Genesis 6 v 3 — J. Douglas Macmillan

Genesis 6:3 and the Seriousness of the Final Meeting

Now I would like you to turn with me to God's word this evening to the Old Testament scriptures and to the book of Genesis and to chapter 6 and let us read verse 3 from which I want to take the words of my text this evening.

Genesis 6 and verse 3 and the Lord, the Lord said My spirit shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. And especially we shall focus attention on these words.

My spirit shall not always strive with man. Now we've come to the last meeting of this series. And the last meeting I suppose for every one of us has come very quickly. For some of us it seemed to be hastening along very rapidly that came home to me last night when our preacher mentioned that we were on the second last day of our conference the last meeting we arrived here I suppose.

Some of us on Saturday some of us on Monday we were looking forward looking ahead to the whole week of gathering ourselves under the preached word of God. We knew that we were coming to a place that was kind of dangerous and yet a place of great privilege the place where God could touch our lives and touch our lives again and that we might in his mercy leave here with great certitude whose we are and whom we serve.

All of us I suppose had different feelings. And now the last meeting has come you know that's very like life we anticipate when we look ahead for a week of meetings like this we anticipate all sorts of things.

And the final meeting seems a long way away. I came into Aberystwyth quite happily on Monday night. Friday night seemed a long way away and yet it has come about very quickly. And life is like that we look forward and we anticipate the weeks and the months and the years drawing out and then like just like this conference it will come to a close.

That's why I feel this meeting is a very serious affair for every one of us just as life itself has a very solemn and serious aspect. You see if you've been under the preaching of God's word as we have been in these days then you're not leaving these meetings as you came to them.

The preaching of God's word has done either of two things to you and to me the preaching of God's word has been to you either a saver of life unto life or a saver of death unto death. You will either have been blessed and touched and perhaps broken by God.

You will have been hardened in your mind and in your heart hardened so that you're now more defiantly set in your ways against the speaking of God more hardened in your opposition to him and more set and determined in your enmity than you have ever been before.

You will not leave this place the same person you came to the word either a saver of life or a saver of death. Only you can tell just now in this moment which it is. It's not enough let me say this very clearly.

It is not enough to have understood the preaching. And we have had preaching here every morning and every evening of this week which has been very easy to understand. It is not enough to have understood the preaching.

It's much but it is not enough. It is not enough to have enjoyed the preaching and you have enjoyed the preaching. Even those of you who are without God and without Christ and without hope and who are on the road to a lost detail.

You have been enjoying the preaching of God's word this week. But let me say it is not enough to have enjoyed the preaching. It's not enough to have understood the teaching. And it's not enough to have enjoyed the preaching.

God help you if you're lost tonight and you enjoy the preaching of the gospel. Nor is it enough to have been moved by the preaching. And many of you as I was many of you have been moved by the preaching.

Some of you have even felt tears surge into your eyes and you felt your heart say oh yes God that's it and you're still unsaved. It is not enough to have understood the preaching. It is not enough to have enjoyed it.

It is not enough to have been moved by it. It is not enough my friend unless it has brought you again as a lost sinner into the pierced hands of Jesus Christ and taken every other hope away from you. Now all that I've been saying so far all that is to say that what you've been doing this whether you have been conscious of it or not what you have been doing this week carries danger with it.

Danger of what. Danger of doing despite to the holy spirit of God. Danger of trampling underfoot the precious blood of Christ that was shed for the remission of the sins of many. Danger of taking God's word and casting it back in God's face.

That's why I want to say to you be careful. God is not mocked whatsoever. A man soweth that shall he also reap. If he sowed to the flesh he shall of the flesh reap corruption. And if he sowed to the spirit he shall of the spirit reap eternal life.

Be careful if you leave this conference. And if you leave Aberystwyth without Christ after the preaching you have heard you have absolutely no right to leave it with any peace of mind or peace of heart.

Far less. Are you got any right to leave it happily and saying what a lovely time we had. And among all the people of God there and under that preaching it wasn't Mr Hyam. Wasn't he a nice preacher. Wasn't he a moving preacher.

He's even got a sense of humor. Yes. And the John Blanchard in Wednesday it was great. And Wednesday night his sermon was so clear. He's got a sense of humor too. And I enjoyed the meetings. You have no right to be leaving this place having enjoyed the word of God.

If you're a lost soul no right at all. It will stay with you to torment you through the undying ages of eternity. And you'll remember not the not the things that made you smile but the solemnities that made you feel after God and yet left you unregenerate and unconverted and lost and going to a to a dark and godless eternity.

You've had no right to enjoy the teaching that should have been the instrument of saving your soul. Why is it dangerous. Because God says this my spirit shall not always die as of men. That makes gospel hearing then the most solemn thing that you will ever do.

You may not be conscious of it tonight. May God make me conscious of it as I preach to you. May God make you conscious as you listen that you will never do anything which reaches into eternity as the hearing of the gospel does as you hear my friend.

So you will stand before God in the day of judgment. Will you hear and live. Or will you hear and die more desperately than the death the spiritual death which is yours now. Eternal issues have been handled from the school and they've been handled in a solemn and a serious and a masterly way.

More than that not only have eternal issues been handled but the voice of the eternal has been speaking and has been heard. And the urges now obey. Why. Because my spirit shall not always die with man.

Genesis 6, Cain, and the Two Lines of Humanity

I want to come closer to your text. I want to take just a few moments to put it into its context. It's early in Genesis and it's the early generation of humanity. But you know for that generation it is late.

It is toward evening. The judgment of God as a cloud hangs over them and is moving towards them because God is determining in his mind I will destroy man from the earth. It's very like another generation.

It's very like our generation that we have been hearing about from Mr. Haim this week. What did he say this morning. We're here and we're nice and we're cozy. And there are so many of us. And Abelistus probably does not even know that we're here.

Genesis chapter 6 tells us the generations that are spoken of in Genesis 4 and 5 is a generation lightning for the judgment of God. Let me just remind you that Genesis chapter 4 introduces us to the beginnings of civilization.

It introduces us to a man called Cain. You know he was the slayer of his brother. It tells us of the descendants who came from Cain. The line of Cain. Genesis chapter 4 speaks out on that and it tells us how civilization in very great economy of words but absolutely expressive tells us how they became a civilized people.

They were musical they could sing they were artificers they could make things with their hands. Genesis chapter 4 tells us something else about the line that descended from Cain the man who was thrust out from God to be a wanderer on the earth.

And the land of nod just means the place the earth of wandering. Genesis 4 tells us that the line of Cain is really the seed of the serpent. It is the ungodly line. It's interesting that they are the ones who should shape and mold civilization.

When they put it like this they had nothing else to live for materialistic in their outlook. They had to make the best of the life they now had. And let me say this my friend if you're without God then make the best of this life because it's the only time you'll ever have then Genesis 5.

In fact before Genesis 5 we're introduced to a second line. Adam knew his wife again verse 25 and she'd bear a son and called his name Seth. Here's the introduction of another line in the human race. And it is after Seth is named and his birth disgrace is given to us that we read this.

Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. That tells us what kind of race we're going to be reading about in chapter 5. And the translation could be a little better then men began to worship the name of Jehovah.

He was known as Jehovah from the very beginning. He wasn't introduced as Jehovah. Only to Moses was his name as Jehovah. And he tells us that in the days of Seth and his line. And then we go on through chapter 5.

And chapter 5 is a history of a line that is different. Not this time the line of Cain but the line of Seth. The world split into two definite streams from the very outset the godly and the ungodly. It hasn't changed much and I think that the godly were the way the godly always have been.

They had a lot to learn from the ungodly when it comes to the materialistic things of this world. But among them are great names. We don't have time to stop just now and deal with them. And then chapter 6 comes in.

Do you see what happens in chapter 6. Let's read. At the beginning it came to pass when men began to multiply in the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them. This wasn't the first birth of daughters because they couldn't have been multiplying.

Had there not been daughters before that. But there's something special has been drawn to our attention here that the sons of God now these are not angels. This is not angels coming down and marrying the daughters of men.

The angels of God said Jesus. What did he say about them. They neither marry nor are given in marriage. Nor are they the ancient pantheon of gods. These are the godly line of seth. I want to put this very quickly.

What do we have here. We have simply this. We have a church in disobedience. And he uses I think a very powerful thing to illustrate the heart of the disobedience. Men will marry ungodly women and bring ungodliness into their home.

And men still do it. The sons of God the children of God the redeemed of Christ. And they'll cut across his covenant. For he says his covenant is from generation to generation unto his children's. He'll bless them.

And he gives them obligations. One of the obligations is be not unequally yoked together. How can you expect an ungodly woman to bring up a godly child for you. You can't. What are godly men doing here.

What are the church of Christ in the old testament here doing. They are choosing their women because of pretty faces and shapely forms. That's how one commentator quotes it young men godliness in your girlfriend that she's converted and regenerate and walks with God is far more important than a pretty face or a nice figure.

If you get that good and well um God's throwing the extras in for you. And all you have to do is look at a Christian congregation. And you see you see that God's very very generous with his extras. Isn't he.

I've sometimes thought as I this is just a by the way as I as I minister to the Lord's people at the Lord's table I have sometimes had to feel like this my how beautiful godly women are film stars on the patron when their faces shine with Christ the beauty of holiness.

Look for that young man. Well this is what happened. They disobeyed. What did our disobedient church lead to. Do you know what it led to do. You know what a disobedient church always leads to. It led to this a church disobedient civilization and decay.

Western Civilization Under Threat of Judgment

You are the salt of the earth. And if the salt lose its savor wherewith shall the earth be salted. It won't. It won't be salted at all. It will become corrupt and decay. And as the church of God in western civilization has become over the last 100 years disobedient.

So western civilization is now under tremendous threat. There are those and they are not Christians. I'm not talking about Christians but they are those. There are those men scientists and philosophers and thinkers and historians who believe that western civilization has gone beyond the point of no return.

And humanly speaking it has go on. I can't do it all go on. When you go home and read this chapter read of the things that made God turn his face away from those that he had made in his own likeness and image.

And you'll be reading you'll be reading a very fair blueprint of the present state of western civilization church disobedient civilization and decay society crumbling anarchism lawlessness violence wickedness ungodliness.

You can write that over at all. And our legislators are beginning to be afraid that we will not for very much longer be able to impose law in the way we've been able we've been able to do for the last thousand years almost through all this through this God was still speaking but he was warning and he was saying my spirit shall not always die with man.

Look at verses four and five. Just let's read them. There were giants. And this is a moral rather than a physical physical connotation. 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 bear children to them the same became mighty men which were of old man of renown.

It's a pity that the authorized version really obscures rather than brings out the meaning of the Hebrew. They were notorious. They were monsters of iniquity. They were tyrants. That's how Martin Luther translated it.

The children that were born of unhallowed unions became monsters of iniquity. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination the purposes and desires really every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only listen to it evil continually.

You watch television. Do you read your newspapers. Do you listen to the world around you. Do you walk along the streets at 10 at night. Do you not feel this throbbing into your mind. The thoughts of men are only evil.

Continually. Six. It repented God. It grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said I will destroy man. I'm going to drown him he said. Do you wonder. Do you know this. Just over a year ago for the first time on a Sunday afternoon going to a big preach in the evening service in our church in Govan on the south side of Glasgow.

For the first time in almost 30 years of Christian experience I prayed as I went to church oh God visit them with judgment. There had been a football match in Ibrox which was just beside the church on a Sunday afternoon.

And the sights I saw as I drove down the street made me I say oh God the only thing that will ever bring them and me to our senses is a visitation of judgment. I said to myself when I went round one round about I said dear me there was there as bad as the beasts.

And then I realized the defamation of what I was saying and thinking. I had worked with animals all my life and animals would not stoop to what these men and women were doing in the streets of one of those cities on a sabbath afternoon.

Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Just one sight. Two men dragging a woman who was so drunk she couldn't stand and dragging her as if she meant absolutely nothing at all to them. You see what on earth can we do with a with a generation like this how can we turn them.

And I felt we can't. God must deal with western civilization. God must deal with you and with me and I. There are only two ways my friend he must visit us with the revival we've been hearing about all week the power of the holy ghost that would fill Ibrox to hear the gospel.

Or he must visit us with the kind of visitation that this generation was to come to know. If revival doesn't come then the only remedy left to God is judgment. My spirit shall always thrive with man. Let's look very quickly at the words.

God's Spirit Strives Through Witnesses

Now in a more close way. First of all look at the text and see the fact that it embraces. And it's a very simple fact. It is this that the spirit of God does thrive with men. You say how. How did he strive with these men.

Well he strove with them through other men. Here's one of them Adam. Adam was alive when Noah's father was born. Would have known Adam. The generation into which Noah was born still had the witness and the testimony they had all Adam wished to convey to them of God's dealing with the children of men.

You know this. I didn't realize that Adam lived for 912 years. He was very close to the generation that God deluged with judgment in 1656. They are the witness of an age dominated by the spirit and influence of Adam.

But God didn't leave them at that. They had also the living testimony of a man who walked so closely with God that at last he wasn't seen a man at all Enoch. Enoch walked with God and he was not the way Paul did holy Moshe.

I live yet not I. Enoch could have said that too. But Christ lives in me. Enoch. They are not only the testimony of his godly life and his godly walk but Jude tells us they are the testimony of his preaching and his prophesy.

Do you want to listen to a preacher. Listen to him. He is Enoch preaching to a generation rightening for judgment. Listen to him. He says. Behold he's like John the Baptist. Behold he says the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his saints.

The Lord is coming with ten thousands of his saints. Oh but he didn't stop there. Is he coming to bless. Is he coming to revive. Is he coming to quick to quicken into life. And I'm sure if ever there was a man that prayed for revival.

Enoch was that man. Listen to him. Behold he says the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on who. To execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speak speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Here's a picture for you a man who didn't fear their faces and he told them what was coming. And at last God took him away just about halfway between creation and the the ultimate judgment of the flood.

God removed Enoch from the scene. But there was Methuselah. And Methuselah was the longest living of them all. 969. Is that right. 960. He was an old man. Do you know when God took away Methuselah. He may well have been the last of the godly line of Seth.

Do you know when God took him away in the year that the flood came he might have well have lived to be over a thousand. Had God not ripened the place for judgment now. I'm not saying that he was taken away in the judgment.

I don't believe for a minute he was. He was taken away before because the sense will be caught up. The sense will not come under the judgment of God. Now it's all there before us. How was God speaking.

He was speaking through Adam. He was speaking through Enoch. He was speaking through Noah. Noah was just a joiner I think. But he was something else. He was a preacher of righteousness according to Peter.

New Testament tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. If ever there was a generation that had witnesses what godliness was what preaching was. It was this generation that the flood came on.

Let me say this. If ever there was if ever there was a thousand two hundred people who had the privilege of preaching. It's this 1200 among us tonight. Ever you've had the opportunity of closing with Christ walking into full free eternal salvation.

You've had it this weekend. This week I'll have to forget I'm not preaching on our Sabbath. You've had the opportunity. But opportunity breeds responsibility obligation duty. God commandeth all men everywhere to repent.

God commands you to repent tonight. Perhaps you're saying can I am I allowed to. That's not the question at all. Will you obey God. For God commands. Doesn't matter whether you're young or old. God commands you to repent and to believe the gospel and to be saved.

No matter whether you're young or old God commands you to repent and to believe the gospel and to be saved. How long was Noah preaching. He was preaching through the days that God determined they should hear the voice of his spirit.

The 120 Years of Divine Patience

Come back to the text for a minute. Just it was just the day before yesterday that I suddenly asked myself why on earth is the term 120 years mentioned here. Does it mean. And I had always thought in my simplicity.

I'd always thought that it meant that after the flood man's age would be adjusted downwards. He would live to 120 years. I can even remember looking for the time when it was readjusted to three score years and ten never found it.

No wonder it's not there. Because that's not what it's about this 120 years. Listen to the text again. The Lord said my spirit shall not always strive with man. For that he also is flesh. The NIV says mortal it's.

It's not really a good translation. But he also is flesh a moral connotation. He is the failure. The sense of flesh in the new testament the way Paul uses it the the the spirit. The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

And with the commingling of the godly and the ungodly. God said even those on whom I pour my grace are none better than the children of Cain. Ah. But then do you see what he says. Yet he says. Yet his days.

What does he mean. His days. Go on to verse four. There were giants in the earth in those days. He is talking of a specific time. Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. Isn't God gracious. He was determining to wipe them out.

He was speaking to them by his spirit. And yet he says I'll give them 120 years longer. My spirit will not always thrive with man. But he will for another 120 years. He will strive with these men as long as Noah is building the ark.

You know this. You're in here tonight and unconverted in christmas. If you're in the annex and you're not converted. If you're in the gallery or down in the floor. If you're nine or ten or 20 or 18 or 80.

If you're unconverted tonight let me say this to you. There is not one of you to whom God will give so long a time for repentance. None of us will get 120 years. And that was what he gave this godless generation.

120 years. Why. Just because he is what he is. What is he. What does the bible say. God is long-suffering and slow to wrath and plenteous in mercy. That's why he left Adam Enoch and Noah among this generation for so long.

Noah, the Ark, and Judgment

And of course we can we can we can paint the picture. Can't we did. You read verse eight. Oh look at verse eight. I once had the doctor Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones preaching from Ephesians on the word. But well here it is here.

I was very tempted this morning. But I suddenly realized I'm not a Martin Lloyd-Jones. God says you see verse seven. I will destroy it repents me. But. But what. But no. Here's one of the great buts of the grace of God.

It's maybe the first one I haven't checked. But Noah. But Noah. What. But Noah was good. No but Noah read his bible. I suppose he did. But that's not what it says. Noah found grace in the eyes of God out of a whole generation.

And then he got the instructions to build the ark. Now the preacher of righteousness you and I can imagine the 120 years poor Noah had. And he did. Second period tells us that Noah preached to his generation.

But you know what it says says that he preached God. Although he preached his preaching was not unto the salvation of any but his own family. You know why. They understood not. They had no ear for God and they no heart for God.

They mocked the preacher of righteousness. Imagine old Noah. What's he doing. Oh he's building a boat boat. Where's he going to get a sea for him. How's he going to float it. What size is it. And they tell him some boat.

Who's he taking with him. Oh who would go with them. The man's you know wasn't today that they started saying. Oh yes. He's a bit screwy. You know poor soul. They should be locked up. They started with Noah.

Through 120 years there was nothing there to float Noah's boat. We understand that there wasn't even rain. There was nothing but the gentle Jew of heaven. And then of course it happened. It began to rain.

Bible says the rain came down and the fountains of the deep were broken up. What was happening. God was coming at last. He was vindicating 120 years of faithful righteous preaching. He was vindicating his own character.

He was safeguarding the inviolability of his own eternal throne. He was teaching mankind for every age to come that sin will meet with judgment and righteous judgment. What happened. God gave them up.

Romans 1 and the Danger of Being Given Over

Let me read to you just some quotations from the epistle to the Romans. Romans chapter one. Just the other day a little phrase began to beat in on my mind. Let me just remind you of the context. Romans 1 verse 18.

He's been talking about the gospel. He's not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God unto salvation. And then he says the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed. It's not that the wrath of God will be revealed or is going to be revealed.

The wrath of God has been revealed. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. And on he goes through a terrible list.

Do you see verse 24. Wherefore God also gave them up. Go on to verse 26. For this cause God gave them up. Go on to verse 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over.

He let them have their own way. That's it. Very simply my friend. God may well let you have your own way. And if God lets you have your own way it will be a godless and a Christless way all through life and all through eternity.

Yes all through eternity as well. If God just leaves you to yourself my spirit shall not always strive with man. But there's something else too you see it's not only the fact that it does strive with man.

That's the fact that the text embraces. There's something else. There's this truth that it exposes to us very bluntly that God's spirit will not always strive with man. God will cease. Let me just quote some text to verify that there's the one that was in the readings of Mr. Hyde here Nicaea.

Do you remember it. But they vexed his holy spirit wherefore he was turned to be their enemy. God help you when he becomes your enemy. You're his enemy if you're unconverted and your only hope is that he is not yet yours.

But they vexed his holy spirit and he was turned to be their enemy. That's one of them. There's also this act 751. Ye do always resist the holy ghost. That's what this generation did. They resisted the striving of God's.

Resisting and Quenching the Holy Spirit

You know you should be. Are you here tonight. The minister's son. Minister's daughter. You're living an ungodly and unconverted life. You're sometimes afraid that your father or your mother might find out.

You're even afraid that neighbors or the church will find out how you're living in case you bring shame on them. You're afraid. But God is here. And you should be far more afraid of God than you are of a father or a mother.

Are you here and you're brought up under a praying father or a mother. Are you here and you've got a converted husband or a converted wife or a converted father converted daughter. And you're unconverted yourself.

God has given you a witness and a testimony. And you're abusing it mal-using the privileges of God. What can you expect. But judgment. Ye do always resist the holy ghost. Stop resisting the holy ghost.

There's another text here. 1st Thessalonians 3 19. Quench not the holy spirit. You know what the word quench means. Pour water on a fire. You go out of this church perhaps this evening unconverted. And you begin to pour water on everything that you've heard and everything God has said to you.

And you'll quench it and dampen it down. God may cease to strive with you tonight forevermore. Leave not the holy spirit of God. Ephesians 4. Jesus said this. Therefore I say unto you that all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto you and to men for my name's sake.

But the blasphemy against the holy spirit shall never be forgiven. What is Jesus saying. He is saying that there is a sin for which there is no forgiveness in this life or in the life to come that that sin has something to do with the holy spirit and his work on God's behalf in you shall be not deceived.

God is not mocked. I could illustrate this in many ways. I could tell you of how from the between the years 1966 and 74 I saw many young people converted. And I saw many young people moved under the preaching of the gospel God speaking to them.

And I was hopeful that they would be among the numbers who were being converted. And today the best that I can see of many of them of these that particular group is this that they're far away from God.

When God Ceases to Speak

That leads me on to this the danger that our text emphasizes. What is our danger. It's very simply this that God will cease striving with us. Professor Finlayson a professor of systematic theology in our college when I was a student used to say this to us.

He used to say gentlemen the worst thing that can ever happen to any man or woman under heaven is this that God should never speak to them. Perhaps you've gone through your life happy and easy. That you've been untroubled about eternal and spiritual things.