“The Spiritual Battles Are Still On”
Genesis 6:1-8
We have been reading through the book of Genesis. It provides us with the narrative of God’s creating the world and everything in it. Humans are part of that creation. God cares deeply about the humans He created and demonstrates this in various ways. Initially upon creation humans were given freedom to be fruitful and multiply. God created a beautiful garden for humans to reside and then gave them everything they needed in order to do so, abundantly. He offered them fruit from the tree of life and He warned them not to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Freedom often causes problems. Humans are often not content to just be. Throw in a talking serpent who asks probing questions and messes happen.
Adam and Eve made mistakes. Their children, especially Cain, made mistakes. The family gets divided and we read last week how the lineages of Cain and his brother Seth were completely different in regards to their focus on God. We ended last week with the birth of Noah.
Lamech his father said of Noah, Genesis 5:29,
“He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.”
This week we read that when humans began to multiply there was actually a rapid population expansion. Think about it. People lived hundreds of years pre-flood. In today’s Scripture we read a problem arose during this expansion. Ungodly intermarriages occurred between the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men.”
Okay, who were the “sons of God”?
This phrase is used three other times in the Old Testament in Job, (1:6, 2:1, 38:7) and has been translated as “angels,” or “angelic beings.”
In the New Testament, in Jude 6 we read what God did with these angels,
“And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.”
In 1 Peter 3:19-20 we read what Jesus did with these angels,
“After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,”
There is also another ancient text, the book of 1 Enoch, which was not chosen to be in the inspired books and canon but still contains some accurate accounts. It reads,
“And it came to pass that the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children… ’ [They] took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments… And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants… And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways.”
One can deduce why Satan sent his demons to pollute the genetic pool of humankind with his satanic corruption. If Satan can put something like a genetic virus into the human race then it will become unfit for bringing forth the seed of the woman, the very thing promised by God in Genesis 3:15, that will undo him. The Savior could not be born of a demon-possessed mother. So if Satan can infect the entire race, bingo, the deliverer could not come.
Sneaky, sneaky.
The crazy thing is Satan almost succeeded. The race became so polluted that God decided it was necessary to start all over again with Noah and his sons. God also goes so far as to imprison the demons so that they would never do this again.
It’s as if humans get to a point of self destruction, with or without satanic assistance and God chooses to step in and not allow the human race to stay in a rebellious place forever. It’s like God allows destructive freedom up to a point and then He says, “No more,” verse 3,
“My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
12o years after saying this, there was a flood over all the earth. God had had enough.
Why? Verse 4,
“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
The demonic element of their parentage had created giants. It was like God hit his head and thought,
“What next?”
I am reading from the Message, verses 5-7,
“God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil—evil, evil, evil from morning to night. God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. God said, “I’ll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds—the works. I’m sorry I made them.”
Couldn’t God say the same thing today?
In Matthew 24:37 Jesus said,
“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”
Jesus warned us that God’s tolerance of evil behavior only goes so far. “As in the days of Noah” the conditions of the world before the second coming of Jesus will be like the conditions of the world before the flood:
- Exploding population – Genesis 6:1
- Sexual perversion – Genesis 6:2
- Demonic activity – Genesis 6:2
- Constant evil in the heart of humans – Genesis 6:5
- Widespread corruption and violence – Genesis 6:11
God’s response? Verse 6,
“The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.”
God wasn’t admitting failure. He was empathizing with His creation. Look how far they had fallen.
God knew all along that this was how things would turn out, but that doesn’t mean He wasn’t affected by it. God is not unfeeling in the face of human sin and rebellion. God is griefed. God hurts for His creation. There is not a parent in this room who does not relate. When your child has done something stupid and has to pay the negative consequences, you ache. It hurts. This is where we see the heart of God. In God’s sorrow He knows what He needs to do to make things better. It makes Him sick to think about it. It’s not easy, but is best.
In Ezekiel 33:11-12 God says,
‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’
In verse 8, we see a light in this tunnel of darkness.
“But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”
It only takes one. God can use one person, that’s all it takes. Noah didn’t earn grace, he found grace. No one earns it, but anyone can find it. When we turn towards Jesus. Romans 5:20,
“But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,”
Walter Brueggemann, one of the most influential Bible interpreters of our time writes this about this story:
We are confronted in this text not with a flood, but with a heavy, painful crisis in the dealings of God with creation. It is popularly thought that the crisis of the flood is to place the world in jeopardy. But a close reading indicates that it is the heart and person of God which are placed in crisis. The crisis is not the much water, which now has become only a dramatic setting.
Rather, the crisis comes because of the resistant character of the world which evokes hurt and grief in the heart of God.
We will get back to Noah in January. I think it is a wonderful story to ponder as we enter the Advent and Christmas season. Humanity hasn’t changed much since the flood. We are a bit more sophisticated and we’ve advanced to such things as indoor plumbing and the internet. Yet, 1 Peter 5:8 warns us,
“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
God stayed true to His promise that through the seed of the woman would come the redemption of the world. For the next few weeks we prepare to celebrate that happening by the birth of Jesus Christ as a human. God’s story isn’t over. His plan remains steady. He offers each of us an opportunity to be a part of His family by believing in His plan, accepting His plan and remaining faithful.
The hope of the world is Jesus. May we focus on that hope as we enter the Advent season.
Let’s pray.
