Good morning, CHURCH!

Welcome to FFM where we love God and love people.

Are you ready to be equipped today?

Let me see your Bibles.

Pray

Lord, help us to see you as new and fresh through your word today?

Lord, help us to see truth where we have believed lies?

Lord, let us not get puffed up in pride and arrogance with the knowledge you give us.

Most of all, help us to love you and others more.

Let’s go to the book of Genesis 3:22-24 NET for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.

This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination

Genesis 3:22-24 NET

And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. 24 When he drove the man out, he placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life.

Without understanding the nature of God and how much he loves us we might be tempted to think that God was just keeping man from the tree of life because he was angry with man’s disobedience.

But if you look at it with the knowledge of who God is you’ll see that he blocked man from the tree of life because man was now in a fallen and sinful state.

It would be like if you had a photographer coming by to take your yearly family photo.

He calls that he’s running 10 minutes behind.

Your son asks to go sit on the back porch til he comes.

God didn’t want man to live forever in a sinful state.

He wanted man to live eternally in his original state.

God had always has a plan to redeem humans.

And in Revelation 2:7 we are told that the one who conquers will be granted to eat of the tree of life.

Revelation 2:7 ESV

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

Let me leave you with this.

God desires obedience from us. Yes!

But if you are in condemnation from something disobedient you’ve done, God is and has always been about redemption.

If I were to write a verse of scripture it would say, God is saying, “I want you back.”

Let’s get into today’s message.

We are finishing the series titled:

What happens when humans seize autonomy from God? (wk 3)

If you are new to the series, let’s start with the rules to life as a human on earth.

Rule #1-God created humans.

Rule #2-God defines good.

Rule #3-Our job is to subdue and rule the earth by doing good.

Rule #4-The good we do should always be a benefit to others.

Rule #5-If you try to operate any other way, you’re out of order.

Today’s message title is:

The Aftermath Continued!

Last week we saw how Eve’s independent choice and Adam following it led to many unpleasant consequences.

They decided to govern their own lives rather than allow God to govern their lives.

We saw how sin causes us to look to benefit ourselves first and foremost.

When we’re in sin we place a higher priority on relationships with others than the relationship with our creator.

Last week we also saw how shame entered which we described as that feeling of embarrassment or humiliation that arises from the perception of having done something dishonorable, immoral, or improper.

We saw where shame causes us to hide from God even though He’s not hiding from us.

We saw where jealousy and envy were a result of the sin from self-governing.

Which led to the first murder.

We saw how just a few generations later the evil was getting so out of control and womanizing had become a thing.

All of this was aftermath of humans thinking they can govern their own lives well.

Mankind governing themselves got so bad that God had to step in and do something about it.

Let’s pick up here today.

Point #1

God had enough.

The evil of mankind had gotten so bad that God stepped in and wiped out the evil humans and animals in the world.

Genesis 6:4 NET

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days (and also after this) when the sons of God would sleep with the daughters of humankind, who gave birth to their children. They were the mighty heroes of old, the famous men.

Three different views have been entertained from the very earliest times: the “sons of God” being regarded as

(a) powerful human rulers, (b) fallen angels, or (c) godly descendants of Seth marrying wicked descendants of Cain;

I think most theologians believe that they were fallen angels that took on human form prior to God binding them in Jude 6 for abandoning their proper dwelling.

Jude 6 NIV

And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.

Genesis 6:5-7 NET

But the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time.

6 The Lord regretted that he had made humankind on the earth, and he was highly offended.

7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—everything from humankind to animals, including creatures that move on the ground and birds of the air, for I regret that I have made them.”

When the Bible talks about the repentance of God or God regretted, it is an anthropomorphic expression.

It is looking to explain the pain of God’s divine love, at the sin of man In human terms.

(Anthropomorphism is when the bible gives human characteristics to God so that we could try and relate to Him.)

As we look at the history of mankind and his evil in leu of governing their own life, think about where we are today.

Now I want you to think about where you are today.

Are you one that typically governs your own life?

Point #2

Can God find at least one good one.

God is now starting over with one family from one man that He called righteous.

If you read the recording, you’ll see it was probably because he had the faith to believe God for what seemed impossible based upon hearing God’s voice.

I’m sure most of you have either heard of, read, or watched a movie about Noah and the ark.

We are going to jump to the end of the flood.

Genesis 8:15-17 NET

Then God spoke to Noah and said, 16 “Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you all the living creatures that are with you. Bring out every living thing, including the birds, animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Let them increase and be fruitful and multiply on the earth!”

Does that last line sound familiar?

It should.

This is the same thing God told Adam.

So we have the assignment given again.

Let’s see what happens.

Genesis 9:18-19 NET

The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Now Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These were the three sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was populated.

Yes, all of you are related. We all go back to Noah and one of his three sons.

Now you would think that since Noah and his family just experienced God wiping out all humanity, they would try to keep themselves in check.

Genesis 9:20-23 NET

Noah, a man of the soil, began to plant a vineyard.

21 When he drank some of the wine, he got drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent.

22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers who were outside.

23 Shem and Japheth took the garment and placed it on their shoulders. Then they walked in backwards and covered up their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way, so they did not see their father’s nakedness.

Now that term uncovered his nakedness is used quite a bit in the O.T.

We are not given the specifics in this passage of what that entailed.

However we know it was against the code.

And we know that either Noah woke up and knew what had happened or Ham’s brothers snitched on him.

But what I wanted to point out is, look how quick we are right back at it with the evil and sin that comes from governing our life apart from God.

The last one I’ll point out is:

Point #3

The desire for fame and influence.

So, you remember how we just read that God wanted the humans to increase in number and fill the earth. (Gen.9:1)

God wanted mankind to multiply and spread about all over the earth and be his temple.

Here we go in Genesis 11:4.

The humans are back at it with the whole self-governing thing again.

Genesis 11:4 NET

Then they said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” (They had brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar.) 4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise, we will be scattered across the face of the entire earth.”

If making a name for us ain’t in the top 5 of priorities today I can’t imagine what 5 things would be above it.

Everybody is an influencer today or wants to be.

Everybody has a strong opinion on what we should be doing and thinking.

There is only one who should be an influencer and that is God and God alone.

Any other influencers should only be passing along His message.

If you’re watching online or here in the building, I have a very important question to ask you.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you right now?