Remain standing for the reading of the scripture this morning. We will be reading from not there wrong bookmark Reading from here And my wife was putting the putting the scripture reading in She said your scripture reading is about the Nephilim No But you'll see why soon enough. Genesis 6 tells us about the world that Noah lived in. Tells us about what the world was like when the judgment of God fell. The Nephilim just happened to be a part of that. So Verse 1, Now it happened when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men were good in appearance, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he indeed is flesh, Nevertheless, his days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth. and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually. And Yahweh regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. And Yahweh 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 regret that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among those in his generation. Noah walked with God, and Noah became the father of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt. before God. And the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. And behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. You shall make the ark with rooms, and you shall cover it inside and out with pitch. Now this is how you shall make it, the length of the ark, three hundred cubits. the breadth 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits. You shall make a window for the ark and complete it to one cubit from the top and set the door of the ark on the side of it. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. As for me, behold, I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which the breath of life from under heaven in which is the breath of life from under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall breathe its last. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing on the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible, and gather it to yourself, and it shall be for food for you and for them.' Thus Noah did. according to all that God had commanded him, so he did. Let's pray. Father, we rejoice to be here this day, be in this house of worship on the Lord's day, Lord, this place where you do your work in the hearts of your people. this day that has no substitute. I pray you will bless your people for being here. I pray that the truth of God will be released in this place and will have its full effect in every heart as only you, Holy Spirit, can truly accomplish. Father, I pray as we look at the realities of who you are by what you have done that we will leave this place with rejoicing hearts over the great God that we serve. that you will make our time all that you desire and deserve it to be we pray it in our savior's name amen but we've now come to the time for which the church meets on the lord's day lord's day is a great encouraging day it is a time to be able to rub shoulders with other believers and to have our hearts knit together in the Holy Spirit for the purpose of growing in the likeness of Jesus Christ. It is an indispensable day in the life and on the calendar of the believer. But it is not just because it is a day, it is the day where God does His work when things are done His way. and his way is that we preach the word. So we're going to do that today. Now, I started two weeks ago looking at, started a doctrinal series. This is not norm, the norm here, you know that, this is not normal. I only do it when it's important. It's very infrequent, something that is that I deem absolutely necessary or I'm just not going to depart from the systematic teaching of the Word of God because you need that far more than you need anything that I had to say. But when we're doing a doctrinal study, looking at the teaching of the truth, looking at healthy, correct teaching so that we might know this book and know the one who wrote this book in greater measure, it is always of benefit to the church. So we're going to take some time to do that. You may want to know how much time, I have no idea. I took the five solas and made eight messages out of it two years ago. We're looking at the codified expression of the doctrines of grace that come out in a five-letter acronym. I know someone said I said it too fast two weeks ago, so I'll say it a little bit slower, but you'll get it as we go along. That's how I had to learn. I had to hear it a hundred times. The acronym is TULIP. It is the national flower of the Netherlands, and it has been put together because these five letters, T-U-L-I-P, sort of encapsulate the five doctrinal points that came out of the Canons of Dort from the disagreement between the school of Jacobus Arminius is over against the school of John Calvin the right side was taken to be the correct one in that in that Senate of Dort and they came out with the five points often referred to as the five points of Calvinism had very little to do with Calvin had everything to do with the Bible is the five points of the sovereign grace of God dispensed at his behest for his glory to save his people those five points are T for total depravity you For unconditional election, it's another word people don't like a whole lot, but Bible, it's all over the Bible. L is limited atonement. I know that makes people nervous. You limit the atonement of Christ. I didn't limit it, God did. We'll make that point when we get there. I is irresistible grace. When the grace of God invades your life, can you ultimately resist it? We'll see what the Bible teaches about that. And the last is P, T-U-L-I-P. P is the perseverance or preservation of the saints. And it is the fact that the saints are preserved by God through the Holy Spirit so that they might be so that they might persevere to the end, because Jesus says, he that perseveres to the end will be saved. That perseverance to the end is another work of the Holy Spirit in your life. So we will look at total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. Now, as we started two weeks ago looking at total depravity, I told you I'm going to use different terms for this because the idea of total depravity gives a little bit of a a skewed understanding in the modern american mind the idea being totally depraved says the word it sounds like that you're telling me preacher that i am as bad as i can be but i know people in the world that are worse than i am you're you're right about one of those are wrong about the other i'm not telling you that you are as bad as you can be in the bible doesn't tell you that at any given moment that you are as bad as you can be but you are a separated from god as you can be outside of christ there is no way there the idea of total depravity. I told you that Dr. Sproul used the expression radical corruption because the root word for radical is radix. It means the root to the core of your being where you begin, you are corrupt from the beginning. The psalmist said that God created, you created me in my mother's womb in iniquity. We're going to look at why that is true. Dr. MacArthur referred to it as absolute inability. You are as separated from God as you can be with a mind that does not accept the things of God in the totality of your life, in the totality of personhood, in the totality of humanity. We'll cover both of those topics as we get there. Depravity, by Webster's definition in 1828, was the idea of corruption or wickedness, being corrupt of moral principles, a destitution of holiness. There was nothing holy about you in the way that you were born. And Spurgeon was right when he said that these doctrines of grace are the most pride-crushing doctrines in the Scripture, because you immediately begin to recoil. Well, Total depravity, most people don't have a big problem with that. Yes, we see that man is corrupt, man needs God, but then you move into unconditional election, that God did some choosing, and the Bible says that, but how did he choose? We're gonna look at how that is, and you're telling me that the atonement is limited? What I'm telling you is that the atonement had a definite plan and purpose. Jesus didn't die to make something possible. Jesus died to complete an act that began in eternity past to fulfill a promise that was given in eternity past That is why Jesus died. He didn't die a Potentially saving anything. He just he died a definitive death. We're going to look at the scripture that clearly says that I'm going to look at the fact that when the Holy Spirit of God comes after you like the hound of heaven, that the grace of God becomes irresistible because eventually it turns your heart to the Savior. He gives you a new heart and a new mind, removing the heart of stone, giving you a heart of flesh, and you finally see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ when God gives that spiritual light to your mind, and you are coming at that point. And praise God that he does it, because if he didn't, no one would ever come. And the perseverance of the saints is a work of God. Now all of these, these other four, the UDIP, Unlimited, Unconditional Election, Definite Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and the Perseverance of the Saints, these all ride on a foundation. They're like a structure built on a foundation. And you know that no home is as good as the foundation or the roof. And the foundation that is set here to build these other four points is the foundation of radical corruption, this idea of total depravity. We are setting the foundation. I may spend more time on this one particular point than the rest, because once you get the idea Once you capture the full-orbed picture of exactly how destitute of holiness you are, you begin to realize that God did elect the people for his own possession, but he could not have elected them because of who they were. You realize that this atonement is limited because God limited it. If God would have just opened this up to anyone who wants to come, no one would have come. It's a definite, Jesus died a definite death for a definite people that God chose in eternity past, that Christ died for in time, and that the Holy Spirit goes after those people. The three persons of the Godhead are in absolute unity in bringing to fruition the doctrines of grace. And to understand all of that, I keep using the word understand. Maybe the better term is to accept the reality, to accept the truth. Because some of us, you're not going to understand. I don't understand it. We have to live in some tensions. I thought about it this week. I was supposed to begin with this. I didn't have it in my notes. So I'm going to back up. We're going to start the introduction over. Is that OK? Can we do that? just pretend go back in your mind and we're starting fresh in the new if you if you're gonna sit down with someone and and and and Testify of the gospel of Jesus Christ to them You're gonna sit down with a man across from his table You can sit down with a lady across from the table and have a cup of coffee or wherever you are and you're gonna tell them about the Savior and they're gonna tell you so you're telling me that There was once a Jew the lived in a somewhat obscure life until he was thirty years old and then began to work miracles that are innumerable had the whole of his entire nation was enthralled in in what he was doing up until a day that they weren't and then they turn around and crucified him and they killed him in the most ignominious way possible and they discarded him and put him in a grave and three days later he got up and walked out of that grave And because he did that, if I will believe that, and believe what this book says about that, that God will save me for eternity, he will take me into his possession and make me his child, and I will come and love and serve him and live my life for him, never to be the same again. Is that what you're telling me? Yes, that's what I'm telling you. Why would you expect me to believe that? If you're asked that question, what do you say? Well, I know a guy that wrote a book about evidence that demands a verdict. Wrong. There are more books denying the evidence than there are books for the evidence. Am I telling you not to read the book? No, it's an encouraging book, but that's not what you do. You give them the word of God. If I were to ask you, why do you believe in Jesus? If you're a born-again, blood-bought believer in the Lord Jesus Christ here today, and I were to sit down and ask you, why do you believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ? Because there ain't no evidence that demands that verdict. You can't even explain that to me. I believe it because the Bible says it. That's the end of the discussion. When I come to a full conclusion of the truth that is declared when the scripture says it, I do not have to understand it in order to accept it. And that's a good thing, because my friends, there's some hard stuff in here. We're going to look at some things this morning, and we looked at some last week, two weeks ago, that people that have been educated since I was in school have been taught one thing about how we got here, and the Bible says something completely different. They claim to have evidence. I claim to have eyewitness account of what happened there. Charles Darwin wasn't even born. He didn't have a clue what happened there. What Charles Darwin can see is what happened after the flood, which we're gonna look at today. But what this book says about the beginning before the flood and what it says about the beginning that was before the beginning, there's only one witness. You can't go to anybody else. You can't go to another book. You have to go to this book. You say, well, I just don't believe it. Okay, then say that. I just don't believe it. I hear what it says and I don't believe it. It's okay to say, I hear what it says and I can't quite get my mind wrapped around it. I'm not going to deny it, but I don't understand it. That's okay. That's okay. We wrestle with some of these things. Charles Spurgeon said, we're all born Arminian, and by the grace of God, some of us become Calvinist before we're dead. And I know what he meant. It was intended to be humorous. Listen, we're all born with a broken one of these. Talked about it in Sunday school this morning, how difficult it is to be a believer because this thing has to work all of the time. Problem is, this deal's broken. the Holy Spirit invades and and takes over our life but he's still dealing with a broken one of these trying to bring the truth into it and sometimes we wrestle with that kind of thing and it's okay it's okay if you want evidence that demands a verdict you're going to get it from this pulpit in the next few weeks because I'm going to give you what the Bible says is the truth and you're going to have to decide it'll be between you and him not you and me I'm not making this personal I I've loved this doctrine. What Spurgeon said is right. I believe it because I find it taught on virtually every page of the Bible. You can't miss it once you get it. It's not a mystery. You begin to see the reality of how the glory of God comes out of this book because he did for the unworthy, what the unworthy could never have done for themselves, and he did it while they were unworthy, and he did it when they never asked for it, so that he might take a people for his own possession, a peculiar people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, to become his peculiar possession. That is definitive language, not open-ended. So let's begin again. We looked at the poisonous introduction of corruption, this corruption that hits every person where they are, this Jeremiah 17, 9, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can know it, this universal guilt? There was a warning issued. We looked in Genesis chapter 2. By the way, you can turn to Genesis, probably chapter 4, if you want to wait there. I'll be there in just a couple of minutes. Genesis chapter 2, we see God created man, put them together, he gave them one warning. Don't eat of that tree, for in the day that you eat of it and you're dying, you will die. There will be a spiritual death that takes place immediately that will be followed by a physical death. You don't even know what those words mean, but trust me, you don't want to eat of this tree. That's what God tells him. He doesn't give him a full explanation of what death is, but let me tell you, the moment he ate that fruit, he knew. You think of the agony in your life over sin. You can't imagine what it was for Adam and Eve. Chapter 3, we see the warning that was issued was ignored. We see the warning ignored. The evil one comes, accuses God of lying and actually uses the truth about God to turn it into a lie to deceive the woman. She eats of it. She gives some to her husband. The eyes of both of them are open. Now they know what is evil. Now there's no turning back. The cover up for sin begins. They start with fig leaves and they never end with the excuses for sin. When God shows up, they've got fig leaf loincloths. What are you doing? Oh, we were hiding from you. Why? Because we're naked. Who told you you were naked? Nobody said anything. He said, did you eat of the tree I told you to leave alone? Did you eat of the tree that I told you to leave alone, Adam? Hey, it said woman you gave me, that's his response. What a repentant man. Chivalry died the day he ate that fruit. The woman you gave, look, you brought her here. I didn't ask for her. That is comical, but I'm not out of line. Oh, you go stand over here while you judge her. I'll be over here so I don't get any on me. What did she do? What the snake said? He didn't bother asking the snake anything. He didn't have a leg to stand on. Before or after, I guess. There's no turning back now. The excuses begin. Conflict begins. Only two people on the planet, they can't get along because sin invaded. God told him, don't trust me. You don't need an explanation. Trust me. You know, that's what it comes down to in life. That's what it comes down to in the Christian life. Do you trust me? That's my kids at all times. Do you trust me? So all Job came to know at the end of Job's life. He said, I'd heard of you with the ear. Now I've seen you with the eye. I trust you. I don't understand anything that just happened in my life. I don't understand the what. I don't understand the how. But now I know the who. And I'm OK with that. And Adam and Eve in the garden couldn't do that. They wouldn't do that. They didn't do that. He cursed the ground for Adam. He cursed Adam's days. He cursed his labor, pronounced death. In chapter 4, we see the warning illustrated. It says that the man knew his wife. She conceived and gave birth to Cain. She had a son. Now, coming off of what was promised to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you in the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. I'm going to put the seed of the woman over his against the seed of the serpent." And you begin to see this battle really throughout the scripture at that point. You see it even today. The seed of the woman, they had no idea that that was a physical impossibility, that there would need to be a virgin-born son in order to be considered the seed of the woman. But between your seed and her seed, he will bruise you on the head and you will bruise him on the heel. And then lo and behold, Eve has a son. The Lord opened her womb and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And God said that one of her sons is going to crush your head. There's a lot There's a lot of festivities surrounding a gender reveal today. I think it's all absurd. I mean, I know some of you've been to maybe you've had them and it's fine. It's nothing, nothing morally wrong with them. I just, I didn't want to know what I was having. I convinced her to keep it quiet and not find out for the first two and kind of kept it quiet for the third one. And after that, it's just tell everybody. One of my relatives belongs to, married into a family that had 18 grandsons and 18 granddaughters. And they didn't know what my relative and their spouse were going to have. They didn't find out. So the whole family showed up to find out what the gender of this child was when she was born. You had one half the family, we hope it's a boy, we're gonna, the boys are gonna be, we're gonna have the advantage or it's gonna be a girl and we'll have the advantage. As if any of it mattered, it just became festive and fun. There could not have been a more enrapturing, joyful time in the life of a parent than for Eve and Adam to see this firstborn son. Maybe he'll be the one. Maybe he'll be that seed. Oh, it's riding on him. She named him Cain because she said, I begotten a man with the help of God. She had another son and named him Abel. One was a keeper of flocks, one was a cultivator of the ground. Response time comes and they bring an offering to God, an offering of gratitude. And the keeper of the flocks brings the first fruit of his flocks and the fat portions. He gives the best of his flock as an offering to God. And the other just goes and grabs a sack of grain and brings that. He brought some of his grain. And the one that they had the most hope for was the one that had the least desire to know or be used by God. God encounters him in verse six, why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, will your countenance not be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is lying at the door and its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. God said, sin is crouching at the door, son. Just like he told his dad previously, don't eat of this tree. Cain, sin is crouching at the door. You now know what sin is. You know what evil is. It is crouching at the door. What crouches at the door? A predator. Waiting to pounce on an unexpecting victim. Sin is crouching at the door and it's crouching there because it wants you. Parents, you can tell your kids that every day. Sin is crouching at the door. You know where sin is crouching today? Not at the door. He's crouching on that phone. He's crouching on that computer. He's crouching on the social media site, whoever you are. And it desires to have you and you must rule over it. God is reading this man's heart. I know what you're thinking and you must rule over it. You must put it away. You must not act for yourself. Didn't take him long to think about it. Cain spoke to his brother Abel. Got him out in the field and Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. Cut his throat. We see the curse that God promised Adam was going to come if he ate of the fruit. And the day that you eat of it and you're dying, you will surely die. You are going to die a spiritual death. And eventually you will die a physical death. And the idea of that death is this separation from God. And Cain had no desire to have God involved in his life unless God was giving him what he already wanted. We have an entire movement in modern evangelicalism that's trying to do that every Sunday. Every time their church meets, they want to give unbelievers what they already want. That's what Cain depicted. I want what I want from God, and if I can't have it, then God can take a hike. You like Abel better than me? He killed Abel. Now there's just me. What are you going to do now? Verse 9, Genesis 4, God said to Cain, where is Abel, your brother? And he said, I do not know him. Am I my brother's keeper? That's a crazy way to answer. My brother's keeper? What business is that of mine? You go find him. The disdain for God. The disdain for his brother. And he said, what have you done? He's doing the same thing here that he did with Adam and Eve in the garden. He's giving them opportunity to confess their sin. How do you know? That you're naked. Adam didn't say a word. Became Mannequin Man. Did you eat of that tree? She did first. Comes to Cain. What have you done? Where's your brother? I don't know. Do you think God was looking for information? Nah. He's giving Cain an opportunity. Am I my brother's keeper? I just see him bob his head. What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground. I know what you did. I know why you did it. And I'm done asking questions. Verse 11. Now, cursed are you from the ground. Now, he told Adam that the ground was cursed because of him and that he would eat, eat of it in pain all the days of his life. It was going to produce thorns and thistles, eat by the sweat of his brow. McCain, he says, cursed are you from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood by your hand. The ground is going to curse you, not the ground is going to rebel against you. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. You'll survive, but it's not going to be. It's not going to be enjoyable. You're going to survive and you're going to work every minute you cross this line And now this is the the stakes are so high that now you're going to live with this the rest of your life You will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth The promised one that Adam and Eve thought Cain would have been because of the sin that entered the world through Adam and Eve and continued through their son. The promised one has now become the pariah in the world. Look at what Cain says in verse 13. A spiritually dead act in killing his brother is met with a spiritually dead abrasiveness and where am I my brother's keeper now we have a spiritually dead response to what God is telling him God again could have and from your perspective in mind should have blotted Cain from the face of the planet but he didn't he left Cain that gave Cain opportunity to repent it's going to give Cain opportunity to come to the right to God's terms in this life before he escapes into the next life and there is no opportunity Look at what Cain says. My punishment is too great to bear. What? What is going on in your brain, man? You just killed your brother to get even with God. Behold, you have driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and it will be that whoever finds me will kill me. He starts to whine. They're gonna kill me now. Really? Now, why would that be a problem, Cain? Why would that be a problem? Your brother's dead over there at your hand. It would be a problem now for someone to kill you? I killed my brother, but you can't let somebody kill me. That's the mind of the flesh. It's pretty easy to understand. So God said to him, therefore whoever kills Cain in vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And he appointed a sign for Cain so that no one who found him would strike him. He has now become the pariah. The warning is on full display being illustrated to Adam and Eve. That is how it got here. That was the poisonous introduction of corruption. And it would be great if it would have ended with Cain. If Cain would have just been the bad seed and they would have gotten rid of the bad seed and they could have started over, that would be great. Amen? That's not what happened. Now I want us to look at the perpetual infection of corruption. It's perpetual. It doesn't stop. It doesn't skip a generation. I mean, sometimes a, what do they say, whatever the gene is that causes balding, it skips a generation. I don't even know what that means. Sin never skips a generation. Sin is like a virus. It's kind of like the HIV virus. It's kind of like the HIV virus. The HIV virus kills everyone that it infects, but it doesn't infect everyone. The sin virus infects everyone and it kills everyone that it infects. Everyone is infected by it. There is a perpetual infection of corruption. To begin to make this point, we want to look at the infamous culmination of depravity. I wanted to say the infamous nadir being If the apex is the highest point, the nadir is the lowest point, but nadir starts with N and not C. So we have the perpetual, the infamous culmination of depravity or the infamous crescendo. And you say, well, how infamous is it? I'm glad you asked. It's in the next chapter. It's in chapter six of Genesis. All of this is in the very beginning. You understand why the first 11 chapters of Genesis are so important? You find out some really important stuff in these early chapters to tell you why the world is the way it is and to tell you why you are the way you are. Genesis chapter 6 tells us why God flooded the earth. Beginning in verse 5, we see the scriptural definition of depravity. I've given you the English definition of depravity. What's the scriptural definition? What does the scripture say about every mother's child? It says, then Yahweh God saw the evil of man, saw that the evil of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Friends, that is some conclusive language. That's not open-ended. That is closed. The evil of man is great on the earth. That means it is enormous. It is beyond definition, beyond description. The evil of man is everywhere, permeating everything that they do. And he says that every intention of the thoughts of his heart, every intention of the thoughts of his heart. Now friends, if that is true, since that is true, How much should you lean on your own understanding? Your flesh thinks about you first all the time. And it thinks about God last, if it thinks about him at all. This is describing a total infection of the heart. Words, deeds, and actions, emotions, all wrapped up in this idea of the mind. The Hebrew idea is the heart. It is a complete and total, absolute, universal, radical infection of the heart, and it only thinks one way. It only thinks one way. It thinks its way. Me first. Every intention of the thoughts of his heart, I love how this is written. This is very, even in English, this is very Hebraistic. Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. It was only evil. So that means it was always evil, but it was evil continually. We already said that. It was only evil continually. He is stressing the point that there is nothing good the heart of man Isaiah 65 will go on to say that all of our deeds are like filthy rags fit only to be thrown out The Apostle Paul said even as a believer there is nothing good that is in me that is in my flesh Galatians 5 17 says that the flesh the natural part of you the natural-born man the flesh the fallen wicked part Always Lusts epithumia and an overwhelming yearning the one thing that it wants the most it lusts against the spirit The flesh is not overly concerned with what you do as long as what you do is something that is wrong by God's estimation That's how we're born This is the baseline for every person. That's why I'm telling where we're setting the foundation. We need to understand where we start and so that we're not so offended by where God ends up. Because if he leaves us where we start, that's where we're gonna stay. Because it's all that we can do. Only evil all the time is what the Old Testament says, it's what Paul says in Galatians 5. Verse six, God sees the earth, says, and Yahweh regretted that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. He regretted making man. I have to tell you, there are two reactions to that. There are only two. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ here today and I come and tell you that God regrets making you, it's like someone kicks you in the stomach. If God is dissatisfied or disappointed or His integrity has been violated by one of His people acting in a way that does not represent Him properly, having sinned against Him and causing regret in the heart of God, friends, that hits a believer where it hurts. But an unbeliever hears that and says, what? Why would he regret making me? I don't regret making me. Do you regret? Don't answer that. He regretted making man. It says he was grieved in his heart. This is what God tells Moses as he is writing this history. This is the only eyewitness to this. me to my heart." Picturing a high level of emotional pain, this is what he sees. He's grieved to his heart and he regrets having made man. We see the result of depravity, the result of this corruption in verse 7. Yahweh said, he sees every intention of thoughts of his man's heart was only evil continually that the evil of mankind was great on the earth he regretted making them he's grieved to his heart and he said I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land from man to animals to creeping things to birds of the sky for I regret that I have made them and who can blame him What is the result of depravity? What is the result of man's absolute void of goodness in his natural state? The judgment of God. And He has enough one day. It takes a lot, but He has enough one day. That day may come a little earlier for some than for others, but all of them are going to face the day that they stand before Him and answer for their life. Answer for the sin that is being collected and what the writer of Revelation says are books to be opened on the day of judgment. God keeps meticulous records. He doesn't miss anything. And every sin that you have ever committed will be punished by God. In one of two ways. either, every sin that you have ever committed on this planet, conscious or unconscious, everything that you have ever done that is contrary to the will of God, everything that you have ever done that displeases God in word, deed, action, thought, emotion, every one of them will be judged by God and will be paid for by you in hell for eternity. it's going to be an eternity because even in hell you will remain a sinner still piling up judgment you say well that doesn't sound very good that not very good I told you there are two ways that's one way the other way that your sin will be eternally paid for is if you put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and God pours out his wrath on Christ to pay for your sin so that you never answer for them again. And you say, man, that's hard to believe. I believe you. That's what the book says. And I'll tell you this, if that's not true, there is no hope. Because if this is remotely true about anyone else in this room, the one that is like what we're describing here from Genesis, has no hope of ever reaching God on their own. You don't want God around unless he's giving you stuff. And you're not concerned about your sin, you're not concerned about being right with him, you just want him off your back in this life. But there's coming a day where you will pay the piper. You will pay your sin debt. Either you will, or you're going to come in before the judgment seat and there are books to be opened, but then there is one other book. And it says that when that book is opened, that book of life, and he finds your name in that book of life, and it says next to your name, paid in full. What Jesus said from the cross, it is finished. When he sees that written by your name, he closes the book, welcome in my child. There's nothing recorded in these books because Jesus paid it all. God doesn't miss sin. He doesn't ignore sin. He will judge sin. He may allow the sinner time to live in this life as a sinner to give them time to repent, but one day he has enough. And this description that he will blot them out means to erase, means to destroy. There's no record of you. I will blot him from the face of the planet. It's interesting when you look at fossils and things that were buried in the flood, it's seldom you find anything human. Something to think about. A whole lot of other stuff. Birds of the air, animals, creeping things. But there's a great big but right here. I know what you're thinking, preacher, this is not real exciting. Not real entertaining. There's a guy down the street that's pretty entertaining. This isn't very entertaining. I know. But since what I've just described to you and I is exactly how each and every one of us was born, There needs to be some good news. But there is no good news until you know the bad news. The bad news is that in your natural born state you are only thinking about evil all of the time. Only evil continually. You leave God in a perpetual state of regret and his judgment will fall. And he looks at the entire earth and he says, I'm going to destroy all of them, from man to animals, to creeping things, to birds of the sky, for I regret that I made them all. Verse 8, we see mercy in the midst of depravity. But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh. And you may look at that and say, well, he found favor. That means he must have done something that God would accept. That is not what that says. Not what it says, it's not what it means. It says that Noah looks around and realized that the favor of God was on him. He figured out, he found out that the favor of God was on him. How did he find that out? That comes in verse 13 when God speaks to him and tells him what he's about to do and then tells him to build an ark. But it says here that Noah found favor in the eyes of God. And when the 70 Hebrew scholars got together to translate the Hebrew scriptures into Koine Greek in the intertestamental period and put together what we call the Septuagint, when they wrote this passage in the Old Testament, they used the Greek word charis for the word favor. So that some of your English translations say that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This favor of God on Noah was an undeserved favor. God looked at Noah and said, I'm going to start over with him. Those are pretty low odds. you have a whole earth full of people that have sinned enough that it's bringing the judgment of god on the whole planet and there's one guy noah found favor in the eyes of the lord there is mercy in the midst of depravity we don't want to pass that up we don't want to paint god in this caricature that he's this unappeasable deity that's just running wild and trying to get all of the anger off of his chest. He's never satisfied. He's satisfied. He's satisfied in one. He's satisfied in his only begotten son. And it is that full satisfaction of God that is placed upon the believer when they put their faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You give your life to him, he gives his life to you. It's that great exchange where he takes your sin and gives you his righteousness. He takes what he didn't deserve and you receive what you could never deserve. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him. even in the face of a world filled with only corruption all of the time. That's the God that we serve. That is the infamous culmination of depravity, where God looks and says, it's enough, I'm starting over. And if he were like you and I, he would have started a lot sooner than that. Then he brings the flood. In verse 11, now the earth was corrupt before God. The earth was filled with violence. God saw the earth and behold, it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. He's just looking at people left to themselves only wind up in one place. They wind up corrupt. They wind up depraved. They go to the very end of their freedom to sin. Then God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come. The earth is filled with violence because of them. And behold, I am about to destroy them from the earth. Make for yourself an ark. And then he gives what we read earlier. He gives the dimensions and how he used to make it. And then when the time comes, Noah has the door open and God sends two by two exactly what he told Noah to prepare for. God brings them on the ark and then he closes the door. Then the wrath of God fell on the planet. And God spared eight people in that ark. Eight people that didn't deserve it. Eight people that he had no obligation to. But eight people that he showered his unmerited favor upon and gave them work to do that no one else paid attention to. It took Noah a hundred years to build that boat. And he got on that boat with the same people he started with. infamous culmination of depravity They go through all of that. They come off the ark We go about a hundred years down the road From the ark now a hundred years sounds like a lot to you and I because you don't know very many people that live a hundred years These people were still living in the hundreds of years Noah's gonna live 300 years after he gets off the ark and His sons are gonna live that long. And the people right after them are gonna live hundreds of years. So 150 years after they get off the ark, Noah's still there. Shem, Ham, Japheth, all their wives, Noah's wife, all these people that were there before that got on the ark and got off and found what it is, and I'm sure had in their heart a hope that things, now maybe things will get better. We'll start with, at least we'll start with some people that are sensible, and maybe sensible people will have more sensible people, and we'll start over with a sensible group of people. That'd be great, wouldn't it? It would also be a cartoon. We see the immediate continuation of depravity. They get off the ark and it goes right back to where it was. Genesis chapter 10. We begin in verse 8. Generations of Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We're gonna start in verse six. The sons of Ham are Cush and Mizraim, Put and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Seba and Havilah and Sabta and Rama and Sabteca. And the sons of Rama were Sheba, Dedan. Now Cush was the father of Nimrod. So you have, you have the sons of Ham, the first one is Cush, the first son of Cush. There's a cat named Nimrod in verse 8. We're introduced to Nimrod, who is the grandson of Noah. Now, if you know anything about Ham, you know that when Ham got off the ark, things didn't go real well for him either. It started bad and got worse because we've run into Nimrod, grandson of Ham, great-grandson of Noah. Noah's still around. Now Cush was the father of Nimrod. Nimrod began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh, therefore it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Yahweh. It says he began to be a mighty one on the earth. And what that tells us is that he began to achieve an elevated status among the people. What we see pictured here and described here in this economy of words is a man that rose to a dictatorial leadership. He became the strong arm. He became the mafioso, as it were. He became a mighty one among the people of the earth, a mighty hunter before Yahweh. Therefore, it says, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Yahweh. The idea of him being a mighty hunter could really be taken one of two ways, both end in the same place. It says that it's before the face of Yahweh. It's as though he's doing this in Yahweh's face. He's flaunting it. He says, you will not have any gods before me in Exodus 20. And Moses tells him in verse 21 that He has appeared to you so that the fear of God may be before your face. So right in front of you, never to leave, may be this influence that you never miss is this holy fear of God. It says that Nimrod was a mighty hunter before God. Now, that either means that he was one that lived in defiance and rebellion toward what he knew, He was a mighty hunter of really, as we're gonna see, he becomes this political and probably militaristic leader, this dictator that really starts, he starts two of the great kingdoms of old himself, Babylon and Babylon. Assyria he starts the city of Nineveh in the city of Babylon the capital cities of Babylon in Assyria who become the the perennial Lifelong enemies of of Israel both of them take Israel into captivity later and Nimrod started both of them Either the idea of being a hunter of men before God where he is in defiance and rebellion toward what he knew or or he had the successful conquest either hunting conquest that elevated him above other men because they were on some stuff is not around anymore is one thing for some of you to get to go on a a guided hot where you sit in a beer stand with somebody aims a gun for you and you squeeze the trigger for a two ten thousand dollars and you come back with a trophy that's not the same as putting a man on the back of a horse and going to kill a rhinoceros with a bow and arrow be a different kind of guy And a man that can be successful at that, those things begin to go to their head. Whatever it meant, we see that this gave rise to personal pride and self-elevation in Nimrod. Because verse 10 says, the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. And Erek and Akkad and Kalna in the plain of Shinar. From there he went out to Assyria and built Nineveh. Rebiothir and Kalah and Rezin. He goes and he's building cities. He's building a name for himself. Belongs to him. He is maybe the first earthly king of the post-flood era. But what we want to catch is that the beginning of his kingdom is Babel. Now I want you to know one other thing before we move to chapter 11 here in Genesis. I really, really wanted to get to chapter 18. You want to be here for that. When Lot gets to Sodom, you want to be here. Not going to have time today. I could almost skip this and go there, but we have to get from here to there so that you know what's there when we get there. Nimrod established the great kingdoms that would go on to oppose and even enslave the people of God. We see Nimrod as our representative, Exhibit A as the seed of the serpent. But they knew two things when they got off the ark. And these people that are there, the great grandson of Noah, knew two things when Noah got off the ark. In Genesis chapter 9 and verse 1, God tells Noah, What he said to Adam and Eve in the garden, he gives the same mandate to them. God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, not congregate. Fill the earth, not fill the city, not fill the neighborhood, fill the earth. You're saying that a city or a neighborhood's a problem? Not necessarily. Genesis 128, God told Adam and Eve the same thing. He tells them to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. That is the dominion mandate. Man has dominion in the creation. We're not just a grown-up germ that owes obeisance to every other animal because we used to be one. God spoke them into existence. God made man and purposely breathed the breath of life into man. Man is a distinct creature and man has dominion. And that means that we have responsibility. We have responsibility to God to take and subdue the earth. They knew both of these. They knew this when they get off the ark, this being fruitful, multiply, this filling of the earth, this dominion mandate. They knew that. And back in chapter 8, when they get off the ark in verse 20, just before chapter 9 begins, Noah gets off the ark and he does the strangest thing. He builds an altar. And took of every clean animal and every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And you wonder why he got seven of the clean animals and only two of the others? He got seven pairs because this was what they were going to need when they got off. For sacrifice and for food because it's here that he lifts the restriction on eating animals because the earth is not producing what it used to produce. Everything was vegetarian before the flood. Now we have omnivores and carnivores and herbivores. And it says, Yahweh smelled the soothing aroma of this burnt offering on the altar. And he said to himself, I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth. I will never again curse the ground because of man. Why would you curse the ground because of man again? Because the intent of his heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done. As I have done. There will not be a flood again, but there will be a fire. He engulfed the world in water once, he's going to engulf the world in flame at the end. The only thing to rival the creation of speaking it into existence will be the uncreation when he turns loose the atoms and everything goes into dissolution. That day is coming. You want to be on the right side of that. And that is what all of this has been about. That's what all of this is recorded in Genesis to lead us to understand. Man's heart is still the same. Get off the ark, man's heart is still the same. He said, I still see it. So when Ham does what he does and disgraces his father, and at the end of his life, when his father gives the blessing to his sons or whatever's going on there in the end of chapter nine, he curses Canaan, the descendant of Ham. They've just gotten off the ark when this stuff starts happening. There was no break in it. You would think they got off and, no, depravity is so bad, it is so full and so total in the person and in every person that it affected these people immediately as they got off the ark. When you come to Genesis chapter 11, okay, so we set the stage, they know two things. They know that they're offering a burnt offering this way, they understand there's something to do with that, that God will accept, it's a soothing aroma to God. an offering of thanks or a guilt offering, and they know that they are to spread out and subdue the earth. Chapter 11 comes. We've read about Nimrod, this great hunter before God, this one that effectively thumbed his nose at the Creator. In chapter 11, We know this is Nimrod because it told us already that Nimrod began his kingdom with the city of Babel. This is where the city of Babel begins and where it gets its name is Genesis chapter 11. The whole earth had the same language and the same words. Can you imagine that? If you have relatives from another part of the country and you bring them here, you have to translate for them. And if you bring one of us from here to some places, you're gonna have to translate for me too. And we all speak English. This says that they all had the same language and the same words. The Hebrew expression is they had the same lip and the same tongue, same vernacular, same everything. And it happened as they journeyed east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. Then they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and they had tar for mortar. And they said, come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach heaven. And let us make for ourselves a name, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth. Class, what were the two things that they knew that they needed to do? The one was to spread out and subdue the earth. Why were they to do that? Because man was created in the image of God. God created man in his own image, male and female, he created them. And then he gave them dominion. That's the next verse in Genesis 1. You're to be my image bearer. You're to be the one that brings, that tells the world about who I am. The heavens declare the glory of God to us. We declare the glory of God to the creation. That's the responsibility in the creation mandate, in the dominion mandate. First thing they do is they found a place to settle. And they were pretty industrious in verse three. They figured out how to bake bricks and they're going to make edifices that last a very, very long time. They figured that out as soon as they got off the ark. These are very intelligent, very industrious people. I don't believe in evolution, but I do believe in devolution because we're getting worse. We're not getting better. And smartphones are not helping that. In verse four. The image bearers of God to fill and subdue the earth for His glory say, let us build for ourselves a city. Let us make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered on the face of the planet. But that's what God told them to do. The first thing that they do is the exact opposite of what God told them to do. Why? Because of total depravity. Because of the depravity in the heart of man. They didn't have to be taught to do this. This is what naturally came out of them. There was nobody there to tell them to do that. It's what they wanted to do. people left to themselves will always wind up in a depraved sinful condition and God must intervene because they will not intervene for themselves then let us build a tower to the heavens the idea is let us build this exceedingly tall building that we might worship the stars we might worship our own way that's not what God told him to do Later, he's gonna tell the Israelis, when you build an altar, you build it out of dirt, or you build it out of stones that you just pick up. Because if you do something to decorate it, you're going to profane it. The dirt is holier than you, and those ugly rocks in a pile are holier than you. You burn the offering on that. These people said, we'll burn the offering on the edifice that we build to show our value, to show our greatness. Friends, they just got off the ark. All of their abilities, all of their intellects, all of their passions were put to work against God. How does God respond? Verse 7. In verse 6, Yahweh came down, in verse 5, to see the tower which the sons of Mammon had built, and He said, Behold, they are one people, and they have the same language, and this is what they have begun to do. So now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come let us go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another's language. So Yahweh scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth and they stopped building the city. Therefore the name was called Babel because there Yahweh confused the language of the whole earth and from there Yahweh scattered them over the face of the whole earth. How do we have different people groups with different ways of life and different languages all over the earth? Right there. Why? Because God said, I told you to subdue the earth and you're going to do it. Because I'm going to send my son to secure a people for me from every tribe, nation, and tongue. And I need tribes and nations and languages all over the planet because I'm going to come and save this totally depraved group of humans. I'm going to save a group of people for myself from this totality of sinful people. He sends a judgment on this slap in his face, this being a mighty hunter before the face of God. I'm going to do this, and I don't care who's watching. And God comes in judgment. But he comes in judgment, just like he said back in chapter 9, in less than a flood, he confounds their languages and sends them out. I wonder how he chose whose languages to make what. I wonder how many families had to split up because of it. It wasn't intended to be a blessing, it was intended to be a judgment that carried out the plan of God. The city gets its name from that, and yet we see the depravity of man in the face of the holiness of God, and we see the restraint and the grace of God all throughout this. I need you to understand that the gospel is more than you think it is until you understand how bad you really are. God's not trying to come into your life to give you a little bit of help to get you over the hump. God is stepping into the realm of dead men and bringing them to life and making them his own possession, unsolicited, unearned, irresistible. And he saves them to belong to him in perpetuity because he has to do that. Otherwise, no one would ever be saved because this is where we all begin. We serve a great God. I really would love to get into this inevitable conclusion of depravity from Genesis 18 and 19, but that'll be next week. Some astounding things here. Man is not getting better, he's getting worse. But the Savior is still the same. He has only ever been able to save radically depraved, radically corrupt people. And he is still in the business of doing that. And you say, well, how do you know, preacher? Because I'm one. And if you're a believer here today, you're one. And if you're not, I hope today you will become one. If you stand, we're going to pray. We have a fellowship to get to back there. Sounds like some of them are hungry. Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you that you pull no punches. You paint the picture with great clarity. And it is a clear picture that we need to see, that we might see ourselves as who we are, desperately in need of a Savior, and to see you as who you are, this matchless, immeasurably glorious, immeasurably gracious and merciful God that would save the likes of us. I pray that these truths will be implanted deeply in our hearts this day that you would encourage your people that you would evangelize those that you were calling and bring them to Christ as they see the beauty of the Savior that would do that for the likes of us. As we move at this time of fellowship and food, Lord, pray that you will bless our time together and be honored in it. We pray it all in Jesus's name. Amen.