Enoch & Noah
Notes
Transcript
Last week we saw God’s interaction with Cain and saw God’s kindness. We saw God’s patience with Cain. We saw God’s mercy in not giving Cain what he deserved. We saw God’s grace in giving Cain what he did not deserve, chance after chance to repent, and protection he never deserved.
Genesis 4 has the ungodly line of Cain, and we see it going from bad to worse as people reject the Lord.
But there is hope…
Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.
At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord.
This is the written account of Adam’s family line.
When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.
When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.
In God’s Image - Righteous
In God’s Image - Righteous
In Adam’s Image - Unrighteous
In Adam’s Image - Unrighteous
But, this chapter shows the line of Seth, the line that began calling on the name of the Lord.
In this chapter are a couple men we need to take note of: Enoch and Noah
Enoch - Genesis 5.22, 24, Hebrews 11.5-6
Enoch - Genesis 5.22, 24, Hebrews 11.5-6
After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.
Literally walked with God
Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Walk with God - two steps… trust, obey, trust, obey.
Gen 6:9
Enoch - Righteous by Faith
Enoch - Righteous by Faith
Enoch had Methuselah.
Methuselah had Lamech.
Lamech had Noah. Prophesied relief.
Why?
When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.
Sons of God
Angels - Job 1.6; Matthew 22.30
Rulers - Ps 82.6-7
People of God - Hos 1.10
People in Canaan and other places at the time this was written believed that rulers were divine, or at least semi-divine
Ezekiel 28.11-19, and Daniel 10.13 bear out that there were angels who were behind rulers of Daniel’s day, who had left their position to inhabit and direct rulers.
Nephilim - giants, also found after the flood.
We still see some giants today.
People in Canaan also believed that giants were divine beings, and that they and their offspring were highly regarded. ‘men of renown’.
Taking any that they wanted also referred to the practice of taking multiple wives, having harems, because sexual immorality was seen as a means of becoming divine and immortal.
Though that was about to be shown to be false through their deaths in the flood.
Corruption of mankind
Corruption of mankind
But the main thing we want to look at here is that mankind was being corrupted.
A big part of this was the intermarrying of the godly line with the ungodly, which led to corruption.
A common theme in the first five books was God warning Israel not to intermarry with the women of other nations, who worshiped other gods, because that would influence them away from the Lord. And that is what was happening in Noah’s day.
The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”
God’s response:
Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
But there is hope...
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
So this section that is about the godly line of Seth starts well with people calling on the name of the Lord, devolves into them intermarrying and being led astray until every thought and inclination of their hearts was only evil, all the time.
But there is hope… Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
And that begins the next section of the book of Genesis. The account of Noah and his family.
This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.
The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
Noah - Righteous by Faith
Noah - Righteous by Faith
By Faith, Noah was commended as righteous.
Was he righteous because he never did anything wrong?
Well, I think God includes another story about Noah to show us that he was not perfect. Later in Gen 9.20-21 we read how Noah made wine and became drunk. I don’t want to get too distracted, but the point is, Noah was not righteous by his own actions. He was unrighteous by his own doing. He was not perfect, and therefore not righteous by his own actions.
He was righteous because he had faith! He trusted what God said, and thus obeyed what God commanded.
The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.
Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.
For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”
So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
“As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.
As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
God’s Covenant
God’s Covenant
God binds himself to a course of action
Not dependent upon man to do anything, in fact in spite of man, God promised
God’s covenant is never broken
Not a secret, God wants man to know his covenant, what he will do for them.
What do we see about man?
What do we see about man?
Unrighteousness
Unrighteousness
Innocence and a good start does not lead to righteousness
Tend to follow others into more and more unrighteousness
sexual immorality is a huge way this plays out
What do we see about God?
What do we see about God?
Love, Grace, Mercy, Patience, Justice
Love, Grace, Mercy, Patience, Justice
God loves, otherwise his heart would not be broken by our sinfulness
God is patient and merciful - gave 120 years bc wants repentance
God gives grace
God saves through faith
God carries out justice
Where do we see hope?
Where do we see hope?
Salvation by grace through faith
Salvation by grace through faith
God’s grace
God giving a way of salvation (1 way, 1 door)
That way was entered by faith
God shut them in
God’s blessing
God’s Covenant
Same today as Noah’s day:
Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.
Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.
