Sin and a man named Noah

Introduction

We have been walking through the book of Genesis together. We have seen how everything was before the fall, and then we saw the fall. We saw how God cursed the serpent and how sin affected Adam and Eve. We saw how the world began to no longer work right. We saw how work was now difficult. We saw how there was pain in childbirth.

Sin has taken hold in the world. We saw how bad that it got. It got so bad that humans began to invent their own sin. Cain killed Abel. Then we see the sin in the lives of his children. grandchildren and such, and marriage began to break down. We saw how God chased Cain off and how he still refused to accept what God said. He built a city even though God told him he was to be a wanderer.

But sin did not end there. It only continues to grow. It now has grown to a point that God wants to deal with the sin in the world.

Let us look at this together today.

Genesis 6:1-8

Sins destruction in the World

You will notice that we did not cover anything in chapter 5. chapter 5 records the population growth in the world. It records only the important individuals as was very common in ancient litirature. We are even told about nameless people here in the first verse of chapter 6. We are told that man was beginning to multiply on the face of the land. They were doing this part of what God told them to do. They were having children, lots of children.

Next we see something that is one of the most difficult passages in scripture to understand. We see that The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose. Now what does this mean? Well there are several interpretations to this. I am going to give you the 2 most common ones. I am going to admit, that I do not completely understand this myself because it is not truly clear. But the Bible does not tell us what we want to know, but only what we need to know. So, I am going to give you what others say about this.

The first interpretation and the one I lean towards, but i am not fully sold on is that The sons of God is the godly line of Seth. Seth had been the child that God had given Adam and Eve with after they lost Abel to murder and Cain to the fact that he was the murderer and that he had to leave home and wander the earth away from his family. The daughters of men were the daughters of Cain. Cain was wicked and had rejected God. Therefore the Godly men went after ungodly and wicked women because they found them attractive and this hurt the calling of God to fill the earth with children who feared and worshiped him. This makes sense from a simple reading of the passage and therefore makes sense.

The second interpretation of this passage is quite different than that. The second interpretation is that the sons of God are demons. They are part of the heavenly creation that God made, but they were the ones that had fallen with Satan in his rebellion. The daughters of men are the daughters of humans here on earth. So, it is an interpretation that in order to keep the messiah from coming, they planed to corrupt the human genes by demons coming and taking women and having children with them, thus corrupting the human line. This is where they believe the Nephilim came from and the giants in the Bible. They believe that this is why God actually destroyed the world and that Noah was saved because his genes had not been corrupted by demons. I actually can see how they get this from the bible, but there are some things that we would have to accept in order to interpret it this way. one of the biggest things we would have to believe that demons could have relations with humans. There is no where in scripture that teaches this.

The God makes a statement. He says that his Spirit will not abide in man forever. His years are 120 years. Now some people think that this means that man’s life will be shortened from the long lives they had been living to now being a maximum of 120 years. But that is not what is stated here. It is that there is 120 years until the flood. Then mankind will just about all be wiped out. But they will have 120 years to repent of the wickedness that they were involved in. Even in their wickedness, God’s patience and mercy is shown.

Then again we are told of the Nephilim on the earth before the flood and after the flood. They were strong and mighty men who were men of renown. They were military leaders. Some who believe that they were demonic in nature believe that they were the hunters of men and even cannibals.

No matter what this was really all about, we do know a few things. The children that came from these marriages were evil. In fact we are told that the sin was so great, it was so consuming, that every thought that they had was evil and sinful. Sin is what they thought about. It is what they intended with their actions. They did not care about what God had to say, they wanted their sin, they wanted their way. It was all consuming in them and thus it was all consuming in the world.

Jesus says that the end will be like in the days of Noah. Wickedness will be in the hearts of men and marriage will be done without much thought. It is so bad, that God must do something about the evil in the world. God is love, but God is also Just. He cannot let Evil go unpunished for ever. It grieved him how bad sin had gotten. To express what is going on here, God uses human emotions to show us the grief he had over the wickedness of man. Man had ceased to reflect God’s glory in every way.

What does God say he will do? He will wipe mankind, those he had created, from the face of the earth. They have rejected their jobs. They have rejected God’s image. They will be destroyed from the earth because of what they have done.

Then God says, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. There was still one man who reflected what God did. There was still one man who was not all in on sin. He was still as sinner, but he knew that he needed the grace and mercy of God in his life to save him. His own righteousness could not save him.

Genesis 6:9-13

Noah contrasted with the world

Genesis starts off by saying these are the generations of Noah. This means, this is the account or this is the narrative of Noah. We are told here that Noah was blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Now what does this mean? It kinda sounds like he is sinless. But he is not sinless. It means that he is very concerned with doing what God said and he has put his faith in God to care for his shortcomings. He is righteous in the light of the world around him. And he walked with God. The rest of society did not want God, but in contrast, Noah had a relationship with God.

Here we also find out some things about Noah. Noah had 3 sons. Shem, Ham, and Japheth. They are not listed here in birth order, but rather in they are ordered in order of importance in biblical history. We will find out more about that later.

In contrast with the Noah who walked with God, the world was corrupt and full of violence. Were told that every thought of man was evil. They are choosing to not respond to the grace of God but instead live a life of corruption and violence.

Because of the way the world was, God said to Noah that he was surely going to destroy both them and the earth. Man and the earth were cursed because of the sin and God was going to do a new reset on the earth. He knows that this will not cure sin, only Jesus can do that, but it will reset the earth and start it again.

Genesis 6:14-21

God’s plan for Noah and the world

God has told Noah the plan. He now tells Noah how he and his family will survive. He tells him to build an ark. He tells him the dimensions of the ark and what it is to be built out of. He said make it out of gopher wood. Some versions say cypress wood. It was to be covered in pitch. This will help make it water proof.

The God gives him the dimensions. 300 cubits long, by 50 cubits wide, by 30 cubits high. This means that the ark was to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. It was to have a roof on it that was to be 18 inches from the top. This is very interesting because people have been looking for the ark for many years. It has actually been in the news in the last few months. The CIA and other agencies have actually been looking for it and there are reports that they are finding things that makes it seem that they may have found the ark in these dimensions.

If Noah was to survive, he needed to do what God said and with the dimensions God told him to make. God then tells him his plan. He is going to send a flood. The Ark will allow Him and everything with him to survive the coming flood. Everything outside the flood will drown in the waters that are coming.

But God was going to establish a covenant with Noah. Part of this covenant would be that Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives would come into the ark. They would bring 2 of every animal one male and one female on the ark with them. He was to bring them in their kinds. In other words, he would not need to bring every kind of dog, he would just need to bring 2 of one kind of dog. He is to bring everything, even bugs and even yes even snakes.

Finally they are told to bring all kinds of food for Noah and his family and food for the animals on the ark with them. This is something they are going to have to work at. They need to store it up and make sure that it will last while they are on the ark. They need to put it in the ark and have it in a place where they can access it during the trip. This would be needed to keep everything alive while they are there.

How then shall we live?

What about us today?

How would we be seen compared to the world we live in?

Do we stand out as people who walk with God or are we just like the rest of the world?

Our faith should change how we live our lives. We live for Jesus and faithfully preach the name of Jesus in the world we live.

Are we ready to do what God asks of us?

When is the last time we shared our faith with someone who needs Jesus?