There's a number of things that this passage brings to mind, but one of the things that is, I think, so particularly relevant is a question we may be asking, as Dave actually asked in Sunday school this morning, is God paying attention to the evil in the world? Do we wonder that sometimes? How bad is it gonna get? Maybe you've heard someone say, if our nation continues as it has been, the Lord will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, for he judged them, but we seem to be getting away with it. So the question is, is God gonna respond to this evil? that we see in the world. And we ask that question consciously or subconsciously, and yet we know the scriptures are telling us God's judgment is coming. And God has provided us proof of that coming judgment through this incident we refer to as the flood of Noah, Noah's flood. Obviously, it was God's flood, but Noah was the one he saved. So, how fascinating that we know in the future judgment is coming, Christ will return, he will set everything right, all his enemies will end up in the lake of fire forever. And he's given us a prototype, if you will, of his judgment in the book of Genesis. And as we consider these things, particularly these first few verses in Genesis chapter six, I'm not at all surprised if you're saying, what in the world is going on in these verses? This sounds so strange and perhaps you've read this before, perhaps you have studied it and have a conviction about what it means, what all is going on. But I want to distill this as I try to do each week. And here's what I feel is the message of Genesis 6, one through eight. The world that perished in the flood reminds us that we have supernatural enemies who want to thwart God's plan of redemption. But his gracious intention has always been to save an undeserving remnant of humanity. And let me just run that through. One more time, a lot of words there. The world that perished in the flood reminds us that we have supernatural enemies who want to thwart God's plan of redemption. But His gracious intention has always been to save an undeserving remnant of humanity. And there's A little bit of a code hidden in there. I don't know if you remember from the scripture reading that it says that God observed that every intent of the thought of their hearts was only evil continually. And I've purposely contrasted that with God's gracious intent in saving those who don't deserve it. And I'll just tell on myself a little typo that I found this morning as I was going through things, trying to make sure everything was just right, in the last line I had to save an underserving remnant of humanity. And I thought, nope, that's not quite right. And yet it does communicate something because I think we would say we are underserving our creator. But more than that, we are undeserving of his grace, his redemption. Now it's been about five months since we've been in the book of Genesis and over the last maybe couple of years we've gone through chapters one through five of Genesis, and I wanna do just a very quick overview of those five chapters. In chapter one, we see an overview of God's creation, the six days in which God made everything. And at the end of that, God gave his assessment and pronouncement that it was very good. In chapter two, then, God introduced the day of rest, the Sabbath. And chapter two then focuses much more specifically on the creation of humans, male and female. And it ends there after God has created Eve from Adam, brought her to him, and it says the man and the woman were naked and unashamed. It was still very good. Then in chapter three, any good story, and this is a true, the truest of all stories, any good story has a conflict, and here it comes. God's enemy, the devil, came and threw a serpent, tempted Eve and tempted Adam, and they fell. They rebelled against God. and introduce a curse onto the rest of creation and consequences for themselves. And when we looked at chapter four, we saw it didn't take very long for this to work itself out in their children. Eve gave birth to a son, as you recall, named him Cain. And she thought, well, maybe this is the one that was promised. Because back in chapter three, there was a promise that a descendant of Eve, a son of hers, would ultimately crush the head of the serpent. And so, she likely thought, here he is, here's the one who's gonna undo the sin which we committed. And yet, it turned out that Cain killed his brother Abel because Abel was praised by God for his right worship and Cain was not. And the Lord was gracious. Adam and Eve had another son, Seth. And the scripture notes that in his days, men began to call upon the name of the Lord. So it seems like maybe there's some hope. And in chapter five, we have a whole list of Adam's descendants, very selectively given, that lead us all the way down to Noah, who we just read about a few moments ago. But the ongoing refrain in chapter five is something you can't help but notice. every single person, and he died. Someone lived for a certain number of years, had children, a particular son in this one line that God is highlighting. He lived longer, had other sons and daughters, and he died, every single one of them. So then, we're looking forward to chapter six, and I've entitled this Total Depravity, Total Grace, and we'll think about what those terms mean. But within this section, verses one through eight, that I read a few minutes ago, I want to look at this in three different sections, and I'll just warn you ahead of time, I'm not going through the text in consecutive order. We will look at every one of the eight verses, but not in consecutive order. The first chunk is God's grief and his resolution, that is his resolve to judge the sin and the evil in the world. Then we'll consider God's enemies at work and their corrupting influence on all humans. And then finally, God's judgment on those rebellious enemies of his and his grace shown to Noah. So these three section, God's grief and his resolution, God's enemies at work, God's judgment and grace, we will consider these all together as we walk through our text. So first, let's consider God's grief and His resolution. And the first point that I want you to have in mind is the pervasiveness of evil. And I try to avoid vocabulary that may be a bit unfamiliar. Pervasive is this idea that it's everywhere present. were pervasively aware that we had an election recently. On the earth during this time period that's covered in Genesis 6, evil was pervasive. So let's jump into the text. We're gonna start at verse five, Genesis chapter six, verse five. And the text reads, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And of course, when he says the wickedness of man was great, he wasn't saying, wow, that's great, but rather that it was large, it was pervasive everywhere in every heart. Corruption had taken root among the humans. And so, we need to ask this question, are we totally depraved? And I'm introducing a theological term here. The idea of total depravity is not that we're as bad as we could be, but rather that the effect of sin has permeated, has invaded every aspect of our being. There's always someone you could say, well, that person is worse than I am. And so we're not totally depraved, again, in the sense of you're as bad as you possibly could be. No, but every aspect of our being is affected by that original sin. And so for that reason, we can't fix ourselves. There's some people that say, oh no, there's just a little untouched spot within you that can cry out to God on your own and you can kind of reach out to God. But our understanding from the scripture is, no, every part of my being is affected by the fall. And I am totally dependent on God's grace for my redemption. And the text mentioned that every intent of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. Do we have a heart problem? Do we need a cardiac specialist? And indeed, we do. Wickedness starts in the heart. And you are probably familiar with Jeremiah 17 verse nine. Jeremiah writes, the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can know it? Who can understand it? And when the Hebrew people spoke of the heart, they were not speaking of the organ that pumps blood. but rather the seed of thoughts and emotions and will all combined. It's the real inner you. And Jeremiah is saying, that inner part of you is desperately sick. And the Lord Jesus also commented on the heart In all of the synoptic gospels, that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there's an account where Jesus is explaining it's not the ceremonial requirements that make you holy or unholy. It's not what you eat, but rather it's what comes from inside. And in Mark 7, starting in verse 20, Jesus says, that which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. So we do have a heart problem, but what if we do our best? Right? Can we just rally ourselves and do a little better? But in fact, the scripture tells us that we cannot. You've likely heard these verses from Isaiah 64, verse 6. For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. All of us wither like a leaf and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. Even the best things we might try to do are stained and permeated by sin. I read of a way to think of that this week and can be expressed as a question. Would you take a drink of pure spring water from a glass that was dirty. You see, the pure water won't hurt you, but once it touches that glass, it becomes impure. So a child might try to do you a favor by bringing you a cold drink, and yet without understanding They might take a cup they'd been using to make mud pies or playing in the sandbox and fill it up with water and say, I brought you a drink. And you'd likely say something kind and try to get out of actually taking a drink of that. But it illustrates the point that no matter how good our intentions are, everything we do is stained by sin. Therefore, we must abandon any hope of redemption in ourselves and trust only in Christ. Because of our depravity, because we have a heart problem, and we can't even do our best. So considering again God's grief and his resolution in this section of Genesis 6, we've considered the pervasiveness of evil and then next God's sorrow and grief. And we see in verse 6, the Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. And so we need to ask, wait a minute, was God surprised by this? Did he not see this coming? How is it that we can say, that the scripture can say, the Lord was sorry that he made man. This Yahweh literally was sorry that he made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. We understand that God is not surprised by anything. He is the sovereign king. Nothing takes him by surprise like, oh, wow, I didn't see that one coming. Oh, I didn't anticipate, oh, bummer. I'm gonna have to fix that. No, none of that applies. And yet, God experiences emotions. That's why we are able to experience emotions. and He is grieved by our sin. Even though God has an ultimate plan, which leads to His glory and our redemption, worshiping the Son forever in heaven, and it's glorious and marvelous, even so, the fact that there's sin in the world is grievous to God. It is not something that he wanted in that sense. Now, can his creation affect him? Can the creation, the sin of the creation change God in some way? And the answer is, No, in the sense that we do not change God's nature and attributes. We don't change God's perfect holiness, his righteousness, his love, all of his characteristics and attributes. And yet, he is not isolated from his creation. And so he sees and he knows the evil in the world, And he sees and he knows the evil in here as well. And we strive to be pleasing to the Lord and he's given us of his spirit that we may indeed be pleasing to him. And somehow in his plan, he has permitted evil to occur because it fits in with his ultimate plan of glorifying himself, redeeming an undeserving remnant of humanity. So we've considered the pervasiveness of evil, the God's sorrow and grief, and then finally God's resolution in this first section. And in the text, verse seven, we read, the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created. from the face of the land, from man to animals, to creeping things and to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them." God has resolved to judge sin. But notice it's man's sin, but the creation is affected. You remember in Genesis 3, God told Adam, cursed is the ground because of you. There's a certain weight we should feel understanding that all of creation is groaning, in the words of Romans 8, because of our sin. It's my fault. The creation itself, in a sense, is an innocent victim of my sin, of human sin. So we've considered this first section of the passage, God's grief and his resolution, his resolve to judge sin. And then perhaps the most difficult section, God's enemies at work. And so let's look at verses one and two as we begin, and then we'll also pick up verse four. So the passage begins after this long set of names and genealogies in chapter six, and he died, and he died, and he died, all the way down to Noah. And then we read in Genesis six, verse one, 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. And I've brought in at this point also verse four. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. So what's going on here? God's enemies are at work. So we must first consider who are these sons of God? And who was marrying who? How does this work? And then finally, who or what are the Nephilim? So let's first just think about the sons of God and the daughters of men. And the easy part of this is the daughters of men and they were beautiful. And I think all the men would say, amen. And we could. have some sort of a wrestling match as to whose wife was the most beautiful, but maybe we'll skip that given the seriousness of this text. So the daughters of men are human women who are beautiful, praise God, the way that he made them, inside and out. But the more challenging thing to figure out is who are these sons of God? And there's two main views. Are they human or are they angels? And the case argued for these are humans is we've already had this distinction or seeming distinction in the line of Seth and men began to call on the name of the Lord. And the line of Cain, it seemed like they were pursuing earthly things and wickedness. and murder and strife. And so there was a concept, an idea, that perhaps the sons of God were the righteous, godly line, and they were marrying into this ungodly line. And that was part of the situation at that time. And both of these views have some pieces that don't quite fit. I think the stronger case is to understand that the sons of God are angels. Now, why in the world would I say that? Well, it turns out that this phrase, sons of God, is used just a few times in the Old Testament. In Job 1, verse 6, we read, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. Now, sons of God presenting themselves to the Lord, these are not humans, these are angels. And it doesn't necessarily differentiate here between the righteous angels and the fallen angels or the demons. Job chapter two, verse one is very similar. And we looked earlier at Job 38, verse seven, I just wanna draw your attention back to that again. When the morning stars sang together, this is about creation, about the foundation of the world. And all the sons of God shouted for joy. So if we understand what God is saying there, it seems to be saying that there were sons of God angels already present when he created the world before there were any humans. And so, for those reasons, the use of this phrase, sons of God in the Old Testament, we understand or it's my conviction that these are angels. Now also, if you're familiar with the Septuagint, this is a Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures created by men who were fluent in Hebrew and in Greek, and it reflects their theological understanding just in the way they translated the words. And so when they came across the Hebrew phrase, sons of God, they translated it into the Greek word for angels. Ooh, pop quiz. Greek students, word for angels is? So our English word is a transliteration, not all that different from the Greek word. So again, those Septuagint authors translated sons of God as angels. So who might legitimately be called sons of God? Well, the thing that seems to hold all of them together is they were directly created by God. That is, God created them like the angels. He created all of them at one time. Angels do not reproduce. There will never be more of them nor fewer of them. A fixed number of spirit beings created by our Lord Jesus prior to the creation of the physical universe. And Colossian tells us that the Lord Jesus created everything in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. And those certainly seem to be speaking of a hierarchy of spiritual beings. Who else was directly created by God? Adam. was directly created by God from the dust. And in fact, the scripture speaks of Adam as a son of God in that sense. And even in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ in Luke 3, verse 38, it records going backwards from Jesus and Mary all the way back to Adam, the Son of God. So in all the intermediate steps, it was so and so, the son of so and so, the son of so and so. But at the beginning, Adam, the son of God. So the angels directly created sons of God. Adam was directly created He is a son of God in that sense. He's certainly not God the son, but he is a son of God in being directly created by the Lord. And finally, who else may be legitimately considered sons of God? It is those who are born again, because our second birth is through his spirit. We are new creations in Christ and so we can be called sons of God in that sense. A lot of information there, hopefully helpful in understanding when the scripture uses this phrase in Genesis 6, sons of God, that those are angelic beings. But wait a minute, what about this whole marriage thing? Who was marrying who? And you may be familiar with what Jesus' teaching was about the angels and an objection could be raised. Wait a minute, can angels marry? I thought Jesus said angels can't marry. But I think we should understand more specifically that the righteous angels obey God and do not. Mary in Matthew 22 verses 29 and 30, Jesus said, you're mistaken. This was after some people tried to trick him with a question about the resurrection, because they were trying to say, well, a woman had these different husbands during her lifetime and then in the resurrection, is she married to all of them? They were totally confused and unbelieving about the resurrection. But Jesus tucks in just this interesting thought in his answer. You're mistaken not understanding the scriptures nor the power of God for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. Like angels in heaven, not like rebellious demonic fallen angels. But could there be also some degree of willful cooperation in this marrying? The sons of God marrying the daughters of men. So what's going on with that? In another passage very similar to the one I just mentioned from Matthew, Jesus said that those in the resurrection cannot even die anymore because they are like angels. The angels don't die. And what was it that Satan said to Eve? when she said, if we eat of that tree, we're going to die. He said, you won't die. In fact, you can be like God. Could there have been, and I understand, I want you to understand, I am speculating beyond what's clear in scripture, but could there have been an appeal from fallen angels, demonic beings, to humans who observed this pattern and he died, and he died, and he died. Hey, if you partner with us, we don't die. You can escape death if you partner with us, if you let us come into you. And so men may have allowed demons to possess them. And in that sense, the sons of God were able to marry the daughters of men. Perhaps there was an appeal on the basis of escaping death or attaining some sort of supernatural degree of enjoyment or eternal life. Then we also have this question of the Nephilim. So who or what are these guys? And literally, it is those who fall on others. Well, isn't that helpful? Well, it actually is, because it is a military term. And in ancient warfare, unlike modern warfare, you had to be right next to your enemy, ready with your sword. And you may recall that in some places in the historical accounts, it says of David's mighty men and of others that they fell on someone and killed them. Well, it wasn't like they were fat and they smothered somebody, but rather they use their body weight to drive their sword deep into the body of their enemy and so they fell on them. The Nephilim, were named for that and so it certainly appears linguistically that they were very powerful warriors. And so there's something there about them and this name is only used here in Genesis 6 and then also many centuries later in Numbers 13.33 when the The spies went into the land and they saw these powerful men and they said the Nephilim, sometimes translated giants, are in the land. And of course, when we read giants, we think of guys that are 12 feet tall or something. But it may be that they saw these powerful warrior men and they were quite intimidated about them. My tentative conclusion, I'll just put it that way, is that the Nephilim were unusually strong offspring of demon-possessed men and human women. Now, why might I say that? Well, I'm guided in my thinking by one demon-possessed man that Jesus delivered. He was in the country of the Gadarenes. And he's described in Matthew 8 as so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way. In Mark chapter five, he had often been bound with shackles and chains and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces and no one was strong enough to subdue him. This demon possessed man had extraordinary strength. So there's something going on with demons being able to give humans extraordinary strength. Very similarly in Luke 8, he was bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard, yet he would break his bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert. So there's at least this record of a demon possessed man with extraordinary strength. Now one other comment on these Nephilim, Some people have conjectured, well maybe the demons impregnated human women and they created this weird new unredeemable thing that was demon-human combination. But I don't believe that the Nephilim were hybrid creatures. Why would I say that? Well, I would say that because in God's creation, he defined things in terms of kinds. There are certain boundaries around classes of animals and certainly of humans and God does not permit new strange combinations to occur and so I don't think there's any way for demons to mate with humans and produce something directly, but demon-possessed men certainly would be able to win and woo women and have children by them. thought, just in guiding my conclusion, is that when we see in Revelation 19 and 20 the judgment on the angels and on Satan and the judgment on humans, there's no third category for the Nephilim, like the The devil was cast into the lake of fire, the Nephilim went over here, and the humans. No, there's no separate category for these people. So that, again, contributes to my conviction. This is not a hybrid creature. What do we understand from all this? We understand that we are in a battle. There is a genuine supernatural enemy which we face in the devil and the demons, but we do not fear because as the Apostle John has told us, greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Demonic forces have been trying to prevent the coming of the Redeemer since the early days of the creation. You see, if they could totally corrupt the human race, then that promised child of Eve could not come. But God prevented that from happening, judging the world, preserving Noah and his family. And our Lord Jesus Christ, in fact, is a descendant of Noah and of his son Shem. So, again, A lot of heavy material here. We've considered God's grief and his resolution to judge sin, God's enemies at work, and then finally God's judgment and grace. And we see in verse three, then the Lord said, my spirit will shall not strive with man forever because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall be 120 years. years. So God set a specific time frame here, and I'm pulling in here as well, verse 8, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. There's a judgment and there's grace. God's spirit was at work. He said, my spirit won't always strive with men, but it It had been striving, opposing this sin and perhaps willful cooperation with demons. God had set a timetable. He had declared a time limit before the judgment came. And it is my conviction that that 120 years was God's declaration, the flood is gonna come in 120 years, this will be time for Noah to build his ark. And I think the angels heard that declaration from the Lord. And they knew We've got 120 years to do as much damage as we can. Let's have at it. And part of what leads me to that are these rather obscure verses in 1st and 2nd Peter and in Jude. And we looked at one of these earlier this morning in 1 Peter 3, 18. We saw this wonderful gospel passage that the Lord Jesus died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust. And then he went in the spirit and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison. I believe those are those demons who disobeyed, who once were disobedient when the patience of Noah kept waiting in the days of Noah, 120 years. The patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah during the construction of the ark, in which a few were saved. Then if we pop over to 2 Peter, and I'm rushing just a bit. Verses four and five of 2 Peter chapter two. Peter notes, if God did not spare angels when they sinned, there were sinning angels. I believe that corresponds to what we see in Genesis chapter six. God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment forever, reserved for judgment, sorry, and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. So these angels sinned, they were cast into pits of darkness, And we won't look at it, but there's a passage in Revelation that suggests that at some point in the future, Satan will be given the key to that pit and will be allowed to bring those demons back out. No wonder we're happy. for a pre-tribulational rapture. Because if that is the case and these demons who sinned in the ancient world during the time leading up to the flood, if they've been in prison for thousands of years and then receive their freedom for one last hurrah of mischief on the earth, it will not be a good place to be. So, we see these Interesting and unusual references to demons being held in chains and darkness. And finally in Jude, verses six and seven, angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode. He is kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. So, all this language about angels being imprisoned, being kept in pits and so forth, seems to suggest God had a time limit and he judged those angels. But, lest we forget, God's grace was introduced because Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found grace Noah did not work his way to a position of approval by God, but he was shown grace by the Lord. And we will continue to explore God's grace to Noah, Lord willing, next week. So thinking back, To our initial questions, is God paying attention to all the evil in the world? Is he gonna do something about it? We see that he did in the past and he will in the future. And so we have an urgency when we tell people, turn to Christ. The world that perished in the flood reminds us that we have supernatural enemies who want to thwart God's plan of redemption. But his gracious intention has always been to save an undeserving remnant of humanity. Please pray with me. Father, we thank you for this revelation, and we thank you for our confidence that you are God. thoroughly in control and sovereign over all evil and that you will permit evil for a time, but ultimately it will be judged. And we thank you that we have the privilege and the opportunity to flee to Christ and be safe from your wrath. from all that is coming upon this world. Make us faithful stewards of the gospel and those who hold forth the truth to others that they may be saved. In Jesus' name, amen.