The Fallen Ones: The Second Dispensation

Dive deep into the biblical dispensation of conscience—that pivotal period between Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden and the Great Flood. For 1,656 years, humanity was guided only by conscience rather than divine law, with Adam himself living 930 years to share his direct experiences walking with God.

What went wrong during this period? Why did God ultimately regret creating mankind? Our exploration uncovers the fascinating progression from Cain and Abel's sacrifices to the mysterious Nephilim—those offspring produced when the "sons of God" took human wives. We examine competing interpretations: Were these supernatural beings who corrupted human bloodlines, or simply intermarriage between godly and ungodly human lineages? The evidence from Jude's epistle and ancient Jewish writings points toward a supernatural explanation that helps explain why, among potentially millions of people, only eight souls remained righteous by the Flood's time.

The dispensation of conscience teaches us something profound about human nature and God's patience. Despite direct knowledge of God passed down through long-lived patriarchs, humanity descended into such violence and corruption that God was grieved to his heart. Yet his love never faltered. Even as this dispensation closed with judgment, we see God's mercy in preserving Noah's family and personally closing the ark door to ensure their safety. Jesus himself warned that the end times would mirror Noah's day—a sobering reminder that challenges popular notions of progressive human improvement.

What lessons can we learn from this failed dispensation? How does it illuminate our understanding of God's ongoing testing of humanity? Listen now to discover why this ancient history matters profoundly for understanding our place in God's unfolding plan. Subscribe for our upcoming episode on the post-diluvian dispensation and the Tower of Babel incident!

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00:20

Welcome everyone. This is Russ Scalzo Chronicles of the End Times. Thank you for being with me today. Today we're going to continue our study and our exploration into the dispensations, those periods of time that God gave the human race and see how we did with each one. And the report card isn't too good, but God's love and his compassion for the human race never faltered. He just kept on going. Because he wanted to have children of his own, he wanted to have a family, because God is a God of sharing. God is so amazing in so many ways. We should give him thanks every day, for he is truly good, and that is the glory of God that he is good, and without that the universe would not exist, and of course, neither would you and me. 

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01:15

So, let's continue in the book of Genesis. So, we're finishing up chapter three. It's where we left off. Adam and Eve have fallen. They've taken the fruit, they've disobeyed God, they tried to hide from God and now they have been cast out of the Garden of Eden. So, we're going to pick it up in verse 20. The man called his wife Eve, and because she was the mother of all living, and the Lord made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the Lord God said Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now least he reaches out his hand and take hold of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden Interesting. So, it appears that the Garden of Eden remained. God didn't destroy it or make it disappear when Adam and Eve were cast out. Instead, he put cherubim there we don't know how many, but he also put a sword to let everybody know the Garden of Eden was off limits and to remind them of how far they had fallen. So ends the dispensation of innocence, and now we move to the dispensation of conscience. As we said in our last podcast. We don't know how long that period of time was, from the time that Adam and Eve were created until the time they were cast out of the garden, but we do know that from the creation of Adam to the flood was 1,656 years. So, in this period of time the population of the earth continued to grow. We touched on that a little bit in the last episode. 500 million, 2 billion? No one really knows. Those numbers are calculated by theologians and mathematicians in an effort to figure out exactly what the population was at the time of the flood. Now, as this period begins, we see that Cain and Abel have their disagreement and Cain kills Abel, and then we're going to come back to that because there's a story there. So now, for all these years, the human race is just guided by conscience. 

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03:39

I find this very interesting because Adam lived 930 years Now. During that period of time, I'm sure he shared many stories and his experience with the Lord, who he walked with side by side for undisclosed period of time. So, they were not without God in the sense that they didn't know who he was or what he wanted from them. And that's why, when we look at Cain and Abel, Abel brought the proper sacrifice, the blood sacrifice, and Cain, he brought the fruit of the land, and his offering was rejected because of it. When Adam and Eve fell, god made clothing for them from animals. So that was the first shed blood, and I'm sure for what God taught them through that they understood that the blood sacrifice was required, and that's why? For what God taught them through that. They understood that the blood sacrifice was required, and that's why Cain knew what to do but decided not to do it. 

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04:31

Now, down through those years, something takes place which is very interesting and very much debated. The scripture tells us that the sons of God came down and took the daughters of men, as many as they wanted, for their wives and had children by them, and these children are known as the Nephilim. In the Hebrew it is interpreted the fallen ones and giants. Now, I'm sure many of you have looked into this. There are some really great podcasts on it but we're going to take a look at it because we want to continue the progression talking about these dispensations, the different periods of time in which the human race was tested. 

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05:13

Now, during this time as well, Enoch walked with God and was not. He was taken. He was just taken up to heaven. This is the first report in the Bible of anyone being taken up like that. We know that Elijah was taken up on a chariot. This is the first time in suspension that a person was just taken right up to God Said. Enoch walked with God and was not. The catching away of Enoch into heaven many believe is a type of the catching away of the church in the rapture. We're not going to talk too much about that right now. The use of the word rapture is so misused lately, for that is not something we are supposed to be focusing on. We should be like Enoch. He walked with God and was not. That should be our epitaph. 

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05:59

Let's pick it up in chapter 6. 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 man 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. 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 bore children to them. These were the mighty men of old, men of renown. 

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06:34

Now we see this reference later on in chapter 10, and I'll read it to you real quick Cush fathered Nimrod. He was the first on the earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore, it is said like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord, the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech Accad Calneh in the land of Shinar. I bring this up because if you just read this as is, you would say this Nimrod guy, he was something, he was really great. Well, it turns out he was actually a tyrant, and he was the first leader to really take control and kill other people in order to build his kingdom after the flood. When we look back and reference the Nephilim, it says these were mighty men who were of old men of renown. That doesn't mean they were good people; it just means they were men of great reputation. I covered this on a podcast some time ago, but it's worth mentioning again. 

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07:32

There are two basic thoughts about what the Scripture is talking about here. One is that angels who are sons of God, who came down and had intercourse with the women and developed these hybrids let's call them that were giants. Now this thought creates a problem in a lot of folks, because Jesus said that the angels in heaven are not given in marriage, but he didn't say they were sexless. He just said we don't marry in heaven. We don't have to do that, so it is possible. And they are not demons, as some write. They are angels changed and we are born of God. So, the interpretation there is that in order to be a child of God, you need to be born of God, and the only one that was really born of God was Adam. The rest of the world were not sons of God. They were made in the image of God, but they were not sons of God. Sons of God was only used when referring to angels, and then again in the New Testament, of course, through the blood of Jesus Christ and repentance of sin. 

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08:50

The other thought is that the evil line of Cain intermarried with the righteous line of Seth. Now, this to me seems very strange because after a hundred plus years of Noah preaching towards the end of this dispensation, him and his family were the only ones found righteous. So, if there was in fact, two separate lines of people one was righteous and one was not you would think that there'd be somebody left other than just the eight. And the way the Bible puts it, that the sons of God went into the daughters of men I don't see any other way to interpret the fact that the Bible is talking about a supernatural being, the sons of God, the angels of God, going into the daughters of men, whether they were of the line of Cain or the line of Seth, and the fact that these mighty men, these giants, were created seems to lend itself to that they were angels. 

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09:52

And then, when you look to the book of Jude, it gets even more interesting. I'm sure many of you have read this more than once. Look at Jude, verse 5. 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 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, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. It's hard to deny the parallels that Jude is drawing here. Then, of course, you can look into the books of Josephus and the book of Enoch and other documents that all point to the same thing that these were fallen angels that got involved with the daughters of men. That's a whole other podcast, but for now let's move on in the dispensations that we're looking at. 

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11:03

So, God sees that the entire world is corrupt. There's nobody, only Noah and his family. That's it. Everybody else has perverted their ways. 500 million people, 2 billion people whatever number we feel comfortable is putting on it. God is done. We can only imagine what he's put up with. Jesus tells us that the last days will be like the days of Noah, so that kind of throws out the door those who believe that the gospel is going to bring in the millennial reign of Christ, where the world is just going to receive this great revival and everyone's going to come to Christ and it's going to usher in the millennial and Jesus will come to a saved and redeemed world. I don't know where they get that from. The Bible definitely goes the other way on all of those issues, but millions have followed it over the years. 

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11:52

There are many doctrines that are taught in Christianity throughout the world and here in the United States that are not scriptural Replacement theology that the church has taken the place of Israel and Israel is no longer in the picture. That's one. The other one is that we are living in the millennial reign because God has given us the keys of the kingdom and we have dominion over the enemy, and that's their view, without realizing that Jesus told us that Satan is the prince and power of the air and he will not be taken down until Christ comes back, and that is before the millennial reign. Unfortunately, there is confusion because of inadequate teaching of the Word of God. So, this next scripture echoes through the New Testament as well. 

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12:44

Now, the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. In another place he says that he is sorry that he made man. 

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13:13

Here's a sidebar I thought was interesting. When you look at the timeline of all the people who lived during the time of Adam and afterwards, before the flood, we see that Methuselah died the same year as the great flood. So, God had it worked out that those that were righteous lived out their lives before the flood hit and that God himself ushered Noah and his family into the ark and closed the door. This ends the antediluvian dispensation. Next time we're going to look into the post-diluvian dispensation, also called the time of human government. We're going to check out the Tower of Babel, what that was all about, what they were trying to do, what God did and why, and what came out of that. 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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