New Beginnings Part 10

Intro

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NOW

Easter Sunday

Prayer

Text

Today we talk about the greatest natural disaster in human history

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami - 230,000 deaths - $10 billion damage

1976 Tangshan earthquake - 240,000 deaths

A.D. 526 Antioch earthquake - 250,000 deaths

1920 Haiyuan earthquake - 270,000

1839 Coringa cyclone and 1881 Haiphong typhoon - 300,000 deaths

2010 Haiti earthquake - over 3 million affected over 315,000 deaths

1970 Bhola Cyclone - between 300,000 500,000 deaths $86 billion in damages

1556 Shaanxi earthquake - 830,000 deaths

1887 Yellow River flood - 1 to 2 million people died

1931 Yangtze river floods - it inundated almost 70,000 square miles. Estimated death toll was 2 to 4 million people

Closer to home

Hurricane Katrina was responsible for 1,800 deaths and $161 billion in damage

The storm of the century in 1993 caused over 200 deaths and about $2 billion in damage. It was estimated to have between 12 and 14 feet of storm surge at Keaton. Wind gusts were recorded close to 150mph

If you google natural disasters Noah’s flood isn’t going to show up but if it was included then it would always be at the top of the list.

Using human history and the rate in which population grows, adding in the lifespans, children, the generations that would have been alive at this point we are talking billions of people. Some estimates have been around the 10 trillion mark.

The flood could have killed over 10 trillion people!

Why would God do such a thing?

Genesis 6:1-8 offers the Bible’s most detailed answer to the question, “Why did God send the flood?”

How could a good God send such a flood?

As we have seen in previous sermons from Genesis, there was a rapid spiritual degeneration after the first sin. Once sin entered the human bloodstream, it quickly spread until it dominated humanity.

Things have become so evil that God decides to start all over again. A new, new beginning

What happened to bring on such a drastic judgment?

Here are five phrases that help us grasp the reason God sent a worldwide flood.

A. An Abuse of Marriage

Genesis 6:1–2 NIV

1 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

The phrase “sons of God” has been heavily debated for centuries

But before we consider the controversial aspects of these verses, note the last two phrases. These marriages were made on the basis of nothing more than pure physical attraction.

The last phrase suggests a certain jumping of the boundaries God had established.

It reads in the Hebrew as “saw...good...took.” We know from Genesis 4 that Lamech felt free to take more than one wife. What would stop a man who lives only on the level of fleshly desire from having ten wives? Or 20? Or 30 if he thought it was good?

We see in this text that the men thought of themselves as god. The phrase in Hebrew is the same phase God uses in chapter 1 after He asses his creation and always looked and “saw that it was good.”

These men are doing the same thing. They saw that these women were good so they took them

They have placed themselves in the position of God

Now, the real debate and question regarding these verses involves the mysterious statement that the “sons of God” saw the “daughters of men.”

To whom do these phrases refer?

In the history of biblical interpretation, there have been three/four main answers given to this hotly debated question.

But let me say first that this debate and interpretation is not a question of salvation.

Really it doesn't or shouldn’t form how you view God.

At it’s extreme you could say it shapes how you view the judgement or justice of God but regardless of your view God is still found Just in His judgement

So my goal is not to sway you one way or another but to show you how it could be interpreted, the backing or evidence for that interpretation, and then the problem with the interpretation.

First, some Bible students suggest that this refers to the intermarriage of believers with unbelievers. 

View

In this view the “sons of God” are referring to the godly line of Seth and the “daughters of men” represent women from the ungodly line of Cain. The subsequent judgment comes because of the widespread spiritual contamination caused by such deliberate compromise.

Evidence

In favor of this view is the fact that up to this point in the text and moving forward we have seen and will continue to see the widening line between the godly and ungodly

Problem

The problem with this view is that it first is stating that it’s the “godly” line that would be guilty so it would seem to be a contradiction to itself. Also, in the Hebrew the phrase used in 6:1 to describe “men” is generic for humanity and the term for daughters refers to all of their female offspring. It is arbitrary in the next verse to limit “sons of God” to the Sethites and “daughters of men” to the Cainites. If anything “daughters” in this context refers to Seth’s, for in his lineage the phrase daughters is repeated nine times and the narrator never mentions daughters in Cain’s line.

Second, some scholars suggest that the phrase “sons of God” is a technical term from the Ancient Near East that describes human rulers who were tyrants.

View

These were the ancient tribal chieftains who were bullies and saw themselves as gods and demigods. The “daughters of men” refers to the multiple wives and concubines who made up the earliest harems.

Evidence

There is literature that describes ancient men and kings who were thought to have been gods or demigods that refer to these men as powerful individuals.

Problem

The problem with this view is you have to go outside of the Scripture and do some deductive reasoning to arrive at this.

Another issue is that the expression “sons of God” refers to angels everywhere else in the OT

Third, the oldest interpretation, suggests that the “sons of God” refers to angels who rebelled against God (we would call them demons), inhabited human bodies, married human women, and gave birth to the “nephilim” of verse 4 who roamed the earth as ancient tyrants and bullies. 

The View

the term “sons of God” in the Old Testament in all its other occurrences always refers only to angels.

This is how the Jewish scholars who translated the Old Testament into Greek (the Septuagint) understood the text approximately two centuries before the birth of Christ. This interpretation also helps us understand two cryptic passages in the New Testament:

The Evidence

2 Peter 2:4-5 & Jude 6-7

Both passages describe a very drastic judgment upon certain angels who not only sinned but “abandoned their proper abode.”

Note that in 2 Peter, the angels are mentioned first, then comes Noah and the flood.

In Jude the phrase “just as” joins the angels with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And what was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? It was a form of “gross immorality” that consisted of going after “strange flesh.”

The problem

The problem with this view is that Jesus states in Matt 22:30 and Mark 12:25 that angels cohabit with mortal flesh.

so you have to either say that Jesus is only referring to current angels in heaven and not fallen angels (demons) or you have to say that this view doesn’t hold up either.

The only other interpretation you have is a combination of these.

Some believe the best solution is to combine the “angelic” interpretation with the “divine king” interpretation. That the tyrants of that day, because of their wickedness, became demon possessed. That fallen angels came and possessed them, giving them power and abilities unavailable to the common man which then caused them to be worshipped and put in positions of authority.

Regardless of your interpretation it is safe to say that the men of this day were living outside the design of Biblical marriage and engaged in complete and utter wickedness. 

This wasn’t just men messing up this was corruption to the core and it became a danger to the human race.

An End to God’s patience:

Genesis 6:3 NIV

3 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.”

In light of the bizarre morality of the pre-flood world, it is not surprising that God’s patience finally wore thin. The word translated “contend” may also mean “protect.” 

In that sense, this verse is both a warning and a promise of grace extended for a short period of time.

I take it that the 120 years refers not to man’s new lifespan, but to the years remaining before the flood.

Up until now, God’s Spirit has protected mankind from self-destruction, but at some point that protection will be removed and man will then be left to his own devices.

We see a similar picture in Romans 1

Note that the story of the flood is used in precisely the same way in II Peter 3:1-9. There we learn that the seeming delay in God’s judgment is not because he “winks” at sin but because he postpones judgment to give us more time to repent. But God’s patience will not last forever.

Langston Hughes, “God gave Noah the rainbow sign and essentially said, ‘No more water, the fire next time.’”

So in this text we see an end to God’s patience and an extension of His grace.

An abundance of corrupt leaders

Genesis 6:4 NIV

4 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 word “Nephilim” can be most accurately translated to “the fallen ones” or “giants” 

It may refer to a race that were known to be 10 to 12 feet tall and many scholars, by deduction, believe that they were the offspring of “the sons of God” and the “daughters of men.”

Regardless, they were a race of ancient leaders who in their arrogance ignored God, built vast empires, acted as tyrants, and embodied the worst traits of humanism—living as if God did not exist.

A rush into evil and wickedness

Genesis 6:5 NIV

5 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.

This is the human race wholly apart from God’s grace. It is a picture of mans total depravity

If we recall, in Genesis 1 we are repeatedly told that “God saw” what he had made and it was “good” and “very good.” By Genesis 6 when God looks on the earth, he sees his creation turned into a foul cesspool of evil. 

Now God looks and He no longer sees good, He sees evil.

If you want to know what sin is like, study this verse:

Sin is internal. It is a matter of the heart first and foremost. “The thoughts of the human heart.”

Sin is pervasive. It touches every part of our existence. “Every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart.”

Sin is continual. It consumes man and controls him. “Every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.”

A shocking judgement

Genesis 6:6–7 NIV

6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 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.”

“The Lord regretted” and “He was grieved.”

God’s grief is a sign of his great love.

The Lord is no robot. He is not some unfeeling God in heaven who sets the world in motion and then watches in benign disinterest while men and women destroy themselves.

His heart breaks over the sin that covers the earth.

So now God decides to “uncreate” the earth.

But Grace

Genesis 6:8 NIV

8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

The word translated “favor” actually means “grace.” Noah found “grace” in the eyes of the Lord

Because this is the first mention of “grace” in the Bible, it is hugely significant.

The word means “undeserved favor.” It describes the blessing God gives to those who don’t deserve it.

We shouldn’t read this like “Noah was a good man and so he earned God’s grace.” That’s not how grace works.

Either grace is a gift or it isn’t grace

So grace was given to Noah the same way it is given today. Instead of saying Noah found grace it’s more appropriate to say grace found Noah.

Grace found him and saved him and his whole family

Let us learn two important truths from this verse:

First, grace is available in the darkest hours.

Even though the world was rushing headlong into sin and wickedness, Noah found grace.

There is never a place we could go that would keep us from the grace of God

You cannot say that “I am too bad of a sinner to ever be saved.”

While there is life, there is hope

We are living in the days of grace. There will come a day that the door to grace will close but right now we are living in grace.

Second, grace is the only means of escape

Noah was a sinner just like the rest of us but what was the difference between him and the other men living during that time?

Hebrews 11:7 tells us that “by faith” Noah saved himself and his family.

What Noah did, you can do too.

By grace we can be delivered even in the darkest days and from the deepest pit of sin.

Today’s Truth: It wasn’t the flood that was undeserving, it was His grace.

We need not to look at this story as God sending a punishment that was underserving.

We need to look at this story as a story where God extended grace when it was undeserving

God could have wiped out the human race and been done and would have been Just in doing so

But He doesn’t. He extends grace to the human race through Noah

And He does the same thing with us today.

Ephesians 2:1–10 NIV

1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

This is our picture

This is us dead in our transgressions

No out, no hope

But grace finds us and it saves us

And it’s not a grace that was just barely enough it’s a grace that overflows. Jesus Is rich in grace

And it made possible through the kindness shown to us through Jesus on the cross

So, the flood isn’t God saying “I’m done with all these evil wicked sinners.”

It was God saying “I want to rescue and redeem what is broken. I want to make what was once good that you’ve made broken, good once again.”

So you’ve never experienced that grace before than today is the day. We are living in the day of grace. Don’t let that door shut. Turn to God, turn to grace. surrender all so that you may live in the life of God’s grace and kindness.