220220 Genesis 6: "… Just Like the Days of Noah"

ISPEAK LOW AND TAKE YOUR TIME

OPENING SLIDE

Today, I invite you to open your Bibles to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 is a cherished monument in the New Testament that highlights major figures in the Biblical record and calls them out for their common faith in God… their belief in God that He would provide the means of salvation for them.

INTRODUCTION

Let’s begin in verse 1 with the definition of faith… READ SO SLOW

Hebrews 11:1-7 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

Faith is defined as an assurance, a grounded conviction, a sure confidence by which the holders of it gained approval by God. Through faith we understand that God’s Word will come to pass even though we cannot see it. PAUSE

Then the Author’s of Hebrews begin writing in chronological order, beginning with Abel whom we learned about last week. Verse 4

By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

By these men’s acted on conviction, by their confident assurance in the character of God, by their belief in God, they pleased Him… It was by their faith that they gained His approval.

And their faith still speaks out even today. PAUSE

That last verse is important, verse 7 because it tells us about about a man that we will be looking at more closely today. It is also our main point for the sermon.

MAIN POINT

Verse 7 tells us that Noah believed the warning of God. Verse 7 tells us that Noah obeyed God with reverence. Verse 7 tells us that it was Noah’s faith by which he condemned the rebellious world he lived in - it was his lived out faith, not his words necessarily that testified against that wicked generation. PAUSE

SLOW SMILE It was through these acts of faith that Noah became an heir of righteousness.

That is what I want us to gain from this message today. I want us to understand that it was Noah’s faith in God which enabled the human race to survive a worldwide cataclysmic flood. A flood that destroyed all life everywhere from the face of the earth. It was through Noah’s obedience that God’s promised Seed of a Woman would eventually be fulfilled. God did not make His promise to Adam and Eve in vain… He always keeps His word…

It is our great hope to believe in the Word of God and like Noah receive salvation as a result.

BLANK SLIDE

Let’s go to prayer

PRAYER

Holy Heavenly Father, it is such a wonderful privilege to come into Your presence, righteous because of what Your Christ has achieved for us. We come to wonder at You, to marvel at Your goodness and mercy. To be astonished at the breadth of the judgment that the world was sentenced to and is sentenced to again. Lord, grant that we might have the same reverence that Noah has, a holy fear rooted and grounded in the believe that You are who You say You are and will always do what You say You will.

Father, I pray that through this message we who are here would come out it with a greater conviction that the time to live out our faith is now. The time to cling to the righteousness of Christ is now and the time to warn others about the judgment to come is now.

Father, I pray that You be elevated this morning and that we come away satisfied, nourished, convicted and empowered to do the work that You have called us to do. It is in Christ’s name and in the power of His Holy Spirit we pray, amen.

SERMON

Our principal text today is Genesis 6. But we need to refresh on the context.

CONTEXT

In Genesis 1 and 2 Moses, who is the author of Genesis, introduced us to the Creator of heaven and earth. Then in chapters 3 and 4, we saw how sin entered into the world. As well as its sudden growth to include such rebellion against the Creator that it even involved the destruction of life which God had given. Then in Genesis 5, which we did not formally go through, we learn about the generations of Adam. It is these generations, or תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת from which Genesis gets its name. תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת is a major structural divider that breaks up Genesis into major sections. First there are the generations of Adam through chapter 5 and then the תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת of Noah in chapter 6 through 9, then the תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת of his sons in chapter 10 which leads to the תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת of Terah the father of Abram

As Moses wrote this historical account down, we need to remember that he likely did not write it with us in mind. It was read, taught and understood by the generation of Israelites that came out of Egypt. A generation that had seen the catastrophic effects of God’s plagues. Had seen the water of the Red Sea split apart and been delivered from the attack of Pharoah. They read this account through different eyes than we do in the 21st century. They read it as an account that links them to the covenants given to Adam and Noah and eventually Abraham.

As we read this account, remember that although Moses may not have thought about us as recipients of this account - the Supreme Author, the Holy Spirit certainly did and what He wrote is for our instruction. PAUSE

Now if you are ready let’s jump into the text. Chapter 6 verse 1 The Lord saw, Was Sorry and Said SLIDE

I. The Lord Saw, Was Sorry and Said (v1-8)

A. The Lord saw the wickedness of man (v1-5)

Genesis 6 | 1 Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

It has only been a couple of chapters but 17 centuries have passed since “In the Beginning God Created the heavens of the earth” and only nine generations have been born. Things have really degenerated into a chaotic soup. That summary in verse 5 is really timeless… Genesis 6.5 “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Wow… Marvel at that. You know, the Bible speaks of the heart often. SLIDE

Jeremiah 17:9–10 | 9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? 10 “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.

The generation on this earth, in Noah’s day has the same problem that every successive generation has… a wicked deceitful heart. The world has done an excellent job of marketing the slogan, “Follow your heart.” No, the Bible does not agree with that. Every intent of the heart of man was only evil continually, it is deceitful and desperately sick. Don’t follow your heart. PAUSE

Before we move on, the perennial curiosity among evangelical Christians is who these people were… Who were the sons of God who intermarried with the daughters of men? Many believe that these were fallen angels who impregnated human woman and had half demon half human super children… Indeed in Hebrew the root of Nephilim is the word נפל which means to fall. Is this where the Cananite Giants came from which scared Moses’ spies so badly? PAUSE

If I might shed some light on this. No, I know that it sounds spectacular and makes good fodder for interesting science fiction novels, but actually the easiest, most simple explanation is that this is just the descendents of Adam - these are regular humans. What distinguishes them is that in their proliferation they were marrying whomever they chose. Apparently, this is not what God had intended. You can see that in Abram’s marriage to Sarai and the other accounts of marriage later in the book of Genesis - they practiced endogamy. Marrying within the extended family. Isaac married his cousin Rebekah, Jacob married his cousin Rachel. Think of this in the context of who is reading it. Think of the sin of Baal Peor where the Moabites were coached by Balaam to trap the Israelites in sexual sin by luring them with Midianite women...

Long story short the simplest explanation for the mighty men of old is not that they were half man half demon monsters but they were simply rebellious men who knew better than to marry whomever they wanted but chose to do what they wanted instead of living as God had instructed them and their rebellion was incredible in size and scope. I could spend five minutes talking through the various arguments for and against the different positions for who the Nephilim were butbut we are not here for that. We are here to learn about Noah’s faith and God’s grace. SLIDE

Let’s go to verse 6

B. The grief in God's heart (v6)

6 The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

God was grieved or יִּנָּ֣חֶם. The NASB translates this as “sorry.” which is a good translation. Other translations render יִּנָּ֣חֶם as “repent” which, for serious students of the Bible, might cause some consternation as SLIDE

Numbers 23:19 says “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

The reality is, that God was grieved in His heart. He was offended, wounded emotionally by mankind’s rebellion and wickedness. He was sorry that He had made man on the earth. PAUSE

I must confess that I often don’t think of my sin as something that wounds and harms God. More often I think of God’s righteousness and His wrath against sin...

But consider this, God is personal, relational, imminent - of course He experiences emotions - and that includes pain, grief, sorrow over our sin! He is not a great emotionless robot in the sky, no, no, no… PAUSE

Think of the offense Believers, when we seek after the world, the flesh, and the devil and chase after that which kills, that which harms, that which destroys. LOW God knows the cost of our sin. He knows the harm sin causes us. Just like a parent watches their adult children make catastrophic, life altering decisions, doing things they know they ought not to and grieves in their heart, the Lord watched this pre-flood human population sin and He was grieved.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Here is a key takeaway, God grieves when His holiness is sinned against - and brothers and sisters - we ought not to grieve the One that loves us so much... PAUSE

Ephesians 4:30 | 30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Folks, when we place barriers between us and the God that intentionally made us, and the One that infinitely loves us and sent His only Son to die to bring us into right relationship with Him - and then we reject Him through our willful sinning - Oh, how must it grieve Him! PAUSE

Let us, in our repentance over our sin, carefully consider our actions and our choices in light of the fact that our sin grieves Him so greatly and wounds Him to His very heart. Let us, in our repentance, consider how great our God’s faithfulness is that He keeps His promises to us despite the grief our sins cause Him. SMILE May this be a cause of great thankfulness for what Christ did on the cross, making all who believe, righteous in God’s eyes. THREE SECOND PAUSE

Let’s turn back to the text and read of the coming curse. SLIDE

C. The coming curse (v7)

7 The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”

The Lord makes a drastic choice. In order to preserve His promise to Adam and Eve to provide a Redeemer He will have to start over. The sin of man is mighty on the earth and the thoughts of his heart are only evil continually. Not only will mankind be punished but the judgment against him will be so comprehensive that it will impact every bird and every animal. All life will be blotted out because of man’s sin...

But Verse 8 provides a welcome contrast… SLIDE

D. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord (v8)

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

Why… why did Noah find favor in the eyes of the Lord?

Our main point tells us... He believed God!

SMILE Do you want to find favor in the eyes of the Lord - especially in light of His great love? I know I do! I’ll tell you what pleases God - believing Him, trusting Him, obeying Him. That is how Noah pleased God.

Hebrews 11:1-2 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.”

Do you want to find favor in the eyes of the Lord? The lesson is simple, believe Him.

Well, in verse 9, the text formally transitions to the narrative on Noah. The keyword “generations” from the Hebrew תּוֹלְדֹ֣ת is used. And just like earlier in our text the Lord saw righteous Noah, He also saw the corrupt world which so repelled Him and He promised to destroy it… verse 9 SLIDE

II. The Lord Saw, Was Sorry and Said (v9-13)

A. Noah and the world seen by God (v9-11)

9 These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. 10 Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.

Noah is described as righteous and blameless in his time. The rest of Scripture holds to this testimony VERSE SLIDE. Ezekiel 14:14 tells us that Noah was on par with Daniel and Job… But he wasn’t perfect. I don’t want to denigrate him by any means and I won’t I will just say that Noah had the same innate sinful character as every human has. Look back at verse 9, I think this clears things up. The text says he was “blameless in his time…” He stood out in his culture, his actions were different, his lifestyle was not the same - he was blameless, furthermore, he walked with God. Just like Enoch did in chapter 5.

Many of us look at the carnality, the immorality and the decaying social values and it is looking a lot like Noah’s day was described as. We read a text like this and we ask ourselves, How can we live like Noah? Here is a couple of tips in an acrostic I put together. KEY TAKEAWAY “N”

Noah first off was “Not guilty,” of the sins of his generation - do we want to have a faith like Noah’s - we need to live like Noah in our day. Straying after the sins of our generation should not be our defining characteristic - we should be defined by our rejection of sin. We ought not be guilty of the sins of our generation. KEY TAKEAWAY "O”

Secondly, Noah was obedient to the Lord. We see this most readily later on in his building of the ark but when God commissioned him to do this work, Noah obeyed. Do we want to look like Noah? We need to be obedient as he was obedient. Now, it is not likely that God will call us to build Him another ark but He has called us to a commission, to go out into His world and make disciples, baptize them, teaching them all that Christ commanded. Don’t worry about building a monument to God like the Ark was. We need to focus our efforts on faithfully obeying Him in the little things He has commanded… that will make way to bigger things. KEY TAKEAWAY "A”

Thirdly, Noah, walked with God. He had a relationship with God. He abided with God. This abiding is tightly related to the obedience already mentioned. Obedience and Abiding are linked. It is hard to obey when we are not walking with God, isn’t it? When we rebel against God it is nearly impossible to spend time with Him it seems but when we are obedient, when we are doing what we are supposed to it seems like we just want to be with Him, talking with Him. Noah abided with the Lord. VERSE SLIDE

Jesus said in John 15:10 | 10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

Does that sound like a lot of work? Well there is a point… VERSE SLIDE The next verse in john 15:11 says it is so that we might make the Lord joyful and be joyful ourselves.

In our obedience, we will please our Creator, we will spend time with Him and experience greater joy ourselves.

My last point to help us live like Noah is that we need to “hope,” like Noah KEY TAKEAWAY "H”

Our hope, is in the Lord, just like Noah’s was. He had no hope to survive the coming judgment. We are the same. If we believe the Lord, regarding the coming day of judgment, then our only hope is in the one way of escape.

There was only one way provided to Noah - there is only one way provided to us. Our hope is in the way, the truth and the life, alone.

So, in summary, if we want to live like Noah now we need to live like Noah did then. He was not guilty, he obeyed, he abided with the Lord and hoped in Him.

Let’s keep moving… In verse 12 we see Noah contrasted with his generation and it is defined as corrupt SLIDE

B. The corruption of the earth (v12)

12 God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.

God looked on the earth and it was spoiled, ruined, marred, destroyed and no longer resembles the good creation that He had made. To keep His promise that he made to Adam and Eve he must destroy the earth… so He makes another promise to Noah. Verse 13 SLIDE

C. God's promise to destroy the earth (v13)

13 Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.

Because of the violence, because of the rebellion of mankind all of creation will suffer, all of creation will be blotted out by God.

God promised Noah that He was about to destroy everything… There is no indication that God gave Noah any kind of timeline. He just said that He was about to destroy the earth. If you are familiar with the story, then you know it took 100 years for Noah to build the ark. Noah knew that the Ark would be the means of his deliverance from the promised judgment but he had to moving fast right?

KEY TAKEAWAY

The Lord is not slow about keeping His promises. He is patient, He is longsuffering, compassionate, but will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. The time is now to be about our task of reaching out to lost and broken humanity with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To tell them the Good News of freedom from the penalty of sin. To be about talking with our friends, families and coworkers about reconciliation with our Righteous Creator God who will accurately judge all of humanity who come to Him apart from Christ.

Folks there is one way to God. Just like there was one way to survive the coming flood. Let us, in love, share the hope that we have in Christ.

In verse 14 the coming doom is explained as well as God’s means of salvation. SLIDE

III. Doom & the Means of Salvation (v14-22)

A. The ark (v14-17)

14 “Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. 15 “This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16 “You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 “Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.

The ark was likely approximately 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet tall. Here is a scale model that is in Kentucky IMAGE SLIDE

As you can see it is very large IMAGE SLIDE

It had to be large, because it had to carry and preserve a sample of all the living creatures on the earth.

Verse 18 SLIDE

B. The coming covenant and those impacted (v18-21)

18 “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 “And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20 “Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. 21 “As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for food for you and for them.”

In verse 18 God promises a coming covenant. In chapter 9 if you want to flip ahead to verse 9 God tells what the covenant entails.

Genesis 9:9–11 | 9 “Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. 11 “I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.”

Never again, will the Lord destroy the earth with a flood. Later we learn that the sign of the covenant is God’s rainbow in the sky. The beautiful rainbow reminds us of God’s judgment on the world and His promise not to flood the world again....

I find it massively ironic, and deeply saddening, that the sign of homosexuals across the world is the rainbow. It is as if they cannot help but mock the grace of God, daring Him to break His covenant. Woe to those who do so.

God has promised not to flood the world, it is true, but 2nd Peter 3 promises that when the Lord returns He will destroy the earth through fire and draws an immediate parallel to the flood in Noah’s day. Friends, we know that judgment is to come and the world is to be destroyed VERSE SLIDE

Since this is the case what sort of people ought we to be?

We ought to be like Noah… verse 22 SLIDE

C. The summary of faithfulness (v22)

22 Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.

Noah was faithful to God. He believed the warnings of God, even amazing things that had never before happened on the earth. He reverently obeyed God and His faithfulness to God is how He testified against the world and ultimately gained approval from God. PAUSE

So as I begin to wrap up the message, let’s take a look at what our Lord had to say about Noah. SLIDE

Please turn with me to Matthew chapter 24.

IV. These are the Days of Noah (Mt 24:36-38)

In Chapter 24 the Disciples have asked the Lord what we are all dying to know, what will be the sign of the coming end of the age. Jesus explained that lawlessness would increase. There would be wars and rumors of wars. People would claim to be Him and this would just be the start. Things would progress from bad to worse and that is when the Son of Man would return.

In verse 36 He said,

Matt 24:36-39 ““But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

Are we in the days of Noah… yes, yes we are. The Lord is coming again just as He promised. He will do all that He has said He will do. So what must we do?

CONCLUSION

Folks, we must attend to the lesson of Noah.

Noah lived by his faith in God - we must follow his example

We must learn to live like Noah in remaining guiltless. We must obey the Lord, abiding with Him, daily and hoping in His promised deliverance. For those who believe, we must be about our commission. We must entrust ourselves to the way the truth and the life and we need to develop our faithfulness in God.

It is possible that you are here and have not fully given over your life to the Lord. I implore you to consider how your sin grieves God - wounding Him. If this message resonates with you. If you understand the truth of God’s Word, that you come to Christ today. Be reconciled to God. You may never get another warning. The people in Noah’s day did not understand until the flood came and took them all away. Heed the warning, be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ alone. He is calling to you today.

PAUSE 2 seconds

Please stand with me and I will close in prayer.

PRAYER