Bible Study Genesis Part 65-Does God Repent?

Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel.

God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries.

We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God.

We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day.

The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold, and we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture.

Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible.

It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision.

Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us.

It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word.

We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death.

In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death.

Never treat what God has said lightly.

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Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

Sometimes we go through a couple of verses a night.

Not very often do we do that, but we will eventually.

As I've been telling you, just hang tight.

We will be moving a little bit faster as we get through the book of Genesis, and then things will be running a little more smoothly.

I do also want to report to you that we are starting a series in the letter to the Romans.

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We're starting that this week.

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We are currently in the book of Genesis.

We start the book of Romans this week.

I already said that.

We're in the book of Genesis right now.

We are in the sixth chapter, so let's dive right in.

We're going to start tonight on verse five.

Stand by a second.

Let me switch my screen.

There you go.

Verse 5 of Genesis 6.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.

Listen, there's no hiding from him.

He will see your wickedness, and he'll see my wickedness too.

It's best to do what pleases him because he sees that too.

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.

Sorry, I want to go back to this Nephilim business real quick.

There are many scholars who believe that the flood was meant to clear the world of these fictional giants, that those fallen angels had gotten out of hand, and the reason why God sent the rains was to get rid of them once and for all, that they were somehow on the verge of despoiling the race of man.

Well, the Bible doesn't say anything like that.

God was mad at men.

It was men, not monsters that were causing the problem.

It was the wickedness of man, not angels, that was great in the earth.

The hearts of men, not of giants, were evil continually.

Again, it is vital that we let scripture speak for itself.

This entire passage has suffered from the imagination of men since antiquity, and it's damaged both its content and its integrity.

Someone left me a comment on our on this YouTube channel trying to tell me that there are still giants in the land because somehow he interpreted that.

I'm sorry for chuckling at you if you're listening, but he infers that uh that Noah brought on two of the giants so that the giants could proliferate through the earth.

I obviously didn't let that comment make its way to our channel, nor did I respond to it.

But these are the sorts of things we have to deal with.

People are constantly trying to make more of this story than need be.

We've injected so much fantasy into the story that we've caused it to lose credibility.

No wonder people don't want to believe it.

We've made it into some gothic horror novel instead of the record of God's dealings with mankind.

We want to read this as entertainment rather than instruction.

Now we're spending time here because we've got to try and rescue the truth.

Listen, this passage is tough enough.

Getting through this is tough enough.

But when we have to stop and clear away the fiction, it makes it all that much more difficult.

Okay?

Back to work.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of his heart was only evil continually.

Verse six.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Now, here we have a minorly problematic verse.

You know, the only way to learn anything is to progress from one aspect of the subject to another based on the acceptance of previously settled on facts.

For instance, if you wanted to learn how I proposed to my wife, you'd likely ask me to tell you the story of how it happened.

So I start out saying that on the way home from work, now I would have to assume that you knew what work was and you knew what a home was, and you would have a pretty good idea that we didn't ride horse and buggy to get where we're going.

Those are previously known and accepted facts.

Fancy people call those a priori facts.

Then I would continue and say that I told Catherine that I had to stop at a computer store in Pinellas County to pick up some equipment for the office.

Now, there are lots of things I'm assuming in that one.

I'm assuming that you know what a computer store is, that you know what an office is.

And if you know me, then you would know I worked in technology at that time.

Over the course of a normal conversation, we wouldn't spend time going over all those facts or explain what all that means or the or to debate the truth of those assumptions.

Knowledge is an accumulation of facts, and many facts build on or assume previous facts.

I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

Now, if we don't do that, we'll never get anywhere.

In science, those previous previously known facts are called assumptions.

Now, if you make me prove to you that I know what a computer is, or I know where Pinellas County is, or that I know how to drive a car, or if I had to show you evidence that Catherine's name is Catherine because now you're not so sure, well, we'd never get anywhere and it would be impossible to teach you anything.

When God says he repented, that he made man on the earth, there are assumptions we have to rely on before we can really know what he's talking about.

And if we can't rest our conclusion of the meaning of this verse on very specific assumptions, then we will become confused, unsure, and ultimately miss the point that God is making.

So what are the assumptions we are making here?

Well, there really aren't many of them.

There's really no more than a couple, but they are crucial, not only for this passage, but for the whole Bible.

Number one, now these are in no particular order.

Number one assumption is that God is nothing like us.

Uh, John, shouldn't you say that uh we're nothing like God?

Well, that's also true, but that wouldn't help me make my point.

I say God is nothing like us.

I say we must assume God is nothing like us so that we don't make the mistake in this instance, or really any other.

We must be convinced that God is nothing like us so that we don't take this passage and interpret it through our own way of thinking.

So that's number one, God is nothing like us.

Number two, God never makes a mistake.

In fact, he can't make a mistake.

It's not that he's just really good at being right all the time.

It isn't that he's really focused and really careful and he works really hard at being perfect.

He doesn't work at being perfect because he is perfect.

Being imperfect is impossible for him.

Unlike us, his very nature is error-free.

Can you imagine being praised by a fish for your breathing skills?

If a fish could talk, he'd probably ask you, hey, how is it that you make processing oxygen out of thin air look so easy?

Well, that's ludicrous for lots of reasons, but one of the most ludicrous is believing that you have to work at breathing.

You get the exact right amount of oxygen in your body, the perfect amount of oxygen in your body every time you breathe, because that's just you.

God's very nature renders it impossible for him to fail, and we have to believe that, or the message of Genesis 6 at best makes no sense.

But more than likely, you'll come to the wrong conclusion, which is far worse.

The word we read in verse six is repent.

The dictionary definition of that English word as it relates to this application is quote, to feel regret or to change one's mind.

Now, just to be clear, though you already know this, regretting and changing one's mind is always the result of coming to the realization of an error in judgment.

For God, that's not possible.

Everything that God chooses, everything that God judges is right.

If he chose it, if he judged it, it's right.

It can't be wrong.

He is in charge of everything.

Therefore, everything he does, everything he thinks, everything that happens from him outward is perfect.

He can't make a mistake.

Now, let me say real quick: my job is not to convince anyone that the Bible is true.

My job is to teach people as if the Bible is true.

There are some people who are always trying to prove the Bible.

It's called Christian apologetics.

I don't do that anymore.

I'm not, I'm not, I don't have that kind of energy.

That's not my job.

I don't structure these lessons in such a way as to lure you into believing in the Bible.

I don't engage in semantic gymnastics or emotional appeals or clever storytelling.

I teach with the assumption that you already believe the Bible to be true, because if you don't, none of what I teach will help you.

We are primarily concerned with people who want to improve their relationship with God, who they know exists, by learning what he has done for them and what he has in store.

So back to my point.

I will not prove to you anything from this book except by giving you biblical quotes.

God, in fact, God to be God makes no mistakes and therefore does not and cannot feel regret.

He says so himself in several places.

For example, Malachi 3, 6, this is one of my favorites.

For I am the Lord, I change not.

Therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Sometimes he has someone else say it, but it's still his spirit doing the inspiration.

How about the mighty prophet Samuel as an example?

1 Samuel 15, 29.

And also the strength of Israel will not lie, nor repent, for he is not a man that he should repent.

You know who he's talking about, don't you?

You can't tell me you don't know who Samuel's talking about.

None other than God, of course.

Who else could be called the strength of Israel?

Not convinced?

All right.

Do you trust James, the brother of our Lord?

And yes, James is another one of Mary's sons.

Can't be sure his father is Joseph, since most people believe, and the scriptural record sort of bears out that Joseph died very early in Jesus' life.

Nonetheless, the Bible tells us that James was the brother of Jesus.

The Catholic Church is wrong about Mary being a lifelong virgin.

That's they didn't get that from the Bible.

Then why do they say that?

Where do they get that from?

Not the time nor the place for that.

We'll say that for another time.

Back to James, the brother of Jesus.

He says, chapter 1, verse 17, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Actually, let me read that out of the NIV.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights.

You have it up there, thanks, honey.

Coming down from the heaven, the father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

This verse is incredibly beautiful.

I'm gonna read it again.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the Heavenly Lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

This is a very poetic contrast between God and the powerful sun in the sky.

Even the light from that life-sustaining orb is inconsistent in that it's subject to shadows and intensity changes based on a variety of causes like obstacles and clouds and all of that.

The sun is much less than our God.

Not so with our God.

Not so with the Father of Lights, as James calls him, using an ancient Hebrew name for God.

Our light from God, our light from him never changes.

It's always bright, always brilliant, and always warming, as I said.

A beautiful comparison with powerful meaning.

We must have this unchangingness of God in our minds here, or we'll come away with a grievous misunderstanding.

So let's read it again.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Repentance is turning from one's previous position, and God doesn't even hint at such a move.

And then we even hear this from a pagan king.

Listen, the heathen know this truth.

What's your excuse?

Balak, the king of the Moabites, no less, had to admit, Numbers 23, 19, God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent, hath he said, and shall he not do it, or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

That's what the Bible says about our Father, our God.

This, of course, then leads to a very big question.

If God does not regret or repent, then why does Genesis 6, 6 say, and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart?

Why does it say that?

Why is it telling us that way?

You know, when kids are little, their world is so small.

It's happened to all of us.

Obviously, no one comes out knowing everything, not even Jesus, by the way.

We have to rely on our parents teaching us things.

We have to go through certain experiences, we have to be exposed to increasingly complicated situations in order to come to a proper and mature outlook on life.

Some of us never get there, but that's not the point.

Of course, my sweet little Sammy was no exception.

Trying to explain things to her or answering her questions had to be framed in a way that she could understand given her age and her intelligent level, intelligence level.

For example, whenever we needed an auto mechanic for something, oil change repair, she didn't fully grasp what was happening.

So we would have to tell her that we had to visit the car doctor.

The family car was sick, and we needed someone to make her feel better.

Nothing serious.

Just the car had a little boo boo or something.

Telling two year old, telling two year old Samantha that the car was a machine and had moving parts, and a man had to fix certain things or replace certain things with just.

Make no sense to her at all.

So we had to frame the conversation as if my 2004 Nissan Murana was just another living member of the family.

Of course, it wasn't, but that's the only way she could understand.

We didn't tell her it was alive, but we had to structure our discussion as if it were, so that our sweet new to this world baby could get the point.

Later on her own, we knew she would be able to work out the actual truth, but at the moment, we had to talk to her in a way that she could understand and not become frustrated.

What's the point?

Well, God very often has to do this with us.

Remember, way back when, when we started this, we said that one of the things we have to be sure of is that God's ways are not our ways, but it's even more than that.

He says through the prophet Isaiah, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

In other words, we simply cannot understand him completely.

It's impossible.

As impossible as it is for God to repent of something, it's much more impossible for us to understand his ways.

Listen, a hummingbird finds it impossible to understand why a squirrel doesn't fly south for the winter.

You know why?

Because their natures are so different.

But even this illustration fails me, because a hummingbird is much more like a squirrel than we are like God.

When Moses wrote it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and that it grieved him at his heart, that was actually the extent that the Holy Spirit could go to in order to explain to us how God was feeling at the time.

Of course, God didn't repent it like we repent things.

That's impossible, as we constantly are saying.

But it was the closest the Holy Spirit could come to giving us an idea of God's reaction to the wickedness of man.

It's out of the question for us to be able to fully understand.

The Holy Spirit knew that, but we needed to know as much as possible.

So he said it in a way that would help us get there.

Telling little Sammy that the brakes needed to be fixed would make no sense to her.

So I told her the car wasn't feeling well and it needed someone to make it better.

Did she fully get it?

Of course not.

But it satisfied her to get part of the way.

God didn't repent that he made man in the strictest sense, but what he did feel was something like we feel when we've made a mistake and wish we had a chance at a do-over.

I'm sorry, John.

Sounds like you're doing a bit of a tap dance.

That's that's not a very satisfactory answer to me.

Well, the only reason I can figure you'd think that is that you didn't meet the criteria above.

You don't believe that the Bible is true, and you don't think that God is any different than you or me.

So I must admit I feel sorry for you, but I have to move on.

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, as best as we could understand, 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.

There wasn't some race of superhumans that were getting out of hand.

Mankind had become rotten to the core.

He was drifting dangerously far from his origins, and something had to be done.

God had an agenda for the earth, and I'm convinced it was in jeopardy.

Sin was everywhere, and it was threatening to throw off God's plans and timing.

Jesus had to come.

I'm gonna say it again.

Jesus had to come to a certain place at a certain time, and everything had to be just right for that to happen, and the growth of sin was becoming increasingly troublesome.

Now let me make a quick comment.

Not only did God declare that he was going to destroy mankind, but he also said he was going to destroy all the animals.

The original says, from man to beast.

The King James says both man and beast.

The Hebrew reads, from man to beast.

God's wrath literally ran the gamut.

Now, why did God take it that far?

Listen, I'm an animal lover.

Even the scariest ones are innocent of any malice except for spiders.

I hate spiders.

We could do without them.

That notwithstanding, God said man to beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air.

And by the way, I'm with Jay Vernon McGee and wondering about the fish.

Why weren't fish condemned?

And sending them more water was actually a boon for them.

For some reason, fish were left out of God's wrath.

Don't know why.

But no one else, just the fish.

All other animals on and above the earth were targeted.

But why?

I've scoured the various sources, and no one seems to be able to give a good reason, and no one actually tries very hard.

Some have say said, some have said, well, it's because God gave man dominion over the animal kingdom.

And since they were created for man, well, that just means they got to go too.

Well, all that does is it just restates a few known facts, but doesn't really answer the question as to why they were destroyed too.

And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth.

The original literally means to blot out, to wipe out by washing.

And the Lord said, I will wipe out, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, from man to beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them.

Why the animals?

I understand mankind.

He's the sinner, he needs to be removed.

Mankind has broken all of God's law and is becoming worse and worse.

And clearly, God has reached his limit and he must make a correction, a drastic correction.

And maybe that's the answer.

Maybe God is highlighting how far mankind is fallen.

But even more important, by destroying all life, maybe he's showing the intensity of his anger and the extent of his power and his willingness to purge his entire creation.

Perhaps the wiping out of the animals is part of the question or is a part of the message.

God is demonstrating that he's not to be trifled with.

There is nothing on the face of the earth that could stand against him, and he never wants mankind to forget it.

And we haven't.

We may not be taking him seriously anymore, but we sure seem unable to forget that flood.

Pure speculation?

Probably.

But the fact remains, Deuteronomy 4.24, for the Lord thy God is a consuming fire.

Well, we've got lots more to talk about, but let's leave it there for tonight.

Next time, more the same.

See you then.

We hope this study has blessed you.

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