Besides the eating, drinking and marrying that was then going on in those pre-Flood days, there was a situation that called for the Creator to bring that globe-sweeping Flood. It was what was described in Genesis 6:11, 13, where we read: “The earth came to be ruined in the sight of the true God and the earth became filled with violence. After that God said to Noah: ‘The end of all flesh has come before me, because the earth is full of violence as a result of them; and here I am bringing them to ruin together with the earth.”’ Certainly, then, divine rulership was not recognized.

22, 23. (a) In the pre-Flood days, how did Satan’s rulership take on added force in connection with “women being given in marriage”? (b) How was it evident that the Nephilim offspring of the angelic-human marriages were of no moral help to mankind?

²² In those pre-Flood days, Satanic rulership over the human family took on added force. How so? Well, in Jesus’ reference to the days of Noah he spoke of “women being given in marriage.” (Matt. 24:38) Among those women being then married off were many women who were taken by persons whom Genesis 6:4 calls “the sons of the true God.” They were heavenly “sons of God,” just as Satan the Devil had once been, but they were tempted to come down and take up living on earth because of the “good-looking” daughters of men, who were available for marriage.

²³ So these heavenly “sons of the true God” materialized as men and “went taking wives for themselves, namely, all whom they chose.” Possibly, more than one wife each. Among the offspring of such angelic-human marriages were what the Bible calls Nephilim, which means “Fellers,” that is, those who cause someone or something to fall forcibly. “They were the mighty ones who were of old, the men of fame.” (Gen. 6:1-4) Those hybrid Nephilim or Fellers were manifestly not of any moral help to the pure human stock of mankind, for after that the Bible reports that the earth was being ruined and was filled with violence. This definitely proves that those angelic “sons of the true God” had acted sinfully in marrying the “daughters of men” for sexual satisfaction.

24. (a) Did those marrying “sons of God” sin, and on whose side did they put themselves? (b) At the Flood, what happened to the Nephilim, and what were the married “sons of God” obliged to do?

²⁴ That those heavenly sons of God did sin by leaving their invisible spiritual estate and their own proper habitation in God’s celestial service is positively stated in the Bible. (1 Pet. 3:19, 20; 2 Pet. 2:4, 5; Jude 6) This decidedly put them in opposition to divine rulership both in heaven and on earth. That put them on the side of Satanic rulership and under it. Their hybrid offspring, the Nephilim, were not preserved through the global flood; none of them were taken into the great ark that Noah and his three sons built. Being human because of their human mothers, they were drowned in the Flood, along with their earthly relatives. Their angelic fathers dematerialized and unwillingly, under compulsion, disappeared into the spirit realm. There they were obliged to join Satan the Devil as their ruler.

The power of Satan the Devil was now reinforced by those other “sons of God” who had turned against God’s sovereignty and had intermarried with the daughters of men. These, like Satan the Devil, had made demons of themselves. The materialistically minded people of today who smile at Satan the Devil and his demons as being mythical figures and figments of the imagination cannot rub out the record of all ancient history. The ancient records, in writing and in temples and other religious ruins, all testify that the ancient nations worshiped demons and were influenced by them. Demons are! They do exist!

2, 3. (a) Information from which authoritative source is more important than such historical evidence, and how does it speak of the demons? (b) What advice did Paul write to the Ephesians against the demons?

² More importantly than that, the Book of sacred truth, the inspired Bible, gives us definite information regarding these demons and their leader, Satan the Devil. That Book warns us against the machinations, the crafty schemes and sly designs, of those malicious, invisible spirit persons, who are not of blood and flesh. The people today, even those in Christendom, do not take seriously the advice that the Christian apostle Paul wrote for all Christians in his letter to the congregation of Ephesus, saying:

³ “Put on the complete suit of armor from God that you may be able to stand firm against the machinations of the Devil; because we have a wrestling, not against blood and flesh, but against the governments, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places.”​—Eph. 6:11, 12.

4. (a) What do those words mean as to Satan’s organizing activity, and so what do Jesus and Paul call Satan? (b) How do human rulers react on being classed with such company, and yet who put them there?

⁴ Do we get the sense of this? This means that Satan the Devil has an invisible, superhuman organization. It means that he has organized the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places into “governments,” into “authorities,” into “world rulers of this darkness.” This unseen organized power is mightier than the communist bloc of nations with its vast military strength; it is mightier than the rich democratic bloc of nations with all their military might. Jesus Christ, who ought to know, called the Devil, Satan, “the ruler of this world.” The Christian apostle Paul called Satan “the god of this system of things.” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor. 4:4)