the last days? How do we know? Does it matter one way or another? We will try to answer these questions and many others in this study. But the most important question may be, how can we reach others with hope in these changing times? One part of prophecy is often emphasized over another, causing us to lose perspective and miss the blessing and beauty of prophecy in scripture. I have taken the information in this study from many authors and teachers who have their lives studying God's word. I have added some insight that the Holy Spirit taught me. With God's help, I have endeavored to keep the whole counsel of the word of God in full view to give us an accurate picture of Christ and His great love for a lost world. I pray that this will challenge you and cause you to grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, as it has me preparing it. Let's begin!
Chronicles of the End Times
Jude: Giants, Angels, and God's Grace
The single-chapter book of Jude contains remarkable depth that many believers miss, but within its verses lie crucial warnings about the abuse of God's grace and fascinating connections to supernatural events from Earth's earliest days.
What exactly are the "sons of God" mentioned in Genesis 6, and why does Jude connect them to the sexual immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah? The evidence is compelling: these were angels who abandoned their heavenly positions, took human form, and fathered the Nephilim – the giants of old. Multiple Old Testament references confirm "sons of God" as supernatural beings, and both Jude and Peter explicitly link their rebellion with divine punishment.
This biblical mystery isn't merely ancient history; it reveals an ongoing spiritual pattern where rebellion against divine order brings judgment. When Jude warns about those who "pervert the grace of God into sensuality," he's addressing a timeless tendency among believers to claim salvation without transformation. As we discover in our exploration, "We are not saved merely to have our sins forgiven. We are saved to be ushered into the presence of Almighty God" for genuine relationship.
The Nephilim story continues beyond the flood, reappearing when the Israelite spies encountered the "sons of Anak" and even when David faced Goliath – suggesting these supernatural conflicts persist throughout human history. For modern believers, the message is clear: surface-level faith cannot withstand life's trials or spiritual warfare. Only by knowing God deeply and abiding in genuine relationship with Him can we stand firm against the enemy's accusations and live victoriously.
Join me next time as we explore what happened with the Nephilim after the flood and discover the spiritual dimension behind David's confrontation with Goliath. Until then, keep looking up – the King is coming!
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00:00
Welcome everyone. This is Russ Scalzo—Chronicles of the End Times. Thank you for being with me today, and I want to shout out to all of you who are listening in so many different countries, so many other places in this world, and I just want to thank you all. Keep on listening. There's so much going on, and I pray that this podcast will be a blessing to all of you.
00:35
Today, we're going to be looking into the book of Jude. I’m doing this with our group, and we're having a lot of fun with it. We're learning many things from it and, I hope, some new revelations of how great our God is and how deep our God is. Sometimes, we just stay at the surface, concentrate on the very basic things, and we don't venture out into the deeper water. Is that important? I believe it truly is important because the more we know about our God, the greater he is in our own eyes, and although he is excellent on His own, we need to know it. We must have that deep in our souls, etched in our minds. So, when we face the trials that come along in this life, and some are very great trials, whatever they are, we need to know that our God is able and he's willing, and he stands by us as we abide in him. As Jesus told us, if we abide in the vine, there's nothing we cannot do. But sometimes abiding in the vine can be difficult in this world where distractions are everywhere, and of course, we have these new devices over the last 25 years or so that have multiplied distraction. So, the more we know about the power of God, the plan of God, who he is, and what he has for you and me, that it goes beyond. Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me. So that's the entrance point. Jesus is here to strengthen us, to give us a way to fellowship with God because when we are in sin, we cannot fellowship with God. But through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are saved, and we enter into the Holy of Holies, and we're able to talk with God, and he with us.
02:30
But that is just the open door. We are not saved merely to have our sins forgiven. We are saved that we might be ushered into the presence of Almighty God and there around His throne; in our moments when we're alone with him, he can speak to our hearts, and he can give us new revelation. And what does that mean? It doesn't mean we're learning the deep, dark secrets of the universe. We're talking about personal revelation, things that have to do with our lives, things that are going on with our families or friends, things that are going on in our hearts, or things that are going on in our hearts. God is revealing new things to us in his word about himself, who we are, and what God has for us. It is so important. That is what we call conversation with the Holy Spirit. It is vital to our walk with God. Many, many do not have it, but if we are to be successful against the enemy's onslaughts telling us that we're not worthy, telling us that we're just all screwed up. We have no chance with God, or that we can't do this, and we can't do that the onslaught of negativity the only way we can battle that back is supernaturally, and that's through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. So, having said all that, let's move on to the book of Jude.
03:49
The Book of Jude is a fantastic book. It's one chapter, but it challenges us in many ways. Let's dive in. So, we're going to start right from the beginning, chapter 1, and occasionally, I get asked what version you read from. And I read from the English Standard Version, ESV. It is a little more accurate in many different ways. I'm sure that you know whatever version you read, as long as you're reading the Word of God, that is the most important part. But on occasion I find the ESV to be slightly more accurate. So, let's march on Jude, chapter 1. That is slightly more accurate, so let's march on Jude, chapter 1. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James, beloved in God, the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you. That's a great opening. One of the things I love about that opening is that Jude is the brother of James, which makes him the half-brother of Jesus. Now, if he was a little more egotistical, I'm sure he could have opened up and said this is Jude, I am the half-brother of Jesus, which I guess would have a little more impact probably, I don't know for some people. But he chose the other route, which I appreciate. Verse 3, he says Beloved.
05:00
Although I was eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. This is very, very interesting. He starts off by saying there's other things I'd like to say, and we hear that a lot in the letters of Paul as well. There are things I wanted to tell you. But because of what I'm hearing, because of what's going on in the churches and in the fellowships of that time, I need to address a few things. That's basically what he's saying, and so he goes on to address those who are abusing the grace of God.
05:52
Now, how is that possible? But we know that the Lord is gracious and kind and faithful, loving, right. Without that we'd have nothing. But then again, those who cling to grace only have a tendency to live their lives any way they want. In this case, Jude is warning them. Some of the people you're fellowshipping with that are in your times of communion and in your times of fellowship are not true Christians. They are abusing the grace of God. We have that today where people live a life of the flesh rather than the spirit and they feel that this is fine because it's God's grace.
06:29
I'm living in God's grace. You know, I can be lackadaisical, cavalier about my walk with God, about my relationship with God, and you don't have to be a scholar, you just have to be a human being to realize that that doesn't work. That doesn't work in relationships here on earth and it's certainly not going to work with relationships with God. God knows who loves him and who doesn't love him. It's really very simple. It's childlike. You know, when somebody really cares for you Know you could still love them, but you have no relationship because they don't feel the same way. So, you can pour out grace to that person all day long and it will not help them unless they realize that they cannot abuse the grace. That grace is given to them so they can draw closer in a relationship, not further away. So that's what he starts out with. He wants them to know don't be hanging around with these people, because what's going to happen is going to rub off on you if you're not careful. You're going to end up like them, with a lackadaisical, non-caring faith which has no relationship with Jesus. They are just claiming the grace that God has so freely given without giving anything back.
07:38
Let's go on Verse 5, he says. On Verse 5, he says Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling. He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great Jude is laying it out there very clearly that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. The difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is the same yesterday, today and forever. The difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is the blood of Jesus Christ. It is the time of grace that we've been talking about, but God is still the same. Those who reject him, deny his testimony, which is the word of God, deny that he's the creator, deny that he even exists. Eternal punishment is waiting. We don't hear a lot about that today, but it's true In that respect. God's holiness and his righteousness forbids anyone for coming to him and into his presence without the blood of Jesus Christ upon him. That's the whole reason for the cross.
09:01
He covers something extremely interesting, and you may be familiar with it, those of you who have looked into the giants, the Nephilim, and have looked into Genesis, chapter 6. So, we're going to look into that. Next, what is he saying? He's equating the fall of these angels with Sodom and Gomorrah and with sexual immorality. Let's look at verse 6 again. And the angels who do not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling. He has kept in eternal chains under the gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire. So, he's connecting these two. Now, how does he connect these two? Well, he's familiar with other writings, as many of the apostles and the people of that time, and he's familiar with the book of Enoch, which many of you have heard of Now.
10:02
The book of Enoch was read many of you have heard of Now. The book of Enoch was read by many during that period of time. It's a book that actually was written somewhere around 350 BC and obviously not written by Enoch. But the stories of that day, the stories of the time that Enoch lived in, was handed down through generations and handed down to Noah, and he handed it down from there. It's not like today, where today you know, you tell somebody something and you know two days later it doesn't sound anything like the original story. But in those days, of course, many of those people lived 800, 900 plus years. To give you an idea how easily these stories could have been handed down without error, Noah was born only 126 years after the death of Adam and after 69 years after Enoch was taken up to heaven. So, it's easy to see how these stories were preserved in their entirety down through the years before they were actually written down.
11:07
In the book of Enoch, it talks about these angels who came down from heaven, rebelled and went into the daughters of men and created what we call the Nephilim, or these great giants. So, Jude is equating the sexual immorality and the unnatural desire with these angels as well when he couples it with Sodom and Gomorrah. So, let's go and look back at Genesis, chapter 6, and see what it has to say. When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them. The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. 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 of old, the men of renown.
12:08
There's much debate over this piece of Scripture, as you can imagine angels coming down from heaven and taking the form of man and procreating with women. There are two general trains of thought One, that the sons of God mean the line of Seth, because Seth was a righteous man and that his line was then righteous, and that they saw that the daughters of Cain were attractive and went into them and therefore these Nephilim were created, which, if you think about it, makes absolutely no sense. What happened to the daughters of Seth and the line of Seth? Were they all unattractive? You know what I mean? It doesn't. It makes no sense whatsoever. And the other thing is if Seth's line were the righteous line, then why, when it came to the flood, was only Noah and his family saved? Why weren't some of the line of Seth saved if they were righteous? So, it doesn't make sense to call the line of Seth the sons of God.
13:13
But what does make sense is to call the angels the sons of God. And why is that? Well, because it's used four different times in the Old Testament as the angels the sons of God, or we could say supernatural beings created by God. So, these beings rebelled and left their state in heaven and transformed into men. Now we could say well, do we have any scripture basis to believe that angels could show up in the form of men? And of course, we do. We have several of them. Let's look to the book of Hebrews, where the writer says do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. And then again, we also have Sodom and Gomorrah, where the angels came to get Lot and those men in the city wanted to have sexual relations with the angels. So surely, they must have looked like humans, like men. So, we see there's instances where angels don't show up with giant wings on. They show up and they look like men. So, let's define the sons of God.
14:28
So, we look to Job, chapter 1, and we look at verse 6. It says Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. And the Lord said to Satan when have you come from? So, we see here the sons of God, which are the angels of God or other supernatural beings that God created. They could be part of the principalities and powers that Paul talks about in Ephesians. Either way, these are angels or supernatural beings that God has created, and they're called the sons of God. We have the same event happening in chapter 2 of Job. Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came along with them to present himself before the Lord. Once again, we see the sons of God.
15:27
So, let's turn to another scripture, in Job, chapter 38. This is where the Lord is rebuking Job and his friends, for that matter. And let's listen to what he says in verse 4. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding, who determined its measurements Surely you know or who stretched the line upon it, on what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone? When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, then it appears that the sons of God were there at creation. So, as many others are saying at this point, the sons of God were there before us.
16:08
God had these angels, these supernatural beings that he called sons, and these sons rebelled several times, as the scripture says. And this one case that we're talking about, that Jude is talking about, is that they rebelled and came down to earth and decided to become like men and get involved in unnatural relations, as Jude points out. And when they did, what came about was the Nephilim, or the giants. Now, in 2 Peter, chapter 2, peter also refers to this exact time that Jude is talking about. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, if, by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. And if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over the lawless deeds that he saw and heard Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, especially those who indulge in the lust. So once again we see Peter drawing the same parallel as Jude is drawing, by connecting the angels who fell with unlawful sensual acts. You might say to yourself well, why are they so split on this? It may seem to you that it definitely was the angels who came and sinned and created these giants, these half-breeds between supernatural beings and human beings. Well, I think the answer is in Matthew, chapter 22.
18:11
In Matthew, chapter 22, the Sadducees were trying to trick Jesus, and I'm sure that many of you remember this, so let's pick it up. In Matthew, chapter 22, verse 23. The same day, Sadducees came to him who said that there was no resurrection, and they asked him a question. Saying Teacher Moses said if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offering for his brother.
18:37
Now, there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, having no offspring, and left his wife to his brother. So, to the second, the third down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died and, in the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.
18:56
But Jesus answered them and said you are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God, for in the resurrection they are neither married nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God? I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Is he not God of the dead, but of the living? Jesus had a way of setting them straight, but what Jesus was talking about here in that scripture was that there is no marriage in heaven. So, there is no situation like that, because we become like the angels and the angels do not marry. That's what he's saying. So that is really the roadblock for many. They believe that. Okay, so there's no marriage, there's no giving in marriage. So therefore, everything is different, and the angels couldn't possibly come down to earth and have relations with a woman. But for what we have studied, it is quite evident that they did, and they are able to transform from their heavenly realm to the flesh. So why is this important?
19:59
In the next episode we're going to look at the Nephilim and what happened after the flood when everyone was wiped out, because it says that the Nephilim, the giants, came back. Well, there were more giants after the flood and we see that when the spies are sent into the land and they come back with the bad report and they say we saw the sons of Anak, the giants, and we look like grasshoppers in their sight. We're going to look at that next time and talk about when David faced Goliath and what was the spiritual battle that was going on at the same time as the natural battle. If you haven't had an opportunity yet, check on the House of David on Prime Video. You know I think you'll find it very interesting. You know they do a couple things a little bit different than we read about in the Bible, but nothing that destroys the story. The cinematography and the special effects are good. It's worth watching. So, until next time, this is Russ Scalzo for Chronicles of the End Times. Keep looking up. The King is coming.
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