If you would turn in your Bibles
with me to Genesis chapter 6. Genesis chapter 6. And I will begin reading. beginning in verse one, and probably
read down to about verse 18. And this is the story of Noah. It's a very, very known passage
of scripture story. Beginning in verse one, and it
came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth,
and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw
the daughters of men, that they were fair. And they took them
wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, my spirit
shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh. Yet his days shall be in 120
years. Verse four, there were giants
in the earth in those days and also after that when the sons
of God came into the daughters of men and they were bare children
to them and the same became mighty men which are of old, men of
renown. And God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it
repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it
grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy
man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man
and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for
it repenteth me that I have made them. Verse eight, but Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation. And
Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Sham,
Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before
God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked
upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had
corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, the end
of all flesh has come before me. For the earth is filled with
violence through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the
earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood.
Room shall be made in the ark, and shall pitch it within and
without pitch. And this is the fashion which
thou shalt make it. The length of the ark shall be
300 cubits, the breadth of it 50 cubits, and the height of
it 30 cubits. a window shalt thou make to the ark, and in
a cubic shalt thou finish it above, and the door of the ark
shall be set in the side thereof until lower, second, and third
stories shalt thou make it. And behold, I do bring a flood
of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath
of life from under heaven, and everything that is in the earth
shall die. But with thee will I establish
my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, and thou, thy sons,
and thy wife, and thy son's wife with thee. And every living thing
of all flesh, two of each sort, shalt thou bring into the ark
to keep them alive with thee, and they shall be male and female. And we'll stop right there. So
this is a very well-known story. This story of Noah's Ark is known throughout the whole world.
Everybody knows this story. And as I was looking at it, I
thought, well, I'm going to look up and see. I had heard before
that this story is just about every culture in the
world, and I didn't want to just state that without looking and
knowing that before I said it. So I actually done some research,
and it is amazing. If you go to the Aborigines in
Australia, there are not just one group, but numerous groups
of people, and they have stories of this event. If you go to Asia,
the Chinese, the Vietnamese, if you go to Africa, there's
all those tribes. And there's so many different
tribes. And they all have a very similar story. And most of the stories involve
the wrath of God. or the wrath of a god, or the
wrath of a fish god, or a goddess, or of some top god. So this story,
this event was so significant in the history of man that it's
still known today from its origin. This story in our history, in
the history of mankind, has been passed down through generation
after generation. But there's one thing that is
certain about this story in all of these cultures, there's nobody
knows the gospel from it. The gospel is not declared from
the story. It's just a story of event that
had happened. Now, one thing I will say as
we proceed is that this story here as we know it, It's not
written in this book to give us a history lesson. Now, it
is history, but it was written to teach us the gospel. It was
written for us to know the gospel and to understand the gospel.
And that's why I am trying to bring a Bible study this morning
from this passage, is I want us to see the gospel in it. Let's
again read Genesis 6, one through four, and then we will review
that and have some comments. Genesis 6. Verse one, and it came to pass
when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and the
daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the
daughters of men, that they were fair, and that they took them
wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, my spirit
shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh,
yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were
giants in the earth in those days. And also after that, when
the sons of God came into the daughters of men, that they bear
children under them. And the same became mighty men,
which were of old, men of renown. Now there's two things that's,
this passage, these four verses, it speaks of the sons of men
and the daughter, I'm sorry, the sons of God, and the daughters
of men. And it says they married and
produced. Now, if you go to many of the
commentaries, and if you listen to religious people out there,
you will hear them say that the sons of God here represents angels,
actual angels. and that the daughters of men
were women that were up on the earth. In other words, they will
say that there was a mixture of angels and men and that they
were born giants and these superhuman race come from that. I have never accepted that. To
say I never really understood this passage, but I never thought
that was true. For one, there's several problems
with that. And there is a meaning to this,
and we'll get to that here in just a minute. But first, let's
address the issue with that First, angels and humans are
not capable of reproduction. If you turn, just since we're
so close, let's look at Genesis chapter one, just real quick,
and I don't want to spend a lot of time here, but I do want to
show that this passage does not mean that. So Genesis chapter
one, first of all, verse 11, And God said, let the earth bring
forth grass and herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding
its fruit. Notice this, after his kind whose
seed is in itself. Now, first of all, there is a
pattern in nature that God established. There's a natural pattern. You
cannot take a horse and cross it with a cow. We know that,
right? You can't take a cat and mix
it with a dog. And you can't take a duck and
a chicken and come out, although those animals are in some degrees
can be similar, there's no mixing. Now, if you turn the page over
to Genesis chapter one, verse 24, In 25 it says, and God said,
let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind. Cattle and creeping thing and
beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so. And God
made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their
kind, and every living thing creepeth upon the earth after
his kind. So there is a pattern. There are laws of nature that
God established in the creation that man and angel did not cross. And another, and I'll just bring
it briefly because if you were to look over, and we won't turn,
don't turn there, but in Luke chapter 20, if you remember,
The Sadducees, they came to the Lord and they was trying to trip
him up about marriage. And they give the story of a
man who married and his wife died and didn't have no children,
had married another and his wife died and didn't have no children,
all the way down to the seventh wife and she died, didn't have
no children. And then the Sadducees trying to trip up the Lord said,
okay, in the resurrection, whose wife is she gonna be? And the
Lord told him, said, those of the resurrection are like the
angels. They're not given in marriage.
In other words, there's no marriage among angels. So I bring that
up to say that the scriptures are pretty clear. There's no
mixture of angels and men on the earth. So having clarified
that, which I may have taken too much time doing so, What
is the application here? What is it talking about? It's
very simple. And there's a reason it's recorded.
The meaning here says it's about the sons of Seth married the
daughters of Cain. It's that simple. So if you remember,
if you go back to Adam and Eve, Adam had Eve had a son, Cain,
and they had another son called Abel, right? And what happened? Cain offered the works of his
hands. Abel offered the works of a sacrifice. He offered an animal sacrifice.
The Lord accepted Abel's and rejected Cain's because Cain's
represented works, and Abel represented grace. So of course, Abel kills,
I'm sorry, Cain kills Abel, and in his place, Seth comes along. And so We have a lineage here
up to this point. You have two lineages on this
earth. You have the lineage of Cain and you have the lineage
of Abel. There's two distinct races of
people on the earth. And the sons of Seth are being
called, I'm sorry, the sons of Seth or the children of Seth
are being called the sons of God And Abel's, or I'm sorry,
Cain's daughters are being called the daughters of men. Now, let me show you that. If you will look, and we'll establish
that a little bit more, so back to Genesis 6, and then if you
look over at Genesis 4, verses 24 and 25, It gives us some information
about Seth. And Adam knew his wife again,
and she bare a son and called his name Seth. For God, she said,
hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. And to Seth, to him also there
was born a son, and he called his name Enos. Now listen to
this. Then began men, to call upon
the name of the Lord. Cain's descendants did not call
upon the name of the Lord. It was Seth's sentence that called
upon the name of the Lord. And there's something significant
about this. When I read this, I noticed that
it didn't say, then men began to call upon the Lord. It's not what it says. They began
to call upon the name of the Lord. The wording. there is meaning to names, especially
in the scriptures. And so these descendants of Seth
who are called the sons of God in our text, they began to call
upon the name of the Lord. His name, Jehovah Rapha. the Lord heals. Jehovah-Jireh,
the Lord will provide. Jehovah-Tsidkenu, the Lord our
righteousness. And Jehovah-Shalom, the Lord
is peace. So, without question, these that
begin to call upon the name of the Lord, were truly worshiping
God. Now, I say all that for the purpose
of our text. When it speaks of the sons of
God marrying the daughters of men, what it is telling us that
they began to mix race and works. The sons of God represented grace,
and the daughters of men represented works. And so what has happened
from the time that Seth was born, I'm sorry, Enos was born, there's
like nine more generations till you get to Noah. You had that
mixing, you had that creeping in of works. And then now, in
our passage, we find we have now on the earth a mixture of
works and grace. Now that leads us back to our
text. Now, with the mixture of works
and grace among men, let's read verse five. in chapter six, and
God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Man has corrupted completely. Man is corrupted completely. The wickedness of man was great. Was there idolatry, murder, false
witness, hatred, malice, strife? Oh yes, it was great. But the
greatest wickedness of all was self-righteousness. When you
bring works and you mix it with grace, you are bringing your
self-righteousness into the work of God's salvation. And that's
what happened. Now, an example of that, if you
look at, we won't turn there, but if you remember in 2 Samuel
6, do you remember the story of Uzzah? when David and the
people of Israel were bringing the Ark of the Covenant back
to Jerusalem, and the cart had shifted, and Uzzah reached up
his hand and just simply touched that Ark. to stabilize it. And the scripture says, the anger
of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, the cause of his works. And the wrath of God fell upon
Uzzah, and God killed him right there. Now that's what we're
talking about in Genesis chapter 6. We're talking about God's
looking down upon man and seeing the corruption and the imagination
of his heart regarding righteousness, regarding God's righteousness,
and regarding their own self-righteousness. Another example that come to
mind is in Numbers chapter 15, and we won't turn there. But
I remember as a child, this story really standing out to me. In Numbers chapter 15, it speaks
to that. The children of Israel, they
were in the wilderness, and on the Sabbath day, there was a
man got up, and he went out and started gathering sticks, getting
him some firewood. Probably the day before, got
busy, you know how it gets. You just don't have time. So Sabbath comes around, and
he don't have his firewood, so he goes up and starts picking
up sticks. That's in violation of the law. The people saw him,
and they got him, and they took him to Moses, and said, what
are we supposed to do? Well, they put him in a ward,
and the Lord told Moses, you stone that man. You take rocks,
you take him out of the camp, and you stone that man to death.
That man went out on the Sabbath day and picked up sticks. Does
that sound ridiculous to you? It sounded ridiculous to me when
I read it the first time. I remember that. Did you know
what I didn't understand? Do you know what I didn't know?
I did not know that that Sabbath represented Christ and that that
man had violated, had violated the rest that is in Christ and
he worked He violated the Sabbath, he violated Christ. And God's
anger was kindled against him and he killed him, dead. For
picking up sticks, for adding works to God's salvation. That's
why that man was stoned to death. And that's what we're talking
about here. In this passage right here, we're talking about man
adding works to God's salvation. And when God looked down from
heaven, he seen the wickedness of man was great on the earth,
and that every imagination of thoughts in his heart were only
evil continually. No right thoughts about God. He had no right thoughts about
God. And I'm looking at the time,
and I'm trying to make sure we get to a good point. So his thoughts is wrong, and
his thoughts about God are wrong. And you know, this we think was
then, and that you know, our thoughts is that man was up here,
and he just degrades to here, and then God, Wipes everybody
off, and then all of a sudden, you got no one, everybody's better.
And then over time, until the end of the world, it's just gonna
get worse. But you know, man is completely and totally ruined. He's completely and totally depraved. We can't understand the gospel
until we can't know the gospel, until we know this Genesis 6,
Chapter 5, as it regards to us. So man here is totally depraved,
and this is our condition. And then look with me at verses
six and seven, so I need to move along. Verses six and seven,
turn back to the passage, and it repented the Lord that he
had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from
the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping thing
and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made
man. This passage of scripture First
of all, God is immutable. He says in his word, I change
not. And so when it says that God
repented himself of making man, it doesn't mean that God had
changed his mind, but it is simply conveying to us the wickedness
of man and the stench of man's sin that rises up into the nostrils
of God. In Ezekiel 33, 11, it says, I
have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. These verses express
God's emotions at man's wickedness. and their necessity for destruction. That's the context of these verses
here. Now, if you will, and we'll try
to finish up here in just a minute, but look with me, if you will,
at Genesis 6, verse 8. And I want you to read this with
me. But Noah was not as wicked as
other men. But Noah's heart was only evil
sometime. But Noah's wickedness was not
great on the earth. But Noah was different than other
men. Is that what it says? Can I ask you an honest question? Is that not really what we think
when we look and read these passages? Can you not see the same depravity
in ourselves as is what in these men that God destroyed? We always,
without exception, any time we read of a righteous man in the
scripture, we always put him up here. And then we have to
remember the gospel and take him down. Is that not right? I do that. I still do that. I've been sitting under the gospel
for 20 years, and every time I read a passage, Joe was a righteous
man. Well, the first thing comes to
my mind is Joe lived better than everybody else. That's the first
thing that comes to my mind when I read that. I'm being honest
with you, and I believe you're all like me. Let's read it. But Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found unmerited favor. There was nothing in Noah that
was different than any other man that was going to be destroyed,
nothing. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8,
for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. Noah was not saved because of
himself. Noah was saved because of the
grace of God. Ecclesiastes 7.20, there is not
a just man upon the earth. But we read right here, Noah
was a just man and perfect in his generations. How can this
be? It is God that justifies. Romans
8.30, whom he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom
he called, them he also justified. Noah was a just man and a perfect
man because of Christ. It was Christ's righteousness
that made him perfect. He was perfect without blemish,
without spot, complete. Colossians 2, 10. And ye are
complete. Ye are perfect. Ye are whole. Ye are without
spot in him. Ye are complete in him. Noah was complete. Noah was perfect in Christ. Noah was a sinner who was saved
by grace. Now, with the time expiring,
let me point out here that Noah's sin did not go unpunished. And so Noah built this ark, and
this ark is a representation of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's
a picture. And what God did because he loved
Noah, and he was going to save Noah, He put Noah into an ark. He put Noah into Christ. And when God's wrath fell down
upon sins of this world, the sins of all the wicked men that
were outside of the ark, that wrath fell on them. But Noah's
sins fell, the wrath of God on Noah's sins fell on the ark. They fell on Christ. So Noah's
sins were dealt with. Noah's sins were not left unpunished. God is just and God must be justified. And so God's wrath When it fell
on that ark, it fell on Christ. And Noah was kept safely in that
ark. And that is a picture. It is, this story here is, it's
both a story of Noah and Noah. It provides a picture, but it's
also the truth about how God, it's true about our condition.
It's all men, God saw that the earth is wicked, and that's the
description of us. It's a description of God's judgment
that's gonna come, and it tells us in picture how God saves a
sinner. But that's our Bible study this
morning. And I pray the Lord will bless
the morning service.