SIN S END (Genesis 6:1-8 August 5, 2007)

Transcription

1 SIN S END (Genesis 6:1-8 August 5, 2007) In 1905 George Santayana uttered his famous adage: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Unfortunately, the history of mankind is that we have failed to learn from our past and have been condemned to repeat the mistakes of history over and over and over again. There are many ways to view history but I want to suggest to you this morning that the way the history of man can be summarised to this point would be like this: The sin of man leading to: The pain of God The judgment of God The grace of God This pattern is seen again and again in Scripture. 1

2 We saw it at the dawn of world history in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve sinned. God was grieved. He judged them and cast them out of Eden into a fallen world. But there was also grace. God would send a Redeemer One who would crush the serpent s head and end the cycle of judgment. This morning, in Genesis 6 we have the first example of this cycle on a worldwide scale. Mankind turns from God en masse. God is grieved and judges the world in the great flood. This judgment of the flood becomes the prototype for all future judgments including the last judgment the time when God will once again destroy the world but this time it will be by fire and not by flood. But as we will see there is grace which points forward to the greatest act of grace Jesus. Yet Genesis 6 is not the end of this pattern. It is repeated again and again throughout Scripture and throughout history. Perhaps the classic example is the book of Judges. Man gives in to his baser urges. Everyone does what is right in his own eyes. Men are given over to the darker side of their nature with no restraints. God who created man to worship Him and enjoy Him feels immense pain at the sin of His beloved children. The holiness of God leads to judgment. One of the surrounding nations rises up to enslave Israel. But judgment is followed by grace. God raises up a Judge, a redeemer, who liberates the nation. And as we will see, there is a reason that this pattern is important for us to understand. Turn with me to Genesis 6. Here we see this pattern laid out for us. The sin of man (vv. 1-5) leading to: The pain of God (v. 6) The judgment of God (v. 7) The grace of God (v. 8) First, the sin of man verses

3 Remember where we are in the book of Genesis. In chapters 4 and 5 we saw that Adam and Eve s children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and all their descendants were spreading rapidly throughout the world. Chapter 4 looked in particular at one line of Adam the line of Cain. And chapter 5 looked at the line of Seth. Here, chapter 6 begins with these words in verses 1 and 2: When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Without doubt, these are the hardest verses in Genesis to know what they mean. Who are the sons of God and who are the daughters of men? There are many views, but perhaps the three main views are these: Angels and human women. Human rulers and human women. Descendants of Seth and human women. One view that has a deal of history on its side and is still held by many today, is that the sons of God were angels. These fallen angels saw beautiful human women and lusted after them and left heaven took them as wives and had children who were half demon, half human the Nephilim of verse 4. The main support for this view comes from two sources. In Job angels are called sons of God. And in the New Testament the epistles of Peter and Jude refer to some events around the time of Noah that may refer to these verses and may indicate angels came and took human wives. But there are some serious problems with this view. First and foremost is the context. You read through here and nothing would lead you to suspect that angels are in view here. We would not even know there were other angels besides Satan. 3

4 It has been men who are in view. In verse 3 God says that He will not keep contending with men. It is men who are said to have grown incredibly wicked. And the judgment of the flood comes on men not angels. A second major problem is angels marrying women. Jesus specifically said that angels in heaven do not marry. And even if they do marry women on earth why did this stop at the fall? Why aren t fallen angels taking wives today and producing these halfdemon Nephilim giants? Third, the term sons of God in Job specifically refers to the holy angels. They are contrasted with Satan. This term seems to refer to the holy side of a lineage. And finally the passages in Peter and Jude can certainly be understood without Genesis 6 referring to fallen angels. So while this view is possible I don t think it is at all likely. The second view is that the term sons of God refers to the human rulers of the day nobles, kings, aristocrats. They saw themselves as above the law and took whatever women they wanted to be their own. Anarchy by the powerful. The disintegration of societal norms. The main support for this view comes from the use of sons of God in sources outside the Bible to refer to human rulers and the use of Nephilim strong leaders and Gibborim men of renown in verse 4. While this view is certainly possible, it seems to me that this verse is speaking about all of mankind not just the rulers. I think the focus only narrows in verse 4. This leads us to the third view and the one that seems to fit the context best. In this view, the term sons of God refers to the descendants of Seth. This fits the context well in that chapter 5 has just outlined one branch of Adam the Sethites that led to Noah. This was the line that called on the name of the Lord they worshipped the Lord in chapter 4. This is the line that produced godly Enoch who walked with God and was no more and Noah who will bring rest and comfort to his people. So it makes sense that the sons of God should refer to the line of Seth. But what we are to understand by these opening verses in chapter 6 is that this line that had such a wonderful start and produced such godly men had also become rotten and perverted. Noah was the tenth generation from Adam in the line of Seth. Even if we assume that each descendant of Seth only had five children by the time of Noah there would be almost two million Sethites. But, when you consider the huge 4

5 lifespans of these men and women they probably had many, many more children probably tens of millions of Sethites. But the point is found in verse 9: Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. The point is not just that Noah was blameless when compared to the descendants of Cain and the other children of Adam and Eve. The point is that even among the descendants of godly Seth the sons of God by the time of the flood Noah was the only man who was blameless. As we saw with Cain godly parents do not necessarily lead to a godly child. We see examples in Scripture where generations of godliness can end abruptly. In chapter 4 we saw how perverted the line of Cain became. Lamech the seventh generation from Adam in the line of Cain was a murderous, polygamist, arrogant man who had no fear of God. What these verses tell us is that by chapter 6, the descendants of Seth had also turned away from God. They were as worldly as Lamech. Here in verses 1 and 2 the point is that the godly line of Seth was marrying all of the other godless descendants of Adam. They had no desire to keep the line pure. To have wives and children who would call on the name of the Lord and love God. One of the surest ways to destroy a godly seed is to marry into the world. One of the great destroyers of faith is when young men and women from godly homes fall in love with a non-christian. I have had this chat many times over the years. A boy raised in a good home meets this beautiful girl she is pleasant, charming and looks great. Before he knows it his heart is slipping away fast. You point out she isn t a Christian. And inevitably he will recite the story of how he heard about a godly young man from a good Christian family who fell in love with a non-christian girl married her and then his love for her and the Lord won her over she came to Christ and they lived happily ever after. By the grace of God that does happen. Yes missionary dating has a few examples where things have worked out. But that is the exception not the rule. The reality is that in the vast majority of cases, he does not lead her to Christ she leads him to the world. I tell you this morning if you want to preserve a godly seed marry a godly person. 5

6 Young men and women teenagers uni students. I want you to know the day will come when some young man or woman will capture your heart. And if they are not Christians the struggle will begin. Men you might look and see a beautiful girl and some small voice will whisper you can lead her to Christ you can save her and marry her. Ladies you might look and see a charming guy and some small voice might whisper you can lead him to Christ you can save him and marry him and live happily ever after. Maybe but unlikely. Read your Bible. The history of Israel was the story of Genesis 6. When Israel married the nations they turned from God and suffered. The history of the church declares this with force. At Grace Community Church in the US they have a fellowship group called Unequally Yoked. It is filled with men and women and truth be told far more women than men who thought they could missionary date. Marry a non-christian and lead them to Christ. They lead a tough life an unequally yoked life. But if we look at all marriages, there are far more who married a non-christian and their faith was tested and then it ebbed away neither are calling on the name of the Lord. Men and women I cannot say this strongly enough. If you are led to marry look for someone who loves the Lord already. Someone who is passionate about Christ. Who hates sin and fears God. Marry them. And you have a foundation to raise a godly seed. Marry a woman of the world or man of the world and if you survive being led astray you will be unequally yoked and you will struggle to instil the glory of Christ in your children. The picture in verses 1 and 2 is of godliness in the world being destroyed by men from the line of Seth marrying worldly women beautiful women who then influenced them to turn to the world. The vestiges of godliness were being washed away in a sea of worldliness. The whole world was turning from God. And that is why God responded as He did in verses 3 and 4: Then the LORD said, My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his 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 men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. Once again the meaning is difficult and much debated. 6

7 Look at verse 3. I prefer the translation found in the margin of the NIV: My spirit will not remain in man forever, for he is corrupt; his days will be a hundred and twenty years. Again and again in Scripture we see the corruption of man spreading across the face of the earth. Man exalting himself and turning from God and God acting to curtail the spread of sin. In this case God acts by limiting man s days to 120 years. What does this mean? There are two possibilities. First, it can mean that God is setting the time when the judgment of the flood will be as 120 years. This is the time Noah had to preach to his generation and to build the ark. A second possibility is that God is restricting the lifespan of man to 120 years. While it is true that after the flood some men did live longer than 120 years by the time of Moses 120 was the maximum. The average would later become something around 70 years but 120 was the maximum men would live to. This remains true today. If this view is taken it was like the promise to Adam that death would follow taking the fruit it took time for Adam to die. So it takes a few generations for the curse to be fully realised and lifespans to come down to 120. It is difficult to choose between these possibilities but the context supports the reduction of man s lifespan. In chapter 5 you have the record of the line of Seth with its huge lifespans. These men and women were living huge periods of time having many children and using this time in corruption. God reducing man s lifespan to 120 years shows that man is mortal he cannot thumb his nose at his Creator forever. Now, look at verse 4. Who are these Nephilim? This word is only found in two places here and in Numbers 13:33 where the spies who checked out the Promised Land said: 7

8 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. Not much to go on is it. It is thought that the word Nephilim comes from Nephal to fall. So the Nephilim are the ones who fall upon. It is thought they were violent aggressive men who fell on others in the sense of taking what they wanted from them. Perhaps these are bands of men who robbed, raped and took from others. These type of men were present in the days before the flood and also afterwards as we see in Numbers these groups of violent aggressive men were still there later. There is another word here Gibborim usually translated heroes or mighty men but these terms give the word a positive flavour. Heroes sounds noble. The word refers to a strong or powerful man good or evil. In the context they are evil men. Warlords. Leaders of bands of men. So putting all of this together we might have a paraphrase like this: Then the LORD said, My spirit will not remain in man forever, for he is corrupt; his days will be a hundred and twenty years. The ones who fall violently on others were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the strong leaders of old, men of renown. The idea is that these groups of powerful men men with no thought of God were running wild across the earth. Men who thought only of today. Think about what this might mean. In our society, the average life expectancy is around 75 years or so. We are surrounded by death. We turn on the TV and find that bridges collapse. We see images of war. We know we will die. And yet young men and women still think death is not for them. It doesn t enter their minds. Just this week I was talking to a doctor whose son is 20. He bought a high powered motorbike. The father pleaded with the son told him horror stories about the atrocious injuries he had seen from motorbikes. And I m sure you can imagine what his son told him, I m good on a bike that will never happen to me. When you are 20 the prospect of death is remote. You seem immortal God and eternity are often far from the thoughts of the young they have a full life to lead first. So can you imagine what it would be like if you lived to be 950. Death would so far removed from your consciousness. When you have lived 200 years you think I still have 700 years till I have to even think about death. You live for yourself you live for today. These powerful men never thought of God or of judgment. 8

9 God saw this and He wanted us to be aware of death. My brother and I were talking on Friday about some of the things we did as teenagers and into our twenties. It is sheer grace that I didn t die doing some of the stupid things young men do. Now I am in my 40 s I am well aware of my mortality. I feel my age daily. I know I will meet my Maker sooner than I think. I am aware that I am mortal. I am aware of death. Brothers and sisters no one lives forever. If you live for yourself and for this world that is a wasted life. God created you to live for Him. To worship Him and enjoy Him forever. A shorter life, the inevitability of death brings eternity into sharper view. But this leads us to the summary verse for this section. Verse 5: The LORD saw how great man s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. Think back to the end of the sixth day of creation. God has made the heavens, the earth, this world and all that is in it. And in Genesis 1:31 we read this: God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Adam and Eve were in the garden worshipping Him and enjoying Him. But, now God looks on the men and women He created in His image to worship Him and enjoy Him and what does He see? Sin had become so ingrained, so rampant, so pervasive that across the earth every inclination of the thoughts of man s heart was only evil all the time. Wow! Every thought of man ran to evil. Wickedness, violence, greed, immorality. There was nothing to slow his lusts. No thoughts of God crossed his mind. Our world is pretty bad. You can t open the paper without reading about the incredible wickedness of our world. Teenage gangs, organised crime, wars. And even in our society immorality, recreational drugs, greed sin runs rampant. But I don t think we can say that every inclination of the thoughts of our hearts is only evil all the time. The days of Noah were awful. Sin was unrestrained. Evil ran rampant. Man sensed there were no bounds on his power and lusts. This is anarchy and sin at its worst. This is man without restraint. This is who we really are. So how did God respond? 9

10 The first response of God was pain. Interesting God responds first with pain not judgment. Look at verse 6: The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. These words describe the pain of God. Grieved is a word that describes deep emotional pain. It is not that God wished he had never created man it is that man who he created caused him pain. His heart was filled with pain this is a word that is used of the deepest levels of anguish. I trust that this verse shakes you. Often we think of God as without emotions the grand orchestrator sitting impassively in heaven. Far from it! If God had no emotions Jesus would never have entered this world. Grief and pain come when you are emotionally invested. I was reading an account of a fifteen year old girl who was ruining her life through drug addiction and prostitution. I felt very sorry for her. But I didn t know her. I wasn t emotionally invested in her. Then I thought what if it was Heather what if sin were destroying my precious girl? Then I would feel real pain and anguish. It is because of the depth of God s love that He feels the pain of our sin. His love culminating in Christ is a function of the depth of feeling He has for us. Read through the Old Testament see how often our sin leads to God s pain. He loves us He will not let us go. There is a second response of God to our sin. The judgment of God. Verse 7: So the LORD said, I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air for I am grieved that I have made them. I want to read you a quote by the Croatian philosopher Miroslav Volf in his book Exclusion and Embrace. He put forth this thesis: Imagine for a moment speaking to people as I have whose cities and villages have been plundered, leveled to the ground, whose daughters have been raped, whose fathers have had their throats slit. Your point to them as you 10

11 speak is this: We should not retaliate. Why not? What will keep them from retaliating? I say this: that the only means of prohibiting violence by us is to insist that violence is only legitimate when it comes from God. Violence thrives today secretly nourished by the belief that God refuses to take the sword. If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence, that God would not be worthy of our worship. There are two things I want us to think about in that quote. First, he said: Violence thrives today secretly nourished by the belief that God refuses to take the sword. What is the difference between the jungles of Sierra Leone and Brisbane? Why is rape and murder common in Sierra Leone and not in Brisbane? Are we intrinsically better? No! Here there is a sword the police the justice system and this inhibits the baser urges of men and that is missing in Sierra Leone. And what of us? What stops us cheating on our taxes and committing adultery? On one level, I would like to think it is our love for God the delight that flows from walking in His ways. But on another level I am sure the thought of the Great White Throne judgment having to give an account for our lives lurks at the back of our minds. Think about the days of Noah. Adam and Eve sinned they were not destroyed. Since then over a millennia and a half of sin. Cain was not struck dead by God. Lamech was not judged by God. Millions of men and women doing what was right in their own eyes. Violence was rampant. Lust unchecked. And there has been no divine judgment. No doubt many thought they could sin and there would be no punishment. 11

12 Violence thrived secretly nourished by the belief that God refuses to take the sword. One of the reasons God sent the flood is so that for all human history man would know that God does take the sword to sin. God will not let sin go unchecked and unpunished. Judgment is coming. Listen to these words from 2 Peter 3:3-7: 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 fathers 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 existed 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 ungodly men. It has been a long time since the flood. Some deny it ever happened. Some say where is this judgment on sin. I see sin going unchecked around me. God does not judge sin. And Peter says God judged the entire world in the flood. A world of unrestrained sin was wiped out. And one day there will be another judgment this time by fire. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Those who forget the cycles of sin the judgment of God they will be condemned to repeat it. God is not afraid to take up the sword. And because the sin of man affected the creation the animals and birds were also destroyed. Volf also said this: 12

13 If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence, that God would not be worthy of our worship. God hates sin. He is holy. It is an affront to Him. He was grieved over the sin of the world in the days of Noah. It pained Him. He hates injustice and deception. God has judged this entire world once. God has judged sin many times in history. And one day God will judge this world again. We were not created to live in sin but in holiness before God. God will bring us to be what He created us to be. His love ensures this will happen. But, because God loved the world. Because God is invested in us. He did not destroy all of this creation. There is a third response of God to our sin. GRACE. Sheer unadulterated grace. Look at verse 8: But Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD. God had promised a seed line a Saviour, a Redeemer and not even the sin of man could alter that promise. We don t deserve grace we deserve hell. But God cares. His pain shows that. And while His holiness demands judgment His love demands grace. There is a wonderful passage in Isaiah. It was a time in which Israel s sin and spiritual adultery and disregard of God was approaching the sin of the days of Noah. Listen to what God said in Isaiah 54:4-10: Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband the LORD Almighty is his name the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit a wife who married young, only to be rejected, says your God. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep 13

14 compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you, says the LORD your Redeemer. To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you. Not even the sin of man can cause God to veer from His promise. His holiness leads to a flash of judgment but His love leads to everlasting grace. Next time we will see how the salvation of Noah and his family prefigured our salvation in Christ. The seed line led through Noah to Jesus the Saviour. Noah was saved from destruction and the wrath of God in an ark. We are saved from destruction and the wrath of God in Christ. This is an important passage. But too much ink is spilled over who the sons of God are. And then we miss the big picture. To help us see the big picture. I have a question for you. What went into the ark? Noah and his family. Animals. And sin. Straight after Noah comes out of the ark he sins he gets drunk and uncovers himself. His sons sin. Soon men spread out and turn to wickedness culminating in the Tower of Babel. Read Scripture. The cycles of Sin, Pain, Judgment and Grace occur over and over and over. The cycles of sin did not end at the flood. I don t have time to go into it but read the last books of the Old Testament Nehemiah and Malachi. In those books the authors look back at cycles of sin in the face of the incredible grace of God. And those books end with a question. Who will end these cycles of sin? This is an anguished cry. Will sin continue forever? Noah did not end sin. But Noah points to the One who will end sin. This is the great message of our passage. Listen to Hebrews 9:26: But now Christ has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Jesus has come to end sin forever. 14

15 He provided the way for sin to end at the cross but it is only after the final judgment the destruction of this world and creating the new heavens and earth that sin is ended. Revelation 21:3-4: And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. If you do not know God. If you live a life that grieves God then know His patience has an end. Judgment is coming. As Jesus said in Matthew 24:37-39: As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Judgment is coming. There will be no escape. There was no escape in the days of Noah there will be none in the day of His coming except for those who accept His grace. The grace freely offered in Christ. Unless you are in the one ark God provides you will not live. But for those in Christ there is life eternal. May we all rejoice in the grace of God that saved wretches like us. 15