Genesis 6-8

Hello, I am Anthony Garcia.

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Thank you again, and I hope this message is a blessing to you.

But Genesis chapter number six this morning, and uh we're gonna look at, we're gonna look really, uh, hey, hey, get your seat belts ready with me this morning, okay?

We're gonna look at chapter number six, chapter number seven, and chapter number eight this morning, okay?

So we're gonna go through a lengthy part of scripture.

We're gonna read, just to start here, just in verse number one through eight, really what it is, it's the story of Noah and the flood.

And here's what we have to understand as we read the Bible, we will come across things that are at times a mystery, that are at times beyond our own comprehension, beyond our own, man.

I don't know if I some passages that we might even wrestle with, even as Brother Lucas was alluding to, right, in the exhortation.

And so sometimes though we get frustrated with not understanding all the things in the Word of God, but we have to remind ourselves, this is uh I didn't ask Brother Lucas what he was gonna teach on this morning for the exhortation, but it goes right along.

We have to base these things, right?

We have to remind ourselves that it's in faith, that we're taking God at his word, and we're having faith in the character of who God declares himself to be.

We have faith in a father who makes no mistakes.

I wasn't here this last Sunday.

I had the opportunity to go all the way over to uh uh Toledo, Ohio, and uh preach Kids' Weekend over there.

Thank you so much for your prayers and uh the opportunity there.

We had around uh 45 kids or so on that final Sunday, and a lot of kids that came in, some that were brand new, some that were hearing the gospel for the first time, and just preached Jesus to them.

I took uh Anderson along with me and I teased him before the trip.

You know how kiddos get, right?

You tell them that you're they're gonna go do something fun, and if you tell them too early, what happens, right?

They start asking you every day, hey, are we going tomorrow?

Hey, are we going today?

When are we gonna go?

Can I pack?

He had his things packed, like maybe like a week ahead of time, uh, ready to go.

And I was like, buddy, you're like, you're gonna use the same suitcases as me.

And unfortunately, I packed like the day right before.

And so I was like, you don't have to be ready quite yet.

But I was teasing him, I said, Anderson, I said, he's like, How are we getting there?

I was like, we're gonna walk.

Now, if you were Zena Map, right?

You know where Ohio's at.

I was like, we're gonna walk.

And in his mind, he just kind of initially thought, like, oh, okay, we're gonna walk.

Like, that's not gonna be that's a long trip, okay?

We would have never made it.

We'd still be walking right now if we were walking all the way to Toledo, Ohio for uh the kids' uh VBS there, right?

But in his mind, he genuinely wants to understand, but he couldn't quite comprehend the distance, right?

And I can show him on a map and I can tell him, like, hey, we're getting up in an airplane, and and and the city's gonna look small, and we're gonna go way up high, and then we're gonna come down.

And we uh uh um had a layover in uh Nashville, Tennessee, and so we stayed there for a little bit.

He's like, okay, are we like there?

No, not yet.

Like, we still have another uh uh plane flight that we have to do, but this one will be a little bit quicker.

We'll go up and we'll come right back down, basically.

And so he couldn't quite comprehend the entirety of the trip, right?

If we were walking, he was game.

He was like, all right, we're walking.

If we were driving, he would have been down to do that, all right?

As long as he had uh uh uh an iPad with him or a video game with him for the trip, he was good to go.

He was good to go as long as he was with dad, right?

Trusting dad that dad knew the way, he knew which plane stop that we had to, uh the layover that we had and what flight to get on next, right?

As long as he was with me, he didn't have to comprehend everything about the trip.

All he had to do was trust that his dad was gonna get him from one place to the next and he was gonna be safe, and I was gonna take care of him, right?

Sometimes that's how it is when we approach the scriptures.

We might not understand everything about it, but you can trust your Heavenly Father.

You can trust his character, that he is good.

So when we look at a global flood, and in our minds and our comprehension, we're like, wow, how can there's sometimes we wrestle with that?

Man, how can this happen?

A global flood?

Like that's so much catastrophe.

Why was Noah the only one?

Why would God do this?

We can trust God's character, who he is.

We might not comprehend all of it, but that's what we're gonna look at this morning, okay?

We're gonna look in Genesis chapter number six.

Can I invite you to stand one more time with me for the reading of God's word?

And we're just gonna look, like I said, we're gonna look at a few chapters, but we're just gonna read from verse number one down through verse number eight.

Here's what the Bible says in verse number one.

And 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, and 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 an hundred and twenty years.

There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old men of renown.

Verse number five 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.

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Let's pray, and as we pray, would you ask God to speak to your heart this morning?

Ask him to help you with this uh particular text and ask that God would speak to us this morning.

Lord, I thank you for this day.

What a wonderful opportunity.

Look at your word again.

We believe it.

We believe it to be true.

You recorded it for us.

Lord, I don't even as your servant, even as one that desires to give myself to the study of your word, I don't always understand it, Lord.

I don't always understand your ways because your ways are not my ways.

And yet, Lord, I trust your character.

I trust that you are good.

I trust that you are holy.

I trust that you are loving, I trust that you're kind, that you're long-suffering, that you're merciful, Lord.

I trust, God, that you had a great plan within this flood, Lord.

And I believe that we are recipients of the great plan, Lord, and knowing that later you come, Jesus.

You die on the cross for us, you shed your blood, and you're still writing your story even today.

And there are those here this morning that perhaps they need to know you as Savior.

I pray that today would be their day of salvation.

God, for us, maybe we're here.

We've been in the faith for a long time, maybe for a short time.

And we just need your encouragement today.

We need help from your word.

We need to keep our eyes fixed on the prize, Lord, and that we need to continue to press forward for you and to honor and glorify you.

And yeah, while this may be a familiar passage or one that we hear even as children, and Noah and the Ark, I pray that it would be fresh to us today.

God, I'm your servant.

I need your help this morning, Lord.

God, I need your help with my voice this morning, uh physically, but I need your help spiritually, Lord.

I Holy Spirit, I need you to fill me and that you would take your word, that you would feed your flock, that you would help us, Lord.

That this morning this would not just be a message from me, Lord, but this would be a message from you.

God, we need your grace this morning, and I ask for your help in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you so much for standing.

You can be seated this morning.

Mankind's corruption, it invites God's judgment.

Mankind's corruption, it always invites God's judgment.

And we've seen that actually, if you go back with me before James, we were in the book of Genesis.

And we saw that in Genesis chapter number three, when mankind decided to take of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and their sin against God, their corruption against God, it invited God's judgment to where now mankind was separated from God.

Now there's a curse on the earth.

Now we go out to garden and there might be thorns, there might be weeds that we have to pull.

Now we go to work and we work with the sweat of our brow.

Now there are so many things in this life: sickness, death, disease that weren't meant to be part of this life, but because of mankind's sin, there was God's judgment, not just on Adam and Eve, but on the whole world, on the whole earth.

So mankind's corruption, it invites God's judgment.

But I am thankful that throughout the Word of God, throughout the Old Testament, throughout the New Testament, here is what you find.

That though mankind is sinful, though we run against him in rebellion, though we are stiff-necked like uh the Jews in the wilderness, though we are sinners, God's grace is greater.

God still offers grace.

So mankind's our corruption, it invites God's judgment, but God's character, who He is, He provides grace.

You see this pattern all throughout the scriptures.

In chapter number six, we're introduced to a topic of wide debate.

Okay, as we look in these first verses, um, for this may be familiar to you, this may be unfamiliar to you, but there's a there there's some things that are difficult for scholars, for theologians, for preachers uh to interpret.

What does it mean here in verse number two that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose?

What does it mean that there were giants in the earth in those days?

And after that, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, they bare children, and there's mighty men, and there's men of renown.

What do all these things indicate?

There's a few views concerning who the sons of God are here in verse number two, okay?

There's at least three different views, and let me just give you these views just as we're going through this passage, so you have an idea of uh how people try and interpret this text here.

One view for the sons of God here, the sons of God in verse number two, that saw the daughters of men that they were pharaohs, so they started to take uh these daughters unto themselves as wives.

One view is that the sons of God is speaking of kings during that day.

That there were kings, there were rulers, there were men of power, and they essentially, as in other parts of history kings have done, they were taking whoever they wanted to be their wives, and whoever they wanted to uh um be a part of their kingdom, and they were uh um skewing, as we looked at even with Lamech, they were skewing the view and the pattern and the principle that God gave for marriage.

That there were kings that were in power, and basically whoever they wanted in order to build their kingdom up, their power up, they were taking and marrying multiple wives.

Another view is this, okay?

Another view is that the sons of God here is in reference to the godly line of Seth.

That at times, even when it goes through the genealogies, it talks about, I think it's in uh Luke, in the genealogies in Luke, that it goes all the way back, it traces Jesus all the way back to Adam, and it calls Adam a son of God.

And so there are some that would look at this as the sons of God in reference to the godly line of Seth.

And if you remember back in chapter number four and back in chapter number five, there was a godly line, the godly line of Seth, those that were living by faith, those that were following after God.

Then there was the ungodly line.

Who was the ungodly line?

It was that of Cain, all right?

So Cain slew his brother Abel.

Seth was the replacement for Abel, and now there's a godly line through Seth, but there's an ungodly line, Cain, and his rebellion and his lineage after him, they rebelled against God.

So some would look at this, verse number two, the sons of God saw the daughters of men, and they would look at it as the sons of God being the godly line of Seth that were intermaring with the ungodly line of Cain.

And so there were believers that were marrying unbelievers.

There were those that were supposed to be following after God's command, that they decided, oh, we see the daughters of men or the daughters of Cain, and we're going to choose them as our uh as our spouse.

And so that's another view.

The final view, another view that people hold to, and as I went through commentaries, as I listened to different messages, it is very divided on what the sons of God actually is talking about here.

So another view is that the sons of God is in reference to angels, those that would have been fallen angels.

Okay, we're talking demonic, all right?

We're talking demons.

That the sons of God here is a phrase that is used in another passage of scripture.

It'd be used in Job, in Job chapter number one, and in Job chapter number 38.

So Job 1, 6, Job 38, 7, both of these define or use the same phrase, the sons of God, and it's talking about angels.

That's the common use of this phrase.

And so some would interpret this passage based off of the common use of the sons of God in Job, and then based off of um two or three New Testament texts, okay?

There's a few New Testament texts.

I'll invite you to read them when you have the chance.

We won't read them here this morning.

Jude verse 6 and 7, okay?

There's only one chapter in Jude, but verse 6 and 7, it talks about a particular uh uh sin, a particular rebellion that the angels committed against God, and that they were locked in chains awaiting future judgment.

And then it talks about this as well, or it's alluded to in 1 Peter 3, 19 through 20.

And the theory is that these sons of God are in reference to angels, fallen angels, demons, who either took on the form of human and had relationships with mankind, or in some way possessed men in a way to produce offspring that took off a more bodily form or a hybrid offspring, if you would.

And so there's a few different views concerning the sons of God that are here, okay?

There's the more uh uh uh uh um natural view, I guess you could say that it's just the line of Seth and it's the line of Cain, and then there's a more um supernatural time of type of looking at it of the angels.

I will say this.

Either theory, all right, either theory, they both have their flaws, all right?

Either theory both have their flaws.

They both are kind of difficult to weigh in one or another.

There's some argument that what else would these New Testament verses be talking about other than this particular uh occasion.

And in the context of 1 Peter, it even alludes to it being at the time of Noah.

And so these are a couple of different uh theories, and part of the theory with it being uh the angels or the demons is that since Christ was born of the seed of the woman, that Satan was desirous of corrupting that seed, of corrupting that genealogy.

And so this is where you have this demonic plot to corrupt the bloodline so that Christ could never come through the Virgin Mary.

Now, Noah, people would look at and say that his bloodline was pure, that he was preserved.

And how exactly all this would work, I don't know, all right?

I'm not sure how exactly all of either theory or either thing would work.

And can I say this as well?

Okay, I wanted to reference this just because I know there might be some questions concerning these verses.

Um, but I want to say this as well.

Learning about the Nephilim or the giants or uh the angels, how all this worked, is not the central idea of this text as well.

Okay, as we go through the book of Genesis, it is a narrative format.

So the story is being told, the origin is being given for humanity and historical points that we need to know about that God saw fit to preserve.

But the point of the text is not necessarily to point us to all these different theories and ideas, and you know, what about this and what about that?

It's interesting to discuss at times, but I want to encourage you this morning.

It's not the main point of the narrative.

Don't get distracted in all of these different theories.

Don't get sidetracked by all of what could be.

They can be interesting at times, but Paul he even warns people in 1 Timothy.

He warns Timothy, he writes to him, he says, As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, uh, this is 1 Timothy 1, 3 and 5, when I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly, edifying witches in faith, so do.

So Paul places the emphasis and he says, Don't get sidetracked.

And unfortunately, 2026, you know it's a lot easier to get sidetracked on some of these things because you can find your favorite person on YouTube, and then you're down the rabbit hole, right?

And it's one video after another, and what about this and what about that?

It's good coffee talk, right?

But God doesn't want us to be fixed and focused on endless genealogies and on who were the Nephilim and the men of renown and angelogy and demonology, or even let me add this in there as well, okay?

God doesn't want us to be so wrapped up because we can do this at times, so wrapped up in the end times when's Jesus coming back?

All these things are coming together.

He doesn't want you to be so wrapped up in all the clues and trying to figure out all those things that you're not living for him today.

The point is not to be wrapped up in all those things, the point is to be prepared because he can return at any moment.

So be careful and guard your heart and don't be wrapped up in fables and endless genealogies that minister questions rather than godly edifying.

There is godly edifying that needs to take place in the Christian's life.

You can figure it all out.

I know who the Antichrist is, and I know that, and I know this, and I watched this video, and you spent 20 hours on it.

But who did you edify?

Who did you share Christ with?

Who did you pray for?

Who did you minister to?

I'm not saying those things are wrong to study out.

We have the Bible for a reason to study it, right?

And and we can have a good um answer for our faith.

It's not wrong to study these out, but don't get distracted and caught up in all these things that you forsake the godly edifying which needs to be done.

And so I wanted to touch base on that, but I want us to look at the real crux here of the narrative.

The flood.

Look at verse number five.

What does the Bible say?

It says, 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.

Jump down with me to verse number nine.

These are the generations of Noah.

Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations.

And Noah walked with God.

And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

The earth also was corrupt before God.

And the earth was filled with violence.

And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Make thee an ark of gopher wood, room shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

And this is the fasten which thou shalt make it of.

The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in the cubit shalt thou finish it above, and the door of the ark shalt thou set, and the side thereof with lower second and third story shalt thou make it.

And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh.

Wherein is the breath of life?

From under heaven, and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

But with thee will I establish my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife and thy sons' wives with thee, and of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark.

To keep them alive with thee, they shall be male and female, of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come in unto thee, to keep them alive, and take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee, and it shall be for food for thee and for them.

Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Notice the emphasis.

Verse number five, and verse number eleven through thirteen.

The emphasis that God places in this story is that God saw the wickedness of man.

That man was corrupt, that man was wicked, that all the thoughts, all his imaginations, all his heart was continually corrupt, wicked, sinful.

And again and again we see that the Bible tells us the truth about ourselves that we don't like to say about ourselves, but God's gonna be honest with us, he's gonna tell us the truth that we're not as good as we like to think.

We're not as good as we like to think.

We're corrupt, we're wicked, we're depraved.

The natural desires of our heart self-focus.

It's corruption.

Even Jesus said this when one came to him and he gave him the right title, but Jesus pointed him and said, uh, in Mark 10, 18, why callest thou me good?

There is none good but one that is God, which Jesus was God.

So he had the rightful title, but he was provoking him and helping him understand.

Like, are you truly believing on me?

Why do you call me good?

There's only one good.

There's only God that is good, there's only God that is perfect, there's only God that is holy.

We uh central who we are.

We are not naturally good people who happen to fall into sin because of our environment.

We are naturally sinful people that need to be rescued, that need to be saved, that need grace.

The Bible gives us, I'm gonna give us a word here, an anthropomorphic description of God.

What in the world is anthropomorphic?

Basically, here's the idea: God is different than us, right?

He's not a man like us.

He is spirit, he he he he lives outside of time.

We can only live in today, right?

We can live in right now.

We can think about the future, we can plan and try and think about the, but we're not in the future.

We can remember from the past, but we can't go back in the past and live in that time.

And so God is different from us, He's outside of time.

He the the way that God relates to us is different.

And so when we see a description here about God in verse number six, it says, and it repented the Lord.

This is anthropomorphic, this is us giving or God giving for us uh these descriptive words about who he is so we can understand him better.

It says that he repented or that he was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Okay?

This is this is language that we would assign to mankind.

That means I'm grieved, I'm I'm hurt, I'm sorry.

Now, God's outside of time, so he already knew this would take place, and he was already in this time, in this place before we could even think of it, right?

He's always in every place at every time.

And if you think about that too long, your head will just explode.

So don't try.

God's different than us.

But this is what God relays to us that our sin, humanity's rebellion, humanity's corruption does have an impact on God's heart.

Some try to assign to God that, you know, well, he was creator, but then he just kind of wiped his hands and he can't be interested in the things and the affairs of humanity.

But rather, what the Bible says is that our sin, our corruption, it grieves God at his heart.

It breaks his heart.

God's very interested and connected to how mankind, to how you and I today, how we live our lives.

He is the broken-hearted father who is disappointed in our sinful decisions, who is grieved.

Ephesians 4 30 says, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

God is grieved by our sin.

It bothers him that people give themselves over to such wicked things.

It bothers God that we believe it's okay to commit injustices.

It bothers God that mankind as a whole, that many are there that curse his name and tear down others and lie and cheat one another and don't live in love towards him and don't live in lore and love towards one another.

It bothers God, it grieves his heart.

It grieved God that there was such wickedness in the earth.

And because God is holy, and because God will maintain and hold up justice, the corruption of humanity, it demanded the judgment of God.

That's the second thing that we see this morning: the judgment of God.

Verse number 13, and God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence, through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Chapter number seven.

And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark of thee.

For thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens the male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female, of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

For yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him.

And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

And Noah went in, and his sons and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood, of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that creepeth upon the earth.

There went in two and two unto Noah unto the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up.

Water came from beneath the earth, and the windows of heaven were open, and waters came from above the earth, and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights, and the south same day entered Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them into the ark.

The only place of salvation, the only place for rescue was in the ark.

I hope this message was a blessing to you.

If you are in the Phoenix area, we would love to have you come in for a visit.

We're located on Indian School and 23rd Avenue.

If we can be a help to you in any other way, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

I would love to answer any questions that you had about the sermon, or maybe a question that you have about eternal life and a relationship with God.

We're here to serve you and to point you to Jesus Christ.

Thank you so much for watching this message.