Living for God is Unpopular | Genesis 6:1-12
Living for God is Unpopular, Genesis 6:1-13, Feb. 16th Sermon
Read Genesis 6:1-13
The Point: Living for God is unpopular in an unrighteous, sinful world, Christians are called to live righteously, to live for God.
There is a spiritual battle happening in our world today, and even in Genesis 3-8. There are principalities at work that want to destroy what God has created. Sin creates chaos and sin distorts the truth that God has built; the truth that God is.
Methuselah: “his death sends or their death send.” -This is Noah’s grandfather. (was the oldest to live—he lived until the year of the flood started).
Mahalalel: “praise of God” –This is Enoch’s grandfather
Enoch: “Dedicated, trained, disciplined.” – This is Noah’s great grandfather
Noah: “Rest.”
Noah is called the righteous one in Genesis 6:8-9 and Genesis 5:29 points towards the role in which Noah plays for God’s salvation of His righteous people—God will save His people through Noah. The toil of the ground, the toil that was brought from sin be done with and Noah will bring rest to God’s people; for God’s people.
- It is easy to follow the world and to disobey God; even angels have disobeyed God.
Satan is often trying to destroy God and His creation throughout scripture. Genesis 6:1-5 is an example of how sin led to humanities’ corruption and how fallen angels are trying to corrupt the righteous bloodline we find in Genesis 5. Read Genesis 6:1-2
When reading this we must consider one thing: Who are the sons of God? There are three major interpretations:
- They are renowned men, men that are famous who come from royalty, they are kings or other rulers of the time.
- They are men and sons of the righteous lineage of Seth, these ‘sons of God’ walk with God and are men who walk with God.
- They are angels, non-human godlike beings, in this context they are rebellious angels since they are disobeying God’s command.
The two common interpretations: They are the descendants of Seth / They are fallen, rebellious angels. The descendants of Seth are a less spiritualized view and is a modern view, the church held the angelic view up until Augustine went against the spiritualized view of fallen angels.
The phrase “sons of God” comes up four other times in the OT, (Job 1:6, Job 2:1, Job 38:7)
“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.” – Job 1:6
“When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” –Job 38:7
“He said, ‘Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!” – Daniel 3:25
These “sons of God” were rulers, judges and divine representatives of sacred places containing divine majesty and power, they are lesser than the one true God meaning these were angelic beings, they were angels who are no longer in heaven and they are among humanity.
What is happening in Genesis 6:1-4 is a spiritual battle happening between men, daughters of men, angels who are rebelling towards God; this is a literal spiritual war—and where is the battle happening?
“Those were the mighty men who were old, men of renown. The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
–Genesis 6:2-5
The bloodlines of God’s people are becoming diluted, muddied they are becoming more and more sinful because of this mass sin; Satan is going after the bloodline that will eventually lead to the birth of Christ—God will take Himself away from man as He begins his judgement on the wicked I the world. Nephilim—offspring of angels and the daughters of men. . –Numbers 13:32-33
- God is grieved when humankind runs away from Him, when they choose their sin over choosing Him.
--Genesis 6:6-7
God was looking down on humanity, he saw the fruit of their rebellion, these giant men because of rebellious angels intermingling with God’s creation—and how does God respond? With sadness, then with judgement. God will clean the earth, clean His creation of this unholy sin.
God isn’t repenting here; He isn’t even saying that he is “sinful” or full of “mistakes.” Everything God does is perfect, He’s grieving at the choice humankind made, He’s grieving that Adam and Eve sinned, that they chose to destroy their connection with God. God wants relationship and the world doesn’t want God—they want to make themselves God.
God flooding the world with water is a consequence of humanity’s sinful choices, sin must be met with God’s wrath, this is because God is just / holy, and He is the only one that can clean sin. Jesus mentions this in John 15:6 “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.”
Noah’s ark foreshadows the pattern of salvation found in the rest of scripture. There will always be a small remnant following God; God will save His people; His remnant and the lost will be judged with God’s wrath / destroyed.
- When everyone else is living for themselves, be the one living for God and His commands, stay walking with God.
On this earth there are many who are not following God; many who are partaking in their pleasures who are falling into their evil ways. But there is ONE MAN who walking with God. God is pleased with this ONE MAN.
–Genesis 6:9,11-12.
“For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.”
--Matthew 24:37-39
The Point: Living for God is unpopular in an unrighteous, sinful world, Christians are called to live righteously, to live for God.