One of my great thrills is being able to sing together with the body of Christ. Thank you for that. It is true that all we have is Christ. And if that is true, it's still enough. It is enough for eternity. It is enough for our own lives. I invite you to turn to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 6. For many of us who have been around the church for a long time, we know the story of Noah. We've got images in our minds about Noah. Some of you who have decided to travel down to Kentucky maybe have new and updated images in your mind about what an ark looks like and about that time of the flood and you have had An encounter maybe would be a term that I would use. We know about and have learned about these things from when we were young. The whole aspect of Noah and the ark and the animals and the flood, these images that come to our mind when we read scripture probably are not full enough, but they at least get us leaning in the right direction. And the story of Noah, is a wonderful story. It's a story that kids love. There's all the animals aspect, and just all of those things are something that very much are loved. But I found it interesting over the last couple of weeks, one of the things that I do just to get myself fired up, and the world definitely, in terms of social media, provides me no lack of that, is reading people and their problems with the flood. Some of those came around, even their problems with the ark encounter, and the problems with the whole story. of the flood and one thing that pops up the most, it seems like, one of the biggest complaints is, wait a minute, we're celebrating the story of this family and we're still in the story of this boat and this group of animals that gets selected to be able to go on this great cruise, but everyone else dies. The Ark is surrounded by whether it will be thousands locally or thousands and thousands of people drowning to death. That doesn't sound like a very nice story. One said, literally, that sounds like the most awful story there has ever been. How do you celebrate that? I believe Genesis chapter 6 is one of the great chapters to give us a great reminder of the perspective of God and the responsibilities of man. We get right to Noah. And sometimes we even skip the first few verses of Genesis chapter 6 because they're a little crazy. And in our world around us, I'm just going to let you know, there's some people that have written some pretty crazy stuff about Genesis chapter 6 and Nephilim and giants and sons of God. and daughters of men." And we will address that a little bit. I think when it comes to our time in God's Word, sometimes it's important to say, this is what it says. Let's be careful not to add to what it says or definitely not change what it says. But the story and the reminder in God's Word as we are going to jump into the life of Noah and spend a number of Sundays on Noah is this reminder that God, as he sees the world, is seeing the ultimate in terms of evil. The ultimate in terms of violence. The ultimate in terms of corruption. We rightfully celebrate grace. We rightfully celebrate God's provision and God's continuing on. We would even say God's fulfillment. Because God, even though he says, I want to end everything, had just promised a couple chapters earlier that a seed of add a seed of the woman, actually the seed of Eve would crush the head of the serpent. So this morning, we're going to be reminded of just how bad mankind can get, but also just how good and just a righteous man can be. And that is what Noah is called. I invite you to look at verses 8 and 9 of Genesis chapter 6 as a reminder, right really kind of in the middle of this Wonderful chapter. Says there, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. Lord, what a testimony we have of Noah. a just man, perfect in his generations, one who walked with God, one who did what he was commanded. He found grace in your sight. Lord, may we be able to have the same thing said about us, but not by us or not even by others, but God, that we would be able to understand that we have such a great opportunity through the gift of your son, Jesus Christ, to be declared justified. The opportunity that we have within our time here on earth, within our own generations, Lord, to walk with you, to be a testimony for you, to be a recipient of and proclaimer of grace. And Lord, what has always been and will always be wicked and perverse generations, as long as sin is upon this earth. Help us with that, Lord. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. So let me ask you, just how bad can humanity get? If I encourage you to try to think through and just kind of burrow down into what is the worst of the worst that someone or some people can do, That would not be a very positive situation. Maybe you might even think of some things that someone has done to you or things that we read about that people are doing to others. In an era of so much information, there are things that we probably have good, it's good that we have access to, but we don't even consider. There are times that evil and atrocities come across our eyeballs and even come run through our head for a moment, but then they're gone. If we were to stop and dwell and even try to, to try to talk about what it would mean to try to do something just or righteous in light of the things that happen, sexual exploitation of children, the people who are taken. people who are killed, when we even, if even we tried to put together some of the awfulest of things that have happened through humanity, we recognize that those are only the things that are public, that we know about. What are the things that happen behind the scenes? What are the things that happen that are not reported? And what are the things that happen not just at, whether we would say a national level or a religious level or a political level or a war type of level, but the things that happen in communities? I was just Kind of walking through this, not a fun walk, just what are some of the things that, some of the mass murders and the mass things that have taken place. It was interesting to even read about one of the first kind of confirmed mass murders that took place. And it was actually in Camden, New Jersey, where a gentleman who had actually come out of World War I, definitely had major issues going on, but was very aware of something. He kept lists of every wrong that every person in his community had ever done to him. And then one night he came to his back, backyard and there was a fence and a gate that had been removed and he said that was it and he got out his gun in a matter of just literally about 20 minutes just walked down the street and took the lives of 13 people. The community, the police didn't even know how to respond to this before there was any type of response in terms of that. just about the evil and even hearing he is one of those few that actually, they lived, they took him alive and hearing his talking through it saying, they always said, he said, I feel bad, but he was a person who had no feelings whatsoever. What do we do when communities are affected? It was interesting that article was talking about how that's something that really hasn't been publicized. The person writing the article said, you can hardly find it when you Google it. Yet if you go to that place, you can meet people that it was their grandparents who can still tell the story and can still point to the places that that man walked down the street and took the lives of children and men. And in some cases, people that just either approached him or drove by and he went up to the car and shot them. And however many times throughout the history of the world, atrocities have taken place. Genocide, massacre, slaughter, pillage, rape, These things have been much more common than just war and revolution. We can't even figure out probably the number of the amount of babies both born and newborn throughout history who have been killed. Government killing is specialized in many times about killing those who are even the unborn. Infanticide is something that almost every culture or evil culture as it has digressed has done more of and more of. In Greece, in 200 BC, the murder of female infants was so common, it is said that among 6,000 families living in one area, no more than 1% had two daughters. One person quoting it said that unwanted children were always found around being thrown in rivers, dung heaps, and cesspools. Wild animals were everywhere feeding upon children as part of their daily sustenance in the streets and cities of Greece. Children's bodies were prey for birds, food for wild beasts, too. Thus, many cities started to become more and more deserted and barren because family life was disappearing. In fact, the law for Greece even demanded that imperfect children must be killed. In fact, there's a text in ancient Greece called How to Recognize a Newborn that is Worth Rearing. But classical Greece is not the only one. author that had kind of done the research basically estimated that 84 societies spanning from the Renaissance to our time have authorized and actually promoted the killing of defective children. There have been religious persecutions and massacres that have taken place. In my fun reading for this last couple of weeks, even reading through, I learned about the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre where there was a targeted mob of assassinations directed at, they were the Huguenots, or referred to as French Calvinist Protestants. And it's interesting that this, when at first the early readings say that there were, with that and beyond there were hundreds of thousands, but as time progresses, the number keeps dropping. As you look at different time articles, it says it was this many thousands and this many thousands. Some have said it started, they said it was in the hundreds of thousands of what had started there, but now it's down a little bit farther. We obviously are very familiar with the atrocities that took place with the German army. Even those who were a part of the German army who were the special unit and their task was to fight, fight probably is the wrong word, to kill ideological opponents. It says this, they were required to kill all at that time communist opponents, communist functionaries, Jewish people holding party and state functions and other radical elements. The main role of these units was to massacre the Jewish communities. To begin with, only Jewish men were murdered, but soon women and children were also being killed. The largest single massacre was an execution of over 30,000 Jews in Babi Yar at the end of September 1941. It is estimated that this use, they were called the Einstein Gruppen. I know I didn't say that right. They were aided by local militia in coordination with the army. It is estimated that that set of units slaughtered 1.25 million Jews in all, as well as hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens. Probably, though, the greatest mass murderer of all time would be Mao Zedong of China. We know this. Mao is one that has killed millions and millions. It is interesting how many people want to downplay that. In fact, even those who list major genocides want to say, well, it's hard to say how many he killed. Maybe he was only responsible for thousands. Or maybe he was responsible for 65 million. Does it really matter? Yet he's still celebrated in China. You can go there and see his picture up there, and they could celebrate the work that he'd done, and at least single-handedly being responsible for the killing of millions and millions of millions of those killed, tortured, summarily killed, and many of those who died also because of starvation. How bad can humanity get. And even at the individual level, I just heard a testimony just the other day of a young person who was being, let's use the term, she was being groomed to change her gender. She was being influenced as I think it was a sixth grader by a fellow sixth grade Satanist who was reminding her that God was unfair and to kick Satan out of heaven. And she has a right to decide what she does with herself. And then she discussed the different teachers at that level in her elementary school encouraging her to pursue changing things and basically making her, in a sense, a hero. This was a young person who was given a testimony of the process of detransitioning and realizing that she was made in the image of God and made the way God wanted her to be made. She commends her parents for saying, no, this is how we named you. This is how you were born. We are going to stick to that. And the person who was interviewing her said, hey, can you How can we pray for you?" And she said, just pray for me. I'm trying to get done with school early because the difficulty of being at school now as one who has actually made a decision to not transition, to not be who I am not made to be, is so great. I'm trying to get done early. She talks about the evil manipulation of adults and others in her life. Does God care? Does God know? Does God see? What about the good that is out there? Genesis chapter 6, we come to a place in the history of the world where I think you can make a very sound case that this is the high point of the population of the earth. And what is taking place here is we're going to see is what sin always does. Sin is something that deceives unto compromise and encourages compromise unto sin and corruption and encourages sin and corruption unto destruction. And as we look at this important chapter, and I know all the chapters of the Inspired Word are important, But as God gives this overview of what has taken place in these 10 generations from what you have on the earth, Cain's generations and Seth's generations, all the way to this point in time, we also see his plan amidst the state of the race. The first thing we see, as you see here, is God's overview. Look with me, and we'll read down for a few verses here. We'll kind of read it first here, just through verses 1 through 5. It says, Now it came to pass, when man began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. There were giants 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 who were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." As we get an overview of humanity, the first thing that we see is this evilness that is taking place within the race of humanity. There are major questions that can pop up and maybe you've even interacted with in terms of, especially the first four verses of Genesis chapter 6. When I was attending Bible college, there was always a little joke that it seemed like everyone always kind of wants to get back to Genesis chapter 6. In terms of, well, what about the angels? What about the Nephilim? What about the giants? What about the demons? All those type of things. In fact, even in our day-to-day, there are those who podcast and put things out that their whole world and their whole message is wrapped around what they know about angels, what they know about the different angels throughout the Bible and even in extra biblical material. And really, their angelology is bigger than their salvation theology. Their angelology is almost bigger than their Christology. Their angelology is bigger than everything else. And it's all about those things, really based on about five verses. There have been those throughout history who have really misused and twisted these verses. There was an old, not super popular, although they tried to hype a big movie about Noah, which wrapped a little bit around these verses and the Nephilim and was also based on a lot of real false teaching and cultic stuff that has been around throughout history. What's going on here? Well, there are a number of options. I think there are times in scripture where we're able to say, first and foremost, where you stand in terms of these things is not necessarily going to affect the fact that you are a sinner in need of salvation, who Christ is, the fundamentals of the faith. But some of the questions here, again, are these demons? Are these fallen angels? Who are the Nephilim, who are these giants in terms of that? Is this, and there are many, Thurman Wisdom be one, there's others, there's a lot that would say and lean more towards this is actually a reference to the line of Seth and the line of Cain. Where you have those who are of the line of Seth are intermarrying with those who are of the line of Cain. There's a lot of debate. Some of the debate is difficult because the reference sons of God is used in other places of scripture to refer to angels. So it's either you have angels here. Another possibility is there's really powerful men of renown, human rulers. We have to remember, genetically, we're really at the top of the gene pool. These people who are living super long lives, these people who we really still don't even know, the amount of times, maybe if you're paying attention, the amount of times people aren't having kids until they're in their hundreds. So we don't even know what the process was in terms of family building. I think Enoch is one of the young guys that has a kid when he's younger, actually. And so, how long were they living? How large were they growing? How big were they? They're all going to be eliminated here by the end of this chapter, yet you have giants again after the flood. And those ones, they're not of demonic activity. Are these the godly descendants again intermarrying? And I think there are important things to go with here. I think some things to keep in mind, just to kind of, I'd say, put them in your pocket and then don't go too long on this. Christ, it appears, says that when it came to angels, they were not those who were given to sexuality or to bearing children or to marrying. Did that apply to, is he just talking about holy angels? Because you also have one that, on the other side of this, when we get to Sodom and Gomorrah, you have men who are trying to have sexual relations with those who are angels in some type of human form. They may not have been able to do that. We also have, within scripture, the times that the days of Noah are referred to, there are oftentimes connections with Satan, fallen angels, and demonic activity. Even early Hebrew interpretation were pretty much unanimous in holding the view that these were fallen angels. Even Jude appears to refer to that there's a possibility that these ones that cohabited with human beings were the ones who were cast away or put into darkness or chained away. But at least we have to stop and ask this question. Because I've asked the question, how bad can humanity get? How bad can humanity get side by side with demonic activity? Let's add that to the mix. Because whether you want to admit it or not, Satan and demonic activity is active and alive in the world today. We're just not good at even considering that. We're not good at identifying things that are demonic. You want to have a good kind of sit down, talk through, walk through. Maybe kind of, what would we do if we were to put together a little list of these are some things we should look for to determine whether or not something is demonic? Because demonic activity continues. It is not something to be trifled with. It is not something to be messed with. It is something to be wary of. It is something that the best defense against it is the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and the righteousness of Christ within us. Otherwise, you are just a rebel, lost, and exposed to Satan, the world, and your own flesh. We know there were giants. One person actually, one I saw pointed out, it may be just a description of overall humanity. There were giants on the earth. They were huge. They were big. They were monstrous in light of what, again, let's not forget who's writing this. You have Moses writing this. You have the children of Israel. And who are they worried about? The giants in Canaan. And even that interaction of recognizing that and he's saying this was the way that men were. So many times I've gone over it, and Genesis 6-3 is usually a kind of a verse that's kind of like, everyone's going to die 120 years, but God is making a statement here. He is saying mankind is not going to live forever. It's almost like God is saying here, this 600, 700, 800, 900 year old living is not going to last. That's going to come to an end. Imagine the most evil demonic person you could possibly think of who is one who has great power and great strength and maybe is even a giant, and that person being able to wreak havoc upon the earth somewhere between 600 to 900 years. Even if we start to do the math, if people are living 500 years plus and whatever, put the minimum birth rate in place, it's hard to even kind of figure out. There are some that say that there could have been 20 billion, upwards of 50 billion people on the planet. Modern people say, well, that is impossible. But we don't really know everything about what was going on back then. But we do know this, God speaks. Verse 5, the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great. This passage doesn't tell us exactly how the giants came to be. I think it's definitely an area that we have to be careful. We've said this before, don't be dogmatic on something the Bible is not dogmatic about. But we shouldn't miss at least one thing that pops out in the passage, the reference to man eight times in the first seven verses. This is not about the giants. This is not necessarily about the sons of God and daughters of men, although we're getting this description of what is going on there, whether it's Cain and Seth, whether it's demonic angels or not, whether it's great, incredible men and all the stories of that or not. We have to be careful trying to world build out of five verses. In verse five, we have to be reminded, and throughout this we have to remind it, the point is man is wicked. And that is where man is at. God and his word are clearly stating the wickedness of men. We should point out, this will be the end of the line of Cain. Cain has existed through 10 plus generations here. And quite possibly part of the reason what was taking place here on the earth was so bad was because of the influence of these Cainites. And even maybe the intermarrying that would have been taking place there. Again, 10 generations of people living 10 times longer than we live today. And there's at least a principle here that part of, sorry, of Satan's plan of deception and destruction always includes bad marriages. That's definitely there. Where Satan wants to encourage people and try to lead people into marriages that are destructive. The godly marrying the ungodly, whether demonic or just ungodly. Seth's line marrying Cain's line or Satan's line marrying Seth's line. Satan wants to take those who are not devoted to God's leading to marry with those who are devoted to God's leading. And anytime a marriage like that takes place, there are so many times it leads to the abandonment of devotion or following God, or at least opens up the possibility or creates an avenue towards it. There are principles God's word gives about that, not even concerning marriage. There are principles that God's word says, Romans chapter 12, verse two, do not be conformed to this world. And 2 Corinthians 14, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. There is a being clean and not being spotted by this. 2 Corinthians 7.1, therefore having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from the filthiness of the flesh and spirit. James 4, adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? 1 John 2.15, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. What God's Word is addressing here and trying to accomplish is this reminder that there is condemnation and judgment and consequences for compromise. First Corinthians 11 32 says, when we are judged, which is what the Bible does to us, we are chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world. That's an important verse because none of us likes being judged. But God's word says when you're being judged, you're being chastened so that you're not condemned with the world. You're being reminded that there's a right way to live. And I love here, we shouldn't just think about what God saw. I think it's important to note this, the fact that God saw. Many people, probably almost all the people in the days of Noah, either thought God was not there or that God did not care. Those are the two lies. He's not there or he doesn't care. And both of those carry with it devastating consequences. Very clearly, God is intimately concerned with the details of mankind, including their lives, their actions, and the every intent of the thoughts of their heart. How bad could man get? Imagine if you had access to every evil thought of every member of humanity at this moment. I like what one commentator said. He said, like a laser beam, the eyes of the Lord were observing not only the activities of the man that he had made, but every intent of their heart. We need to be reminded this morning, God does not just see our actions. He always, not just accurately, exactly discerns the intents of your heart. Even if you can't fully discern the intent of your heart, God knows. Whatever you're thinking, whenever you're thinking it, whatever your intentions are behind it, God is fully aware. God knows my motives. God knows my motivations for why I get up here and preach. God knows your motivations for why you're here in church today. God knows your motivations. There are times, no raised hands, we're Baptist, so we probably won't, okay? How many times have you been doing something right, but the intention of your heart and the attitude of your heart was dirt? God knows that. How many times have you blown it? But the thoughts and intention of your heart was, I'm just trying to please the Lord. God knows that. This is the part of man that we try to do, but we cannot. How hard is it for a court or a judge or a jury or justices to discern intent? I mean, I love sports. How difficult can it be for officials to determine whether or not actions are intentional or not? Usually they try to go with a history. If a person has a history of doing this, then there must be some intentionality that is going on there. To which I would say, well, if we look at the history of what was going on there, God's intentional understanding was right. How evil is the world? How important is it for us to understand and acknowledge the evil in the world? We put ourselves in a risky position when we are not willing to acknowledge evil, wicked, sinful, inaction, and intent. And we say, well, just misunderstood. God's overview is not just about the evilness of man. We also get to see the inner life of God, at least just a little peek because the inner life of God is very complex beyond us. But look at verses 6 and 7, and the Lord was bad. No. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth. Both man and beast, creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them." Lately here in modern times, there's been a little phrase that kind of popped up, probably came a little bit out of a group of dudes called Dude Perfect, but it's this term rage monster. Person who just flies off the handle, angry and all those type of things. And as I said, I was reading some of these very negative aspects about Ark Encounter and answers in Genesis. and young earth creationists, and fundamentalists, and evangelicals, and pretty much most of you sitting in here today, they say, well, this is just a story of God's anger. It was interesting, one of the, because sometimes it's more fun to read the comments than the actual article, one of the people who interacted on one of those put there, you need to go read Genesis 6, because it actually doesn't talk about God's wrath. even though you may think he was all about wrath because of his destruction. Now, I would add to that, God's wrath is always righteous and just. We all misunderstand wrath because we're going with it based on our own wrath or our own rage. When the word of God says that God was sorry and that he was grieved, what that means is, especially if you dig into the original language there, is that he was sorry and grieved. There was a sorrow of what was going on, and we could probably expand on that a little bit, at least thinking God sees what sin does. Whatever you've seen sin do in your life and the lives of those around you, extended family, even people that you've ministered to and with, whatever you see sin doing, God sees all of that in every person's life, clearly, including their thoughts. And he is grieved by that. It's also a reminder that all creation is dependent on God. God can at any time, in any way, say, I will wipe this out and he will be righteous and just and holy. And by the way, it's hard to equate it with our own minds, good. Because the greatest good is the glory of the one who is the greatest God. God was not getting the glory. In fact, it's important to note that God gets glory even in judgment and destruction. Our responsibility as the created ones, we need to make sure we are reminded of that because the more we think of ourselves higher and higher, the more we think of ourselves as little g gods. We are created beings. We are man. Mankind only functions properly when we are acting in accordance with the mandates of the Creator. That's the only way it properly works. We cannot disregard the laws that God has put into place without consequences. Consequences that are built into the world that we live in, the consequence of sin, but also the consequences of a God who judges and disciplines. God here is showing In just a couple of verses, without getting into really hardcore theology, his total omniscience and total omnipresence. He knows everything. He's everywhere. And his response is he is grieved in his heart. What grieves you? Does the sin and the evil grieve you or just make you angry? There is righteous indignation and righteous anger, but let's face it, that's less than a 1% for most of us. Or even maybe we could be righteously angry about something, but we sin in our anger. I would hope that we would grow and recognize that the devastating effects of sin are what should grieve us. Then we see Noah. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God, and Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And here we get Noah. Noah is all across the pages of Scripture. He is referred to 50 times in 11 different books of the Bible. And in Genesis 6-9, we get this first reference to righteous or just. It's the first reference in the Bible. He is righteous or just. Noah's righteousness is mentioned in Ezekiel. We read Hebrews 11 7 and 2 Peter 2 5 as well. He is mentioned multiple times as being one who is righteous or just. And again, we got to make sure that we know and we have a very, very important understanding of theologically what we're talking about here. So I'm going to quote someone that does a way better job in terms of theology than I do in this. Warren Wearsby said this. Noah's righteousness did not come from his good works. His good works came because of his righteousness. And like Abraham, his righteousness was a gift of God in response to his personal faith. Both Abraham and Noah believed God's word and it was counted to them from righteousness. Noah is clearly stated to be one that did this by faith in the book of Hebrews 11. So what did this righteousness look like, and where did it come from? And the answer, it comes by faith, as the word of God says. This is a part of who Noah was, and because he was a man who acted in faith, he was also one who was able to be given the grace of God, and to walk justly before God, and not perfect in terms of he was perfect. The term perfect so often in scripture means complete or whole, but within his generations. He was a saint among sinners. His character is described kind of from the outside in, even though we understand that the walk of a child of God flows from the inside out. I think an important lesson to learn from Noah, and we're going to see more of this as we continue moving through Noah, is Noah is a reminder that solitary faith and goodness is absolutely possible. Be a person of faith, even when nobody else is. Noah stands as uninfected by this worldwide sinful contagion. There is evil all around, which he did not share, it appears. And it probably even, which can be so much the case when you are around those who are so much more evil, probably drove him to even have a very rigid stance in terms of his abstinence from the sin that they were doing. A believer who is alone in his generations is a bit like this. We are called to be saints among sinners. And if you are truly alone, whether in a workplace or in a situation or environment, you almost have to be and are more earnest in terms of where you stand than if you were surrounded by many who are like-minded. It's of a necessity, but it's this important reminder that it is hard. But it is possible for a person at school or in an office or in a barracks or in a home to stand alone in faith, to walk with God, to be Christ-like. And the importance of not yielding to temptation, of not dropping one's conduct to the level of those around, to not compromise is so great. You might say, I'm the only believer. There was a time, there are a number of times in my life where I was, I believe, the only believer in my workplace. If there were other ones there, they were not super supportive. And the reliance on the Lord is paramount in that situation. The true place for a follower of God is in his generations. Noah wasn't away from his generation, he was in it. There's kind of two sides of this, I would say. We are called to be in our generation. We are called righteously to rub salt in the wound. We are called righteously to be a burr in the saddle. We are called righteously to stand up and stand in the gap. And we can do it. Noah did it. We can do this. We've got the Holy Spirit. We've got the Word of God. Look around. You've got at least a few believers that are on your side in terms of this. And we have to be careful of these two ditches. Too much union with the world or too much separation from the world. We have to be careful with those navigations because both are wrong. We cannot be too far away, but we can't dive in and mix in with them as much either. And what helps, I believe, very much that helps in terms of how do we navigate these two ditches on the side is to remind ourselves we are to abstain from sin. We shouldn't be living by the world's rules. We should be living by God's rules. We need to be careful about not being so concerned with the pleasures of the world because that's the place where compromise comes so much, the pleasures of the world. I don't think, I think we're in a better place and we won't overmix ourself if we remember this. I think this is the most important part. We are always supposed to take our Christianity with us. And I believe that helps us from overmixing with the world around us, is I take my Savior with me. I take my Christianity with me. My job and your job is to be ambassadors, way before whatever your job is. to be ambassadors for Christ. If you are doing something or going somewhere and involved in something where you cannot bring your walk and witness and it can't come with you to that, then that probably needs to be crossed off the list. You have to be able to walk with God and be a witness for God in the places that you go. I think these are good determining principles. I saw two questions, I like them. Am I still able to hate sin and am I able to bring my Savior with me. If I could still hate sin and I could still bring my Savior with me, that's a good balance. And we see the companions of this solitary saint. I know you're like, Pastor Dave, you had a family. He did, but we don't really know a lot about his family. We'll learn more later, it won't be awesome. What are the companions of Noah? He's a just man, righteous, justified would be a term I think that is right to use. He was perfect or complete among the people and he walked with God. His best companion on this earth was God by his side." Again, only two men in the Bible walked with God. Enoch, his great-grandpa, and Noah. And Methuselah, it appeared, seemed to do all right as well. This communion with God, this habitual occupation of God in his life, in his soul, in his strength, this sense of God's presence within the wasteland of the world around him. God being the one that carries him along. The other night here at the Mid-Missions Conference, there was a kid who was being dragged down the center aisle. Parents are just kind of picking him up and dragging him. Part of our walk with God is God picking us up and bringing us along with him. All right, we're going to go over here. All right, we're going to go over here. And there's that connection. Are you lonely in this world? I want to remind you of your unfailing companion who is always available, who is never too busy, who loves you, who wants the best for you, who knows your own heart and mind better than you do, and desires to see an increase in communion with him. And that is your Heavenly Father. Don't let your impressions of the world and the world's impressions about God make you misunderstand the opportunity of this relationship you have to walk with God. If you're lonely, if you're standing alone among people who might laugh at you and your religion, God is at your side. God is backing him. Noah and God are in the majority here. Those surrounded by friends, there are times we must suffer alone. And this communion is the foundation of righteous conduct. We're gonna get into the end of chapter six and into chapter seven, but I wanna at least kinda close this out. You know all the gopher wood, the cubits, and all that good stuff, but I think I want us to take at least a couple of things, almost as a bit of a takeaway moving forward here, in terms of understanding now how does this, these first verses now, funnel down into this? Because we don't just get God's overview, we get to see the plan. God always has a plan. He's always the one who has the plan. And it's based on and surrounded by and connected with what he's seen. So we see a determination. It's in verse 11 to 13. The earth was also corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth and indeed it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me. Seen that before. For the earth is filled with violence through them and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. These things come out here. There is this corruption and violence. And God is making this determination. And we are right to be reminded, bad people are cruel people. This term violence that starts to come up. We are in a world that is violent. Bad people are cruel people. And by the way, cruel people are bad people. And we can say that. It's okay. It's biblical. Morality gets ignored and when God's laws are not followed, selfishness turns into furiousness. It takes, kills, destroys, hurts, harms, no matter the rights or the other person's feelings. Sin had sapped the very foundations of the life. It had turned mankind into predators. There is evil in this world and don't lose fact of the sight that there are predators in this world. Part of the responsibility of a shepherd, and I would even say it falls on the responsibility of a husband as a head of a household and a father, is protection from the predators. Some of the history's most, I am free to live my life people, in the world are often the most predatorial and destructive. We're in a world right now where a lot of people that want to say everybody's free to do whatever they want, it is being discovered more and more that they are the most predatorial people online and in the world there are. Where they will say, hey kid, you can be whatever you want and send me pictures. Some of the most evil people in this world are some of the most, there shouldn't be any rules. Why? Because they definitely don't want the rules applied, to them, violence, corruption, destruction. There's a word that pops up multiple times here. It's actually the first use of the term in the Bible in verse 11 and in verse 13. It is the word hamas, violence, cruelty, injustice, oppression, unrighteousness. The other word, sahat, which is corrupt or destruction is used in verse 11, 12. 13 and 17, corruption, destruction. Even God uses and says, this is something I will never do again. And God's determination teaches us some important things. There is divine retribution. There is accountability. You cannot separate sin and destruction. And the word that God uses for destruction is the same word that is used even in the, it's interesting, defile slash corruption is connected with destruction so often. When you corrupt or defile something or someone, you're destroying them. as well. Sin is death in the making, and death is sin at its ending. And all this was happening. So God gives his instructions. That's verses 14 to 21. And like I said, we're going to get a chance to kind of flesh this out as we get a chance to get into the ark itself. But again, he says, the end of all flesh is coming before me. Make an ark, rooms, coating, windows, doors, locks. We're not going to get too much into the details. You've probably figured out what a cubit is. Between 17 and 20 inches. You can go see the picture. Probably 500 feet by 80 feet by 50 feet. A couple of things to note. Verse 17, and behold, I myself am bringing the floodwaters on the earth. It isn't like God's like, oh man, the way I made the crust, this is all gonna go crazy. I better give you a warning. God is saying, I am going to do this. Just in case someone's like, God wouldn't do this. God's answer is, I myself will do this. is one that says in the next verse, but I will establish my covenant with you. There's deliverance. Deliverance always comes side by side with the sentencing of God. Whenever there's a sentence, whenever there's judgment, whenever there is a, this is now the righteous reception of what you're supposed to get. There's also this reminder that there is deliverance. There is salvation that is available. And it is interesting. In Genesis itself, we don't really see a lot of an opportunity for mankind to respond. It's other places in Scripture that says Noah preached righteousness. And in other places in Scripture, it says that the time of Noah, when Noah was building the ark, was a time of God's long suffering. So people say, well, God didn't make an ark big enough for everyone to get saved. He made it big enough for people to get saved. The Word of God says that there were opportunities for them to respond. This blessed hope and truth is God's determinations and God's judgments always include the way of escape, always include salvation. Noah preached, but Noah also responded righteously. I love verse 22. Thus, Noah did. According to all that God commanded him, so he did." Two times in one verse, he did it. This righteous man shows his righteousness through obedience. So as we close, I want you to turn to Hebrews 11, 7, because I think it's right to get a good view of Noah, and it probably gives us the best view of how this all took place. Hebrews 11 7, by faith, Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. You see conviction by faith. You see attention He was divinely warned and he listened. You see expectation of the things not yet seen and he believed. You see this emotion. There is a being moved with godly fear. His will is moved by that. You see action. He prepared an ark. He did all that God said and you see salvation for the saving of his household. You see condemnation. By which the world is condemned and you see justification. By which he becomes an heir of the righteousness which he received. It starts and ends with faith. Even his justification is according to the faith. One commentator said, the road by which faith gets at the hands is always through the heart. Action followed emotion. He saw what was coming. And he was vindicated. We're going to see. It's a long project. But the time would be coming when he would be vindicated. Imagine, I think it's right. I agree with the person who wrote it. Imagine seeing the ark as those who are in the water around it. I'll quote one commentator talking about Noah being considered a fool in his generation. He says this, but one morning it began to rain. And by degrees, somehow, Noah no longer seemed quite the fool. The jests probably stopped when the water was up to the knees of the jesters. Their sarcasms would be sticking in their throats as they drowned. So it is always, and so it will be in the last great day. The men who live for the future by faith in Christ will be found out to have been the wise men. When the future has become present and the present has become past and gone forever. While they who had no aims beyond the things of their own time are now sinking beneath the horizon, they will awake too late to the conviction that they are outside the ark of safety and salvation. Their epitaph for life will be, thou fool. Some reminders. One, the effects of the fall will never cease. Until the Lord comes again and this time ends, that's not going to come to an end. Secondly, mankind has been, will always be, continue in their wickedness. It's going to keep happening. That's why the Lord's going to come. He is going to bring his judgment and he's going to bring this to an end. And the Word of God says, we'll get a chance to look at it again later, the illustration Christ uses, just like they were not paying attention back then and just doing this, that's happening again. And it's going to happen again in the future. So we have to be reminded that God sees, is affected by, and deals with and saves us from our sin. He sees it. He's grieved by it, he's sorrowful of it, he's dealt with it, and he saves us from this. And there's always a message of grace and salvation, always, until the end. So I would ask, are you a recipient of grace? Please, when your life ends or the Lord comes, don't be a person drowning in the water. Don't be the one who said he's not there or he doesn't care. He does. And are you a recipient of righteousness? And if you are, then are you walking justly and rightly with God and before this generation? Are you walking right? Noah found grace, a just man, perfect in his generation, walking with God, obedient, doing all that he commanded. Heavenly Father, Thank you so much for your word. Lord, we have been reminded of sin. It's corruption, it's destruction. Lord, there are times we rightfully look at the world around us and we're reminded over and over and over again. We are walking in the valley of the shadow of death. We are surrounded by sin, corruption, deception, destruction. God, there are those in this world who would say, well, where is God? And why is he allowing these things to happen? And Lord, I pray that we would be reminded in this chapter and in all of the rest of your scripture, Lord, that you are a God who does know, who is grieved, who cares, who will righteously judge. We recognize there is none who will escape the righteous judgment of the Lord. And Lord, when the time comes for any of us to be judged, our only hope and prayer is that we have been justified and made right by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, that we have been made righteous. Lord, I would pray for those of us that received that gift of eternal life, that Lord, we would be encouraged, challenged, inspired, reminded by the life of Noah, that we are to live lives that are set apart, even while being in our generation. Lord, may we abstain from sin. May we draw the line. May we bring you with us. And we hate sin and proclaim the Savior. And Lord, I would pray that those things would make people uncomfortable around us that don't know you. That Lord, maybe even there would be those who would call us fools. Lord, what a privilege to be called fools for the sake of you. And Lord, I pray that we would recognize that we are living in a world with people who, as has happened in the times of Noah, who do not recognize the destruction is coming. So Lord, may our walk and our words and our lives reflect that we are your people. May it show, may it shine, may it cause someone to ask a question about the hope that lies within us. Lord, I pray if there is someone here who does not know you as their personal Savior, Lord, as was heard in the testimonies of baptism, Lord, that they would trust Christ as Savior. Lord, I pray there if there is any of us here that would say we are living sinfully, we are not confessing our sins, we would walk with you. Lord, we ask these things in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, amen.