Genesis 6–8

Let me just start off here tonight by telling you that Genesis chapter 6 contextually is about the moral degradation of the human race and what God did to save humans from their own destructive sinful lives. But God's answer was to raise up a man by the name of Noah, whose name means “rest” and His plan was to give mankind a fighting chance by essentially starting over. And whether or not, you agree with that particular plan that God had or His solution, I suppose, to deal with the moral corruption of the earth at that time, I think that's fairly irrelevant. Although I've met people and I've heard of people who have read through this story and struggled with it, “why did God feel the need…” Well, I don't do a whole lot of questioning God, I'll be completely honest with you. I don't consider myself qualified to do that and it's usually just a fruitless exercise because God doesn't feel the need to explain Himself either. So here I am, bold enough to maybe ask questions for which I really couldn't begin to understand the answer anyway, and He's not telling, and its just kind of this thing like a dog chasing its tail in the end. The fact of the matter is, when you're dealing with passages like this or frankly, any other passage in the Bible, where you kind of look at it and you kind of go, “huh, I don't really understand.” There is one thing that I use to get me through the challenging passages of scripture and that is simply the knowledge of the character of God. Because when you trust God's character, when you trust His heart, you settle back into a different posture of understanding and faith as it relates to the things that God does. Listen, there's a lot of things in God's Word that you read and you kind of think, “I don't get that, I don't know why God allowed that, I don't know why God responded that way, I don't know what that was all about.” There's a lot of things in the Bible and if we're going to let those things hang us up, we're going to be hung up. And so there comes a point in time where you have to get to know the author to know His heart and understand that when He says that He is pure and in Him is no darkness at all, that is in fact true. And you're either going to believe that or you're not. So that being said, we get into this situation regarding, these next few chapters regarding the global flood for which, by the way, there's ample evidence even today that this took place. But I want to let you know that the narrative, what we call the flood narrative is given to us in these next 3 chapters in three 3 sections. I'll put them up on the screen for you so we can see them together. The Great Flood Narrative  The commission given to Noah (6:9-7:5)  The destruction of the flood (7:6-24)  Sacrificial worship after the Flood (chap. 8) The Great Flood Narrative, it starts with the commission that is given to Noah in this chapter and spills into the next. The actual destruction of the flood and then finally, in the last chapter that we'll be dealing with tonight, I trust, the kind of the conclusion, the sacrificial worship after the flood. And that being all said, the first chapter of this narrative is kind of overshadowed, if you will, by a preoccupation among Bible students with the first 4 verses of this chapter and I want you to read them with me. They go like this, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” (ESV) And that's, by the way, not a, He's not giving a ceiling to the age of man. He's talking about the number of years left before the flood or before the judgment that He's going to deal with related to their sin. And then in verse 4, it says, “4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.” And these are the 4 verses here in Genesis chapter 6 that have caused so much debate and so much consternation, I think among Bible students to the point sometimes of people becoming fixated on them. It all kind of centers on a difference of opinion as it relates to this term: “the sons of God.” Did you notice the 2 references that you read there in those verses? It's in verse 2, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive.” And then it says in verse 4, again, “the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the Sons of God came into the daughters of man.”

Let me just give you kind of both, there's really 2 positions that people take on this as far as who are the sons of God. Well, some people believe that the sons of God refer to the godly line of Seth and so they're essentially taking this passage to say that the godly line of Seth mingled with the ungodly line of Cain. But the problem with that of course, is that verse 4 tells us the result of those unions was offspring, which it calls “the Nephilim” which we find out are essentially giants. They're just, well, they're big people, okay. And that's what, the word “Nephilim” is an interesting word in the Hebrew, that is actually the Hebrew word Nephilim. And it came to mean “giants” or “big people” but it originally, its original literal meaning is “fallen.” Well, that particular definition has caused a different interpretation, I guess I should say, to spring up. And that is the interpretation that, and this by the way, this is the more popular interpretation, that the sons of God refers to fallen angels. And it is the belief of some that these fallen angels somehow procreated with human women and produced a race of very large people referred to as the Nephilim. And that position, I'll just tell you right now, has a lot going for it. Of the 2 positions, the second one that I've given you actually has more evidence for people to actually side with it. For starters, the term “sons of God” is only used here in Genesis and then in the Book of Job. And in the Book of Job, it occurs 3 times and it always refers to angels, always, okay. So that's one of the first proof texts, I suppose, that people point to related to the idea that these sons of God are angels. Secondly, there's a reference in the New Testament Book of Jude which you may be aware of, which speaks of fallen angels, but it talks about them by saying that, Jude 6 (ESV) And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, (and the Greek word there for dwelling means habitation which can refer to a physical body even) he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—

So those who take this position that the sons of God refers to fallen angels often point to this passage in Jude as further proof that Genesis 6 is talking about fallen angels as it relates to the sons of God. So those are basically the two positions that people take concerning the question who are the sons of God. Here's the deal though, whatever position you may take and I don't know if you've ever even landed on a position. But whichever position you might land on, there's enormous problems with both of them, frankly. First of all, if you believe in the idea that the sons of God is the godly line of Seth, well that fails to explain why sons of God would have a different meaning here in Genesis than it does in the book of Job; there's no explanation essentially for that. It also fails to explain why giant people came about as a result. “Why would you get giant people out of just the line of Seth?” Yeah, he was a godly man and his descendants, we call them the godly line of Seth but why would they produce big people with just marrying the daughters of the line of Cain? That doesn't tell us really anything. Lastly, the godly line of Seth position fails to offer any explanation as to why a global flood was needed or what it was actually going to accomplish. Because if all this terrible, terrible stuff was the result of men having children with women, well, that was going to happen after the flood too. And so, we seem to be left with an idea here, at least with an intimation that God was eliminating something that was unique from the standpoint of what it produced on the earth; the evil and the darkness that it produced on the earth and that sort of thing. So you can see that, that position simply doesn't really give us any real satisfying answers to any of the questions. So the whole idea that it's the godly land of Seth really doesn't hold water in my opinion at all. In my opinion is like yours, it's fairly meaningless. But, while the fallen angel position does possess better evidence, it is not perfect by any means. For starters, it fails to explain how angels, which are spirit beings, could possibly procreate with human women. Angels, being spirit beings are incorporeal; they don't have a body. That means there's no DNA, there's no genome to pass along. Now some people say, “well, we think that these fallen angels inhabited human men and in the sort of kind of possession, sort of a demonic possession and in that way, they procreated with these women and they had these huge people.”

Well, that, it still doesn't explain how a demonic spirit could influence and generate biological offspring just because they spiritually had possessed an individual because angels are not biological. There's obviously things we don't know, there's a great deal we don't know but to accept the position that these are in fact fallen angels. And they are responsible for some kind of biological output that created these enormous beings, human beings, is an explanation that is absolutely, I mean it's got a hole big enough to drive a truck through. And then there's one other glaring problem with the position that these angels are, or the sons of God are fallen angels and that is that Nephilim are mentioned after the flood. And the only people that existed on earth after the flood are the descendants of Noah and his family. So, the mention actually comes in Numbers and I'll tell you that this even has some challenges too. Look at it on the screen. Now, this is what the spies who were sent into the land came back and said when Moses sent them in. He says, Numbers 12:33 (ESV) “And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” “And there we saw the Nephilim (and again that came to just mean giants) (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” Now, people who don't like the idea that the sons of God and the fallen angels are one are going to point to this and they're going to say, “well, they claimed to see the Nephilim, but that doesn't mean they really did because they were making wild claims to potentially strike fear into the hearts of the people, lest they, would be bold enough to go into the land and take the land and so they were just making up stories.” Well, that's a possibility. But the fact of the matter is, we later on get to the life of David and we run into guys like Goliath, who was a big dude. And according to the scripture, was somewhere over 9 feet tall and that's a very, very big person and he is not the only big person like that. In first Samuel, there's a reference to one of the kings who had an iron bed that was 9 feet long and 6 feet wide and so we see these statements that are given in the Bible with really no explanation as to how they might fit into this narrative of the Nephilim here that we see in Genesis chapter 6. And you might ask yourself, “well, Pastor Paul, why isn't there a good explanation? I mean, why didn't God give us a good explanation?” Well, one of the reasons is because this is a narrative. That doesn't mean it isn't true, it is true. But a narrative is a story and narratives aren't meant to answer all of our theological questions, just like parables aren't meant to match up, every single point in a parable isn't meant to match up with some theological truth. Sometimes the point is just to tell the story, to make a point just with the story alone. In fact, narratives really aren't meant to teach at all. You read something in the Bible in a narrative, and that's great. Take it as a narrative, but be very careful about pulling some kind of theological sort of postures out of that narrative, because that's really not the intent of a narrative. They're just relating events as they occurred and it's not wise to create a doctrinal belief from a narrative unless it is elsewhere corroborated in an area of teaching from the Word of God. And that's why I've said all this to make really just one single point and that is that none of this is going to get settled anytime soon. So whether if you've had a position related to the Nephilim and who the sons of God are and so forth, we're not going to settle it tonight. You're not going to settle it tomorrow and we're probably going to have to wait until we're in the never-removed presence of God to ask the question and that sort of thing. So now that I've wasted all that time, let's get into what the chapter is really all about, all right. Beginning in verse 5, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” And that's saying that sins, corruptive influence was absolutely complete among mankind. And it says in verse 6 that, “And the Lord regretted (your Bible may say, ‘was sorry’) that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” I want you to stop there for just a moment. Verse 6 is a rather hard-hitting verse for us because it uses words of God that we wouldn't normally expect to hear, like “regretted” and “grieved.” But the language that is communicated to us in this passage is meant to reveal to us that the evil that God saw as a result of the heart of mankind was something that pained Him exceedingly. It doesn't mean that God was shocked or taken aback. It's like, “what in the world is going on here?”

That's not what the Bible is communicating, it's simply making the point that God is affected by the sin of man and I don't know if that surprises you or not. I believe God is affected by your sin, I know He's affected by my sin, because He communicated it to me at one time in my life. I've shared this story a few times in the past. I won't get into the great detail of it but when I was an early Christian, there were some areas of my life that just, I was having a very difficult time getting past, they were what you would call besetting sins. And a besetting sin is an area of addictive behavior that you're struggling to overcome. And because I was a new believer and had not walked with the Lord for very long and I was really just beginning to understand the power that is given to us as believers to overcome sin. I was still very much captive, at least I was acting as if I was captive to this area of sin. I have a very firm belief that when we come to Christ, we are set free from the tyranny of the sinful nature to dominate our lives. But it takes some time to learn that's an act and a walk of faith and not effort and gritting your teeth and so on and so on. And it was a very, very difficult season of my life. Very difficult and much grief in my own heart. But it was an area that I continually fell to until the Lord, one time while I was driving along on a highway. Sue and I were living in Montana at the time and I was making my way out west all by myself in the car and I was just praying about the sin that had grabbed me by the jugular and wouldn't seem to let go. And the Lord just, and I don't know how this, I can't hardly explain it to you, but the Lord opened my heart to see how my sin had affected Him. And I was fine one second and when He opened that up, and I don't think He showed me a great deal, but when He showed me my own sin, I began to sob convulsively. And the only thing I could get out as I drove down the road was, “I am so sorry” because I knew, I knew that I knew that I knew I had hurt Him by my sin. He just showed me and that was the last I dealt with that area of sin, that was it. So that was a pretty powerful experience in my life but it came from a spiritual understanding of how my sin can affect God, my Savior, who now lives within me, right? He's not cut off and aloof from me as He is not with you, He lives in you, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do you think He's disconnected from sinful behavior that we commit? Not at all, I think He feels it very keenly. And so it's interesting that we see these words here in verse 6, that the Lord regretted and it grieved Him to His heart that these things were going on among mankind. Verse 7 goes on to say, “So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom

I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” And again, verse 7 for many can be a very troubling verse because we read here that God's response to the evil that had become so prevalent in the world at that time was to not only bring judgment, but to go on and judge the animal kingdom. Did you see that in the verse? He says, “I'm going to blot out, not just the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens.” It's pretty, pretty crazy sort of a verse when you think about it. You think, well, why the animals, why the birds? Well, the sin and evil that mankind had propagated prior to the flood had so corrupted not only man, but the very world that man was put here to oversee, that it was necessary in God's solution to the extent that everything be wiped out and all those things which God had placed over mankind or rather mankind over, is the way to put that. And then we read here, after this frankly, very difficult verse of judgment, we read a verse of hope and it says, “8 But Noah found favor (and your bible may say grace) in the eyes of the Lord.” The Hebrew word is “Chen חן”. It's kind of hard for us to pronounce because it starts with kind of almost a guttural sound in the throat. But transliterated it's “C-h-e-n”, but it's a hard “CH” not a “cah” but more of a “hacahk” and it literally means grace. And what that means is, Noah and his family are going to be saved by grace, it's interesting, isn't it? People have always been saved by grace. That's how God saves people, that's how you got saved, by grace through faith. And it says in verse 9 that, “These are the generations (or rather, this is the genealogy perhaps in your Bible) of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” It's important to remember that blameless does not mean sinless, okay? People get that mixed up all the time. They'll read that Job was blameless or Noah was blameless or something like that. It means not liable to blame, but it does not mean sinless, okay. Now, sin is universal and the only human being who ever walked this planet who was not sinful was Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Everyone else dealt with a sinful nature and therefore was sinful. So Verse 10 goes on to say, “And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” And now the narrative is going to repeat some of the information about the moral condition of the earth at that time, saying in verse 11, “Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence.” I want to be careful not to skip over that too quickly. I want you to notice the description you're given there. First of all, “the earth was corrupt in God's sight.” Do you understand that's the only sight that matters? Whether or not something is corrupt in your sight or someone else's sight, that's irrelevant. The fact of the matter is the world was corrupt in God's sight and that's why we care what God thinks, right? Because His is the only opinion that really matters. But the second thing He says here or we're told related to the earth, is that it was “filled with violence.” So the corruption made its way into a violent sort of a description of the world. Now, the reason I'm stopping you here and talking a little bit about the condition of the earth at the time, prior to the flood is because Jesus said that prior to His return, the earth was going to be in the same condition. The people of the world were going to literally be living in the same sort of a condition. So it's important for us to know how they were then so we can see if we're getting close to the coming of the Lord. And I want to show you this on the screen from Luke chapter 17. It says, and this is Jesus talking, by the way, Luke 17:26-27 (ESV) Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Just as it was in the days of Noah, (there it is) so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. (And by the way, that phrase, ‘the days of the Son of Man’ is a reference to the latter days prior to the return of Christ. And he says, what was the condition of the world? Well, it was full of evil, but the people, they were going on as business as usual) They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. So we're told that there's this similarity, prior to the great flood and prior to the return of Jesus Christ to bring judgment on the earth. Verse 12 now repeats for us this, some emphasis, “And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. 13 And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” And that's a pretty interesting statement.

And then God begins to lay out His plan to save Noah and his family. He says, “14 Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. …” And by the way, while I'm reading this description, I'll put a picture up on the screen here of the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky so you can kind of be looking at that. He says, “14 …Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. 16 Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. (or we would say “floors) 17 For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. 21 Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.” 22 Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.” Genesis chapter 7, “Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, 3 and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.” Isn't it interesting that even prior to the giving of the law, there is a reference here to the fact that God had obviously made a revelation to Noah about what animals were clean and what were unclean. Those things aren't going to be specified in a global sort of a way until the law is given but obviously it had been given at this point. “4 For in seven days (God says) I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” 5 And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. 6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, 9 two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, (how specific is that?) on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” Did you guys notice that in the last 2 verses, that 3 sources of water are referenced? Did you catch that? He talks about the fountains of the deep that burst forth, we're talking about underwater reserve underground, rather reserves of water. They literally burst out of the ground and began to flood the earth. And then He talks about how the windows of the heavens were opened. I believe that this is that vapor barrier that God originally put around the earth to shield out the harmful rays of the sun which created in the earth a real greenhouse kind of effect. I believe that was just let down upon the earth and then finally He says, “and rain fell” and that's the third source. And by the way, we have every reason to believe that rain had never fallen up to this point. That the earth had been watered, as we read earlier, through these underground springs which came up and irrigated, kind of flood irrigated the ground and that sort of thing. So it goes on in verse 13 to say, “On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in.” That's an interesting statement to speak of the protective hand of the Lord to keep the ark as a place of refuge and safety. Verse 17, “The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.” Now keep in mind that a cubit is roughly a foot and a half; about 18 inches, so you do the math. The water was somewhere a little over 20 feet. 20, 23 feet above the very tops of the mountains and we don't even, we don't know exactly, how tall the mountains even were. I think the flood even created some new ones. But anyway, here's the result. Verse 21, “And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on the dry land (notice that) in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.” That's a long time to be in a boat. Anyway, Genesis chapter 8, “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. …” This is an interesting statement. We call this an anthropomorphism because it is a statement that is made to speak of human behavior that really isn't supposed to be taken literally. It doesn't literally mean that God forgot and then 150 days later, “He's like, oh, there's…, that's right, there's those people I put in that boat, I got to go take care of them.” The timer, like the timer went off on the stove sort of a thing. This is a non-literal term just simply used to indicate God's movement on Noah's behalf. In the middle of verse 1, “…And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.” And that would be in modern day Turkey by the way and that mountain is still there. Notice it goes on to say “5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.” Now, What they're going to do at verse 6 is, now, see we're at the end of all these days, okay. Now we're going to go back in time, right? And the Bible does this frequently, you got to pay attention or you're going to get messed up. Notice He goes back in time to say, “6 at the end of 40 days…” and that was really just when the rain stopped and all the water stopped gathering up. “6 … Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground.” Knowing that a dove would give him a different result. So this was kind of a further test that Noah performed to see if the waters had completely receded. “9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. 13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, (once again, very specific language) the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families (and that means according to their kind) from the ark. 20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” And obviously this was an act of worship and obviously, I would say too, an expression of thanksgiving for God's saving power. “21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” And so chapter 8 ends with, you'll see a promise here. Interesting that, did you notice that in that statement from the Lord, that the Lord makes an assessment of mankind that says that the heart of man had not fundamentally changed. Did you catch that? He said in verse 21, if you look at me again there, “when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is (not was, is) evil from his youth.” So the evil nature of man had not changed and yet getting back to that original debate, we talked about, “who are the sons of God?” We seem to be left with a strong impression that there was something uniquely evil that God was swiping away from the world that had existed in the pre-flood world, but that yet He felt the need to eradicate. Again, that's like, that's a guess, that's a guess on my part. But when we gather next time we're going to see how the descendants of Noah's family spread out and filled the earth. And then we're also going to see how God, once again had to come and intervene in the affairs of mankind in order to quell man's defiance and rebellion. And we're talking there about the incident at the Tower of Babel and we will get to that next on our radar. So, we're going to stop there, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you so much tonight for the chapters that we've been able to look at in the scripture. Lord, they explain so much, so much about how the world is even shaped today and why things are not as they were then. Even telling us why life spans have decreased so significantly.

We thank you Father God for preserving the Word for us these many years and for opening our hearts to it in such a way that we could learn from it, be nourished by it, and also have a greater understanding of the nature and the heart of God. And we thank you for that. We pray that you would help us Lord to continue to press in, to know you, to know your heart, to know your desires, to know what grieves you, to know what is pleasing to you and to live our lives accordingly. We thank you and we praise you in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and king and all God's people said, amen, amen. God bless you.