ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Genesis 6:1-8
Bob Bonner
August 22, 2004

One great desire of all peoples down through history has been to know their future. We have an insatiable curiosity to see what is ahead or around the corner in our lives. Most of the common avenues through which people have sought knowledge of the future have been condemned by God as being evil and forbidden for Christians. Typical and dangerous favorites of people for seeking to know the future have been Ouji Boards, palm readers, Tarot Cards, psychics, astrologists, tea leaf readers and dice or lots throwers. However, God understands our “need to know” something about the future, so throughout the Bible, He gives us signs and prophecies of future times and major events that will lead up to the end of our world as we know it.

Jesus, in His last public sermon, known as the Olivet Discourse found in Matthew 24-25, specifically speaks about the end times as they relate to His return and eventual final judgment of the earth. One of the many key indicators of his coming relates to our passage of study for this morning. Allow me to read Christ’s words to you. In response to His disciples wanting to know when He was going to come back to earth to set up His kingdom, Jesus said, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone .” In other words, we can’t know the specific day and hour of Christ’s physical return to earth, , but he is about to tell us of a few signs that will point to Christ’s second coming, and it is just around the corner. He continues. “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

Interestingly, history has shown that for most people, even if they know the future’s guaranteed blessings and dangers, they will not properly prepare for the future. They will choose to ignore God’s warnings and do their own thing. Even though Enoch’s family, from Methuselah to Noah knew that God was bringing universal judgment to the earth, and even as Noah was hammering the last wooden peg into the Ark, Enoch’s family didn’t change their ways. As you will see, they eventually followed after their cousins in Cain’s family line. I’m afraid the same will be true of our generation.

In our passage of Scripture for study this morning, Genesis 6:1-8, we have the “real story behind the headlines of future history.” In this passage, we see two signs or movements in Noah’s day, that will be in our day as well, that predict God’s coming judgment upon our earth, which will be preceded Jesus Christ’s second coming.

Before we begin reading this passage, allow me to make a disclaimer and then I will try to set before you what I believe to be the correct lens through which this chapter should be viewed.

First the disclaimer: This present chapter in Genesis has been the subject of debate for millennium. Most scholars consider this chapter to be one of the most difficult passages to understand in the first five books of the Bible, all credited to Moses’ authorship. Most of the debate centers around two issues: Who are the “sons of men”, and who are the Nephilim?

In my research, I have discovered five different views. Three of them are easily discounted. Two of them are held by many outstanding ancient and recent scholars. The arguments for each case are outstanding.

We don’t have time to present the arguments for both views, but if you are interested, I would be glad to give you websites and authors you can visit to examine their arguments. In the end, the outcome of both views lead us to the same conclusion, so it is another one of those studies that isn’t worth getting all worked up over if we don’t agree. What is important is that you see and deal with the obvious message God is sending us from the text.

The historical context of this passage is quite simple. All agree that in Chapter 4, we have the bird’s eye view of Cain’s family line and the spread of evil and wickedness worldwide. In Chapter 5, we have the bird’s eye view of Seth’s family line and the spread of death. This theme of the spread of death and Seth’s family line continues through Genesis 6 and the preparation for the Flood, and through Genesis 7, when billions of people drowned as a result of God’s judgment against the incredible spread of evil and wickedness in the world.

Yes, I said billions of people. You might be interested to know that scholars, who use certain formulas established from the facts laid out in Genesis, and depending upon how many years you calculate passed from Adam to Noah, that there were from 2 billion to the more grand figure of 40 billion people roaming the earth prior to the Flood.

Dr. Lambert Dolphin, our geophysicist friend who preaches here often, estimates that the correct population of the earth, pre-flood is probably around 10 billion. If you want to visit his website, you will find numerous articles from other scientists, their formulas for calculating population growth, graphs etc, describing the population growth prior to the flood and post flood growth up to today. [ http://ldolphin.org or, http://ldolphin.org/pickett.html or, http://ldolphin.org/popul.html ]

Whether it is 2 billion or 40 billion or 10 billion, you must realize that the culture in which Noah lived had to be a very sophisticated culture. Those living before the Flood were not just 500,000 or five million illiterate spear throwers, existing one notch above cave dwellers! They were a technologically advanced civilization. These were numerous, real, intelligent people, just like us. And when God says he was going to “blot them out”, in other words, destroy them without a trace, He meant it. All of these things should be kept in the back of our minds as we read our passage for this morning.

As we get to this passage, there are two outstanding messages that scream from the lines of Genesis 6:1-8. The first message has to do with how long it takes for a godly family line, Seth’s family line, which grew from God-loving parents who tried to pass on the love for God to their children and grandchildren, to be swept up in the very same evil practices of their cousins’ world, that godless world of Cain. The severity and grossness of their evil practices and the spread of sin up to the life of Noah makes it urgent for God to do something, if He is going to have any hope of saving what’s left of the human race. God is shouting from this chapter, “Enough is enough. It’s time to bring judgment to the human race, so as to preserve that which is good and holy.”

The message from this chapter should be clear, that the sinful flesh in each of us is so powerful, that if we try to live our lives apart from relating to and depending upon the Lord, the sin that indwells will lead us to our own destruction. Apart from God, we can make technological advances, but morally, spiritually and ultimately socially, we will self-destruct. That’s the first grand message of this passage.

The second message that jumps off the page at us when we read this passage is directly related to the first message. This second message is the more powerful of the two messages because more verses are spent speaking to this message than to the incredible spiritual disaster that befalls Seth’s godly family line.

When we read through 6:3-8, you should note that since God banished Cain from the rest of his family to wander the earth back in Genesis 4:16, God’s personal name, “Yahweh,” was obviously absent until we come to 6:3. “Yahweh” is the most often used name for God in the Old Testament, the name He chooses to use when speaking to believers with whom He is rightly related, or when He wants to be very personal with us about how He feels considering an issue. The only place between 4:16 and 6:3 that God uses His name “Yahweh” is in 4:26, when Seth reinstates genuine, intimate, personal worship of “Yahweh,” something that had been absent for hundreds of years, and the return of which obviously pleased God.

Then suddenly, with emphatic frequency in the six verses between 6:3 and 6:8, God uses his personal name “Yahweh” 5 times. Why? Because He wants us to know something about Himself as it relates to the spiritual demise of Seth’s family line and the human race, and His impending judgment against the human race, the Flood.

Now, with that loooooong introduction, let’s read through Genesis 6:1-8. ^“Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord [Yahweh] said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the Lord [Yahweh] saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord [Yahweh] was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord [Yahweh] said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord [Yahweh].

As we look at this section, there are clearly two movements in these verses. Each movement begins with God’s description of the activities of the human race, followed by God’s response to what the race was doing, introduced by the words, “Then the Lord said...”

We see the first movement in the first three verses. It begins with the description of the massive increase in the population of the earth driven by the lusty uncontrollable passions of the human race, in sinful defiance of God’s instructions concerning the reservation of sex between one man and one woman in marriage.

I believe the expression “sons of God,” refers to those individuals who are believers or followers of God. In this context, it specifically refers to the sons of Seth and the rulers over Seth’s godly line.

Although this exact expression “the sons of God” is used only three other times in the Old Testament, all three in the book of Job, and those “the sons of God” refers to angels, I do not believe that this expression in Genesis refers to angels. My reasons are as follows: First, in the New Testament, the expression “sons of God” only refers to believers, and this expression is used this way many times in the New Testament.

Second, the singular form of this expression, “son of God” was used in the New Testament to specifically point to Adam in his pre-Fall condition.

Thirdly, in the immediate context, there is no mention of angels, but the context is the godly line of Seth standing in contrast to Cain’s wicked family line.

And finally, the Hebrew term for “god” or “gods” is used not only of a divine being but also of earthly rulers or leaders. Hence, the expression “sons of God” could refer to Seth’s sons who were world rulers at this time.

There is no need to think of or interpret this expression to refer to angels. When you do, you only complicate what appears to be a rather simple passage of Scripture, which is explaining that sin and death has now spread universally to the entire human race; both to Cain’s family and to Seth’s family line.

According to verse 2, the specific sin highlighted here that drove the godly believing rulers in Seth’s family line to turn away from God was their lusty sexual passions for women. I take the expression “daughters of men” to refer to Cain’s godless daughters. Seth’s sons no longer looked to fellow believing women in Seth’s line for mates, but they looked to their wicked non-believing relatives in Cain’s family line, and took these ungodly women to be their wives.

In addition, the text includes that the once godly men of Seth’s family decided that they would begin to follow the ways of the world and build a harem of sorts and have multiple wives.

The bottom line is that Seth’s male descendants, who were once the spiritual leaders of Seth’s godly line, turned away from God to follow in Cain’s footsteps taking whomever (by rape, stealing or marriage) and however many wives as they pleased, which was in direct violation of God’s directions for marriage, as spelled out in Genesis 2.

We read about God’s emotional response to this move of the male rulers of the world in verse 3. Here God uses His personal name to reveal that He not only takes this rebellion against His directions personally, but it hurts Him deeply because the human race has just rejected their loving creator, who created them so He could have fellowship with them. His response is to set them on notice that His judgment will occur in just 120 years. God will no longer “strive” with those who were alive, meaning, He would no longer remain their protector and provider. He would no longer put up with their evil. Enough is enough and things are going to change.

And his reason for this is stated, “...because he also is flesh.” In other words, the only previous difference between animals created by God and human beings created by God, is that God created us to have a spiritual life with Him. But when man rejects his spiritual ties to God, then from God’s perspective, the human race is to be treated like the animals that have no immortal future relationship with the God of creation.

Sexual passion wasn’t the only thing that upset God. That which really was the final straw that broke the proverbially camel’s back was the movement among the human race to seek guidance, direction and power from other evil spiritual sources, namely demons.

That brings us to verse 4 and the question of, “Who or what are these Nephilim?” The Hebrew word itself literally means “fallen ones.”

One view states that they were the by-product of men who had sexual relations with fallen angels, making them some kind of half-breed, semi-divine, supernaturally powerful individual. But as Dr. J. Vernon McGee rightly points out, whoever these Nephilim were, they were not half breeds or monsters, because the text tells us twice that they were 100% human beings.

Furthermore, these Nephilim existed before Seth’s godly line started having sex with them, and thus they could not have been the bi-product of unnatural human relations between Seth’s family line and the fallen angels or demons.

I believe these Nephilim were men and women of Cain’s family line who had given themselves over to serving Satan, had become demon possessed and thus, powerful individuals. So powerful were they that stories would be told about these demonically possessed individuals long after they were dead. They would become legends. In fact, if you read other religious accounts of the history of man, you will find similar legendary stories of these kinds of men.

In the end, these men had become so wicked by submitting themselves to the powers of evil and becoming demon possessed that they earned the title of “the fallen ones”, Nephilim.

God summarizes His evaluation not just of Cain’s descendants, but now all of humanity including Seth’s godly family line in verse 5. He declares that wickedness had become so great that the only thing humans could do at that point was to think and act out evil continually.

We read about God’s disappointment with Seth’s descendants and the rest of humanity submitting to demonic possession in verses 6-7. In verse 6, we read about Yahweh’s personal pain. We are told that God was “sorry” and deeply “grieved” about the self destruction that was coming upon His beloved creation, because all humanity had chosen to reject God and to suffer the consequences.

The only thing I can think of to help describe God’s grieving would be the pain my relatives feel who have had to watch their son, who is close to 40 years old, spend more than 20 years of his life in a Federal Prison for his ongoing wrong and self-destructive choices, with no real hope of ever getting out.

As we see in Romans 1, when individuals continually rebel, refusing to heed warnings or instructions from God, God turns them loose to themselves and they are left to self-destruct and suffer the consequences of their own wrong choices. He just takes his hands off the controls of our lives and allows us to ruin ourselves.

Except in this case, God’s plan is more than just letting us destroy ourselves. In verse 7, we see “Yahweh’s” plan, or His intent is to blot out man from the face of the earth. The execution of that plan is spelled out in the next three chapters of Genesis.

But, as we see in verse 8, God can’t just blot out everyone, because then He will not have any humans to work with, save, rescue or transform so that no evil being could ever seduce them again. So in verse 8, we see a ray, a sliver of hope. We see “Yahweh’s” provision of grace. It begins with the emphatic words, “But Noah....!” In contrast to all the evil that is going on in the world, and in contrast to God’s impending judgment on that evil, we read that God has not given up on us entirely. We read that “Noah found favor [literally “grace”] in the eyes of the Lord.” Noah found favor or grace, not because of what he did or because he was so good. A study of this term “favor” or “grace” reveals that Noah did nothing to earn or maintain God’s favor. It is “unmerited favor.” The truth is that Noah deserved the judgment too. But God, for His own reason, chose to show mercy to Noah, and saved or rescued Noah and his family by way of the Ark.

We will look more closely at Noah next week. But for now, let’s wrap up our study with some important conclusions. First, when you read this chapter in light of what Jesus predicted in Matthew 24 about the end times, and what we read about in Revelation 6 concerning God’s final judgment of the world, we can’t miss the truth that “Yahweh” is the same God in Genesis 6 as He is in Revelation 6. God’s personhood, His character and His purposes are the same from the beginning of creation, to the end of creation and the beginning of the new creation and beyond. God’s person and plan never changes. He ultimately always stays the same and accomplishes His purposes.

The same long suffering “Yahweh”, who in the past was merciful, just, personal, desired to bless His own, meant what He said and promised to judge wickedness in Noah’s day, is the same “Yahweh” of today, who still has those qualities and will meet us after death or the end of this world, which ever comes first.

And because God never changes, the next truth is equally important for us to keep in mind, and that is as “Yahweh” promised Noah, Jesus promises us today... judgment of our world is coming!

Why would Jesus not stop at just preaching love? Why would Jesus preach about the end times and judgment? Because Jesus knows that God’s nature and goals haven’t changed. The very reason God prophetically told Noah’s generation about the judgment of the Flood, is the same reason that Jesus told his disciples, and God tells us in Revelation about the end times. It is so that we would listen up and believe Him. So we would live our lives today in correct relationship to Yahweh, our loving creator, so our future here on earth and in eternity will be blessed. Don’t be fooled by the majority who are going the wrong way. You and I are to continue to seek after God and His purposes.

Don’t be distracted from your main purpose for being here on earth, or for being a citizen of the United States. God did not place you as a citizen in the United States so that you could save or maintain your country’s dominance over the world. God did not put you in the United States for the purpose of doing all that you can to maintain your comfortable lifestyle, irregardless of the oppression of other poor nations. God did not put you here in the United States so that you could rescue its Christian heritage. Remember, your ultimate allegiance is to the Kingdom of God, not the U.S. God clearly tells us that all countries will eventually abandon Him as they did in the days of Noah. So our primary purpose of service is to be toward the Kingdom of God, which is not to be mistaken for our own country.

God has placed you and me here in the United States to be salt and light. To live morally upright lives. As a citizen, I must do what I can politically to be a good steward of my right to vote for moral godly leadership and to speak up for all of God’s purposes, not just my political party’s agenda. Our differing political opinions should not be allowed to divide us from our brothers and sisters. As Romans 14 speaks, when it comes to social and political gray areas of conscience, agree to disagree. Don’t fall into the trap of cajoling or pressuring others that in order to be accepted by you, they must agree with your political stance.

Although I have a responsibility to vote as I sense God leading me to vote, keep in mind that no nation in the history of the world has ever or will ever be saved morally or turned around spiritually through the governmental or political process. The Bible tells us that legislation, or the “Law kills.” Spiritual life, on the other hand, comes through being rightly related to God and filled or controlled by His Spirit. This nation can be changed as one individual at a time is led to Christ and is encouraged to seek to know Him better and to walk with Christ.

Furthermore, don’t be surprised as we get closer to the end of our world to see that worship of God decreases and popularity of worshiping false gods or Satan increases. Don’t be surprised that you will be mocked or persecuted for your traditional Christian beliefs, upon which this country was founded. For instance, here is a quote from a recent letter to the editor in our local newspaper. The author is a friend of mine and a well known leader in our community, whom I doubt knows the Lord. He is supporting a particular candidate in this year’s election for President. He writes, “ will not apply a cultic form of bible science to medical research, hamstringing progress toward cures in diseases like...” and he lists several diseases. Don’t be surprised in the next 5 -10 years if you, who believe in the Bible, you who worship as a traditional Christian just as others have worshiped for two thousand years, are called a cultic worshiper or something worse. God wants you to know that this is coming and it is only a sign of the times, a sign that soon His judgment will come upon the earth. He wants you to know these things so that when they happen, you don’t feel abandoned and surprised. He wants you to know these things are going to happen so that you will live a sober life, making sure your priorities are God’s priorities.

Here is one last truth that can be recovered from this passage. As with Noah, the individual is important to God. God has always been a personal God who is more concerned and focused on the individual, than He is the group. What kind of individual does God focus on? He tells us in 2 Chronicles 16:9. There we read, “For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”

You are an individual in whom God is greatly interested. He wants to bless and lead your life. He wants to “strive” with you, protect you, provide for you and cover you. But you, the individual, must decide whom or what you will seek after first.

Just know that as long as you are alive, Jesus continues to seek after you. He continues to daily knock at the door of your heart to ask your permission to lead your life. Are you answering the door or ignoring Him? If it is Tuesday morning, and God knocks on the door of your heart and you answer the door, do you send Him away, saying, “I gave at church on Sunday”? Or, do you say, “Today is Tuesday and I want you to be master over my life?” As God said to the nation of Israel through His leader Joshua, “Choose this day, whom you will serve. For me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

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