Courting Catastrophe

Well, as for the deposit of truth that I have to give you today, let me have you turn to Genesis chapter 6. Genesis chapter 6, we're doing a verse by verse study through the Book of Genesis, and as we continue in our study of the Book of Genesis this morning, we come to Genesis chapter 6 verse 1. And I initially planned on covering verses 1 through 8 and then had to shorten it to verses 1 through 4 and then had to shorten it to verses 12, and 3. And even that, we're not fully doing justice to it, but if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be Courting Catastrophe.

Courting Catastrophe. Today we begin our study. of the story, the historical narrative of Noah and the flood. What we will see in the coming chapters is a historical recounting of the greatest and most destructive event in the history of the world.

We will also read inside the narrative here in the coming chapters of the greatest rescue operation that the world has Ever seen. In the coming weeks, we're going to witness the destruction of every human being and of every land dwelling animal and of every single flying bird on Earth. And we will also witness 8 people, only 8 people, along with the animals that are with them in the ark being rescued from death. We will also discover in Genesis 6.

And following that while the great flood was an ecological disaster, it was no natural disaster. This cataclysmic event was brought on by Jehovah God, and it was man's sin that caused Jehovah God. To make the decision to destroy every living thing on Earth in this way and to wipe them out. We will also see in the coming verses and chapters.

Here in our study of Genesis that the deliverance, the salvation, the deliverance of Noah and his family was no natural deliverance either. Their deliverance was God's idea from beginning to end. God is the one who spoke and gave revelation to Noah and told him to build an ark. He is the one who told Noah the materials to use and the dimensions of the ark.

He's the one. Jehovah God is the one who told Noah to bring a certain number of every animal onto the ark with him. And Jehovah God is the one who closed the door of the ark as soon as everyone was on board. So we see and we will see in the coming verses and chapters, the greatest environmental disaster.

that the world has ever seen brought on by God's response to man's sin. But we will also see intertwined in the narrative, an epic demonstration of God's amazing, amazing grace and faithfulness toward those that he has set his love upon. So it'll be quite a ride as we see demonstrations of God's holiness, His righteousness, His justice, and also his faithfulness and His grace. And I hope you'll be here in the coming weeks as we look at this part of the book of Genesis.

Today, we're going to dip our toes in the water, as it were. And look at verses 12, and 3. We're gonna focus our attention on these 1st 3 verses where we will observe. Two developments that bring the world to the very brink of disaster.

but before we do that, I think it's appropriate, and I really struggled with whether to do this or not, but I, I think it's best that we take a little bit of time before we come to Genesis 6:1 and following to review the narrative of Genesis up to this point. Because doing so will help us, I think, to have an easier time understanding what's being said in verses 1 and 2 in particular of Genesis 6. Commentators will tell you that these first two verses of Genesis, actually verses 1 through 4, is the most difficult passage in all of the book of Genesis, OK?

And we're about to begin to deal with this this morning.

But in order to best handle these verses, I think a little bit of review would be appropriate. as I've said to you in recent weeks, and Mike reiterated this, I think last week, the Book of Genesis is sophisticated literature. It is literature and history at its finest. And I have always taken a certain view of the sons of God that we find in Genesis chapter 6 verse 2.

I've always taken the angel view. that the sons of God are angels. How many of you have heard of that, that view? OK.

I've always taken that, that view, but I have felt myself ever since Genesis 3 being set up to understand this passage in a different way. And so I've been anxious to get to this text to find out if what I think Moses has been doing. and the narrative really bears itself out, and I think I think it does. And I want to, I want you to feel the full weight of what I've been feeling as we have been moving closer and closer to Genesis 6 as we've been looking at Genesis 3 and 4 and, and 5.

Just by way of review, and I, I've tried to trim this as much as I can, but we have seen how that in Genesis 3:15, God told the serpent that there would be the seed of the woman. And the seed. Of the serpent, and that there would be people in the human population essentially who would be of the seed of the serpent, and those who would be of the seed of the woman, and God promised to the serpent that there would be enmity or war or strife between these two seeds, and that one day, the ultimate seed.

would arise and would crush the head of the serpent.

Based on that promise that God makes in Genesis 3:15 to the serpent and Moses, a writer, an inspired writer, is recording that for us so that we can hear God make that promise. We would expect to see battle lines begin to form and a war break out. And war does break out, we don't have to wait for it. It's the very next chapter.

Adam and Eve give birth to Cain. And then to Abel, and it becomes apparent very early on in the narrative that Cain is of the seed of the serpent and Abel is of the seed of the woman. And in one awful moment, Cain rises up and he kills Abel, making Abel the first casualty in the war between the seed of the woman. And the seed of the serpent.

In the battle between these two sides, round one goes to the seed of the serpent. In the latter part of Genesis 2, we see the line of Cain described. His line culminates we saw in a man named Lamek, who takes two women to be his wife and who kills a man for injuring him. And who threatens overwhelming retaliation against anyone who would dare to hurt him.

And as we're reading in the narrative, And hoping for some champion to come. We would observe that Lamec clearly is not the champion promised in Genesis 3:15. And it is also clear that the lion of Cain will be producing no such champion who will fight the serpent and crush his head on behalf of the human race. Everyone tracking so far?

It is then that God makes a countermove that should make our hearts soar. At the end of Genesis 4, we learn about a new son that is born to Adam and Eve, whom Eve names Seth. Saying Genesis 4:25. Actually, I've not been keeping up here.

Hang on. Apologize for that. So she names him Seth, saying, God has appointed me an offspring in place of Abel. And literally, she's saying, God has appointed me a seed in place of Abel.

No doubt Eve has had other children before and after Seth, yet she receives special revelation about Seth that he is the one who is divinely appointed to replace righteous Abel, who would offer worship acceptable to God and through whom. The champion of Genesis 3:15 would come. We would be led to expect that there would be something special about the lineage of Seth in as much as it would ultimately produce a champion who would come and crush the serpent's head. As we studied through Genesis 4 and at the very end and also Genesis 5, we have seen that Seth's lineage featured godliness.

How so? Well, for starters, it's implied in the fact that Seth himself is said to be the one who replaces Abel, who was righteous, and he was pleasing in his worship to God. Also, we saw how Seth had a son whom he names Enosh, which then leads to men calling upon the name of the Lord. So how's that?

Seth has a son, names him Anosh, and then men began to call upon the name of the Lord. We also saw how that in the 7th generation from Adam through Seth's line is Enoch, a man who walks with God and who is so pleasing to God that God took him to heaven to be with him, and Enoch never experienced death. This is actually a huge development when you think about it. Notice the contrast between the line of Cain and the line of Seth.

The 7th generation, which reflects culmination. I think that's why they're focused on in the text. The 7th generation from Adam through Cain was Lamec, the bigamist. Who boasted in having killed a man and who threatened vengeance upon anyone who would dare to hurt him.

The 7th generation of Adam through Seth was Enoch, a man who walks so closely with God that he does not die. Clearly, these are two lineages that are going in completely opposite directions, right? Also, we saw how that Enoch's grandson was Lamec, a different Lamech than the Lamech of Kane's lineage. This Lamech saw the hand of God at work in the birth of his son Noah, and he had faith that God would bring deliverance for mankind from the curse one day.

And somehow he knew that it would be through Noah, and he looked at Noah after Noah was born, and he essentially said, this one will give us rest from the curse. Obviously expressing great faith in God that one day, through this sun, we will experience deliverance from the curse upon the earth as a result of man's sin. Additionally, we will see in Genesis 6 that Noah himself was a righteous man who walked with God. So all in all, we see that the line of Seth featured tremendous displays of godliness, and it is put before us as something that is different than the line of Cain.

So in summary, here's what we have seen. Cain kills Abel, God then provides Seth to replace Abel. Seth's lineage featured godliness, whereas Cain's lineage featured an absence of any mention of godliness, and what is mentioned. is disobedience, disregarding God's law regarding marriage and savagery and vengeance.

Keep in mind that Genesis is being written to the Israelites at some point after their deliverance from Egypt and before they come into the land of promise, it probably would not be bad for us to imagine that Moses is giving these five books beginning with Genesis to the children of Israel as they stand on the threshold of the promised land about to enter in, and he's going over these things with them. And of the two lines that Moses has presented to them, the line of Cain and the line of Seth, who were the ones or which line were the Israelites supposed to identify themselves with?

How many of you say the line of Kane? How many of you say the line of Seth?

Very good, very good. they would identify with the line of Seth because the line of Seth was the godly line that worshiped Jehovah, which Israel also worshiped. The line of Seth was not Israel, but it's probably what we could call pre-Israel. It was Israel in its fetal state, as it were.

And interestingly enough, later in The Book of Deuteronomy, how does God refer to Israel? In Deuteronomy 14:1, God says to Israel, you are the sons of the Lord your God. Notice that expression, you are the sons of the Lord your God. And he then explains that being his sons means, listen to what he says, you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on The face of the earth.

Your sons of God, God is saying, I've chosen you, you're holy people. I've appointed you, I've chosen you for a special purpose to be mine and to walk in holiness. God then goes on to give regulations and the following verses to the children of Israel to show them how they are to live their lives differently than the way everyone else lives. Consistent with this, other passages in the Old Testament speak of God's people.

The children of Israel as his sons, and Hosea 1:10. To his people, God says, you are the sons of the living God. In Psalm 73:15, Aaph is talking to God and refers to God's people as the generation of your sons. Literally is what the text says.

In Deuteronomy, Moses makes clear that not everyone is a son of God. In Deuteronomy 32:5, Moses makes, listen to what he says regarding those who do not walk with God. He says they have acted corruptly toward him. They are not his sons because of their defect, but are a perverse and a crooked.

Generation, Moses says that those who are God's sons are those who do not act corruptly before God and toward him, who are not perverse, who are not crooked, but anyone who is perverse and crooked, and they act corruptly before God, they're not sons of God. And so if the Israelites were called sons of God because they were covenant offspring, and because they were to walk in godliness and holiness, then it doesn't seem to be all that much of a stretch for us to understand that the Sethites, those of the line of Seth, were the sons of God in the same sense.

In as much as they were members of the appointed line who would walk in holiness, worship God aright, and be the lineage through which the ultimate Son of God would come, Jesus Christ, who would crush the head of the serpent. As one writer says, he says, if there were, just going back to the lineage of Seth in Genesis 5, if there were pious men who like Enoch and Noah walked with Elohim, which is the Hebrew word for God, or who made the divine image a reality through their piety and their fear of God, then there were sons of God for whom the only correct name was sons of Elohim.

And I would tend to agree with what he says there. And guys, given this fact, just what we've looked at so far and the manifestations of godliness that we see in Genesis 5, and at the end of Genesis 4 regarding the lineage of Seth, there is every reason to think that the Sethites were for much a pre-flood history, a beacon of light to the world. And that they had a distinct identity and that they lived and they behaved differently from the rest of the world. When the rest of the world went one way, the Sethites went the other way, and they could be counted on to do that.

When the rest of the world boasted in their own strength, the Sethites boasted in their weakness and in their frailty. And we saw in Genesis 4:26 how that Seth had a son and he named him Enosh, that means weakness. When the rest of the world called upon their own name, like Cain's Lamech does, twice in Genesis 4, the Sethites were calling on the name of Jehovah. God And we see that happening in Genesis 4:26, when the rest of the world put forth men who flouted God's law, flouted God's design for marriage and engaged in polygamy and murder like Cain's Lameck, the Sethites put forth a man like Enoch who walked with God.

When the rest of the world was loving this world and viewing it as the sum total of all that there is, the Sethites were groaning and longing for the removal of the curse from the earth, and we hear that groaning expressed through Noah's father. And it was probably this distinctiveness and godliness of the Sethite line that kept God from judging. The world that deserved his judgment long before it actually came. Just like God promised Abraham in Genesis 18, I believe that if there were only 10 righteous souls in Sodom and Gomorrah, then he would withhold judgment from those cities.

So it was likely true that as long as there were enough righteous souls in the godly line of Seth and perhaps in other places that God would withhold judgment from a world that very much deserved that judgment. And I am sure that this distinctiveness of the people and the lineage of Seth and those who were influenced by them went on for quite some time, setting them apart from the pagan wicked world around them, but eventually this distinctiveness disintegrates. And pretty soon whatever light that the line of Seth was giving off was obliterated almost entirely.

And this obliteration served as the final straw that brings the world to the very brink of ruin.

And what we have in Genesis chapter 6 verse 1. and following is the story of these final straws that caused God to conclude that he will destroy the world through the great flood. Let's read the passage. Let me read it to you.

Genesis 6 beginning in verse 1. 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. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall be 100.

And 20 years. This is the word of God and may God help us. To understand his word. This is the fewest points I've ever given to you in a sermon.

2 points. this is all we're gonna have time for today. 2 developments that we see in these 3 verses which Serve to contribute to God's decision to destroy the world through the great global flood. And the first of these these developments is this, the sons of God take wives from anywhere they choose.

The sons of God take wives from anywhere they choose. In verse one, we're told that men began to multiply on the face of the land. That's not a bad thing, right? That's a good thing.

There's nothing at all wrong with this. This is consistent with the mandate that God gave to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth. We're told that as men we're multiplying on the face of the land. That daughters were born to them.

This is a good thing also, right? Daughters are wonderful. I have two of them myself. we're told several times in Genesis 5 that the patriarchs had other sons and daughters.

But the reason we're now being told here that daughters were born as men begin to multiply on the face of the earth is because these daughters figure prominently in what Moses is about to say next. So he puts the spotlight on of all the sons and daughters being born, he puts a spotlight on The daughters. Now observe what happens next in verse 2 we're told. That the sons of God saw that these daughters of men were beautiful.

And as I think I've indicated in what I said, in the first part of this message, I'm, I'm gonna suggest in the sermon that we take sons of God as the descendants of Seth and those who associated themselves with them and hopefully next week we'll have time to explore a little bit of, maybe some of the other interpretations. But let's just go with that interpretation, for right now, for our purposes this morning. That these are sons of God, those who should have known better, those who should have been walking in holiness, those who were a part of the appointed line of Seth.

literally, the sons of God are said to, it says they saw.

They saw the daughters of men, they saw that the daughters of men were good or literally tov is the Hebrew word. Write down the word tov. They saw that they were tov, which is rightly translated as beautiful, and then they took them to be their wives. commentators point out the similarity of the language that we find here compared to what we find in Genesis chapter 3 verse 6.

In Genesis 3:6, the text tells us that Eve saw as she looked at the forbidden tree, she saw that the tree was Tove. For food and a delight to the eyes and She took She saw, she saw that the forbidden tree was Toth, and she took, and we see the exact same language here. The sons of God saw the daughters of men, they saw that they were tove or beautiful, and they took, this is a replay of the sin in the garden on a massive scale. The text tells us that they took wives for themselves.

This is the normal Hebrew language for describing a marital transaction throughout the Old Testament. This does not just speak of the sons of God merely having sex with women. This is the sons of God taking these women to themselves as wives and living together with them as husband and wife in a, in a covenantal relationship. They were marrying these daughters of men whom they deemed to be beautiful.

Now what's interesting is that the text adds one other description. to the action of the sons of God that at first seems redundant, but it's actually probably the thing that breaks this open for us. The new American standard has it saying they took wives for themselves, comma, whomever they chose. but in the Hebrew, the word, from is in front of the word whomever, and in the Greek Septuagint, translation of this verse, they also put the word from in there as well.

It's better to read this text in this way. They took wives for themselves from whomever they chose. Moses is telling us where they're getting their wives from, not simply who they're marrying. What Moses is saying here is that they took the sons of God took wives for themselves from all or from all peoples that they chose.

Understand that the word that is translated all or whomever here in the New American Standard can have the meaning of anywhere, anyone, everywhere, whoever, whomever, or wherever. You find this word, it's the Hebrew word coal and it's translated in a variety of ways throughout the Old Testament. So we can translate Moses is saying this, they took wives for themselves from anywhere they chose. or from whomever they chose, or from any peoples that they chose.

The word translated chose speaks of not only choosing but desiring or preferring something. So Genesis 6:2 is telling us that these sons of God took wives for themselves from anywhere they preferred. Anywhere they chose. Do you catch the vibe here?

The vibe here is that of indiscriminate and reckless choice. No regard for where they're getting their wives from. They saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves from wherever they chose. The sons of God are making marital choices based on physical attractiveness alone, and we see them here taking to themselves wives from anywhere and everywhere and from any peoples that they desire to get them from.

If the sons of God were doing what they should have done, the text would have said they took to themselves wives from among those who were children of God. But the text does not say this. Instead it says they took wives for themselves from any peoples. They chose.

In order to illustrate how important this matter is and to actually show you a contrast. Let me show you another passage where we find a descendant of Seth in the line of promise who was very discriminating about where his son got his wife from. In Genesis 24, Abraham wants to get a wife for his son, Isaac, and so somehow that responsibility fell to, to him. I wanna go find, he didn't send Isaac to go find a wife, he says, I'll find a wife for you.

How's that, kids? I'll handle this. All right. Trust Dad here.

And Abraham, he actually sends a servant to go get a wife for Isaac. How's that? so imagine. Your dad handling the whole matter of finding a spouse for you and as he's handling it, he doesn't even do it directly.

He takes one of his employees and sends them to go do it. That's what Abraham is doing, but listen to what Abraham says to his servant. He says, I will make you swear by Jehovah, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from, there's the word from, from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live. But you will go to my country and to my relatives and take a wife from my son, Isaac.

What's interesting about Abraham's insistent Instruction here that comes with making his servant utter an oath and promise is the fact that nowhere do we find at least in scripture where God gave Abraham this limitation. Abraham is speaking from some intuitive place, which would have reflected the will of God in this matter. It is this sensibility that the pre-flood sons of Seth should have been operating by. They should have taken wives for themselves from among those who were calling on the name of the Lord, but they didn't do that.

Instead, they saw that the daughters of men were beautiful in their countenance and in their bodily form. And they went crazy, taking wives to themselves from whomever and wherever they so desired. This phenomenon presents us with a glimpse. Of Satan's tactics.

With Cain and Abel, the godly line was defeated through brutality. Here the godly line is being overcome. By beauty. Abel was eliminated through killing.

The line of Seth, the sons of God are sidelined through compromise. And what lured them into that compromise was beauty. And they lost all sense of moral compass and all discernment and where they should have gotten their wives from. The point in this passage is not simply that the Sethites married only the Cainites.

That's not necessarily Moses's point. The point is that the Sethites married indiscriminately whoever they wanted based on beauty. They fell right in with the world and married based on looks, and they fell right in with the world and getting their wives from wherever they could get the most physically beautiful women from rather than making sure that they got their wives from among those who loved the Lord and called on his name. By the way, the most compelling argument in favor of the sons of God being the Sethites is the fact that all of the Sethites on earth.

In the days of Noah, out of all of them, Only Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Why is that? There were many other Sethites on Earth at the time, but only Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That means there must have been tremendous corruption occurring in the line of Seth.

Every Sethite except Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives will be judged by God and die in the flood. And we learn here, I think that a key route through which this corruption took place was through the marital choices that these young Sethite men were making as they took wives for themselves from anywhere they preferred. Listen to what one writer says. He says it cannot be denied that the connection of chapter 61 through 8 with chapter 4 necessitates the assumption that such intermarriages of the Sethite and Cainite families did take place about the time of the flood.

You say, wow, he's pretty dogmatic in his view. What's really fascinating about the guy who said this, who's a commentator named Delich, is that he doesn't even take the view I'm suggesting today. He believes that the sons of God were angels. That's the view he argues for.

And yet, though he takes this view, He is saying that a person cannot deny that there is some indication in the flow of the text that the Sethites were engaging. And compromising marriages. So I would grant him the same courtesy and say that maybe something heavy duty was going on with angelic beings in the pre-flood era. Things that we don't fully understand, but at the very least, at the very least, this was happening.

That the Sethites who should have known better. were making indiscriminate, compromising choices regarding who they married and where they got their wives from. As you come into the story of the flood and you realize that all of the Sethites died, it liter, it is a legitimate question that an interpreter would ask is what happened to the Sethites? Everything looks so great.

In Genesis 5, when you run the math and think about how long everybody lived during this time, there must have been hundreds of thousands and even millions of Sethites on the earth at the time of the flood, and all of them died. What happened to them? Genesis 6:2 provides an answer to this question. The line of Seth became corrupted.

Through compromising. Marriages. Taking this view, guys, here's what Really has weighed on me and sobered me. This is the first negative thing that Moses tells us in the way of explaining.

Why the great flood is going to come upon the earth and wipe everybody out. This is the first thing he says. He wants to tell us a story of what led to the greatest environmental disaster that the world has ever seen, and he starts his story by telling us of the sons of God making wrong choices in whom they married. Guys, let nobody deceive you.

The institution of marriage is important. The choices that a society makes with regard to marriage are fraught with consequence. If we ever needed this reminder, we need this reminder today. We are not making a mountain out of a molehill when we speak up and advocate for righteous marriages that are according to God's design.

If you came to Moses and said, tell me why God destroyed the earth and the great global flood, he would say, I will give you an explanation. And my explanation starts with some wrong marital choices that the sons of God were making. Which means we can add another layer to this very lesson. Moses does not explain the cause of the flood by telling us about the choices that the pagans were making.

About marriage. He starts his account of the flood by telling us of the choices that the sons of God, the people of God were making about marriage. This teaches us that the most important and most consequential marital choices being made in our culture today are not the choices being made by the pagans of our culture. Nor is it the choices being made by our Supreme Court justices.

The most important choices that are being made. are the ones being made by the people of God. With regard to who they marry, how they conduct themselves and their marriages. How they prepare themselves for marriage.

I just, I want all of us to feel the weight of this. What choices am I making about marriage? How am I conducting myself inside of my marriage? If I'm not married right now, how am I conducting myself in a way that honors my future marriage and the future marriage of other people?

What a monstrous warning this is for the children of Israel who stand on the threshold of the promised land. God is gonna warn them strenuously not to take wives for themselves. He's gonna give them marital instruction. When you come into this land.

Let me tell you what not to do in Deuteronomy 7. God says this to the children of Israel. He says, furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them, and you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will quickly destroy you. And the children of Israel will be very motivated to take every word of this warning seriously.

Given what they're reading here. In Genesis 6. This is so important for all of us. Young people, especially those of you that are not married, don't just marry the first pretty face you see.

Ladies, don't, gals, don't marry the first good looking guy that you see. Or the first guy that treats you like a lady or shows an interest. And you Marry someone who knows and who loves God. Marry someone who calls on the name of the Lord in a spirit of humility and brokenness and faith in Jesus Christ.

Listen to the counsel of the godly people in your life. About whom you should marry and should not marry, lean on the counsel of your godly parents and friends, godly friends who care for you. There's a reason God tells you not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. And there's a million reasons he wants you to be yoked together with someone who is a child of God.

God is fighting for your joy when he gives you that instruction. Marriage is an institution in which a man and a woman come together for life and experience spiritual and emotional and physical, psychological oneness, and also together as one display the beauty and the glories of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So choose a Christ believing gospel clinging person to be your spouse. And if there is no such person in your life right now, Embrace with all of your heart, singleness until God brings that person to you.

Do not give up your godliness in order to gain a spouse. That's primarily what I would say to all of you guys and gals. But as for you young men of marriageable age, get with it. We got a lot of beautiful godly women here at Cornerstone to choose from., I don't know if this will sound weird, but I I see a lot of wonderful, godly, beautiful women here at Cornerstone and I can't believe they're not taken.

And I find myself praying sometimes, Lord, give sight to the blind. Perform a miracle of healing of the eyes of these young men. That they would see the beauty around them, these godly, beautiful young gals. So men, open your eyes.

And if you're like, my eyes are open, well then we'll just pray, we'll anoint you with oil and pray for a miracle that you will be able to see what is before you all the time. Get with it, guys. Put your video games away. Grow in holiness, become a broken man who loves the Lord, who calls on His name and take for yourself a godly wife and love her and lead her and nourish her and cherish her.

And display the beauty of the gospel together with her. Bring you far more joy than any video game ever will. Anyway, If you wanna know. How big of a deal this is to God.

You might think, man, is that really that big of a deal? They saw that gals were beautiful and so they took wives from wherever they wanted. Is it that big of a deal? It, it was the means through which the line of Seth became corrupted.

And was the first contributing factor, Moses says, in explaining what it was that brought about the greatest environmental disaster that the world has ever seen. It is a big deal. And if you want to know how big of a deal this is to God, observe how God responds to these marital choices that the sons of God are making, and that leads to the second development which we will cover much more quickly than we did the first development. And that is that God determines that he will not strive with men for much longer.

Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall be 100. And 20 years. According to the text, God is saying, my spirit shall not strive with man forever.

The word strive. is by most accounts a legal term that is tied to the Hebrew word for judge. God is saying my spirit will not always be an arbitration against man. I will not forever tolerate man as a legal contestant against me at every turn.

I will no longer tolerate contending with man as two people contend with one another in a court of law. I am the judge and my every verdict and my every council gets disputed and ignored and shown contempt at every turn. In the Greek Septuagint, the word that the translators use is the word that means remain or remain against. God, the judge here is deciding that a spirit will no longer remain or remain against man.

God, the judge here is deciding that man is in contempt and his patience is at an end, and God is about to throw man out of his courtroom. His spirit will not remain in this contention with man forever. And the reason God gives for not wanting to strive forever with man in this way is the text says because he also Is flesh What God is saying is that man is behaving merely as flesh. Man was created by God to be an image bearer of God with a soul and with the capacity to know right from wrong, and with the capacity to relate to God, man is different from the animals.

And as much as God gave to man the capacity to relate to God and to walk with him and to worship him and to display his image. Yes, man is flesh. We are flesh physically in ways similar to how animals are flesh, but mankind is so much more. Than flesh.

Being image bearers of God with the ability to relate to Him. And worship him Yet as God looks upon man in these days prior to the flood, he sees that man has reduced himself to living merely as flesh. As one writer says, thereby rendering himself no better than the animals. He, man was dominated exclusively by the flesh, no longer concerned with God, but only with his own bodily appetites just as the animals.

God, as it were, is, is, is witnessing as he looks over the human race, he is seeing almost the entire obliteration of the image of God in man. Nonetheless, this is so amazing. God is merciful. He says, nevertheless, his day shall be 120 years.

It seems here that God is deciding to give man 120 more years to repent before God judges the world through the flood. In 1 Peter 3, we are told. That the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah. And here we, we hear that patience speaking here.

God is ready to, to throw man out of his courtroom, to rid him from the planet altogether, and yet, he says, I will give him 120 more years before The great flood comes and I unleash judgment. God is a patient God. The fact that he is patient does not mean that his judgment will not come, it will come. But he is patient and full of grace.

Some suggest that this decision by God to give man, saying his days will be 120 years has to do with man's lifespan being limited to 120 years. And honestly, there may be some element of truth to this. the hang up with this is that after this, after God says these words, Noah and his sons continue to live way longer than 120 years. Noah's grandson lived 438 years and, and even hundreds of years after.

The, the flood, we, we see people still living over 120 years, but some would respond to that by saying, yeah, but maybe those are exceptional cases where God in His mercy is being kind to these individuals in the lineage of promise. and also, it is undeniable that you do see a diminishing of life spans all the way down. Even Moses, he died at the age of 120. His brother Aaron outlived him by 3 years, but pretty much since then, 120 has been the standard, so.

there's probably some element of truth to this, thinking of God saying that man's lifespan will be, find its maximum at this point of 120 years or close to that. But the point is, guys, and we gotta wrap this up, that God is responding. He, he's, he's making a decision and he's got other decisions that he's gonna vocalize in the coming verses and it ain't pretty. But God is responding this way in verse 3.

He's, he's, this is in response. To what he sees happening in verse 2. Clearly the forbidden marriages, the compromising marriages are offensive to Jehovah God. And contribute to his decision to unleash judgment upon the world.

We'll pick up here next week, but for today, let us appreciate the importance. of marriage. The importance of Whom we choose to marry, let us appreciate the fact that the number one need of the hour is not so much that we make sure pagans start making right marital choices. But that we, the people of God, be making right marital choices.

Making Right choices with regard to who we marry. Making right choices regarding how we conduct ourselves inside of our marriages. For those who are single, making right choices about how you will honor the institution of marriage and how you will conduct yourself now. So as to honor your future marriage and to honor the future marriage of anyone else that you have any dealings with.

Let us also be warned of the danger of compromise. God has called us to be a light in a dark world. Satan would love to destroy us and wipe us out through brutality. He would love that and probably prefer that, but if he can't do that, he will sideline us through the allure of beauty.

And compromise. And we as a church, we as the people of God, we render to the world no service by compromising. They may act like this is what they want from us, but the worst thing, if we really love the world, the worst thing we can do for them is to compromise with the world and let our light be dimmed. In the process.

Let's say it this way, when God's people start compromising and going along with the world, that's the final sign that God's judgment is about to fall. Upon a society. We see that in Genesis 6, the sons of God literally hasten the judgment of God upon the world through the compromising marital choices that they made. The canary in the coal mine that alerts you to the fact that God's judgment is about to fall upon a society is this, when those who profess to be the people of God and who ought to know better start compromising in their marital choices.

Both in whom they marry and how they conduct themselves in their marriage. The greatest service that we as the people of God can render to the world around us is to refuse to compromise and to choose to hold fast and to remain faithful to God. And the first human institution in which our faithfulness should be exercised is the institution of marriage. Let us choose our spouses wisely.

Let us love our spouses as Christ loves the church. Let us be faithful to our spouses as Christ is faithful to us. Let us help our brothers and sisters with their marriages. When they need help, this is what God calls us to do.

It's what our culture needs from us. Let us give to our culture, the gift of sons and God, of God and daughters of God committed to their spouses and gospel centered Christ saturated marriages. And if we have failed in our marriages, if you have failed in your marriage, repent. Do this beautiful thing called repentance.

It's a wonderful thing. If you have sinned, seek forgiveness from God through Christ who would be delighted to forgive you. That's why Jesus died. He died for wife's sins and husbands sins.

He died for marital sins. He died to forgive sinners who come to him in brokenness and cry out to him, asking for forgiveness. If you need to grant forgiveness to somebody inside of your marriage, then grant that through Christ. And if your marriage is broken, To the degree that you are in need of help, then be willing to cry out both to God.

And to reach out to others and to get the help. That you need Let's pray together and ask God to Help us to really be challenged and sobered and even uplifted by what we've heard today. Lord, we thank you for Your word and how It is ever true and ever relevant. This is what we need to hear today and so we just receive, Lord, we receive your truth, we receive your challenge.

Thank you for speaking to us in the ways that you have this morning, Lord. Make us the men and women and the husbands and wives that you've called us to be and help us to help our brothers and sisters to do the same. May we be sobered and challenged by the reminder this morning that you are a holy God, a righteous God. And that the stakes are high and sin is real and sin is damaging and that compromise in the moment seems like no big deal.

I'm sure each one of these sons of God who made a compromising marital choice, they probably thought, it's no big deal, it's no big deal. But others did the same, and they encouraged others to do the same by their example, and one after another, one after another, one after another, and eventually in the lineage of Seth, only Noah and his family are the only ones who find grace in your eyes and who are walking with you. Great mammoth disasters. are ushered in.

By tiny little compromising choices. Thousands of such choices. And so help us to be faithful. To reject, compromise.

And may we help one another to do the same. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you this morning. Receive these funds that we give and use every penny that is given for the spread of this incredible message of salvation through Jesus Christ and Him alone, who gives forgiveness and grace to all of us who have failed. And may every one of us, Lord, in this room who have failed in any way, and we feel the sting of that this morning that That we would experience a washing of your amazing grace.

And may that melt our hearts into a deeper love for you. And into deeper levels of obedience than what we've known before. We ask all of these things in the name of Jesus and all God's people said. G