(Genesis) - Part 9 — Zac Poonen

Noah in the Corrupt World Before the Flood

Genesis, in Chapter 6. We considered in our last study something of the type of world in which Enoch lived, and now we come to a time which is a number of years after Enoch has been raptured, and we read in Genesis 5 .32 that Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

This is the time, this is about nearly six hundred years after Enoch has been raptured. Enoch proclaimed judgment to the ungodly, and they did not listen. The world became worse and worse. People turned more and more to sin, and then God raised up another witness, and that was Noah.

And Noah was five hundred years old. We don't read much about his life during those first five hundred years. Then we read about that time, it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land, that daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.

The Meaning of “Sons of God”

Now, this phrase, the sons of God, is a phrase that is found throughout the Bible referring to a direct creation of God. Whatever God creates directly, straight from His hand, is called a son of God. For example, we, I'll just give you one or two examples of that, in Luke chapter three, we read of the genealogy of Jesus through His mother Mary, and when you come to the end of Luke chapter three, we read about the early patriarchs, and finally in the last verse, it says the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, and Adam was the son of God, which means Adam was directly created, but Seth was not directly created, so he was the son of Adam.

The only human being who was directly created by God was Adam, so Adam alone is called the son of God. Now, when we are born again, we read in John 112 that we also become children of God and sons of God.

That is because in each person who is born again, God does a direct personal work. That's what makes Him a son of God, otherwise it's impossible to be a son of God. It's interesting for us to see the usage of this phrase in the Bible.

The son of God is a direct creation of God, spiritually also today. Nobody can be a son of God by being born in a Christian family or by being born to spiritual parents. God has to do a direct personal work, creating something new, a new heart in that person.

If that has not taken place, then that person is not a son of God. Now, here in Job chapter 38, we read of the angels also being called sons of God, because they were directly created. Job 38, the Lord speaks to Job here and says, Where were you, verse 4, when I laid the foundation of the earth?

And when God laid the foundation of the earth, that means when God first made the earth. It says here in verse 7, At that time the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.

This is God telling Job that long back when I laid the foundation of the earth, the sons of God shouted for joy. Those were the angels. And in the first chapter of Job also, we read in verse 6 that there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came among them.

So from these verses we know that the angels are also called sons of God. In fact, apart from Adam, who is the son of God, in the Old Testament nobody was called the son of God except the angels. It's only in the New Testament where God began to bring people to new birth that you could say that those who are born again become children of God and then sons of God.

But in the Old Testament, that phrase could only be used of Adam, who was the only direct creation, and of the angels. Nobody else was called a son of God in the Old Testament. And so, when we see that, we come to Genesis chapter 6, verse 2.

We read, The sons of God saw the daughters of men. This must refer to the angels, that there were certain angels who did not fall away when Lucifer fell, or perhaps fell away along with Lucifer. But when Lucifer and the angels fell away, they were not sent to hell.

They were cast out from the third heaven, and they were sent to the second heaven. And as we have seen before, one day they'll be cast down to the earth, and then finally to the bottomless pit and to the lake of fire.

But these sons of God came, were in the second heaven perhaps, among the fallen angels, and then they were stirred up by a lust after beautiful women. It's a very amazing thing. And it says here, they took wives for themselves.

We don't know how exactly they did all that, how they could take a human form, and whether they possessed people, living people, or... But in some way, they had this terrific lust, sexual lust. So, they wanted to satisfy it, and they went for the beautiful ones.

Here we see the beginning of, we can apply that spiritually today, when the sons of God look at the beautiful daughters of men, and don't consider whether that beautiful girl is spiritual, and go ahead and marry her.

It's the same. It began with these fallen angelic beings, who also saw that the daughters of men were good-looking and beautiful, and lusted after them, and went after their beauty, and took wives for themselves.

Jude and Peter on the Judgment of Sinning Angels

And the Lord saw all this. Now, if you turn to the book of Jude, you see a New Testament commentary telling us something of how God judged these angels, and that is written as a warning for us in this day.

In the epistle of Jude, and verse 6, we read about the... He says in verse 5, I want to remind you about some of these things. One, how the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, destroyed, that is, 600 ,000 people, were destroyed in the wilderness.

And He says, I want to give you another example. He gives us three examples. Two of those examples, most believers are familiar with. That's the example of those who perished in the wilderness, verse 5, and the example of Sodom and Gomorrah in Lot's time, verse 7.

But this other third example, many believers are not familiar with. And that's also given as an example by Jude. He says, I want you to remember these three examples. And the middle one is about the angels who did not keep their proper habitation.

And that word habitation is used in 2 Corinthians 5 to speak of our body. Now we will change this for another habitation. And the angels did not keep to the limits that God had placed for them. God has not ordained sex for the angels.

But they didn't stay within there. They couldn't keep a control on their desires. They abandoned their proper abode. That means the circle that God had drawn around them, they left it. It's just like when a young unmarried person, whom God has not given facility for release of his sexual desires yet because he's not married, yeah, and he can seek for some release there in ways in which God has not ordained through various sinful ways.

And then he can think of the angels, who also God had not ordained sex for them. And they did not stay within that circle. But they left it. And therefore God has kept them in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

These angelic beings, God punished them by sending them to a pit and binding them in that darkness. They are not in, they are not loose today. We read of them also in 2nd Peter chapter 2. 2nd Peter chapter 2 and verse 4 to 6.

Here it's speaking about false prophets in verse 1. And it says about these false prophets that they will go along a life of sensuality, verse 2. And it says how God will judge them because, verse 4, if God did not spare the angels when they sinned.

And that's referring to these angels in Noah's time who sinned sexually, but cast them into hell. These are not Satan's hosts, because Satan's hosts have not been cast into hell. They are in the second heaven.

But these are another group of angels who sinned sexually, who were cast into hell. And that's not the same hell that the rich man went to. It's another word in the Greek called Tartarus, where they were cast and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah.

So you see, it's talking about Noah's time when the angels sinned. And Noah is called a preacher of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. So we see from these New Testament passages that the sons of God referred to in Genesis 6 are these angels who sinned.

And we read another passage in 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 19. It says about Jesus that when he died, he went down and made proclamation, verse 19, 1 Peter 3, 19, to those spirits who are now in prison, who were disobedient when the patience of God kept me waiting in the days of Noah.

There again, it's referring to these evil spirits who sinned, who are kept in bondage, the only angels who have been punished because they did not stay within their circle. They went outside their circle and sinned in a way which was terrible in God's eyes.

Sexual Sin and the Last Days

And there we see the seriousness of sexual sin. And if we can take these warnings, they are a warning for us because we read in Luke's gospel chapter 17, Luke 17, verse 26 to 30, and just as it happened in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man.

That means Noah's time is going to be similar to the last days, just before Jesus comes. It's going to be a lot of similarity. And then it says in, it says it will also be like in the days, verse 28, same as happened in the days of Lot.

What do we know about the days of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah? We know that they sinned sexually in Sodom. We even have a word in English called sodomy, which is unnatural sexual sin. And it says about Noah's time also that the last days will be like that.

And in Noah's time also there was, in the case of the angels, unnatural sexual sin. And that's exactly what we see in the world today. Unnatural sexual sin. Ordinary sexual sin has always been there, but unnatural sexual sin has also been there, but more in secret.

But now, particularly since the second world war, in the last few years, it's spread like anything. Accepted. Churches for homosexuals in America now. So you can see how far things have gone. And it was in such a day, this was how Noah's day was.

These things may shock us, but Noah lived seeing all these things happening around him. And those times are being repeated. And so we know, as we look around at these things, that the end must be very near.

God’s Patience and the 120-Year Warning

And we return back to Genesis chapter 6 and verse 3. And we can say that the Lord is saying the same word, even today, as he sees the world. God looked at that world in those days and saw these things happening.

Saw these spirit beings trying to move out of their abodes. And the Lord said in Genesis 6 -3, My spirit shall not always strive with man, because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall be 120 years.

Or as the margin says, in his going astray, man is flesh. There is a description for the first time in the Bible of the flesh, by God himself. In his going astray, he has become flesh. And it is in that flesh that Jesus came to redeem us.

The first time God uses that and says, in his going astray, he has become flesh. That's what the margin says. Therefore, his days shall be 120 years. That means God is still in patience, waiting, hoping that man will yet repent.

The patience of God. We read that in Peter's episode. The patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah. We just read that in Peter's episode. There was a patience of God that kept waiting for 120 years.

There was a patience of God that kept waiting in Sodom and Gomorrah. And there's a patience of God keeping waiting, that's waiting still today on the earth. But the Lord also says, My spirit will not always strive with man, for in his going astray, he is flesh.

We see that in the world today. But his days will be numbered. We can say his days are numbered. And then it says in verse 4, what we learn here from this 120 year period is that there is a time limit.

God is patient, long-suffering. But there is a time limit after which the Holy Spirit stops striving. There is a line drawn in front of each man. He keeps on rejecting the call of the Spirit, rejecting, rejecting, rejecting, rejecting.

One day he crosses that line and then the Holy Spirit stops pleading with him and allows him to go to hell. And such a man can never repent. Jesus spoke about such people that they could never be forgiven because they have sinned against the Holy Spirit by continuously resisting the voice of the Spirit.

God is very patient. Imagine, even with such sinners, he still gave them 120 years to repent. And he had a witness during those 120 years, that was Noah. And when the Word of God says that the last days will be like Noah's days and lost days, we can say that also on the earth, just like conditions around, people will be like the people in Noah's day and lost day, there will also be witnesses for the Lord, some like Noah, very few, and many, and some like Lot, which is a bigger number.

Lot was a compromiser. He was a sort of a believer, but he was a compromiser. But Noah, he was different. And so in the last days, there'll be the Noah type of believer and there'll be the Lot type of believer.

There's a world of difference between the two. Lot lost his old family. Noah saved his old family. That's one important thing we learn about the last days, the importance of preserving our family, wife and children, for the Lord, that we don't allow them to be polluted by the evil influences that there are in the world today through cinema, television, video tapes, all types of things.

And putting all these ideas in Noah's day, these things were not invented, but the sins were out there openly. Now it has come right into people's homes. Suggestive thoughts and ideas through all these things, books and novels and all types of ways in which pollution seeks to come in.

And in the midst of this, God wants people like Noah, who preserve their homes for God. And it says here in verse 4, that giants were there on the earth in those days. The Nephilim is a word for giants, who were born as a result of this supernatural union between these angelic beings and the beautiful women of those days.

And I think those beautiful women had perhaps also a lust to have gigantic, massive children, because those days intelligence didn't count for much. It was brute strength. And that was the big thing in those days.

And it says, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, they bore children to them, these giants. And those were the mighty men of old, men of renown. You were renowned in those days if you were in the group, if you were a giant.

And therefore I can imagine these women opened themselves up to these evil spirits, because they wanted children who were smart according to the smartness of those days. Think of that. They didn't want godly children.

They wanted smart children. And there are women like that today also, who want smart children, not godly ones. And they were there those days. And therefore they opened themselves up to evil spirits. And when we long not for godliness in our children, but some worldly thing that our children will be men of renown, as it says in this verse, men of renown in the city, in the country, in the world, then what are we doing?

We are opening ourselves to evil spirits in the same way that those women opened themselves to evil spirits. Otherwise it's not possible. And we see here, the Hebrew word there nephilim means giant or a bully or a tyrant.

They're all people who open themselves to evil spirits, these bullies and tyrants. Now that's man's opinion. Verse four. Man's opinion is these people were men of renown. But see the contrast in verse five of god's opinion of the whole situation.

And the lord, when he looked at all these men, he saw that their wickedness was great on the earth, that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And there in verse four and five we have a contrast between man's opinion of these massive giants who were men of renown and god's opinion as he looked down and he was not impressed by their size and their fame, but he looked at their heart and he thought that their heart was filthy.

He thought that the imaginations of their heart was only evil continually. There is a description of Noah's day. The wickedness of man was great on the earth and all his thought life. God is interested in the thought life.

We see that in right back in Noah's day, that god is interested in the thought life. The purity in the purity in the thought life is not just something suddenly we discover in the new testament. It is even before the law.

It's written in the time of Noah. God looked and he saw that the imagination, the fantasies, and you know what fantasies are. We imagine certain people in our mind and imagine certain situations and that we are in certain situations.

That is imagination. Fantasies in our thought life was only evil, and particularly in the sexual area. We know that. That is Noah's day, and that is what Jesus said would characterize the last days. Can you imagine that Noah's thought life was also like that?

Then he would have also perished with the flood, even if he claimed to be a believer, and his children would have seen his hypocrisy and would have turned away. Lot's children saw the hypocrisy of their father, but Noah's children saw that their father was not a hypocrite.

How is it with us? We live in a repetition of Noah's day. The fantasies and the imaginations and the thoughts that go on in people's minds, all these decent looking, cultured, civilized people walking, men and women walking down the roads and looking so clean and neat and smelling of perfume.

If you could only look into their heart, it would be quite another smell that comes out from there. Quite another. Man smells all these fancy perfumes and God sees something, smells something quite different.

The contrast between the two. More important to have purity in our heart, my brothers and sisters. Purity in our heart. That's the calling. That's our calling in these days. And the Lord was sorry. Think of that.

Think that it says God was grieved. One would think God was mightily angry. And there we see the love of God for those whom he had created. When he looked at that filthy thought life, he looked at them polluting their mind, polluting their bodies.

He doesn't get angry. He feels sorry. Think of a father who sees his own son ruining his life in an evil way. He doesn't get angry. He feels sorry. He feels sorry that this son of mine who can live such a good life is just messing up his life and ruining it.

That's how God looked at his creation. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth. Think that the grief of God's heart was so great that he was sorry that he made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart.

There was a time we read in Genesis 1 when he made man and he looked at him and he said, Very good. And now a few years later, a few hundred years later, he's sorry. He's grieved at that condition. But we read here that it was not only grief in God's heart.

Noah Finds Favor and Delights God

It says here there's something, someone rather, who brought gladness to God's heart also. And that's also a contrast. We read in verse 6. There was grief in God's heart. And verse 7, sorry, verse 8. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Of course God said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals, to creeping things and to birds of the sky, for I'm sorry that I made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

So along with all that grief that God had as he looked out over this world, this earth that he had created and all the human beings he had created, finally his eyes lighted on one person who brought delight.

It says here, Noah found grace. He could not come under grace. That could not come till Jesus Christ only brought grace. But he found it. He found grace in God's eyes. He could not receive it and come under it like we can today.

But he found grace in the eyes of the Lord means that God was delighted when he saw one man. And there we can learn something, my brothers and sisters. And I hope that it will grip your heart like it's challenged my own heart.

That when God looks out at a city like Bangalore or any other city and sees all the evil and it grieves his heart, it brings delight to his heart when he sees in the midst of all this one righteous man.

One righteous man among all those millions brought delight to God's heart. And there we have an understanding of how much righteousness and uprightness delight God's heart. We should never lose sight of the heart of God that we have a in this, these verses.

And that's the challenge that should come to us should be, Lord, as you look out over the world and it grieves your heart to see the way man's living. May I be one who brings delight to your heart. That there'll be nothing in my life that grieves you.

It says, grieve not the Holy Spirit. One man found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Verse nine. These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his time, complete, perfect, and walked with God.

Three things that made God delight in him. One, he was righteous. He was not like these other people, polluted in his mind and imagination, evil fantasies, trying to sit in that, pretending to be a spiritual man.

He was not that type of a humbug. He was pure in his imaginations and thoughts. And he was a man. He was not. He didn't have some other flesh. He was tempted. But he fought these things. He battled these things we can imagine.

Because he knew it is not righteous. He feared God. And he was perfect or blameless. That means according to the life that he had, he was perfect. We can be perfect only according to the life that we have.

And according to the life that he had, he was perfect. And the third thing, it says, he walked with God. Noah's grandfather was Methuselah. And Methuselah lived during all the 600 years that Noah lived before the flood.

The flood came, you know, when Methuselah died. And Noah was 600 years old when the flood came. So Methuselah and Noah lived together, grandfather and grandson, for 600 years. And what do you think Methuselah would have told Noah?

What do you think Noah would have been interested to hear from Methuselah? I think Noah would have loved to hear about Methuselah's father, Enoch. I think Noah, even as a young boy, must have gone up to his grandfather and said, tell me about your father, Enoch.

Because Enoch died about 69 years before Noah was born. Noah never saw him. And Methuselah would have told him about his father, how his walked with God for 300 years. And as a young lad, this must have gripped Noah's heart, the testimony of a man he never saw, but who had walked with God in the midst of all this evil generation.

And that challenged him. And it says here in verse 9, Noah walked with God. I think it must have been the challenge of Enoch's life that made Noah say, Lord, give me also that. But to hear about them from other people who have seen them, that's why I always advise young people, particularly to read biographies of great men of God, those who have known them, to be challenged by how they lived selflessly, not seeking their own, lived for God, walked with Him, walked by faith.

And that should be a challenge to us. And then, if we take that challenge seriously, we can walk in the footsteps of those men. And that's how Noah walked with God too, like his great-grandfather whom he never saw, Enoch.

And he must have also heard from Methuselah how Enoch was a preacher. Methuselah would have told him how his father Enoch was a preacher, who preached judgment against the ungodly. And Noah would have been challenged by that.

He would have realized that it's not enough just to walk with God. It's also necessary to testify for God. If you just live a holy life, you won't be persecuted. You won't be unpopular. Jesus would never have been unpopular if He had kept His mouth closed.

If He had just lived a holy life, overcoming all temptation, living in love and goodness and purity and holiness, He would never have been crucified. He could have lived a long life. He was crucified because He opened His mouth and testified to the truth.

Nobody is killed for living a holy life. Nobody in your office will persecute you for living a holy life. It's only when you open your mouth and speak up for God, then you will be persecuted. But if you don't believe in opening your mouth, you just believe in living a holy life, you cannot follow Enoch or Noah or Jesus or Paul or Peter.

You've got some other example of a man who wants to live a holy life and wants to seek honor, to be popular. You can be popular with living a holy life, provided you don't open your mouth. And Noah didn't want that popularity.

We read in 2 Peter chapter 2 about Noah. We read that in 2 Peter 2 .5. It says in the middle of that verse that Noah was a preacher of righteousness, a preacher of righteousness, a preacher of righteousness.

That's what he was, particularly in those last 120 years before the judge, before the flood came. The flood is a picture of that final judgment that's going to come upon the earth in the battle of Armageddon.

And our calling is to be like Noah, to preserve our families in these days, live before God's face, keep our imagination particularly pure, careful in our thought life, live a godly life, be righteous, blameless according to the life we have, walk with God, and proclaim the truth with our mouth.

And of course, we'll be unpopular, but God will be able to say when He looks at us, among all these evil that grieves my heart, I find one man who delights my heart. Like we sing in the song, there was a man who stood for God.

And like the last verse of that song says, Lord, may I live in such a way that it can be said about me, that there was a man who stood for God, who feared Him, and would not walk the way sinners walked.

Like Noah. Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord, he was righteous, he was blameless, and he walked with God. And we read here, in verse 10, Noah became the father of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and the earth was corrupt in the sight of God.

The Two Sins of Noah’s Day: Sexual Sin and Violence

That's also true today, corrupt in the sight of God. And the earth was filled with violence. What is the other sin that we read in Noah's time? Violence. Sexual sin and violence. Violence begins with anger.

Anger is the beginning of violence. Anger grows like a little seed in the heart, and comes forth in words, finally with fists, in some cases with knives, then with pistols, then with missiles, and atomic bombs, it develops.

But it all begins with this little seed called anger. Violence. Sexual sin and violence. In Lot's time, in Sodom also, it was like that. It says about those people who banged at Lot's door, when the angels came, they wanted to break the door down, till the angels blinded them.

Violent people. Sexual sin and violence. People sometimes ask, why don't you let your children see the movies? I say, don't all movies have two themes? Sex and violence. Can you produce a movie that'll be a hit, which doesn't have these two?

Impossible. Sex and violence. The two sins of Noah's day. The two sins of Lot's day. Blessed are those who have light to see it, so that they stand against these two sins particularly. If we have not judged them in our own lives, we will not be able to judge them in the lives of our families or those around us.

We will not be like the salt that retains its flavor. Jesus said about the salt that it has lost its flavor. So what are the two sins that were preeminent in Noah's day? Anger and sexual sin. Brothers and sisters, when Jesus spoke about the new covenant in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, he said these words.

Turn to Matthew chapter 5. He said in verse 20, this is comparing the old covenant with the new covenant, I say that unless your righteousness, that is the new covenant righteousness that God requires, exceeds, surpasses the old covenant righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

What's that? The old covenant righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was one on the outside. He says your righteousness must be more than that, which means it must be on the inside. That's mainly what that verse means.

And then the Lord says, now I will explain in practical terms what I mean. Number one, let me speak about anger. Verse 21, the old covenant righteousness was, you shall not commit murder. Verse 22, but I say to you, you shall not be angry.

That's new covenant righteousness. That is where your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. It begins with being angry. It goes on to speaking words that come out of our mouth, calling other people names.

You fool. It begins with anger in the heart when it is not judged in the heart. It flows out through the mouth, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Finally, it can flow into your hands.

And then we don't know where it will stop, where it will stop. It can be with children. Anger towards us children can find its expression through words and then through our hands. Those poor children are smaller than us.

We can do what we like. We can be like those Nephilim, giants, bullies towards our children, because in size wise we are like the Nephilim towards those small children. You know, there can be something of that attitude.

We have to cleanse ourselves from anger. And then the Lord says, I'll give you a second illustration of what I mean. And that is sexual sin. Verse 27, the Old Testament was, you shall not commit adultery.

I say to you, you shall not even look on a woman to lust for her. To lust for her means what? To lust for her does not mean that you want to commit adultery with her. No. You may not want to commit adultery with her.

You may just lust to see her beauty and admire it. That's all. You just want to stop there. That, Jesus said, that's enough. You have lusted adultery. Why did Jesus speak about these two things first?

Because those were the two preeminent sins in Noah's day and Lot's day. Sex and violence. Why do we speak about these two things so much in the church? Because we are living in Noah's day and Lot's day.

Why do we say so many times, my brothers and sisters, if you don't get victory in these two areas, you might as well pack up and forget about the fact that you're a Christian. You're just deceiving yourself.

I'm not saying if you don't get victory. I'm saying if you're not even making an attempt to overcome in these areas. If you can sin with your eyes, sexually, and you're not disturbed, you sleep peacefully at night, there's something wrong with your Christianity.

I wonder whether you're really converted. If you can sleep peacefully after lusting after a woman with your eyes. I would seriously question whether you're really born again. I would doubt it. I think you've got some third-rate conversion experience in some evangelistic crusade where you signed a decision card and raised your hand, but you never repented.

Because you can sleep peacefully after lusting after a woman with your eyes. How can that be? Or you're sitting in some church where they pat you on your back and tell you to do evangelism and give out cracks and never tell you what Jesus said about getting victory in this area.

And the same thing with anger. Anger. You can be angry and sleep peacefully at night. There's something wrong with your conversion. I would doubt whether you're born again. If you can be angry and sleep peacefully that night.