While we’re finished with Doug Hamp, who has shown himself totally impervious to hearing or responsibly responding to the many points brought up in this thread, there are some issues and questions raised that we could benefit from with further illumination, Lord willing.
I’m quoting from various responses in the order they were posted.
From Brandon, addressing Doug on quoting from Josephus:
First, who was Josephus? Not a believer in Christ. Many scholars and his contemporaries thought he was conceited and a traitor to his own kind as he sat idly by and watched Jerusalem burn working for Titus. Sure, he was an instrument of God to bring judgment upon Israel, "in like manner" as Judas was to Jesus in his betrayal.
So quoting a non-believer as though he would have an understanding of the spiritual meaning of Scripture is a weak way to start off.
Was Josephus a traitor like Judas? Judas betrayed “innocent blood,” whereas Josephus urged the Jewish defenders of Jerusalem to surrender, because God was on the Roman’s side. That wasn’t traitorous – it was telling the truth that would have saved the lives of Josephus’ people, had they listened. What, should he have gone down with them in their rebellion and stubbornness?
I’m not speaking in defense of Josephus, however, or suggesting he had no flaws or self-preserving motives. The real point here is this: If you’re going to impugn the testimony of a non-believer, should you use the testimony of other non-believers that is possibly tainted by their own motives, in this case possibly defending themselves (Israel) as innocent when the Scriptures say the opposite?
Furthermore, even if perchance you were correct, you don’t need to go there. The principle here is that Doug was using a historian’s account, in this case Josephus, who no doubt was repeating what he had heard or been taught by men and not of God. Doug, not having faith, revelation, or understanding in the things of God, uses men without the Spirit as his proof source to explain the Scriptures, unwittingly supporting doctrine that comes against the Word of God. This is always the case with those who are relying on their carnal minds:
“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14 MKJV).
Here’s another topic you brought up, Brandon, worth further consideration, I believe:
Now, your take on Jude is about as stable as a house of cards. Let's compare a few other versions of Jude 1:7 to see how the translation came out:
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. (ESV)
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.(KJV)
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to impurity, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. (Webster's)
as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, in like manner to these, having given themselves to whoredom, and gone after other flesh, have been set before -- an example, of fire age-during, justice suffering. (Young's Literal)
You're trying to stretch here and say that the sexual sins of Sodom and Gamorrah are being called "in like manner" to the angels mentioned. That's not how it reads at all, for even those with common sense. How can angels have sex? What did Christ say?
“But Jesus answered them, "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”
Matthew 22:29-30
There's no sexes and no marriage in the heavenly realm. This isn't the Islamic paradise where the afterlife is filled with orgies. Sex is of the flesh. Angels are spirit. There's no need for marriage, because there's no need for sex and reproduction (the essential need for godly marriage in the world) because Heaven is not of the flesh.
What's a more likely and rational reading of those verses you quoted is that the angels who rebelled had impure, unnatural (rebellious) desires. They thought to usurp God, to rebel against Him, and Sodom and Gamorrah did in their pride as well. That's the comparison. Besides isn't it said that sexual immorality/coveting after the flesh in an ungodly way is idolatry?
“For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” Ephesians 5:5
Therefore, it is easy to see that Sodom and Gamorrah idolized sex and the flesh, and acted as those angels who idolized themselves by thinking to usurp God. That's what Satan and the man of sin does, seek to establish himself as God.
Also, if the angels committed sexual sins, why not say that in verse 5 and 6 before mentioning Sodom and Gamorrah? The comparison being made is one of judgment, not an act of sexual immorality; the sin shared is rebellion against God's authority, not carnal desires.
Could it not be, however, that the angels spoken of in Jude are human and not spiritual messengers? Consider:
The subject of the Scriptures in Jude is men (not angels from Heaven) who deny the Lord our God. And there are specific sins mentioned committed by these men, which we know angels from heaven don’t commit – namely fornication with humans and going after “strange flesh.”
The Sodomites wanted to rape the men who came to Lot’s house. Is that not going after “strange flesh”? As well, note that the men of Sodom didn’t see these men as angelic beings:
“And they called to Lot, and said to him, ‘Where are
the men which came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may know them’” (Genesis 19:5 MKJV).
So who are those “angels” mentioned in verse 7, who
in like manner left their God-given places to go after flesh that wasn’t lawful or right for them to commingle with? Are they not the very sons of God mentioned in Genesis 6?
“The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were good. And they took wives for themselves from all whom they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, in his erring; he is flesh. Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6:2-3 MKJV).
Did not these men not leave their God-appointed stations and come under the judgment described, not only by Jude, but also by Peter?
2 Peter 2:4-6 ESV
(4) 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;
(5) 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;
(6) 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 here Peter describes just who those angels kept in chains of darkness were, who sinned and were destroyed in the flood:
1 Peter 3:18-20 MKJV
(18) For Christ also once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, indeed being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit;
(19) in which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison,
(20) to disobeying ones, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared (in which a few, that is, eight souls were saved through water);
Some may say those are spiritual messengers, not men, but for whom did Christ suffer, “that He might bring
us to God”?
And going back to “strange flesh,” doesn’t the Word of God warn His sons not to lust after the strange woman?
“And why will you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?” (Proverbs 5:20 MKJV)
Didn’t the wisest of kings fall by not keeping God’s Word in this matter?
“But king Solomon loved many strange women… and when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods… And the LORD was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the LORD, the God of Israel, Who had appeared to him twice” (1 Kings 11:1,4,9 MKJV).
As we talked about subject here, Ronnie brought up these words of the Lord:
“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:26-27 KJV).
Is the Lord not talking about marriages between human beings? Do we presently see angels from Heaven marrying women? Or do we see ungodly alliances and mixture of flesh and spirit?
Is the work of God directed through Christ on earth for the salvation of angels or men?
Hebrews 2:14-16 MKJV
(14) Since then the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise partook of the same; that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death (that is, the Devil),
(15) and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
(16) For truly He did not take the nature of angels, but He took hold of the seed of Abraham.
Brian, doesn’t this explanation help us understand what’s at stake for us with regards to the example of those who went before us and fell? You asked Doug the following:
Doug I can’t help but wonder where you think this theory (fallen angels) is going, or what purpose it serves in the kingdom of God.
I turn up at one of your conferences and you fill my head with all this knowledge about fallen angels that came to earth and had sex with women. So fine, now I know all that, what good is it to me? Am I living the word of God? Does my life reflect that of one who purports to follow Christ? What happens to these people who come to your meetings and sit for hours while you feed them all this information?
But when we know that we are the subject – we are the ones given the responsibility to follow the Lord and keep ourselves from unlawful worldly lusts and connections, from physical and spiritual fornication and commingling - then the message becomes personal and instructive.
1 Corinthians 10:6-11 MKJV
(6) And these things were our examples, that we should not be lusters after evil, as they also lusted.
(7) Nor should we be idolaters, even as some of them, as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play."
(8) Nor let us commit fornication, as some of them fornicated, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day.
(9) Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted Him and were destroyed by serpents.
(10) Nor murmur as some of them also murmured and were destroyed by the destroyer.
(11) And all these things happened to them as examples; and it is written for our warning on whom the ends of the world have come.
Simon, you wrote:
Doug, how dare you sell what you think are the things of God, revelations that you think He has freely given to you. That makes you a hypocrite, a liar, a thief and a scoundrel. Even though most of, if not all of the things you peddle on your website are crap, the fact you think they come from God, selling them is wrong and it is antichrist by nature, as are you.
As with every question or issue posed to Doug, he doesn’t acknowledge or answer the substance of Truth, but instead ignores or deflects, as he does in this case, where he wrote to us (not posted):
"
Why bring up money? I work very hard and most of my money comes from investments and businesses that I have rather than ministry related."
In other words, after getting whipped out of the temple by the Lord Jesus Christ, Doug is the fellow who says to Him, “Chill out - I only do this stuff on the side – most of my money comes from investments and businesses I own.”
Brandon, you wrote:
So his end game would simply be to convince people Jesus Christ died for their sins and to wait for the "rapture." All the speculation and analysis would then just be for kicks by that reasoning, or perhaps a Kirk Cameron-esque scare tactic into "winning souls"?
Exactly – no faith, no repentance, no striving to enter into the Kingdom, enduring to the end. Just entertainment deflecting one from the serious issues needing God’s direction and Spirit to navigate.
Simon, you wrote about the nature of devils and angels being set in them, unchangeable:
My thoughts were, that if the devil or his angels (demons) can’t change their design and if and of themselves they can’t repent and become honest and true, and I’m not just talking about saying true things and representing themselves as angels of light, which we know they do (2 Cor 11:14), but actually changing their ways and turn to good, then why would angels of light created to do other things as God commands, be any more able to change their design and turn bad and go against God’s wishes. Man doesn’t have free will (Phil 2:13), and it appears that the angels, either good or bad don’t either. So then, how could angels (sons of God as Doug wrongly misrepresented them as) go against their design?
Can anything or anyone operate outside the will of God? NO, NO and NO. Praise be to the name of our God, our Saviour, the Author and Finisher of our faith, the Alpha and Omega, the Lord Jesus Christ. All glory and honour to Him, Amen.
Yes, amen, all glory and honor to Him! The Scriptures do say we will judge angels. What exactly does that mean? There are many things we don’t fully see or understand, if at all, but we do learn to know that the Lord is over all and does all things well. His faith brings us rest.
Brandon, you write:
Best to stick with revelation from God and not dabble in mythologies.
Yes, and dabbling leads to drowning. Those who believe take heed to the Word of God revealed through Jesus Christ and His Body, all by His grace:
“Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned” (1 Timothy 1:4-5 KJV.
“Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7 ESV.
“For a time will be when they will not endure sound doctrine, but they will heap up teachers to themselves according to their own lusts, tickling the ear. And they will turn away their ears from the truth and will be turned to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4 MKJV.
“Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth” (Titus 1:14 KJV.
“For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Peter 1:16 KJV.