Evil Company Corrupts Good Habits (Genesis Chapter Six - Part 2)

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts.

Morse Corner is a non -denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist

D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

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When you are sorry about something, how would you describe that? You might use the word regret.

I regret that I did this. The King James Version puts verse 6 this way,

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth. If you read the

King James Version of the Bible, in the Old Testament, God repents more than just about anybody else.

And that's a pretty different way of thinking about it. That God repented. Now did

God repent of sin? Absolutely not. But what's it saying? God changed his mind.

God changed his mind. Do you believe that God can change his mind? Well, that's what it says, right?

He changed his mind. He repented on the matter. He had a change of heart. So he made man.

And now, based on what we're reading, it seems that God regrets making man.

So does that mean that God made a mistake? That's logical for us that if we regret something, then we made a mistake.

And yet we know that God doesn't do anything wrong. It says that God changes his mind, but there's at least one or two verses where it says that God is not a man, that he should change his mind.

So how do you reconcile all of this? Well, some people call this, theologians call this anthropomorphic language.

Who's heard this term before? Anthropomorphic language. Right. Because one of God's attributes is his omniscience.

He knows all things. So many people believe that this is anthropomorphic language.

This is, let me just give a definition, that's when people attribute human attributes and emotions to non -human entities.

In this case, to God. Another example, the Bible talks about the arm of the

Lord. Or the Lord's, the eyes of the Lord. Does God the Father have eyes?

Does he have a right arm? No, of course not. I mean, Jesus does. But God the

Father doesn't. This is just language to help us understand what's going on. So basically, yeah, it says

God changed his mind, but it's giving you the idea that if man did one thing,

God would have reacted this way. But since man did something else, God reacted a different way than what he would have done, right?

So that's all it's saying. Don't read into that too much. And just talking about changing your mind, honestly, as time goes on, some of the questions like this and the things that people debate, as time goes on, even though I want to have all the answers and I want to study the

Bible and get all the answers, as time goes on, I'm more and more comfortable just allowing there to be a little mystery.

Allowing there to be, yeah, just some things that, number one, I don't know, and number two,

I'll probably never know. Sometimes, Christians, we argue and debate over the details, and we kind of miss the big picture.

And arguing over the details, that can cause division sometimes with other believers. I don't think we want that.

Part of that is also pride. We all have our opinions, our positions, and we don't like to admit when we're wrong.

And when we are wrong, we don't like to tell people, here's my point, if God changed his mind, so can

I. If God changed his mind, so can you. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I told you last week that I changed a point of doctrine, something that doesn't happen too often.

And I'm not ashamed to tell you that over the years, I've probably changed my mind on several different things.

And there's several things I kind of go back and forth, and I'm not really certain about. But I want to be someone who is consistently learning.

I want to be somebody who's consistently growing. And if I never change on anything, unless I'm perfect, unless I was perfect from the beginning, hey,

I need to change. I need to grow. And I think that is true for everybody. So we need to be willing to change our mind.

We need to be willing to change our approach. We need to be willing to say sometimes,

I was wrong, and admit that. So up until a couple weeks ago, I said one of the things people debate is the identity of the sons of God here in Genesis chapter 6.

Previously, I had held to the position that the sons of God were angels, that they were angels, fallen angels.

Why did I believe that? Because that's what I was taught. You know, you tend to believe what you were taught.

Well, I changed my view on that. Why? Because when I studied it for myself, and when

I went through carefully and looked at it in context, the idea that the sons of God are angels, it doesn't fit the context.

It would be totally out of left field. But I believed it because that's what I was taught.

Now, in my defense, I wasn't dogmatic about it. I'm still not dogmatic about it. But just so you hear me say it,

I was wrong. Okay? You heard me admit it at least once. I was wrong. So I now believe the sons of God are the descendants or the godly line of Seth.

Turn to Job chapter 1 for a moment. We always want to take at least one thing away from the sermon.

You may take something else away from it. But I want that to be one thing, hopefully, you can take away, is that we want to be willing to grow and change your mind when we're wrong.

But about this idea of believing that the sons of God are fallen angels, there is some precedent for that.

Of course, if they're fallen angels, what does that mean about the Nephilim? They're like a hybrid race of half man, half angel.

And the idea is that that was such an offense to God. It was so against God's design that it caused

God to react in an unprecedented way by just destroying the entire earth and everybody on it to start over.

It makes a great story. I admit that. But again, it doesn't fit the context, number one.

And number two, it's highly problematic for obvious reasons. You know, half man, half angel.

But why do people believe that? Because sometimes the term son of God or sons of God does refer to the angels.

Look at Job chapter 1, verses 6 and 7. It says, Now there was a day when who?

The sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. And Satan also came among them.

And the Lord said to Satan, From where do you come? So Satan answered the

Lord and said, From going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it.

As New Testament Christians and reading the New Testament, we're used to sons of God being a reference to us, you know, being a reference to believers that, you know, you're a child of God when you place your faith in Jesus Christ.

That's true. But in the Old Testament, sons of God several times, and here it is a reference to the angels.

Some translations going back to the NIV. If you have the NIV, I think it renders sons of God angels, right?

And who is among them? Satan. Why? Because Satan is a fallen angel.

He's Lucifer. So this other view of Genesis 6, turn back to Genesis 6, if you would.

This other view, there are reasons why people hold to it. There are also a few

New Testament passages, 1 Peter chapter 3, 2 Peter chapter 2, that seem to link fallen angels who are chained to something that happened around the days of Noah.

There does seem to be this connection. And then there are some angels, fallen angels who we call demons, that are loose.

They're possessing people. Then there's another group of fallen angels that are chained. I don't really have an explanation as to why some are chained and some are not.

But that's why people believe it. Also, look at verses 11 and 12. Genesis 6, 11 and 12, says,

Notice it doesn't say that all flesh was corrupted because now they're half angel, half man, or half demon, half man.

That's not what it says. It says they had corrupted their way. What does it mean to corrupt their way?

This refers to their moral character. This refers to their habits, their way of life, how they live.

These are not just some private sinners who struggle with one thing or another.

I mean, these are just open rebels who are violent and will kill someone and they don't really seem to care.

You realize that's happening in the world today. There are people that are just violent. They're apprehended.

They're let go. And then they do something else. They're apprehended and they're let go.

And that's being done on purpose today. And of course, there's many examples we could talk about. We don't have to about people are being murdered and it's sanctioned by the state.

So verse 13, the Lord says, For the earth is filled with violence through them.

And behold, I will destroy them within or with the earth.

And of course, God does that and he does it through the flood, which Lord willing, we'll cover in the next couple weeks.

So in conclusion, going back to where we started, what's the first thing that I said? That the Bible teaches that Christians should not be.

Okay, good. Some of you are listening unequally yoked. But this is what happens when the bad or the holy marry the unholy.

Everything gets polluted. Everything gets corrupted. And that's what Genesis chapter six is all about.

Godly line of Seth intermarrying with the ungodly line of Cain. So the takeaway for us is that we should not be unequally yoked.

Amen. We should not be unequally yoked. We need to be set apart from the world.

So here's some pastoral advice. And I realize not everybody takes pastoral advice, but here's some advice.

If you are a Christian and you're single, you shouldn't even be dating an unbeliever.

If you're going to go into business and you're looking for a partner, you're looking for a partner with anything in life, really.

Make sure they share the same values and the same worldview as you do.

Now, again, if somebody's already married, if you're already in that situation, you can't go back in time.

Make the best of it. It's possible. And this has happened. It has happened that sometimes the believer is able to convert the unbeliever and praise

God for that. Usually that's not. It's the other way around. But it can happen. So make the best of it if that's the situation that you're in.

We're not against you, but we do want to heed the words of Scripture. There are real reasons we want to obey

God, not just because the Bible says so. We want to do it because that's how we receive

God's best. That's how we are blessed by God. As a believer, you're blessed by God when you obey

God and walk by faith in his way. So in conclusion, the godly line of Seth.

They didn't really take it all that seriously. And look at the results.

And frankly, my generation and previous generations have not really taken it as serious as they should.

So here we see a solution. When we see a story in God's word like this, it teaches us something.

The solution is that we do better. We obey. We teach our children and our grandchildren to not make the mistakes as people in the past.

So let's pray. And there's some things we can learn from this because the Scripture says, we'll just close with this, 1

Corinthians 15, 33. It says, do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits.

Let's pray. Lord, I thank you that Noah found grace in your sight.

He didn't follow the ways of the world. Instead, says he walked with you.

And I'm reminded of what the Apostle Peter said on the day of Pentecost. He said to the people there, he said, be saved from this perverse generation.

So, Father, I once again pray that you, if Christ delays his coming, that you would raise up a new godly generation of young people like Seth, like Enoch, and like Noah.

That they would walk with you and they would not make the same mistakes that our generation has made.

Lord, forgive us and give us the grace to correct the error of our ways.

Bless each one who hears and receives your word this morning. And if anyone listening has never trusted in the gospel of Christ crucified and risen,

I pray today they would do that in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening.

I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Moores Corner Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, moorescornerchurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.