Thursday Night Bible Study

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Genesis 6:1-14

"The Coming Of The Judgment" • 12.3.09 • Thursday Night Bible Study

Intro

- It is just about 2010, a year once thought to be a year of exploration and scientific achievement. However, the year 2012 is getting a lot more press these days!

- The movie of the same name was the top grossing film for a few weeks there, and is based loosely on interpretations of archaelogical, numerological Mayan artifacts.

- It's a fun movie for a Friday night and helps to give us a little color for a Thursday night.

- If you've seen one commercial, you've basically seen the movie. Suffice it to say, the Earth makes some significant changes to it's landscape.

- What is lacking in the movie however, is any hint that any of it is God's doing.

- As usual, Hollywood tends to lay the blame in disaster flicks upon our poor stewardship of the Earth or random events in space that are divorced from any meaning related to God.

- In typical humanistic philosophy, we are the masters of our own fate and the world crumbles because humans have been arrogant!

- Add in an eco-friendly reminder to recycle, and you have a redeeming thread to the humanist.

- The Bible speaks very differently about why judgement events take place. They are not random and they are not without cause. This brings us to Genesis chapter 6.

- It's the beginning of the story of God's judgment upon the world at the time.

- We looked last week at a period of history that covered over 1600 years of time. This chapter covers just over a hundred years, but it's distinction is that it's the last of the years that this group of people will face.

- Unlike the disaster movies of our time, we'll see very quickly that God is an active agent in the bringing of judgment upon the planet.

- We will see these principles of judgement laid out for us clearly in the following way. Judgement is a reality but...

I. Not Without Warning (v.1-3)

II. Not Without Provocation (v.4-6)

III. Not Without A Plan For Redemption (v.7-22)

Text

I. Not Without Warning (v.1-3)

• Genesis 6:1-3 : "Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, 'My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.'" : We read the beginning of this passage and are a little underwhelmed at the occasion.

- Multiplied millions of people, perhaps even billions, inhabit the earth. This happened in a relatively short period of time. I heard one person say that there could have been 13 billion people!

- As we noted from the last chapter, men were bearing children, living for centuries of time. Sons were noted, but daughters were also born.

- At first glance, verse 2 seems to lack any cause for concern. "Sons of God...Daughters of men...married?" Most of us just read over this as any other piece of trivia.

- It prompts this response from the Lord: Man has 120 years and then that's it!

- Whoa! What just happened here? There are two major theories.

- The first revolves around the intermarriage between the Sethite line and the Cainite line.

- This is the more conservative of the two theories. God does not want His people intermarrying into wickedness! We can see that later in the Bible, as He calls for us to be separate.

- The second theory is much more involved.

- The first clue comes with the term "sons of God." This is the first time this phrase is mentioned in our Bible.

- As we investigate the terminology throughout the Old Testament, we discover that the phrase refers to angelic beings.

- For your study, you'll want to note Job 1:6, 2:1 and 38:7. Each verse refers to angelic beings, who both have access to the throne of God and are witnesses to God's creative act.

- Most scholars remark that Job was written earlier than the book of Genesis. Those who read Genesis would have that context.

- The angelic beings who are part of the serpent's team took wives for themselves. The issue focuses clearly as you read the text: Sons of God took daughters of men!

- Why would these fallen angels seek such a union? Thankfully, the word seems to shed quite a bit of light upon this.

- Turn with me to II Peter 2. Note the context:

• II Peter 2:1-4 : "But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;"

- These angels were false prophets, likely employing the same lie that the serpent told Eve. Maybe it was an enticement to cheat death, even though sin had been established.

- Turn with me to Jude 6. Jude is remarking to his readers that God has judged on various occasions in their past. His judgment was not limited to humans.

• Jude 6 : "And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;"

- Now, before we get too caught up here, let's remind ourselves what we have come to understand from our journey through Genesis thus far.

- There is a war going. God pronounced that there would be hostility between the serpent's seed and the seed of the woman. This is likely what was meant immediately, though Christ is the ultimate victor.

- The war is underway and disobedient, fallen angels are doing all that they can to thwart God's position and destroy the seed by populating their own seed.

- The fact is that men and women went after this. They cooperated with these unions and continually fought against the Lord.

- The wickedness of man has reached such proportion that they are reaching out to demons!

- In the middle of all this, God divinely warns them through His Spirit. It is said here that "He will not always strive with man." The word means "to plead with" or "contend with."

- In the midst of this rampant rebellion, this society of sin continued to receive a warning call from God the Holy Spirit Himself, but to no avail.

- Man is indeed flesh, meaning, he is frail and thoughtful of only those things which pertain to the flesh. He is dominated by fleshly desires, too weak or too disinterested to fight against them.

- Yet even here, God's mercy is to not act for another 120 years! That was the limit. That was as far as God was going to let it continue and then the flood would annihilate those who refused His mercy.

- Today, the same principle applies. God is warning humanity over and over again to repent from their sins and to surrender their hearts to Him.

- Turn with me to II Peter 3:7. This passage is super important to recall when talking about this subject with people in your life.

• II Peter 3:7-10 : "But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up."

- He is consistently showing mercy, expressing love and granting time for repentance. But there comes a time in each life when the window of opportunity is shut and God allows for men to receive what they have asked for.

- There is no man on Earth who will ever be able to say that God never warned him or that they did not know. God's Spirit still works today.

II. Not Without Provocation (v.4-6)

• Genesis 6:4-6 : "There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart." : The offspring that came from the angelic/human experiment were giants. They were mighty men, men of renown. That sounds so noble, almost like a Tolkien novel!

- Unfortunately, don't think Aragorn. Think Urukai! These mighty men were destructive. Their calling card was for destruction.

- The word here for giants is the Hebrew word that is descriptive of men with exceptional height or strength, and usually are applicable to men of war.

- It's a generic term that we'll run into later in the Old Testament.

- I again want to quote from the book of Enoch. While not inspired there are nuggets of historical value that might prove valuable to understanding what these verses mean.

• Enoch 7:1-6 : "And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones."

- This was their mightiness! This was their reputation. The seed of man was more and more corrupted. God saw that every single thought, no matter how deep the warning bell, was thoroughly and completely wicked and perverse. God was sorry to have made man. He is grieved.

- God's judgment does not come without warning and here we see that it does not come without provocation. The people of Noah's time pushed the limits of sin as far as they could go.

- The destruction, the sadness, the injustice, the exploitation of souls, all came up before God who could not stand anymore.

- We note that this continues to be the case throughout biblical history. God patiently waits for a time when people have fully and finally rejected His Spirit's voice and then comes the judgment.

- We are fools if we for a moment believe that the ungodly actions of humanity do not affect the Lord. He is moved and must act out of a sense of justice and righteousness.

- Today, when we see evil, we are only seeing a part of it. We do not see it in it's totality. God sees it from idea to initiation and He will one day move.

III. Not Without A Plan For Redemption (v.7-14)

• Genesis 6:7-9 : "So the Lord said, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.' But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God." : God decrees the extinction of animals as well as humans. In stark contrast, we come to Noah, who in the midst of all other life on Earth, found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

- Mark out that Noah found grace. He did not earn it. He did not merit it. He found grace.

- One man in a world of billions of people found grace. Why? Because He believed God! He took Him at His word.

- Turn with me to Hebrews 11. Note the words about Noah here.

• Hebrews 11:7 : "By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith."

- As much as God is grieved by sin, He is equally joyful at the sight of a man who enters into a right relationship with Him! And what a difference that man can make!

- Noah is marked by three phrases: He was a just man, perfect in his generations and he walked with God.

- He was a just man. He acted in a way that reflected his walk with God. He would literally have a boat load of faith credibility!

- He was perfect. The closest equivalent is that he was whole. He "wholly" belonged to God. From the inside out, from his heart to his hands to his mouth and his feet. Total dedication.

- He walked with God. He is the 2nd of 2 to have this distinction. He communed with God, just as his great-great grandfather Enoch. He was conversant with Him

• Genesis 6:10-14 : "And Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, 'The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch." : With sort of a summary statement, God looks over and assesses His view of the earth. It's corrupted by evil. Violence has become the order of the day.

- Men have perverted their way upon the earth and they will be lost forever. But for Noah and indeed for all who have ever believed God, there is a way of escape, an ark that would bring them to safety.

- We'll look more closely at the Ark next week. Suffice it to say tonight that with every judgement call, there is also a call to come aboard to safety.

Conclusion

- God's patience and mercy are unbelieveable. His judgment and wrath are also realities that cannot be denied.

- He never judges without warning. No man will have gone to hell that would not first have to pass over the person of Jesus Christ on the cross! Warning upon warning will be given.

- God never capricously judges. There is always more than enough cause.

- He is genuinely affected by the actions of man. The good news for us is that we can find grace and it can affect God in a wonderful way!

- Finally, with every call to judgement, there is a call to escape. With every flood, there is an Ark. Ultimately, with every flood of sin, there is a Savior, Jesus Christ.