Corruption, Catastrophe, and A Covenant

You can open with me to Genesis chapter 6.! We've been working our way through this first book of the Bible.! Looked at last week Cain and Abel in chapter 4.

! In chapter 5 we've got this first genealogy of the Bible. And I want you to consider a couple of questions before we get into Genesis chapter 6 tonight. Would a loving God kill people?

Would a loving God send people to hell? Would a loving God do those things?

Would a loving God who gives life also take life? Would a loving God who delights in righteousness and in peace send people to eternal torment?

These are questions we need to consider because it's these questions that are so often turned into accusations against the Bible and against God by people who do not love God.

By people who hate the Bible. And so you need to be ready to give an answer for those things. People will constantly question if God is truly loving, would he do these horrible things?

And I would encourage you to pay attention. We're always teaching the Bible in here and so you always need to pay attention. But some of you fall asleep after 30 seconds. So give it a chance tonight. Pay attention to the words in Genesis 6.

And I hope we'll find answers to both of these questions. In Genesis 1 and 2 we read about the creation of the universe. The creation of all things.

And starting tonight in Genesis 6 we will read about the earth's decreation. God will uncreate everything that he has made on earth.

And tonight in Genesis 6 we will see corruption, catastrophe, and a covenant. Corruption, catastrophe, and a covenant. And if we were to boil all of Genesis 6 down into just one sentence, I think we would say God judges sin and saves sinners.

So if you want a one sentence summary of not only the sermon but of Genesis 6, God judges sin and saves sinners. So firstly we see corruption in verses 1 through 8.

And from Eden onward, after Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden, sin is just spreading like crazy. Sin is expanding limitlessly. Humanity is not able to resist the sin that is crouching at their door, like God warned Cain about in Genesis chapter 4.

Trying to control the spread of sin, trying to control the effects of sin, is not possible in your own power. And so when we looked at Genesis 3, I compared Adam and Eve's decision to rebel against God like a nuclear bomb.

There's going to be the blast radius that affects a lot of people, but the radiation, the fallout after that, is going to be far, far worse and far more extensive. And so trying to control sin, whether it's in your life or in the world in general, by human power is like trying to take an exploded nuclear bomb and put it back in the casing.

You just can't get it back. It's irreversible. And sin is working in the same way throughout humanity. Moses, in the first part of chapter 6, gives us a broad overview of the state of the earth.

And like mankind in the beginning was created to spread abroad, to fill God's earth with God's image, the infection of sin has so corrupted them that as they multiply, they're spreading wickedness.

They're spreading corruption and evil across the earth as they grow in number. And in verses 1 through 8, we see this corruption affecting two different realms.

I mentioned in Genesis 1 that God created the spiritual realm and the physical realm. Angels are spiritual beings. We as humans are physical beings.

And both realms are affected by sin. So first we see the angelic realm is affected by this corruption. So in Genesis 6, verse 1, when man, that's mankind, began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them.

Okay, so mankind is multiplying, they're reproducing and spreading across the face of the earth. Daughters are born to them. Look at verse 2. The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose.

What's going on here? We've got some options when it comes to interpreting this. Who are the sons of God? And some people will read this text and say, well, the sons of God must be the people who are born from Seth's line.

Because Seth is righteous, Seth is godly. When Seth has children, everyone starts to call on the name of the Lord from his family. So the sons of God must be those from his line. I don't think we have a right to read the text that way when it talks about the sons of God.

Nowhere is Seth called that. Nowhere are Seth's descendants called that. What this language, sons of God, is used for in the Old Testament is to describe creatures in the angelic realm.

This language is used to describe angels. And we see that all throughout the Old Testament. Just one example, if you want to write down Job 1.6. It says, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahweh.

And Satan also came among them. And so there's this council before God with the sons of God. And Satan is among them.

This is a meeting of the angels. And what we believe is that Satan was perhaps the most glorious creature that God ever made. He rebelled against God. We see him appear on the pages of Scripture for the first time in Genesis 3.

And what we learn from later biblical texts is that he led a rebellion. And so these angels that followed Satan are called fallen angels or what we call demons.

And so this reference to the sons of God here, I think we need to take in reference to angelic beings who fell. So what we're talking about here are demons.

Now it says that they saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose. So here we also have more options.

How is it that they were able to take wives and to sleep with them and produce kids with them if they're spiritual beings? Some people think these demons just possessed men who already existed.

But I think angels can take a physical form. If we keep reading in Genesis, in Genesis 18, angels visit Abraham and those angels go and visit Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah and they look like men.

Hebrews 13 says, practice hospitality because some people have entertained angels unawares. And so I think biblically, angels can take a physical human form when necessary.

And so that's how I read Genesis 6-2. The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose. So what appears to be happening is angels were lusting after human women and having kids with them as we'll read in verse 4.

And you might disagree with me. There are people out there that disagree with me. That's fine if you want to be wrong. Just kidding. But look at the path of their sin.

The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. The Hebrew word for attractive is good. They saw that they were good and they took.

Same exact words you describe Eve taking the fruit. She saw that it was good for food and she took and ate. This sin doesn't just affect humanity but it also at one time plagued some of the angels.

God's creatures are continually being led astray by desires and appearances. By what we feel and by what we see. And so we as believers need to be people who live by faith and not by sight.

If you live by sight you'll be discouraged in the Christian life because it doesn't seem on the outside through our eyes to be very successful very popular.

You'll be discouraged you'll doubt you'll be distracted by Satan's temptation so we need to live by faith. So now what was the result of this illicit union between demons and these women?

Well there's judgment from God and there's giants on the earth. So verse 3 then Yahweh said as a result of this my spirit shall not abide in man forever for he is flesh.

His days shall be 120 years. Now I don't think verse 3 is saying that after this point mankind the oldest man that will ever live is only going to be 120.

I think this is a countdown to the flood. What we see from this point is that it's 120 years until God floods the world. God is going to pour out his anger and his wrath on the earth because of the wickedness and corruption that has spread through it.

This is God's judgment. But why doesn't he just pour it out immediately? Why doesn't he just immediately flood the earth? Why does he wait 120 years? Well we see that he is waiting patiently.

He delights to save people and Noah needs time to build an ark. And so this 120 years is not God's weakness it's his patience so that he can save his people.

And then verse 4 says the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward. And what were these Nephilim? When the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them.

These were the mighty men who were of old the men of renown. Maybe your Bible version says just giants. Anyone's version say that? ESV it's a footnote.

Okay. So yeah it's Nephilim or giants. They were on the earth in those days. And so what's described here is these giants were the kids of these this union between these demonic creatures and human women.

And it says they were on the earth in those days and it says also afterward. So what were those days? I take those days to be the 120 years. I take afterward to be after the flood.

And do we see giants after the flood? Yes. David and Goliath is after the flood. Giants are possessing the land of Canaan that the Israelites are going in to conquer.

And there are also legends all over the world of giants. There are even Native American legends of giants being in North America when they got here. So how did they get here? Well presumably by the same way they showed up in chapter 6 verse 2.

It says these were the mighty men who were of old the men of renown. It's speaking of these guys as if they're legends like they're titans. And when you think about Greek and Roman gods what do they have in common?

They're horribly immoral they're super harsh and wrathful and they're all big and strong. And so it's possible that those stories those myths are passed down stories of these giants who used to kind of rule the earth these mighty men who were of old the men of renown.

But this corruption also affects the human realm and we see that in verses 5-8. It says Yahweh saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Okay when Moses describes man's heart here he kind of goes over the top. Like he could have just said their hearts were bad. Their hearts were evil but he explains it in such a way that's so thorough because he doesn't just want to show us that there's sin in their hearts.

He doesn't just want us to know that there was evil in their hearts. He wants us to see that there was nothing good in them. There was nothing good. Every thought every intention every moment was only evil all the time.

And we see from verse 5 God doesn't just care about our external actions. He cares about what's going on in our hearts and in our minds.

And so if you're here tonight and you don't know Christ this is true of you. Every motivation of your heart every thought is sinful to the core.

And if you're a believer here tonight this was true of you now that Christ has saved you he's changed your desires. There's still sin dwelling in you but it's not ruling over you like it used to be.

We need to pay careful attention to our hearts. And this is where we get the idea of what's called total depravity. It means that every thought every motivation of our hearts is sinful.

Now it doesn't mean that you're as sinful as you could be. Right? You could always be more sinful hypothetically. It's not saying that every human being is the equivalent of Hitler.

What it is saying is that sin has stained everything we do. Sin touches everything we think of and put into action. And verse 6 says Yahweh regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart.

Now when we think about verses like this where God is spoken of almost in a human-like way. God doesn't actually have a heart. He is a spiritual being.

He doesn't have hands but it says Jesus is seated at his right hand. So what is this this language has a name when it speaks about God in a human way. It's called an anthropomorphism.

That's like a five dollar word. If you go to the bank tomorrow has anyone been to the bank? You guys go okay alright people still go to the bank I haven't been to the bank in years. If you go to the bank tomorrow as one does on a Thursday and you say I would like to make a withdrawal and they say what's the account number and you say anthropomorphism.

They'll just give you all money all the kinds of money like just try it it's crazy. It's at least worth five dollars. But this is God speaking to us in a way that we can understand.

We cannot comprehend God he is infinite and we are just creatures and so the Bible speaks down to our level to try to help us understand who God is.

Now when we think about language like regretted when we regret something like I regret the cheesesteak I ate for lunch I didn't eat cheesesteak for lunch this is a random example but we think about things we regret it's because of consequences that we didn't think about.

If you're like I wish I hadn't done that because now I see what's happened to me. That's not how God is thinking here that's not the way he's regretting it's not as though this catches him by surprise he knew this would take place what's being said here is that he is pained by the wickedness that's spreading he hates to see the evil it grieves him to see what his creation has become and so verse 7 says so Yahweh said I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens for I am sorry that I have made them now verse 7 is important because it helps us understand the purpose of the flood this is a worldwide global flood that destroyed everything and every single culture every single tribe every single region of the earth has a flood story the details might be different the cause might be different the effects might be different but every culture has a flood story which shows us this is true and the bible itself bears the true account of what took place what we see is this was

God's wrath against sin I want you to notice verse 7 he mentions man animals creeping things birds of the heavens those are the exact same terms used in Genesis 1 but now they're in reverse order in Genesis 1 we read of birds creeping things again not a reference to your uncle animals man but now they're in reverse order because God's about to reverse creation he's about to turn creation on its head he's about to completely undo what he's done and start over almost completely and there's no fish mentioned here there's fish mentioned in Genesis 1 but the fish aren't going to be hurt by the flood they'll just get more water to swim in they'll probably be happy about it I don't know but why are animals affected by this animals hadn't sinned why does God kill them why does God cause them to die they hadn't sinned but we see that sin contaminates creation sin corrupts creation and so the real climate destroyers are sinners committing sin contaminates

God's earth so if you're righteous just get the Hemi go for it drive it be happy Hemi's a truck that didn't land well anyway God judges sin that's what we see God judges sin the corruption of sin was complete and total so God promised a destruction that would also be complete and total but there was one man who was exempt from this verse 8 but Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh there's a notable exception to this horrible state of mankind the Lord saw all of this corruption but the Lord also saw Noah and his righteousness so that's corruption secondly we see catastrophe in verses 9 through 17 catastrophe and before we get to the catastrophe little biography about

Noah verse 9 these are the generations of Noah Noah was a righteous man blameless in his generation Noah walked with God and Noah had three sons Shem Ham and Japheth I've got friends with all those names but he's described as righteous and blameless and we learn later that his righteousness is by faith he didn't earn God's favor he did not work for God's salvation he believed God and it was righteousness was given to him it was counted to him and notice it says he walked with God same way Enoch is described in chapter 5 who didn't die Noah was different he was no longer horribly ruled by sin he was righteous and Noah is a fantastic example to us Noah is an incredible example of faith he was surrounded by sin surrounded by corruption he was the righteous man on earth everyone around him was practicing wickedness everyone around him was mocking him for his faith and he remained faithful and he's a good example for us because if you're trying to live the Christian life in this world you will feel alone sometimes if you go to public school or if you come from a non-Christian family you will feel alone for following

Christ people will mock you people will think you're strange you will feel all alone continue to obey continue to be faithful and don't use this kind of aloneness as an excuse for sin because God will not excuse your sin just because you feel isolated God didn't excuse the sin of anyone around Noah just because everyone else was going along with it does this mean Noah was perfect no he has sin we'll read about that in Genesis 9 but he was righteous verse 11 now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and the earth was filled with violence this is the earth itself that's affected by sin no longer just talking about humanity but the earth itself verse 12 and God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt and that language might ring a bell for you in

Genesis 131 God steps back and surveys everything he made and says God saw everything that he had made Genesis 131 and behold it was very good now in verse 12 God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt the earth was corrupt through humanity's sin their sin contaminated the earth itself their sin was a spiritual form of littering I was born in the 1900s did y'all know that old anyway littering used to be a way bigger deal I guess than it is now because there were commercials all over the place about littering it was a wild time to be alive you guys should have seen it but anyway sin is like contaminating the earth in the same way littering would be and notice how God's going to destroy the earth verse 13 God said to Noah I've 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 with the earth

God sees that the world was so corrupted through sin he's going to use the earth to destroy his enemies does this seem like the activity of a loving God God determining to kill everything alive on the earth our tendency would be to not view this as a loving thing our tendency would be to step back and view this as a hateful thing a thing that does not have love but that really only shows that our view of God is too small if we can rephrase the question would it be loving for God to ignore wickedness would it be loving for God to ignore sin verse 14 he gives commands to Noah make yourself an ark of gopher wood we don't know what gopher wood is the Hebrew word is literally gopher so we just change the letters and translate it don't know what it is it says make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch pitch like a tar or a glue to waterproof the seams and the wood and he gives the blueprints in verse 15 but

God uses the fear of his judgment to inspire obedience in Noah he tells Noah what's going to happen and the threat of this judgment is the motivation or the fuel to get him to obey the judgment of God leads us to repentance leads us to obedience and this should be true as you share the gospel with people tell them about God's judgment tell them about God's wrath now don't don't spend an hour doing that okay tell them about Jesus us but use God's judgment to motivate them to obey to motivate them to repent there's a preacher I like he's kind of old now but his name is Alex Montoya he's Hispanic from California so he's cool he was going out and sharing the gospel in his neighborhood one time and came to this house and this guy was working on his car in his garage and so Montoya goes up to him and is talking to him about the car talking to him about cars in general and starts to share the gospel with him and the guy's like

I don't want to hear it thanks for coming by please don't talk to me about Jesus and Montoya says do me one favor don't die and he walked off and that next Sunday he sees this guy crying out in the foyer of his church he's like what are you doing he's like I haven't slept since you told me that I cannot shake God's judgment I am a sinner I need forgiveness and so this judgment of God motivates repentance and motivates obedience and we see God using it that way telling Noah what's going to happen and giving him commands in verse 15 we see the blueprints this is how you are to make it the length of the ark 300 cubits its breadth 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits now cubits I explained this to you a couple weeks ago I don't know why I explained it but a cubit was basically from the tip of your finger to your elbow it's about 18 inches which is a foot and a half so 300 cubits is 450 feet 450 feet it's like 150 yards so if you've been to the Mustang High School football field anyone seen that everyone seen that so from goal line to goal line it's 100 yards back of the end zones it's 120 so 150 yards is roughly from the track to the place where the band sits what do you call it a bandstand

I don't know okay bandstand alright that's what we're going with so that's about 150 yards so this arc was longer than a football field its width was 50 cubits that's 75 feet I measured this earlier today but 75 feet from right where I'm standing is to Lacey back there in the back see Lacey wave your hand Lacey that's my wife so roughly 70 feet back there so that's the width of the arc and 30 cubits tall that's 45 feet I think the ceiling is about 45 feet I tried to measure it earlier I have no idea but anyway it was tall so these are the blueprints that God tells Noah to build this cruise ship and proportionately this is the same size as cruise ships today proportionately tells them verse 16 make a roof of the arc and finish it to a cubit above and set the door of the arc in its side make it with lower second and third deck so it was a triple decker loads of fun it says verse 17 for behold I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven

Noah would have been mocked and ridiculed for building a boat like this the New Testament tells us that he was a preacher of righteousness and the world was against him and it's possible that they weren't even near a body of water big enough to use this ship on it's possible they were just in the Middle East in the Fertile Crescent not near a large enough body of water to use this and so people would have made fun of him people would have mocked him this would be like you know we're in the center of Oklahoma just in case you were lost center of Oklahoma this would be like your neighbor having a cruise ship in their backyard you're like hey buddy you gonna take that to Lake Murray what are your plans with a ship that big and if they were like the flood is coming you'd be like okay crazy crazy so Noah would have been mocked and ridiculed for his obedience to the Lord but he trusted God's word and since humanity has covered his earth with sin he's going to cover his earth with water and everything that breathes will die everything that is on the earth shall die at the end of verse 17 lastly number three we see a covenant a covenant saw corruption a catastrophe and lastly we see a covenant in verses 18 through 22

God says to Noah but I will establish my covenant with you and you shall come into the ark you your sons your wife and your sons wives with you and so this word covenant means a promise of God a promise made by God the covenant itself will be given later we'll read about it in Genesis but here God promises to keep Noah and his family alive on the ark so we see that God judges sin we see here that God also saves sinners Noah was righteous but he was still a sinner and God delights to save sinners and what we get starting here is a pattern in the Bible that God not only judges and God saves saves but he saves through the judgment that he pours out he pours out judgment on the earth and he saves his people through that judgment and so Noah and his family would be saved by going through the flood in the ark

God saves his people through judgment God saves a few people eight in total and they would experience the restoration of creation and in verse 19 it says of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you they shall be male and female so these animals will be able to repopulate the earth after the flood verse 20 of the birds according to their kinds of the animals according to their kinds of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind two of every sort shall come into you to keep them alive and so Noah here is like a new Adam all of these animals are coming to him all of these animals are passing by him and the ark essentially becomes a floating garden of Eden there's food there's animals and there's God's man that he has chosen to preserve life it's like a floating garden of Eden but this time instead of being surrounded by these four rivers these waters that bring life they're going to be floating through a watery grave but God will save his people now look at verse 21 take with you every sort of food that's eaten and store it up it shall serve as food for you and for them verse 22

Noah did this Noah did all of it Noah was obedient to everything that God said Noah did this that's a summary of his life that's a summary of God's commands to him and Noah obeying them last Wednesday I was driving I can't remember what time of day it was but I was at Mustang in 152 and I was kind of backed up a little bit there was an entrance to the parking lot that I left open because I'm a kind driver sometimes and there was a car wanting to come out and it was a Hummer now a Hummer is like an underrated car if you like spending a bunch of money on gas like man super expensive tall boxy ideal body type for cars and people and it was a Hummer and it pulled out I let him go and he pulled out in front of me and it had a custom license plate and that's how you know this is like real money okay this isn't like he has a nice car okay custom license plate wow chef's kiss and the custom license plate said did dat like did dat but did dat like he's bragging that he went out and did it like he bought it he did dat and Hummer's a cool car it was like nice four miles a gallon cool that was worth it that's pretty much a summary of Noah's life

God gives him all these commands and Noah's like did dat got it done so Noah did this he did all that God commanded him this is what righteousness is this is what faith looks like this is obedience listening to God's word and obeying it are we righteous I think looking at Noah's example we see how incomplete our obedience usually is even our obedience we can look back and see I was doing that for selfish motives I did that in that moment because I wanted to be seen by someone I did that in the moment because I thought someone might praise my name or I did that because I knew it was right but I did it in my pride our obedience is always incomplete and think of all the obstacles that Noah faced just the size of the ark like goodness how many trees did he have to cut down and haul into his backyard he probably lived in a suburban neighborhood in my mind all the mocking that people would have thrown at him how would he provide for his family this took him a hundred years to build how did he provide for his family during that time and then all the collecting of animals like

I don't know if he was out here like come here rhino come here like collecting these I don't know how this works but it took a lot of time to obey this all of these obstacles would have been facing him and he just obeyed so what does faith do how is faith seen faith obeys faith is seen and proved by obedience this is righteousness faith obeys faith works do we have faith do we obey obey it's not enough just to claim to believe God's promises I think everyone in here might be willing to say yeah I believe I believe Jesus I believe the Bible do you obey it because if you don't that shows your faith is faulty you're deceiving yourself according to James what if Noah just believed God but didn't act on what God said if Noah was just like okay I believe that a flood's coming he would have died true belief true faith leads to obedience and so the ark is really a physical representation of Noah's faith what saved

Noah on a human level it was the ark why did the ark exist because Noah believed God and obeyed him he was righteous by faith I mentioned earlier this is a pattern of God saving his people through judgment you see it in the exodus God's judging Egypt and saves his people through it and this pattern ultimately culminates in Jesus we as Christians are saved by faith and by God's mercy but it came at the expense of the judgment on his son God saves us through the judgment of his son God judges sin but saves sinners and this is important because just like God judged the entire world in the flood he's promised to judge the entire world again Jesus will one day return and expose everything Jesus will one day come back and pour out a fiery wrath on his enemies and if you are not in Christ if you're not righteous by faith if you don't evidence that by obeying him you will be caught up in that judgment you will not be saved through it you will die in it

God's judgment is delaying because he doesn't want anyone to perish but he desires his people to come to repentance so God is not slow to bring this judgment God is not indifferent to sin God is waiting so he can have mercy on his people but his judgment is coming and so the question is so to speak are you in the boat what are you trusting in to save you are you trusting your own works there were people that did that in Noah's day oh okay a flood sure right I can swim I'll go up on my roof I'll climb a mountain all died depending on their own strength there was no hope of surviving outside of the ark and today there is no hope of surviving outside of Christ there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved if you hope to be saved from God's judgment against your sin your only hope is that Jesus died that judgment has been poured out on him for his people believe in him submit to him obey him

God judges sin but we see he delights to save sinners he is loving he is a loving God and he does justice he delights to forgive but he will not let anyone go completely free in their sin you will either die for your sins or you will trust in Jesus and his death for sinners will pay to cover your sins are you in Christ our father we thank you for our time together tonight thank you for these students thank you for those who have a desire to know your word and to delight in your word I pray for Christians here that they would continue to pursue obedience to be like Noah who just obeyed all of your commandments I pray for students here who are not saved that you would make them feel the judgment that's coming for their sin that you would press on their conscience their guilt because of their sin father lead us all in repentance help us to trust your son and it's in his name we pray amen you