Book of Genesis - Ch. 6, Vs. 5-17 (06/11/2000)

Park Meadows Church

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All right, we have come to the point in our study of the wickedness of man.

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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.

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God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Now, it's written as though God happened to look and saw it.

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But we know that's not true. But again, the

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Bible has to be written in such a way that the smallest of children can get an idea of what's going on.

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Now, to help us understand this wickedness, I would like to read to you something that I think pretty well describes it.

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The very first embryo of every idea, the figment of every thought, the very materials out of which every perception, conception, and ideas were formed, were all evil.

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The fountain which produced them, with every thought, purpose, wish, desire, and motive, was incurably poisoned.

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All were evil without any mixture of good. The Spirit of God which strove with them was continually resisted, so the evil had its sovereign way.

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They were evil continually. There was no interval of good. No moment allowed for serious reflection.

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No holy purpose. No righteous act. And we have a finished picture of a fallen soul.

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Such a picture as God alone who searches the heart and tries the spirit could possibly give.

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To me, it's a picture of the world without the church, without any

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Christian influence whatsoever in it. We think the world's bad today. It's nothing compared to what it'll be when the church is removed.

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And this approaches what that will be. Sixth verse,

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

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In the Amplified, it reads, And the Lord regretted that he had made man, and it grieved him at his heart.

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We get a little disturbed sometimes over the word repent. First of all, notice it repented the

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Lord. He did not repent of it. A vast difference.

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The Lord God has never repented for anything that he's ever done. In Numbers 23, 19.

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Turn to that, please. Numbers 23, 19.

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Ethan, read that to me. God is not a man that he should lie, that he should be saved, and shall not do what has been forbidden.

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And shall he not repent? Now, if repent meant what we normally consider it to mean, in every place that we see it in the

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King James, there'd be contradiction. But there is no contradiction.

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First of all, we work with the man premise very good. The Bible is correct.

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Repent. When the word speaks of God, the word is nocam.

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Comes from no calm. Means to sigh, to breathe strongly, to be sorry, in a favorable sense.

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It grieved the Lord that man had done exactly what he had ordained for man to do.

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Much as it is with our children lots of times. They do not obey us, and we know beforehand that they're not going to.

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And it grieves us knowing what they're going to do. But it doesn't make us sorry that we have the child.

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When the word speaks of man repenting, it's a different word. Shubh. S -H -O -O -B.

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Means to turn back. Or turn away. Now, to turn away, but not necessarily with the idea of returning to the starting point, it simply means to turn away from that one direction.

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It means to call the mind to carry again, back, to cease.

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So we have two different words, but the same word in English, repent. And it causes problems sometimes.

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Just remember this. When it's speaking of God, it's using repent in the fashion that he is heartbroken.

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When it's speaking of man, it means that he's turning around. In this case, the

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Lord was sorry for the people, even though he had ordained everything that was taking place.

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Now that's a little hard for me to comprehend, although I believe it. The American Standard Bible, now,

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I don't know if I dare ask if anybody's using one of those or not. Let me say this without you revealing what you are, what you're using.

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If you have the American Standard, burn it. Amen. It says, and God changed his mind, both here and in Amos 7 .3.

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That's wrong. Why would anybody, why would,

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Ethan, why would you change your mind about something? Nathan. Ethan, where'd

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I get Ethan? That's Julie's husband. Nathan, you don't have a wife yet, do you?

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Why, did you ever change your mind about anything? Why? It's probably because you found out something you didn't know.

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Now, can God find out something he doesn't know? No. So why would he ever change his mind?

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First of all, he doesn't have a mind like man does. So how could the

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Lord change anything that he's already done without undoing all things?

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It's ridiculous. God did not, does not, will not ever change anything.

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Genesis 6 -7, and the Lord said, I will, imperative, destroy man whom

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I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping things and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth, this word is

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Noacham now, it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the

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Lord. Go to Hebrews 11 -6, please. Debbie, read that to me.

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So without faith it is impossible to believe him, for he that tendeth to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently speaketh.

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Read 7. By faith Noah being warned of God that things not seen of him moved with fear, prepared in earnest the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became dear to righteousness, by faith.

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All right. So we not only all come from Adam, we come from Noah too, didn't we?

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Now it says, these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

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Now David, Enoch walked with God and he was not.

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Noah walked with God and he was. What made the difference? God's will.

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We're going to make that answer illegal.

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As far as we can surmise why, from man's viewpoint.

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Still talking to David. From man's viewpoint?

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Yes. The last two years I have, I don't know if you could say that Enoch in a similar fashion as the rapture, and if you could do that, we'll tell them.

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Enoch, as far as we know, had finished his work. We're not told that, but Noah hadn't.

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Noah still has definite work to do. And we were told that. So I would have to say that Enoch was finished and Noah wasn't.

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Not been able to prove either one, except we know that Noah still had something to do.

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And that's what we're going to undertake here in a little bit. Would Enoch have been able to live a natural life?

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Well, not necessarily, because his son was, and he could have been, but...

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Yes. But, and he died before his father did.

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Well, let me consider. I'm not even sure of what

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I'm... Well, go ahead. I'm not sure if Noah is a creature of the heart.

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So it's a different picture. Sure. We know that because we've read the story.

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And it's true. All right. Noah was a just man.

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A just man. What does that mean?

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Perfect in all his generations. Deborah, what does it mean to be a just person?

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I think Charlie knows. Well, I can't hear Charlie. Well, just means it's fair.

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Just being a fair man. I don't know. In my mind, I always thought he just did what

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God wanted him to do as humanly possibly could. Charlie, what do you say?

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That's what I hear now. I take that from a human viewpoint as being someone that was not only just in his following of what he thought

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God wanted him to do, but in his everyday dealings with everyone in his family.

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All right. I'm going to give you the definition of a just man, and you may want to argue with me, but you won't win.

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Just thinking about a just man, just in the realm of just, is a person that does exactly what he believes in his heart.

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If he believes himself to be a robber and acts like it, he's a just robber.

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Do you understand, Russell? Now, the fact that Noah, in his exercise of his justness, preached the gospel, we know that in his heart, he belonged to God.

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So he was a just and righteous man. That puts the definition of just on the side of righteousness.

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But just the word itself does not mean that. Do you understand what

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I'm saying? To be just means that you act exactly how you think yourself.

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If you believe Christ, then if you're a just man, you act like it.

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And you conduct all of your business like that. If you do not believe in Christ, and you act like you do, what are you?

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A hypocrite. You're not a just man. Is everyone tolerably straight on that?

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Noah was a good, honest, just, because that's the way he believed.

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He was perfect in integrity. In fact, he was awful righteous.

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Perfect, sincerity, sound, without spot, undefiled, upright, and whole.

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He walked. This is active, present, participle, meaning he continually walked.

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One step at a time, all at a time, all day long. He walked continually.

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He followed. And Noah begat three sons,

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Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The word Shem, or the name

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Shem, it means renowned. From Ham come the Jews. Ham means hot or dark.

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From Ham, we have the Egyptians, Africans, Babylonians, Philistines, Canaanites, and all of the

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Negro race. Japheth means beauty.

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His descendants spread over all of the north and west part of the earth. That is, in relation to the garden that was north and west.

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And most of us, all but, what was it, one this morning, come from Japheth, I mean from Shem, and I think he is partly

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Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with the violence.

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Now, Greg, the writer, Moses, has gone to the best of his ability to describe to us the awfulness of the world at that time.

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And it's a picture that I don't like to look at, but it's true. And it also is a, what would you say, prognostication of what's to come.

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That the world will again turn the same way, only now we're more civilized, so we'll have more sophisticated instruments.

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And be able to perpetuate far more violence. Violence means unjust, unjust gain, cruel thoughts.

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Everything that's wrong. Twelve, and God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

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Again, he's trying to stress upon us the importance of understanding how awful it was.

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And we find this throughout the rest of the Bible, and Paul spent a lot of time pointing out the necessity of a savior.

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The reason there had to be a blood sacrifice. And God said unto

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Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me.

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The end of it. Well, we know that he has known everything from the beginning, because he made it.

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And it has all been done as far as he's concerned. But he makes the statement here that he, to Noah, I've seen the end.

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For the earth is filled with violence, and behold,

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I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood.

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Room shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

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Brother David mentioned the word pitch this morning. We get another word from the same root, which is atonement.

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Now, Noah has been told to build an ark. Russ, if you were told to build an ark, and you'd never heard of one, didn't know what it was, you didn't live by the sea, what would you think?

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Russ. Because we wouldn't know what it was.

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I don't know, as old as Noah was, he might have made a trip to the

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Mediterranean Sea, I don't know. There was shipping, but not very much.

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The people lived along the sea coast. But here he's told in the middle of dry land, remember there are no mountains yet.

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The canopy of water is still present. No direct sunlight.

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Next week come with, this is another assignment for this class, come with a list written down, not in your head now, of things that Noah is going to experience for the very first time when he comes off the ark.

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Make an ark of gopher wood. Gopher wood is somewhat like our cypress or bodark.

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It is not only water repellent, it's waterproof. Mahogany, certain mahoganies have that characteristic.

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There are certain mahoganies, and they use a lot of mahogany in building ships. And I'm not talking about the big ocean liners, but anything smaller.

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But it has to remain in salt water. If you put it in fresh water or in a dry dock, it'll rot.

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But if you keep it in salt water, it'll last forever. Strange. But here he's told to use a cypress -type wood gopher.

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Then he is told to build rooms in it. The word room is really nest.

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But it's not a nest like a bird nest or a chicken nest. It's just a small compartment.

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And then pitch it within and without. David, why is a pitch? Well, that's where you have the water out.

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And that pictures the judgment of God. So David kept the judgment of God in the wake of God's people.

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Just like if you're in Christ, he is the propitiation for our sin.

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He's the wrath of God. That's right. It made it waterproof, watertight.

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The world of water could not get inside. They were safe inside the ark.

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Now, Noah was to seal this box. And it literally looked like a box. If I can find my model that I made years ago,

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I looked for it this past week. And somehow my wife has hid it from me.

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But if I can find it, it's built to scale. And it won't impress you much because the real thing wouldn't have impressed you.

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But I will bring it if I can locate it. If I haven't thrown it away.

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15. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it. The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, the breadth of it 50 cubits, and the height of it 35 cubits.

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Now, taking a cubit to be 18 inches, we have an ark that was about 450 foot long.

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What do you know of that you can use in your mind as a comparison to get an idea of how long that is?

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Okay, how long is a football field? Not even a mile. 450 foot.

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So it'd be longer than a normal football field. Now, he's got to build this, remember.

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The width was 75 foot. How wide is this roof?

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40 foot? Anybody here that built it?

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Well, it's somewhere between, some place between 20 and 100.

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All right. 40, 45 feet high.

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Now, that doesn't sound very high until you get up that high and look down. Then it does.

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The door was set into the side and there were three decks.

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Starting on the bottom and then one deck and then another made three separate areas.

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And then the top on that. The door itself, which covered all three openings and was in the side of the ark, it would let down from the top to make a ramp for the animals to walk up.

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But the door weighed 85 tons. That's a pretty good sized door.

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

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And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters on the earth to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life from under heaven, and everything that is in the earth shall die.

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This is a worldwide flood, not a local one. The entire world. We're going to stop here.

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Think about this ark. Come with your thoughts on what he's going to find when he comes out of the ark.

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And I know we haven't got him into it yet. And I'll try to find the model

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I made. And it's just a long box.

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Now, does anyone have a question? Kind of a comment.

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One of the things I learned in the medical dictionary, maybe even in the

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Western dictionary, if you look under race, there's only three. There's Dr.

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Boyd, Detroit, Mongoloid. Now, I know we just had the census.

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We got all this national race. But then they actually are asking for ethnicity and color.

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I'm not asking for race. I always take it right off race.

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If they want to know my race, I put it up. I refer to it as color.

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But in all nationality, there's only three races on this earth. And what we mentioned before, that ship,

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Hemingway, is interesting. You have three there. The number three is very interesting throughout the world.

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Seems like this entire world is built on a trinity. In space, in measurement, in weight, there's three parts to each one.

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In measurement, you have length, width, and height, or breadth. I wish

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I understood more about numbers as given to us in the Bible.

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I guess I don't wish it too much. Anything else?

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Well, now that the year is almost to start, I guess we can go home.