Genesis chapter six, I'm going to read the first seven verses of this particular chapter here as we move along in our series in the beginning. The Bible says here in Genesis chapter six, verse one, it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair. They took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, my spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be in 120 years. There were giants in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God came in under the daughters of men and they bear children to them, the same became mighty men, which are of old, men of renown. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them. Now, this is not necessarily part of the introduction of the message, but I am not sure how two hard passages of Scripture were in the same Sunday today. This morning was a very difficult passage to preach about divorce. This is a very difficult passage, really, to preach. But by God's grace, may He help us as we unfold the Word of God. So let's pray together. Gracious Father, thank you for this opportunity to share the Word of God. I just ask that you give us understanding and clarity, and may you move in our hearts. Lord, I don't know the needs of the heart of each person here today. I don't know how you take this message and apply it, but I know you will, because your Word is powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. piercing even to the dividing of sunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and truly as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. So I pray that, Lord, You'd speak to people today, and may they yield to You and follow You in whatever way You ask them. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, this study, we're actually coming to a climax in this particular chapter that we've read. And though we don't discuss much of his name today, we'll do that more next week, we come to see that this human history comes to a climax in the time of Noah. That sin which affected Adam and Eve, actually they had partaken of the fruit in the garden, it then showed a viciousness in the life of Cain, It came to a maturity in the godlessness of Lamech's posterity and their civilization. And now we're seeing today, according to these seven verses that I read, that this wickedness has been brought to a certain place as this population has not only exploded in numbers, but the wickedness is so great that God is going to open up the windows of heaven and cleanse the earth of all of this filth and wickedness. It's very interesting to note in the New Testament that the disciples asked the Lord Jesus concerning the sign of his coming and what the end of the world would be like. You remember that passage of Matthew 24? Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple. And so they know the temple is going to be destroyed at the end time. So they asked the Lord Jesus, what's going to be the sign of your coming? What's going to be the end of the world? What's that's going to be like? Well, Jesus in Matthew 24, if you read that, pointed to a number of signs that were characteristic of that day, that is the end day. But how interesting it is that as one reads Genesis chapter number 6, we find that the days of Noah, Jesus talked about, are very much going to be like those days before the Son of Man returns. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that at the end of the message, but I want to dive into these seven verses here and see what these times were like before the flood. First of all, I want to give you this first major point. I have two major points tonight. First of all, we read in the first few verses a time of great rebellion, a time of great rebellion. If you do me a favor and make sure that the words are back on the back screen here, So a time of great rebellion. First of all, would you notice this? There's an explosion of population. Right off the bat in verse 1, it came to pass, when men began to multiply. Now, we're reading about this already, chapter 4, chapter 5. All of these people are having children, and we're going to see in a few moments, they're naming some of the vital offspring here of some of these people, but they're saying that they're sons and daughters. People are having large families, so the opportunities here for the population to grow exponentially is incredible. And before we discuss anything about these wicked times, it is important to note here this explosion of population. You know how amazing it is when you think back to what's being taught in the schools right now, in the history classes, or you read some of the magazines or watch some of the television shows, people who are purporting evolutionary ideas, how they teach about these early days. What do they say about men in these early days? Well, if I use the phrase caveman, does that sound pretty familiar? I mean, they kind of link these early days to this caveman and, you know, these men really didn't know anything at all. But I want to tell you, in our study that we've gone through in chapter 4, the descendants of Lamech were technologically advanced. And then as we noted in chapter 5 with these words, you see this all throughout Genesis. I brought this in the last message I preached in this series. It is the words, this is the book of the generations. In other words, These early figures, like Adam, recorded the history up to their point of death, and then the next one recorded from Adam to then, and then the next one recorded. So what does that tell us about these people in this time? They could communicate. They could write. They could put things in sentences. They didn't grunt and just kind of bang out their passions on a cave wall, as we're told to believe that that's what happens. So I want to encourage you to not fall in the trap that these are just merely ignorant people. They were beautifully created by God, fully capable of carrying out the mission that God had for them. And they had the ability to do all these things because God gave them a wonderful imagination for the sense of good. But again, things turned around. Now, what about the population at this time? Well, I want to share with you some information as I did some study over the course of the last few weeks. I read a book and Henry Morris and then his son, Henry Morris III, and I'm going to mainly use his book. It's called The Book of Beginnings. And he shares here, to understand the population, one must understand, first of all, what's going on today. So let me share about today's population growth and then link it back to what we might could have seen in Genesis chapter 6. In today's society, most children are born by the time that the parents reach age 25 with the family size's stability by the time the parents are at age 35. Now again, I know there's exceptions to the rule and all that. Different cultures and countries vary when it comes to family sizes, but it is conceivable to think that the number of children per reproductive pair is close to four children. It is also not beyond imagination to conceive of the fact that when Noah and his family stepped off the ark, the human population could be achieved in a little over 1,000 years, as far as a large population. Now again, with wars, diseases, that all takes its toll on the population, but there is no way with somebody who has an evolutionary mindset that it is possible that if you took the population growth to under 1% that the landmass of the earth could not contain those type of numbers. Now let's bring it back to the flood and look at what possibly could have been done, could have been leading up to the time of Noah. I want you to note chapter 5 for just a moment before I do this because I want you to catch the breadth of this. I want you to notice in verse number 6 or 7 of chapter 5, Seth lived after he begat Enos 807 years and begat, notice the next three words, sons and daughters. Look here, if you will, verse number 10, Enos lived after he begat Canaan 815 years and begat, look at this, sons and daughters. And as you go through the rest of chapter five, yes, there is one that is mentioned who is carrying on the line, if you will, leading up to, because everything in the Bible is pointing to Jesus. But God wants you to understand here that that's not the only child that's born. There's other sons and daughters that are being born. So while chapter 5 names the notable son for genealogical reasons, there were multiple children born. And again, referencing Henry Morris's book, if one used a conservative formula of eight children per family and an average generation of 93 years, I want you to think about this, this is astounding, there would have been 137 billion people alive at the time of the flood. That's a lot of people. So again, I'm referencing Henry Morris, and nobody knows what the population would have been, But I think and I do believe that this population had grown exponentially. Let's notice a second sub point here, and that is the entrance of the sons of God. Now, notice in verse number two, it also mentions here the sons of God saw the daughters of men. This is a very interesting portion of scripture. So while the population growth intensified the wickedness of mankind, there seemed to be another culprit, if I could put it this way, affecting the apostasy that was taking place. Note here in verse number two, there's a difference between the sons of God and the daughters of men. Now, some have looked at the sons of God and they've said, well, these are the Sethites. In other words, these are the descendants of the godly line of Seth. But I want to ask you a question. Why would it say, sons of God and then daughters of men? I would think that the writer could very simply say, sons of Seth, if you will, or the sons of the godly line, and then the daughters of men. But it seems like two different groups here are mentioned. Men, daughters of men, refers to mankind on earth. The sons of God are distinguished from the daughters of men. So I know your question is, who are the sons of God? Well, if we're gonna answer that question, I think it's important to just think in our minds about other scriptures which use the phrase sons of God. In fact, there are five times in the scripture that sons of God is used. Twice in the book of Genesis, three times in the book of Job. There's no doubt when you look at the book of Job, chapter 1, verse 6, chapter 2, verse 1, chapter 38, verse 7, every reference of the sons of God in the book of Job, it is clear, is a reference to angels. So I believe that when we come back to now this mention here in Genesis chapter 6, that we see them mentioned as angelic beings. But there's two things, if we're going to talk about these sons of God as angels, there's two things that will help you. to understand this a little bit better, which I think are relevant to this passage. Two things to understand about angels. First of all, whenever you look at this passage of Scripture, and angels appear to mankind, how do they appear? What gender do they come in? They come in the male gender, as men. They always have appeared as men, and never do you see in the Bible an angel appear as a woman. And though they have the appearance of humanity, There always seemed to be something stunning about their appearance, indicating that they were more than just a mortal man. In fact, this taking on this appearance in such a brilliant fashion was so convincing in the book of Genesis that if you remember when Lot was in Sodom, that there was a night when Lot was in one of the houses and these angels that had taken Lot and were in the house in there, the men of Sodom thought that these men, angels, were so brilliant that they wanted to have sexual relationships with them. But I want you to notice something else, and I'd like you to hold your place here in Genesis, and I want you to go to the New Testament, first of all, 2 Peter, chapter number 2. There's another thing I want you to notice about angels that I think is very relevant to this passage of Scripture. 2 Peter, chapter number 2, and then we're also going to go to the book of Job, 2 Peter chapter 2, let me read verse number 4 and 5. I wish I could read a greater context here, but I think verses 4 to 5 will help you at least. The Bible says, For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, delivered them in the chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment, and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly." Now here in this passage of 2 Peter, what do we notice here? There's a particular group of angels, don't know how many, but they sinned and God cast them into judgment. Now, it connects this in verse number 5. I want you to notice verse number 4 and 5 are connected together. this point of sin of these angels seems to be right in the same context of this pre-flood era, leading up to the flood, because here this sin takes place in this particular time prior to the flood, and then God, under the inspiration here of the Holy Spirit, begins to give to us this aspect of Noah and the time of the flood. And it's interesting to know that as you go through Scripture, there's only two records in all of Scripture of angels sinning. The first one we might link is Isaiah chapter 14, verses 12 to 14. Lucifer sinned against God and those that followed Lucifer in his sin were all cast out of heaven. So Isaiah chapter 14 records that's one sin of angels here. But another sin of angels is what we find in Genesis chapter number 6. And it seems here that God is linking these together. But I believe if we jump over to Jude, Jude will answer the question, for it talks about these angels going after strange flesh. So go over to the book of Jude, if you will, and let's see what this sin was. What was the sin of these angels? Well, Jude goes ahead and answers that. Jude has one chapter, so notice here, if you will, verses 6 and 7. and the angels which kept not their first estate." What was that? They had the opportunity to be in heaven with God. "...They kept not that first estate, but left their own habitation. He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, under the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh." Notice that. Now, the word strange is an interesting word. It literally means this. It means another of a different kind. We might be familiar if you read the book of Proverbs on a regular basis. Have you ever read in Proverbs chapter five, six and seven, where it's giving admonition to the man to not go after the strange woman? Now, it's not talking about a strange woman as somebody that you don't know. The description of a strange woman in the book of Proverbs is somebody that really should not be in your sphere of particular relationship. When a person is married, they can have physical relationships with that person whom they're married to, but truly everybody else outside of that would be considered strange to them. Because God has designed within the bounds of marriage that that physical union is permissible, but anything out of that is strange. So notice what these angels are doing. How did they sin? They went after strange flesh. Interesting, strange being that of a different kind. Angels going after the daughters of men on earth. Now I know what you're thinking right now. Wait a minute. Angels are heavenly beings. No bodies. How in the world are they going to come in and have physical relationships here with the daughters of men? Great question. I think when you couple these passages together that we read, and you look back, and let's go back to the book of Genesis, and you note something here of the offspring of this union, the sons of God, the daughters of men. What was the offspring? In verse number 4, there were giants in the earth. Giants. Now, how in the world could they produce giants? Well, first of all, let's just say this, giants are not necessarily miraculous. They may be rare. They may be a little bit not the common norm, but it's not that they're unheard of. Today, if you watch NBA basketball and you see a lot of these guys that are over seven feet tall, We read in the Old Testament about Goliath that probably if you took a span as in 18 inches, it's possible that he was well over 10 feet tall. We've had some, if I could put it, just freaks of nature, people that have been in the Guinness Book of World Records that are very, very tall. It's pretty amazing. So it's not necessarily miraculous, but it is rare. And so I think really in putting all of this together, it seems to me that these angels possessed human bodies, men, and they selected certain women to be their wives and produce this type of offspring. Look, if you will, at verse number 2. Interesting phrasing here. It says, "...they took them wives of all which they chose." As these angels are coming in and inhabiting particular wicked men, they now are going out after choice women. Women that they can have these relationships with in order that they might breed here a certain race of people to defy God. Now, I want to tell you something. You and I are not unfamiliar with selective breeding. If I give you the name Hitler, you'll understand that whole scenario. Hitler desired to create a master race while at the same time exterminating the Jews. I want you to notice something here in this chapter. Note what this created. Yes, we talked about verse number four, giants, but look here at the end of verse number four, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. Now the word renown actually has this idea of a name. And it indicates the fact that this offspring of the sons of God, the daughters of men, that it corresponded, their reputation corresponded to their wicked actions. Now let me ask you this question. Should we be surprised at all that Satan had a plan from the very beginning to take over God's throne? I mean, we read in Ezekiel chapter 28, Isaiah chapter 14, what was Lucifer? What was his whole desire? He wanted to have that throne. He wanted to be above God. Well, that plan didn't change. When Satan got kicked out of heaven, Satan didn't go, well, I guess I'll have to come up with another plan. No, Satan's plan has always been the same, is to dethrone God. And so, to me, it makes perfect sense that in this particular time, the devil is attempting to manipulate humanity by their growth in numbers and their growth in wickedness in order that a rebellion might be brought against heaven and against the God who reigns in heaven. Satan is still trying to do that today. He may be doing it in different ways. He may be trying to go ahead and take God off of the number one place in your heart. He's trying to dethrone God in your life. Why? Because he wants to be served and he wants God not to be served. And so here in this chapter we see this whole aspect of this rebellion through these sons of God. But now I want you to notice this third sub-point here, and that is, the exhausting of the patience of God. As we read these verses, it's very interesting how the narrative a couple of different times shifts from earth to heaven, earth to heaven. Notice here in verse number one, it came to pass when men began to multiply in the face of the earth. Verse two, the sons of God saw the daughters of men. But then verse number three, and the Lord said, so now here's the Lord's perspective. Notice verse number four, giants on the earth. Then in verse number five, God saw that the wickedness. So going back and forth, but look at verse number two, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men, actually verse number three, I'm sorry, I wrote the wrong verse down. God makes a statement. And what's that statement? My spirit shall not always strive with man. What God is doing here is He's decreeing that there will be an end in sight. It's interesting in verse number three, He sets a limit, and that time limit is this, 120 years. Now, look here at verse number three, the word spirit. Notice here, the King James translators have correctly put this as a uppercase S here. It is speaking of not our human spirit, it is speaking of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. Well, we know in chapter one, the Holy Spirit had a ministry. We don't think much of the Holy Spirit's ministry in the Old Testament, but he had a ministry. In chapter 1, what was he doing? Moving upon the face of the waters in creation. We come now to chapter 6, what's going on? Well, it seems to indicate that the Spirit of God had a way of working in the hearts of people. And that's what the Holy Spirit does today. What's the Holy Spirit's job? For you as a believer, He's in your heart to help you know more about the truth, help you to communicate the truth to other people. But you know what? The Holy Spirit is involved with the unsaved people. You read the Gospel of John chapter 16. His job is to convict people of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. So the Holy Spirit is constantly sharing with people and bringing them to a place where they can see God for who He really is. And so here in this time, the Holy Spirit is working in this way and working in people. Though the population is exploding, though it is going forth in wickedness, the Holy Spirit is doing His job. And God sees that wickedness and says, all right, 120 years, we're going to put a limit. We're going to do something about this. But I want you to notice this phrase in chapter number six, at the end of verse number three, it says, yet his days shall be 120 years. Some have read this to say, well now, man is not gonna live a long time like the 900 years, they're only gonna live 120 years. No, no, this is actually God setting a limit and saying, all right. I'm getting Noah, and that's next time's message. I'm going to prepare Noah and he's going to build an ark over a period of 120 years. And what is Noah referred to in the New Testament as a preacher of righteousness? You know, as Noah was doing, if I can put it in these terms, Noah had a hammer in one hand and a Bible in the other. As Noah is going through and putting that ark together with his sons, he's at the same time proclaiming to the world, there is coming a time of judgment. And so, these times here are times of great rebellion. But now I want you to notice a second major point. Notice in the remaining verses a time of God's reaction. Well, in verse number 5 we see His detection. the words we observe here in verse number five right off the bat, and God saw. So let me ask you this question. Have you thought about this? In fact, I sat this afternoon and thought a lot about this. When God looked down on the earth, what did he really see? I mean, when you and I think about the wickedness today, we can name certain things. But how about the God who not only sees the external, but sees the internal? God saw the wickedness of man. Well, when He looked down at the earth, what did He see? Well, that the wickedness was great. Now, pretty amazing when God uses a superlative. I mean, we use great all the time. Man, that was great. That meal, that was great. That ride I just went on at that amusement park, that was great. But when God says the wickedness of man was great, Wow, for God to use a superlative, it must be pretty incredible. But the offspring produced by these sons of God, the daughters of men, brought with them such a thirst for violence, such a thirst for great wickedness, that God saw what was going on. But not only did he observe that the wickedness was great, but notice the other phrase in verse number 5, that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. I was doing a little study on this word imaginations. This word imaginations is actually related to the word pottery. How many of you have ever done a pottery class? Anybody? Alright. You understand, you go ahead and take some clay and you form something. Now maybe you made a mug or a dish or some plate or something and you thought to yourself, well that's my creation, I formed that. Think with me of this word, imaginations. Their imaginations, that is their forming in their mind, their planning, their scheming. What is it? It's the planning and forming of wickedness. It's the planning and forming here of wicked philosophies, wicked causes, and doing everything that they can to imagine and form a world into which they can take everybody else and put it into their mold. I want to tell you something, that's what the world's trying to do to you. That's what the world is trying to do to our children. That's what the world is trying to do. They're wanting to bring you into their mold, to have you follow their philosophy, do things their way. But I want to tell you something, you must take the high road and follow God's way, and don't follow the world. Now note, this imagination was all only for evil. Well, God looks here, it's His detection, but notice now verse number 6, His displeasure. There's two things that are said about God's displeasure. First of all, He repented of making man. That's quite a statement. God says here, notice here, it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth. Now when we look at the word repent, we know the word repent has this idea of changing. But we think to ourselves, now wait a minute, God can't change. The Bible tells us God is immutable. God does not change. So how in the world could God change on something? God said, oh, I made man and I really love man and have fellowship with him. But now I really, I changed my mind on all this. Well, I want to go ahead and maybe bring this thought in. It doesn't mean that God didn't know what He was doing or God was caught off guard by the wickedness. But God now was going to set in a time of judgment and God was going to establish now a covenant with Noah. He was going to change the way he's dealing with man. And once now Noah and his family got off the ark, God was going to establish a covenant with Noah and do something differently. But notice the second response here of his displeasure. He grieved. The word grieved is a deep sorrow. Imagine here. God who sometime before back in the Garden of Eden would spend time at the cool of the day fellowshipping with Adam and Eve. And now everybody on this earth just about is going towards the wickedness that is there. Imagine the heart of the Creator to come to a place like this. You and I don't think much about God and the feelings that He has. But I want to tell you something, God is affected. Does not the Bible tell us that when we fall into sin that the Holy Spirit is grieved? Of course He is. He's hurt. Have you ever been hurt by somebody close to you who's fallen into sin? Somebody close to you who's done something wrong and it just really penetrated your heart? Well, imagine now the heart of God. Imagine how big the heart of God is. The fact that he loves people and he knows what is best for them, and yet they have gone the total opposite direction. God's grieved in his heart. But notice verse number seven is determination. Look at the emphatic way that this is worded. The Lord said, I would you give me the next word? Oh, that was weak. Let's try this again. The Lord said, I... Notice that determination. I will destroy man. It's quite a determination. That wickedness was so broad, it was so widespread, that God's option was simply to destroy mankind. Notice how widespread the destruction is. In fact, we're going to talk about this when we get into talking about the flood. Because there's a big argument of people out in the science field who think that the flood was not a universal flood. In fact, they think it was just some little local flood that took place in a particular region of the world. I want to tell you, look at how broad this is. God is saying, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and creeping thing and the fowls of the air. Pretty impressive. Conclusion tonight, I actually spoke earlier in the service about Jesus's words about the end times. And I'm not going to take time to turn there, but I'm going to just give you this reference. You can jot it down. Matthew 24, verses 37 to 39. Jesus, in that sermon that He gives to His disciples, based on the question they asked Him, what will be the sign of Your coming? What will be the end of the world? Jesus gives a phenomenal sermon. talks about the abomination of desolation, the Antichrist, the signs of His coming. And then he talks about the warning, the warning of the judgment that is coming. And you know, in the days of Noah, as the passage in Matthew 24 relates to us, people are just going about their everyday life. Oh, in wickedness? Yes. In rebellion against God? Yes. But here they are, just simply eating, drinking, marrying, going on with their old merry life. As I look at the world today, and you look at the world, it's amazing how many people don't think about God. You talk about Jesus coming, and people laugh at you. You talk about the end of the world and how God is going to judge this world and people need to place their faith in Jesus Christ so they can avoid the judgments that's going to come in that seven-year tribulation and people just, they think you're cuckoo. But I'm telling you, that's the way things are going in this world. And I don't know how to compare this world and this society today with how things were in Noah. in Noah's day. But I want to tell you something. I know that as believers that are connected with God and have a certain sense of holiness, we are appalled. I am personally appalled at what I see in our society today. And I think to myself, God has got to be coming soon. It's going to be soon. So what does that leave for us? Live a holy life. You say, oh, preacher, come on. I mean, you know, I kind of fudge on these things. No! Live a holy life before God. Whatever you do in secret, whatever you do in public, make sure that your life is honoring and it's glorifying the God whom you serve. Honor Him. Glorify Him with your life. Live a holy life. Secondly, be busy in telling people about Jesus. You say, well, people are going to reject me. OK, they rejected Jesus. You say people aren't going to listen. OK, people didn't listen to Jesus. You say, well, they're just going to go ahead and go on their merry way and and maybe they might not ever get saved. But you know what? The blood is off your hands because you told them. You gave them a gospel tract. You sat down with them and tried to share the gospel. I don't know what opportunities you have, but I'm telling you, with a crowd this size, if every person went out and passed out five gospel tracts and sat down with at least one person and talked to them about the gospel, there'd be some things going on in this community. But you know what's going to happen this week? You're going to go out in your everyday life and you're going to just live your life and not thinking much about the coming of Jesus. Oh, we say about the days of Noah, they were eating and drinking and giving marriage. And we think all about the wicked people living that way. But I'm telling you, Christians are living that way. We're just going on our merry life. We have this to do. We have this little engagement. We watch our TV shows. We play our little video games. We do these little things. We have all these things going on, and we forget that people are dying and going to hell. I want to tell you, wake up to what needs to be done. Get the gospel of Jesus Christ out. to this world because Jesus is coming soon. Father, Lord, I ask that you'd help us today. Help us to be people who live holy lives. Help us truly to be people who share the gospel.