Let me invite you to take your Bibles this morning and turn with me to the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. This morning we are in Genesis chapter six. We're continuing our morning sermon series through this first and great book of the Bible. This morning we're going to be looking at verses one to eight. We are coming to the account of the flood that we're going to see in and Genesis chapters six through eight. But let me give you just a brief reminder of what we've done at least the last few weeks. The last few weeks we have been looking at the two seeds or the two lines. that God himself referred to back in Genesis chapter 3 when he said to the serpent who led Adam and Eve into sin, to Satan, I will put enmity between your seed and her seed, the seed of the woman. And what Genesis goes on to do then is to trace these two lines or to trace these two seeds, the seed of the serpent, the seed of the woman, the godly seed, the ungodly seed, or as we've seen the last couple of weeks, the seed or the line of Cain, the ungodly seed, and the line of Seth. That's what we've seen in chapters 5 and chapter 6. I'm sorry, chapter four and chapter five. Four, the line of Cain, we saw it culminating in Lamech, that man who killed a young man, maybe even a lad, it may have even been a boy, the text, the Hebrew could be read in that way, and boasted of it, because he wronged me. And we saw the godly line. The line of Seth last week in chapter five, that ultimately leads to Noah, and then, of course, beyond, Noah's line beyond. Pick that up later on. That's the context in which we come now to the account of the flood. Noah, of course, is going to be a key figure in the coming chapters. We see growing sin. We see God's response. here in our passage this morning. So let's look together at our passage today. Genesis chapter 6 verses 1 to 8. Hear the word of the Lord. When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. And the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. 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 man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created. from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. For I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Thus far, God's holy, inspired and inerrant word, may he write its truth on our hearts this morning. Let's go to God again in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you that you, in your word, reveal yourself to us, but you also reveal us to us. Our God, we pray that you would teach us and you would even rebuke us and correct us in this time together this morning. We pray, oh God, that we would be greatly encouraged by your hope and by your truth. Draw near now as we, your servants, are listening to you. Speak, we pray, through Christ our Lord. Amen. Many of us in our world today feel a sense of growing corruption, growing sinfulness all around us, a growing sense of decadence. While sin has always been sin, there certainly seems to be something different about these times in which we live, especially in our country. We've seen over the last 30, 40 years different standards for what's shown on television, different language, different things revealed in various parts of the body, different activities that never would have been shown on television or in movies even 30, 40 years ago. We see a growing acceptance of things in our society today that were not accepted in previous generations. You know, the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 1 at the end of the chapter in verse 32 says that we really see the height of human sin when people not only do the things that God says are wrong, but who also approve of those who do those things. Of course, we know people have always been doing certain things. Our world and our age is no different with regard to engaging in certain sins. But now we've got a society that says not only is it OK, we oftentimes hear today, well, that's good. It's good for you to do those things. And so there is a different tenor in our world today. a different tenor of a growing sense of corruption and decadence. And certainly we see here in Genesis chapter 6 a picture of increasing corruption. In fact, that's how the ASV titles this section, verses 1 to 8, increasing corruption on earth. We're going to see here that Moses, the author of Genesis, ties it to one key factor. It's not the only factor, but one key factor is highlighted here, but a growing corruption. And yet, as we're going to see, the human heart, because of the fall, is and has always, since the fall, been sinful and will be sinful. We see that clearly here in Genesis 6, 5, and we're also going to see it in another passage that's going to come just a few chapters later. But hold on to that for right now. There's always been sin. The human heart is sinful. Sin marks the human heart and the human race now as then. So we're gonna see a picture of sin. We're gonna see a picture of growing corruption. And we're also gonna see God's response. It's a response of judgment. And though we don't see a reference to the flood in our verses one to eight, we know that's what's coming in the passage that follows. I'm gonna look at this section this morning, breaking it up into the two halves. verses 1 to 4 and then verses 5 to 8. And in both of these sections, the halves of our chapter this morning, we see both sin and God's response. Sin is described a little bit differently, God's response is described a little bit differently, but that's what we see. That's the pattern in our passage this morning. So let's begin with the first one, verses 1 to 4. And really what Moses begins with here is a key factor in growing corruption. That's what's highlighted here in this passage. And as many of you may be aware of, Genesis 6 verses 1 to 4 is one of the most, for some people, troubling and one of the most debated passages in all of scripture. And a few of you said, I can't wait to hear what you have to say on Genesis 6, 1 to 4. I can't wait either. There have been two main interpretations. The first is when we see a description in verse two of the sons of God who saw that the daughters of men were attractive and took as wives any they chose. One reading is that these are angelic beings and in particular fallen angelic beings. This has been a very popular interpretation. Many of the early church fathers interpreted the passage in this way. We see many interpreters today that hold this position. And then the The interpretation continues through this union of these angelic beings and the daughters of man, human women, we see that the Nephilim come, these giants who are referred to in verse 4. So the Nephilim, in this interpretation, are the result of this union between the sons of God, angelic beings, and human women. oftentimes seen as, in some ways, as kind of semi-divine creatures, if you will. Now, one thing that supports this interpretation is that in the book of Job, we see a few times a reference to the sons of God who gather around the throne of God, and they are angelic beings, and they're specifically called sons of God, the same language that we see here in Genesis chapter 6, verse 2. But I believe there are numerous problems with this first interpretation. Let me give you three quickly. This whole thing isn't gonna turn into a theology lesson, but I do want you to wrestle and know where I'm coming from in my interpretation of Genesis 6, 1-4. First of all, there is no evidence anywhere in scripture or elsewhere that angels are able to reproduce. and have children, or angelic beings are able to reproduce and have children. Secondly, we see the language here in verse two, they took as wives any they chose. That's the standard language in scripture for marriage. And God's word tells us that angels don't marry and are not given in marriage. They don't get married, they don't take wives for themselves. We also see that God's wrath here is poured out, not on angels, but on human beings. So three major problems. I believe what we've got here in Genesis chapter six, this interpretation goes back to, in my view, the greatest interpreters in history, Augustine, Chrysostom, the Reformers, and many since. And I believe what we have here in Genesis chapter six is perhaps even more troubling. And it's this. We've got the line of Seth, the sons of God, marrying, taking wives from the ungodly line. The sons of God taking wives from the ungodly line. This interpretation fits the context better. Because we've already been looking at the line of Cain and the line of Seth, and that's what leads into to this passage this morning, it fits the context. We often see sonship in scripture, the sons of God are the people of God. And that's what we've got here. The godly line intermarrying with the ungodly line. The language that's used here, they took any they chose, is an indication of lack of spiritual discretion. We see here choosing based on worldly standards. What's the worldly standard that's highlighted here? The sons of God saw the daughters of men were attractive. She's pretty. Earthly standards, human standards for choosing a spouse. Remember a couple weeks ago we saw that in Lamech. His two wives had names that reflected physical beauty and he named his daughter a name that reflected physical beauty. That's the ungodly line. That's the focus of the ungodly line. And what happens when the people of God, when the godly line intermarries with the ungodly line, the result is that the godly line is corrupted. that affects the ability to raise godly children, godly offspring. Israel, of course, was tempted when they entered the promised land to intermarry with the nations around them, and God warned them, don't do that, don't intermarry. And when they come back into the promised land after they've been in exile, what do they do? They take wives from the surrounding nations, from the surrounding peoples. And it's a problem. We see it in both Ezra and Nehemiah. And both of those great men need to correct God's people for it. It was a problem. It was always a temptation. God's people are to be salt and light in the world. And when we're compromised, when the people of God are compromised, we fail to be that. And what happens? Not just are our lives affected, the lives of our children affected, but society's affected. Because we fail to be salt and light in a dark world that needs preservation. This is one of the ways, as Dr. Currid points out, of the serpent, the ways of Satan. We saw one way, murder, in chapter four. We see another way here in chapter six, seduction. Being seducted to what's attractive in the world. Now let me say a word about these Nephilim here in verse four. I don't claim this morning to be a Nephilim expert. I've not done archeological study of these Nephilim and all that kind of stuff. Notice one thing, the Nephilim, probably some kind of big people, giants, but notice verse four tells us that the Nephilim were on the earth already when the sons of God intermarried with the ungodly line. That's what the text tells us here. The Nephilim are not the product of that union. They were on the earth already, and they continue to remain on the earth afterwards. We also see at the end of chapter four, sorry, at the end of verse four, a reference to these mighty men of old, the men of renown. Again, if you look in context here, at least as Dr. Belcher puts it in his commentary, These would have been men who were known by their wicked and violent exploits. These weren't the Nephilim themselves. The Nephilim, as Dr. Belcher points out, had a reputation for fierceness. And so what we have here is a sense of wickedness and violence on the earth. They're men of renown because they go out to do things that people will remember them by, audacious, typically murderous kinds of activities. But God responds. In the midst of all this, God responds, verse 3. The Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years. My spirit will not content. In other words, God's long suffering will come to an end. This language to 120 years could actually be a reference to one of two things. It could be a reference to God saying that man has 120 years left to repent before I bring the flood. Or it could be God saying, remember all those long years that people used to live? I'm shortening that now. Part of God's punishment, part of God's judgment. The blessing of long life is now shortened. Well, after the service last week, I don't want to embarrass him, but Doug Frazier came up to me and said, I don't have a problem with living a long time. I just don't want to be having children at the age some of them were. You're not gonna live that long anymore. It's shortened now, perhaps, the text says. But the warning here is not to be compromised, not to be corrupted by the allures of the world, especially in marriage. The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, only in the Lord. We join together those who are only in the Lord. believers in the living God? How, if our hearts are set on God and we seek Him, how can we be united with one who does not share that? The only thing that says is that He is not first in our lives and in our hearts. The only thing. In fact, He's probably way down the list. We need to teach our children perhaps exhort one another about our own standards. Marriage, relationships, there's nothing wrong with an attractive spouse. I don't discourage marrying an attractive spouse. There are a lot of attractive people in this church, a lot of attractive couples. Nothing wrong with that. but our one driving factor is not what someone looks like. Neither can it be things like emotion and love. We need to warn our children about dating unbelievers because it's so easy to get emotionally attached to someone. Money. They aim for money. I'm sure you know people who have done that. The great commentator, Matthew Henry, by the way, who takes my view of Genesis 6, 1-4, which I just had to take his view. Matthew Henry says this, that the bad will sooner debauch the good than the good reform the bad. That's the way it works. That's the way it works. And our children are also affected by that. So here we see sin growing, and in many ways it's tied to one thing in verses one to four, the intermarrying of the godly seed, the godly line with the ungodly. But then secondly, in verses five to eight, we see this sweeping description of human sin Look at the language at the beginning of verse five, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. You remember when we saw that word saw earlier, when was it back in chapter one, especially at the end of chapter one, when when it when the text reads, the Lord saw all that he created and it was good. And here the Lord sees and it's bad. It's a bad picture. He sees sin. He sees the wickedness of man, it's great on the earth that, excuse me, every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. James Montgomery Boyce says we see three things here about the nature of sin. The first is it's internal, it's internal, it is of the heart, and so it affects the whole person. Now, when you read that word heart, don't think, as we do today, the heart is the place of our emotions. The heart in scripture is basically the whole person. The essence of a person. It's the center of our thoughts and our emotions. It's the inner being, basically. The heart, the inner person is corrupted here, it's internal. By the way, this is a good warning for us and a good reminder, God sees the heart. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. God sees the heart. It's internal, this sin is. Secondly, it's pervasive. The language here, every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil. It's pervasive, every, only. Sin affects every one of our thoughts, every one of our intentions. Some say, well, people do good, people outside of Christ can do good things, and that is true in one sense, but are they truly pure? Are they done for the glory of God? That's the standard of what is pleasing in God's sight. It's pervasive. Every intention, only evil, and it's continuous, third, continually, all the time, the text says here. There's no break for the sinful human heart. Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 17, nine, the heart is deceitful and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Who can understand it? This is a clear statement of what theologians historically have called total depravity. Total depravity. And I've said to you in the past that I'm not actually in love with that term itself because I think it's easily misunderstood. The term total depravity doesn't mean that everyone is as bad as they can possibly be. What it means is that every part of us is affected by sin. Every part of us. And so every part of our lives and every part of society. Now, it might be tempting to think, well, we have all these bad people on the earth. And God saw that every intention of their hearts and the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually. And then God brought the flood and he wiped them all out. And that did away with sin. Well, turn over a couple of chapters to chapter eight. We see in verse 20 that Noah builds an altar and he offers a sacrifice there. But look at chapter 8, verse 21. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man. I'll never bring a flood again. For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Now, it's not the full statement that we see back in chapter 6, verse 5, but it's very close and it gets across the same idea. The intention of the heart is evil. And even from youth. Here we have a description of the human condition. The basic human condition. Sinful. We sang this from Psalm 51 today. In sin, we're brought into the world. A sinful nature that goes after its own ways. But the good news, brothers and sisters, in Christ is the heart is desperately wicked to this extent only apart from the grace of God and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. said this in our sermon on the doctrines of grace. One of the implications of the doctrine of total depravity is that we we cannot turn to God. Well, those who experience the grace of God and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit are able to do that. There's a transformation that that takes place. We always have sin, but there's a transformation that that takes place. Paul in Romans 7 tells us that we will always sin. The good that he wants to do, he doesn't do. And the evil that he doesn't want to do, that he does. And he could say right there in Romans 7, I know that no good thing dwells in me. That is in my flesh or that is in my sinful nature. And that nature hangs on. But interestingly, right there in the middle of Romans 7, the Apostle Paul says, I don't understand what I do. I don't understand this thing that I don't want to do that I do. Why? Because at his core now in Christ, he is a new creation. He's a transformed being. And so he can say, I don't get it, I don't understand it. He struggles with sin, but he doesn't understand it because he's a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is our great hope, the powerful, transforming work of God and of the spirit of God in our hearts and in our lives. But here we see this sweeping description of human sin, and it looks very bleak. And we also see God's response. We see in verses six and seven, the text tells us the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and had grieved him to his heart. Now, when we read this language that God is sorry or that God repents, sometimes this Hebrew verb is translated that God relents. Don't think that God is basically saying, I wish I hadn't done that. As if somehow now God is saying, you know, that was a bad idea. That's not the point. In fact, we see very similar language in 1 Samuel chapter 15. We see it twice. The first time is in verse 11, where God says, I regret. It's the same Hebrew verb that we see here. I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments. But then if you go farther in the chapter, We read these words in verse 29, and also, the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret. Well, what is it? Does God regret or does He not regret? Of course, what we have here is what we call an anthropomorphism, or perhaps better, anthropopathism. What's that mean? A human description of God or a human description, papathism, of God's feelings or God's emotions. Not that God changes his mind or says, boy, I wish I hadn't done that, but God changes his course. The course changes. There's a momentous change that's going to take place when we see this language. We see the interplay here, especially in 1 Samuel chapter 15 of God's sovereign decree over against a description of God interacting with his creatures in time. The word repents. itself, by the way, can even mean in line with how the ESV translates verse six here in Genesis six, it can mean to grieve, to have sorrow, to mourn. And God at some level, he's not ruled by human emotions the way we are, but God does have some kind of emotional life like we do. That's somewhat debated, and I'm not going to get into it this morning. But God grieves here. He has sorrow. Again, his emotions are not exactly like ours, but in some way they're similar. God is grieved by your sin. By my sin. Are you? Do you have a flippant attitude about sin? Do you deny your sin? Do you grieve over it the way God does? God grieves over the sin of man. And the second response, and we're going to see this laid out more fully in the next few chapters, is I will blot him out. God is going to bring the flood. God is going to bring judgment. And yet this passage ends with a word of hope. But Noah, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah is going to preserve humanity from destruction. Noah is going to preserve the godly line. This, by the way, is the first time that we see this particular Hebrew word appear in the Old Testament. It's a word that can be translated favor, but it can also be translated grace. Grace. We've seen instances of God's grace. God was gracious to Adam and Eve. He didn't treat them as their sins deserve. God, in one sense, was gracious to Cain. He put a mark on him so that he would not be killed by someone who found him. But the first time in scripture we see this word grace. Was Noah any less a sinner than the other sinners on the earth? No, 821 tells us that Noah was still a sinner. The events after the flood tell us Noah was still a sinner, but he found grace, or perhaps we could put it better, grace found him. Grace found him. God was gracious to Noah. Can we still sing that hymn today? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. God's grace, His unmerited favor, more than that, His favor in the face of absolutely demerits. Nothing to commend ourselves to God, nothing in our hands we bring. No matter how hard we strive, no matter how much we cry, could my tears know respite? No. My zeal, no rest but now, sorry, could my tears forever flow. Nothing we bring can be acceptable in God's sight. God must give us his grace and give us his favor. But here we see sin. And here we see God's response. And as Derek Kidner puts it, this is God's way with evil. Kidner says God does not meet evil with half measures, but with the simultaneous extremes of judgment and salvation. He doesn't meet sin with half measures, but with the simultaneous extremes of judgment and salvation. And what's the good news? We see both of those in the Lord Jesus Christ. God's judgment on sin poured out on Christ, but also there we see the mercy of God. Salvation for those who know God's grace and who trust in Christ and who Christ alone for salvation. Great Puritan John Flavel said this, how deep is the pollution of sin that nothing but the blood of Christ Nothing but the blood of the infinite God, man can cleanse it. The pollution of sin is so deep. That only Christ. That's the good news of the gospel. The hope in Noah. Is going to lead to hope in Jesus Christ in Luke chapter three. The genealogy of Christ runs through whom? Miller. Christ is the one who redeems from our sins. Praise be to God. Let's pray. Our Father, how we praise you for your grace and goodness to us in our lives. We are so undeserving, oh God, we daily sin, we hourly sin against you. Perhaps minute by minute. And yet, O God, you are gracious to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you would turn our hearts fully to you, to love, to seek, to follow you. We praise you for your grace, that grace that changes, that grace that transforms. Make us more and more to hate our sin and to love your righteousness. It's in Christ's name that we pray.