Themes of the Bible: Corruption (Genesis 6)

 

Themes of the Bible: Corruption (Genesis 6)

I’m going to stop short of saying that this was the greatest thing that I’ve ever seen, but it ranks up there. We were at Disneyworld last year with Christiana’s family, that’s where we caught COVID, and we’re walking through part of the park and of course it's chaotic as Disney always is, and I look over and there is a dad pushing a double wide one stroller. There are tons of parents pushing them, and they’ll have the baby in one side, and like a six-year-old in the other, just lazily being pushed around everywhere because they’re too tired, then they jump out and run up to the lines or they’re favorite Disney characters, or whatever. So, this kid in the front is probably like five or six, doesn’t fit in the stroller very well and is leaning forward, looking down, maybe falling asleep from the busy day, and you can see this coming a mile away. The dad is oblivious, looking around at all the sights and the sounds, the kid leans too far forward, and flops out the front of the stroller as the oblivious dad runs over the top with both sets of wheels. It's a “thump – thump” thing, and the kid is fine, but raising their arm dramatically from the ground and gives out a “ahhhh.” And then the mom sees it. She sees her precious child on the ground, probably some tire tracks going over the Micky Mouse ears, and just tears into dad with the wagging finger right there near Main Street for all to see. If you have never been to a Disney park just to people watch, you are really missing out.

But anyway, it reminded me of the depravity of humanity and so that's how I’m tying it into the sermon today. So, your assignment for this week was to read Genesis chapter 6. And just so you know, since we're hitting the main themes of scripture and there's so much in the book of Genesis, it probably seems like we're going to be in Genesis the whole time, and we're not. But for next week, please read Genesis chapter 12.

If you've got your Bibles, you can flip to chapter 6. You may notice that your Bible contains a chapter heading saying something like, “the corruption of mankind. That’s what we’ll be studying today, but before we begin, if there is one thing that I can use an analogy for sin, it would be cancer. That's about the only earthly thing that I can understand that I can tie with sin, regarding what it is and what it does too you. If you think about it, just like cancer, it often starts undetected. You don't notice that it's there. Maybe it's a small compromise in your system, but it's not something that's overly glaring that is taking place in your life, but it's there. And then you look at the symptoms of cancer, and look back at what the patient is experiencing and say, ‘How could they not know that that's what was taking place inside?’ But you can easily take the symptoms of cancer and blame them on something else. People have headaches, back pain, whatever, we all we wake up in the morning and things hurt for no reason whatsoever and the same thing is the reality of sin. Maybe there's sin in your life, but you can easily blame it on something else. “Well, this isn't the consequence of my addiction to pornography, this is something else. . .” ‘My alcoholism had nothing to do with me losing my job, etc.’ You can easily blame the consequences of sin on other things. But we also know that if we leave it unchecked, as with cancer, it spreads to every other part of the body and that's exactly what happens with sin, and the end result of both of these two when left untreated is death and destruction. This is why I see the analogy as maybe the most appropriate that you can find.

This tragic, destructive cycle is perfectly described in Genesis chapter 6. Let’s look at verses 1 and 2. “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.” Alright, let's stop here real quick. Who in the world is being talked about when it refers to the ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men?’ What is that? Let me start off by saying this is a centuries-old debate within the church and there's really two main theories, and you have early church fathers that disagree on this.

Tertullian, an early church father, believes one thing, and then Augustine another early church father is completely opposed to Tertullian. Both great Christian leaders and theologians yet opposing views regarding the same Scripture. Now, I don't want to get distracted by the theological exercise of debate. I love it, I’m interested in it, but I don't want us to get so distracted that we miss the important application that God is trying to teach us in Genesis 6. Okay, here's the theory number one: the sons of God refer to fallen angels. Satan was a fallen angel, he leads a rebellion of other angels, who we’ll now call demons, so the sons of God are referring to these fallen angels, these demons, who come in human bodies or maybe they possess human bodies, and they impregnate women. They start marrying earthly women, and they're impregnating these women and it results in is this superhuman race of giants that are sometimes called the Nephilim. Now, that may seem fantastic, but there are strong arguments that it's what this phrase ‘sons of God’ means. And it’s often times used in the Bible. Job uses it, Daniel uses it, and they're referring to angels when they use that phrase. Jude writes it this way; [Read Jude 5-7].

 

So, that's the first theory. Ok so theory two. Who are the sons of God? The sons of God are the godly descendants of Seth. If you don't know the way this lineage works, this is exciting. So, you got Adam and Eve, and they have about 30 different sons and 20 different daughters. Of course, the scriptures never record them, that's according to legend that is used in this theory. What we know in Scripture is that the bible it's not a lineage of all people that have ever lived. The Bible will trace one lineage and that's the lineage of the promised coming messiah. They'll mention others, like you've got Cain splitting off here, and you'll see his descendants for a while but then they just kind of go away because nobody follows the line of Cain because they're not godly. But you follow this line because it leads to Jesus. So, you got Adam and Eve up here and we know three of their children. Cain and Abel are first, and if you remember Genesis 3:15 from last week, God makes the promise that there is a coming messiah to be born of women who's going to crush the head of Satan, so they obviously think Cain is going to be this offspring of the same woman, Eve, who is going to crush the head of the serpent. They believe that Cain is going to be the promised messiah, which, perhaps, is why Satan gets to work right away on corrupting Cain. So, they have Abel, and then Cain gets jealous, and he kills Abel, so the Bible will trace the lineage of Cain a certain way. Abel has no lineage because he's dead, and then you have a third one that's born, and we know that he is named Seth, whose name means ‘substitute’ . . .which is a great name for a child. So, Seth is the one that the messiah is going to come through. Cain and all of his descendants’ rebel against God, Abel is dead, and then you have Seth as the patriarch of all of these godly, god-fearing descendants, and it's through him that the Messiah will come. So, in this theory, the sons of God are the descendants of Seth that are pledged to honor God. We're told in scripture that they called on the Lord. So, for today, let’s use this theory for defining the sons of God. But, who are the daughters of men? These, by default, are the descendants of Cain. The godless women who came from Cain’s lineage, who rebelled and rebel against God. They rejected him, so Satan is at work here getting the godly lineage to intermingle with the ungodly lineage because he wants to interrupt the Genesis 3:15 promise. And quick side note. This isn’t to mean that boys are good, and girls are bad. We know that there were godly women and ungodly men at this time, but it’s this particular relationship that the Bible is calling our attention to.

So, this is what I’m saying. You've got two different views of who the sons of God and daughters of men are. One of them seems quite fantastic, that you have a bunch of fallen angels walking around impregnating women. There are good arguments for it, and I won’t argue if that’s the view you want to hold, but the other one is not fantastic at all. In fact, it’s a daily occurrence. Satan is seducing godly men to marry ungodly women, and godly women to marry ungodly men, and it's the same thing that happens today. And what is the consequence of that? The Bible tells us that we’re not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. This is exactly what's happening in the early stages in Genesis. The righteous people of God, these Sethites who call on the name of the Lord and should have known better, marry godless descendants of Cain.

They should have known better than that, but why do they do it? We'll look back at verse 2 and it tells you that they find that they're very beautiful. They're attractive, and so you have this godly man who sees a very attractive woman and says, “Alright, I know I probably shouldn't because she's ungodly, she's a little out there, but she's good looking and so I’m going to go ahead and do it. They compromise their godly standards. So, one of the important things that we should be picking up on in this passage is, where does sin start? It starts with the compromise of godly standards.

You can come to your own conclusion in this theological debate, but do not miss the point here. Whether we're talking demon’s spawn or we're talking godly dudes marrying ungodly babes, either way, you go with, Satan is involved. And what Satan is trying to do is to interrupt the coming messiah, the promise of Genesis 3:15. That's his goal. He got Cain to go a certain way, he's trying to intermingle with Seth’s line and blow the whole thing up and the amazing thing is, it almost worked. Sin will always begin with compromise. You will compromise on something, you'll give in in some way, and it'll be okay because it's just a small compromise. That's where it starts, and in Genesis chapter 6, that's exactly where it starts. So, heed the warning, guard your spiritual integrity, don’t make compromises with sin.

Let’s go on to verse 4. [Read Genesis 6:4]. So again, who are these Nephilim? One theory is, that they are the demon spawn, and that union creates these giants. If you remember when the spies go in to spy out the land of Canaan and they come back and give Israel the report, in Numbers 13, the men who had gone up with him said, in verses 27-28, & 33, “We went into the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. . . There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” Alright, so we understand there's this race of people called the Nephilim, and what's important is that these are violent men who would just as soon kill you as to look at you, and that's the whole point. What started out as compromise has grown to the point of becoming full-fledged corruption. It starts with a small compromise but before long, that compromising with sin has corrupted the entire body. Sin always builds, it always deepens, and it always worsens if you don't deal with it. That's the lesson of early genesis chapter 6, so let’s move on and look at verses 5 through 7.

[Read Genesis 6:5-7]. I want you to notice here that God does something that you and I can't, God looks beyond the deeds of man and sees man's heart. We can look at what people are doing and say, ‘these people are doing bad stuff.’ This is why I get really uncomfortable when people will look at an action of God and say, ‘Well that's not fair. How could God do that? That's not right.’ What can we judge compared to God? He's able to see their hearts and he knows the inclinations of their hearts. We may look and say these people did bad things, but God is able to look and say these people are gone. They are so corrupted with sin that they will only ever do bad things, and he knows that. We don't.

So, clearly, Satan was seemingly doing a good job at disrupting God’s redemptive plan by spreading wickedness and rebellion throughout all the people of the world. The people on the face of the earth at the time of Noah were consumed with sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, all of these things that we know are characteristics of mankind, and at the time of Noah they were all consuming of almost the entire population. That is what God is seeing when he looks at these people’s hearts. That's what he gathers when he looks at this generation. Sin began with compromise, and where did it lead? It led to total corruption, and it will do the same thing in your life if it is not dealt with. It begins with a small compromise, and it will lead to corruption and if left unchecked. It will lead inescapably to condemnation. Let’s take a look at verses 11 through 13 in this passage [Read Genesis 6:11-13].

There's the end result of unrepentant sin: absolute condemnation and death. And this kind of judgment coming from God is very easy for us to misunderstand and a lot of people do. There is nothing enjoyable about this for God. He's not impatient, he is extraordinarily patient with us, and he doesn't want anyone to perish and yet we still choose it, and let me stress that, the people in Noah’s day chose to perish. Those who die apart from Christ today are choosing to perish despite God's long-lasting patience with them and begging them to repent. They're choosing it and it grieves him every time it happens. Later on, in Scripture we can see that God begged the people through the prophet Ezekiel to renounce their wickedness and turn back to follow him, in Ezekiel 33:11, God says, “As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’” God is begging humanity, turn from your sin. I don't want you to perish. When you see the judgment of God in Genesis 6 don't look at that as something flippant that God is doing. He is desperate for humanity to turn to repentance. Let me prove that to you with the last significant thing that I want you to pick up on in this chapter.

In the face of unimaginable rebellion, the grace of God persists. Don't read Genesis chapter 6 and fail to see the grace of God. You can notice it in verse 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.’” I initially skipped that verse for a reason. A lot of people see this verse as an explanation for the extreme old age we see of people in the antediluvian age, people living to be over 900 years old. That seems to be a good explanation, especially since we don’t have verifiable people living over 120 anymore. Even the oldest recorded, a French woman claiming to be 122 clearly doesn’t look a day over 119. But, if you read it in context, read it in the understanding of the grace of God, contend or striving here means, ‘I am not going to continue to strive and work to restrain man from their evil ways forever. If they're going to choose to perish, I’m not going to extend this forever and let the earth continue to become increasingly corrupt. So, the allotted time for God’s grace to continue on this perverse generation is 120 years.   

With that, let me introduce you to a guy that you don't often think of, Methuselah. Now, you may find some people who are biblically aware who know that Methuselah is the oldest person to have ever lived. You may even find some people that know this guy hung around for 969 years. Fewer people know that he died is the same year of the flood. My great-grandma is close, but not quite there yet. 969 years this guy lives on planet earth, but here's what you don't often find. You don't find many people that know that his name means “his death will send,” implying that his death will bring about the flood. So, the oldest guy in the Bible, for almost a thousand years, this man's life, his entire existence is a testimony to God's gracious patience, waiting for a thousand years for man to repent. Grace is all over this passage of scripture, but now sin has grown like a cancer, it's overrun the body of humanity, and even in the midst of that, verse 8, Noah finds grace in the eyes of the Lord, in the midst of all of that. See, this is a God whose grace will never fail us. Even in the midst of a corrupt generation, those who are obedient and show faith to God, his grace extends to us, and it always will.

I want to give you one final thought that you see in the teaching of Jesus. Look at what he said, in Matthew 24, [Read Matthew 24:37-39].

What Jesus is saying here is that the people in Noah’s day, they ignored God's warnings. They were all around them, but the people were totally caught up in their own lives. They're doing normal things, they're going on marrying each other, giving in marriage. They're drinking, they're laughing, they're having a great time, and nobody's paying any attention to the guy who is closest with God, who's out there building an ark. That should have been a sign something's going down. If you’re on an airplane and you suddenly see the pilot throw on a parachute, that’s a pretty good sign that you should consider grabbing one too. Think, maybe I need to pay attention to this. Yet, they were oblivious to repeated warnings about judgment because they were too caught up in the news of the day. They were too caught up with their social media feeds, they were too caught up with raising children, they were too caught up with everything else that was going on in their lives and they were totally missing God's warning to them. They lived for the moment until it was too late, and Jesus is saying the same thing will happen before my return. That's what he's warning each of us. So, I’m telling you to be on guard. Hear God's warning about the sin in your life. Don't ignore it. Because, if you ignore those symptoms, it will run its course. It begins with compromise, but it leads to corruption, and it will end in condemnation. And, if you need a reminder of what happens, re-read Genesis chapter 6.

Let’s pray.