God’s judgment is toward men, not angels (vv. The text says that the “sons of God” found the “daughters of men…attractive,” implying a sexual attraction, which seems unlikely for angels. The phrase “they took as their wives” is a Hebrew idiom for legal marriage and doesn’t convey any sense of an unnatural relationship. Jesus seems to suggest that angels don’t have the ability to procreate (Mk. 3:25), but it can also refer to human beings (Mt. It’s true that the phrase “sons of God” refers to angels elsewhere in the Old Testament (Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7 Ps. The reasons why I lean this way are several. Or they could be the descendants of Seth, or men from the godly line of Seth who intermarried with women from the ungodly line of Cain.Įither of the last two options seem best to me, but the option I lean toward is that the “sons of God” are the “godly sons” of Seth, the descendants of the line of promise who were marrying women from the cursed line of Cain. They could be fallen angels that took a physical form and engaged in sexual activity with women. Who are these “sons of God” who were marrying the “daughters of men”? There are three main options.
In verse 2, we come to one of the most perplexing questions in the Bible. May God give us wisdom and grace to live faithfully in the sea of people that is the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. There may be more Christians to fellowship with and more unbelievers to reach with the gospel. Living in cities can be a terrible temptation but also a wonderful opportunity. We call these islands “local churches.” The question isn’t, “Do you go to church?,” but rather, “Are you vitally connected to a church?” The church is a family, not an event, a worshipping community, not a content provider. The only way to survive in an ocean of corruption is to join other believers on an island of salt and light. Because cities have more people, cities will inevitably have a greater concentration of sin and temptation.įor those who follow Jesus and live in cities like ours, this means that joining and participating in the life of a local church is all the more important. But in cities, there are larger numbers of people concentrated in a smaller area. Of course, all people everywhere are sinners. We see this today, as cities tend to be places where sin flourishes. Moses is pointing out that sin increased as mankind increased. The multiplication of people results in the multiplication of evil. Verse 1 says that “mankind began to multiply on the face of the land.” It’s not a coincidence that the next paragraph begins in verse 5 by saying that wickedness is spreading across the earth. But into this dark world, grace has come. Our world is darkening, and judgment has been decreed (2 Pet. Noah’s world was darkening, so judgment was decreed. The main point of this passage is that God responds to a world drowning in sin with judgment and grace. Then verse 8 tells us that God was nonetheless initiating a plan to save the world. The first seven verses of Genesis 6 tell us how bad things had become and what God decides to do about it. Instead of humanity being comforted by Noah, humanity is going to need to be saved by Noah. He decided to destroy the world and deliver the world.Īny optimism created by Lamech’s prophecy in 5:29 is dashed by chapter 6. He decided to judge the world and save the world. God decided to destroy the world because the world was self-destructing.īut, amazingly, when God saw how bad things were, he made two decisions. These verses tell us why God decided to flood the earth. In our text this morning, Genesis 6:1-8, we’re going to see that the good world that God created became so bad that he decided to start over. Whether it’s a research project, an email, a flower bed, an old car or an old computer, sometimes things get so bad that we need to start over. It’d taken so long and so much effort to get that far, so when I realized that I’d put it on wrong I wanted to throw it all away and go inside. When I thought I was almost done, I raised the goal up only to realize that I’d put the board on backwards, so that the goal was facing the wrong direction. Assembling it took a lot longer than expected. Have you ever started something and then had to start over because something was messed up? After Christmas, we bought this little basketball goal for the kids. Judgement is Coming, But Grace Got Here First
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