Outline
The wickedness of the world which provoked God’s wrath. (Verse 1-7.)
Noah finds grace. (Verse 8-11.)
Noah warned of the flood, The directions respecting the ark. (Verse 12-21.)
Noah’s faith and obedience. (Verse 22.)
The Ungodly Multiply
1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
[Gen 1:28]
Here we have the chapter Evolutionists fear the most. If Genesis six is true (which it is!) then those who profess themselves to be wise have become fools. You cannot prove that God exists! they say at the drop of a hat, but what they demand of the Believer they themselves cannot produce. They have NO PROOF that Evolution is true!
It is a Theory, and only a theory, one that Darwin himself recanted in his later years after further study. Yet many Scientist (falsely so called) still hold to this lie of Satan. Many Christians profess to believe in Evolution, this is a doctrinal impossibility. The Bible is very clear in that Jesus is the Creator of all that is and ever was.
He cannot be a liar and still be the Creator! His Word says the world was made in six twenty-four hour days and it was. His Word says that the World was destroyed by a flood in Noah’s day and it was.
If someone doesn’t believe in the words of Jesus how can they believe in him for salvation? To reject his Word is to reject Him. Many people follow a Jesus of their own making.
Because of Adam’s sin a death sentence was passed down to everyone. Romans 6:23 says, For the wages of sin is death. And Ezekiel 18:20 says, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. Mankind was originally intended to live forever as was discussed in earlier chapters but now sin had entered into the picture and so death would have its say in every one’s life.
But people were living for over 900 years. This would and did present a major problem after just a short time if you can imagine. People were being
born daily but people were not dying as quickly to sustain a proper balance. God’s word says it best when it says, Men began to multiply.
If you spend about five minutes trying to figure out how many people there may have been alive at the time of the flood you can easily conceive of a number possibly in the Billions.
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
[Matt 24:38, Luke 17:27, Jude 6]
Just who were the sons of God and the daughters of men? First of all let me say that God is not the author of confusion, Satan is! Satan is the one that wants the Scriptures to be misapplied and misunderstood.
Let us deal with the daughters of men first, they are what they are, daughters of men, period. Nothing in Scripture points to any other conclusion.
Let me explode the most unsubstantiated myth floating around today regarding this subject first. Scripture does not teach that these sons of God were believers who simply married some Heathen women and produced giant offspring.
If that were so then why don’t we still see it occurring today? Many deceived people who are saved today marry people who are not saved. Yet we see normal children as a result of these forbidden unions.
The sons of God were angels that had sexual intercourse with human women and produced this type of offspring. Angels do not marry in heaven, because they are all male, but these left their first habitation!
They cannot reproduce without human help!
All the Angels that were around then are still around now. No new Angels have ever been born or ever will be born! Scripture says nothing of any further Angels being created other than the ones created initially.
Scripture does support the idea that fallen Angels are capable of possessing lost individuals and inhabiting their body. The Demoniac of Gadara for example didn’t want Jesus to cast him out unless he would allow him to go and possess the bodies of a herd of swine.
Fallen Angels crave to inhabit a human body. They understand that we are the crowning achievement of God’s Creation and the prime recipients of His love and they want what they can not have so they take what is offered to them from men who give themselves over to a reprobate mind and possess them. Somehow this ungodly union produced a genetic nightmare and they all had to be destroyed by God.
The sons of God – Jesus obviously is THE Son of God, but beyond this fact, there are only two groups of people in the Bible ever called “sons of God.” According to John 1:12 in the NT, the person who receives Christ by believing in his name becomes a son of God. In the OT, the only people ever called sons of God are angels. Read Job 1:6-12 & 2:1. Taken at face value, there was a certain group of angels who left heaven and had physical relationships with the “daughters of men.” This was such an incredibly horrendous intrusion of the spiritual realm into the physical world, that God has reserved for these wicked angels a special measure of judgment and in Noah’s day brought a flood upon all of the earth to wipe out the offspring of this unnatural union. Several points to consider:
1) Angels are not sexless. Every place they appear in scripture they always appear as males. Some people quote Matthew 22:30 in an attempt to prove that angels are sexless, but this verse simply says that angels do not marry – an obvious fact seeing that they are all males.
2) In Jude 6, Jude gives us further information about these wicked angels and then compares their sin in Jude 7 to that of Sodom and Gomorrah – fornication (sexual sins) and going after strange flesh.
3) The offspring of this wicked angel and human union involved “giants” and “men of renown” according to Gen. 6:4. This is probably the basis of much of Greek & Roman mythology where the “gods” came to earth. Compare Acts 19:35.
4) This problem seemed to be widespread enough for God to send a universal flood to wipe out mankind. The problem however is still sporadically seen throughout the OT with various “giants” of a very wicked nature frustrating the work of God (Goliath being the most notable). It is interesting to note that even today, many involved in witchcraft and the occult testify to fornication with demons. Note how this last fact compares with what Jesus said in Matthew 24:37-39.`
3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
[1st Pet 3:20 Ps 78:39, Gal 5:16]
God will not continually strive with us in the flesh because He has numbered our days for our own good. We were originally created to live forever but sin entered into the picture in the Garden.
He then limited our life span to around 1000 years of age because the wages of sin is death Romans 6:23. After the flood God numbered their days much lower as an act of love to 120 years to limit the pollution of the Sons of God (today it is 70).
Israel was later given the responsibility of destroying the second batch of these Giants that were dispatched on this world by Satan after the flood. That is why they were commanded not make any leagues with the inhabitants of the land but to utterly destroy them. Immorality has always followed these creatures. Most of these nations religions were lascivious in nature?
What evil one man could accomplish if he was to live a thousand years as in the days of the flood. Many believe that verse three was also a time clock for judgment and that God was also saying through Noah that the flood was coming in one hundred and twenty years.
4 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 bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
[giants-to fall, a feller, a bully or a tyrant]
[Num 13-32-33, Luke 17:27]
The words after that refer to the flood. Remember that Moses is writing this well after that flood. These Giants were the Sons of God and the offspring became the mighty men of renown. That is what scripture says and Jude adds some information that has been forgotten by many.
Jude 5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. 6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. 7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
These sons of God go after strange flesh just as a Sodomite does and will have the same fate. Also notice what Peter says:
2 Peter 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; 5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; .., 9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
So harsh and immediate was this judgment by God for these sons of God (fallen angels) that it served as a deterrent to the rest of the fallen host not to follow in their footsteps but many did immediately after the formation of the nation of Israel and they predominantly occupied the land surrounding the holy land because of its strategic importance to God.
The Ungodly Sin Continually
5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
[Gen 8:21, Prov 6:14, Jer 17:9, Matt 5:28, Matt 15:19, Mark 7:21]
[imagination-all the day]
no good in man; ONLY evil continually!
The Ungodly To Be Destroyed
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
[Isa 63:10, Eph 4:30, James 1:17]
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
[Ps 7:11]
The Godly To Be Saved
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
If we think we have it tough today we are wrong. Noah had it bad. Noah, in spite of all his circumstances still did the right thing. God is looking for someone who will take a stand when everyone is taking the easy way out. He is looking for someone to speak out for Him while the rest of Christianity remains silent.
9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
[Gen 19:19, Ex 33:12, Luke 1:30, Acts 7:46]
10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
[Gen 5:32]
The Jews were the descendants of Shem while those living on the African continent where descendants of Ham and the Europeans were the descendants of Japheth. Notice that it says:
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
[Ps 14:2, Ps 33:13]
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
[Gen 6:17, Gen 7:21, Matt 24:39, Luke 17:27, 2nd Pet 3:6]
God was very gracious to Noah and his family by saving his family from the flood that was about to come as a judgment upon the earth. God had given them 120 years to repent under the preaching of Noah but they would not.
14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
[cubit – measurement from elbow to fingertip ~ 18-22 inches The cubit is commonly thought to equal 18 inches. If that is correct, the dimension of the ark would be: length – 300 cubits = 450 feet breadth – 50 cubits = 75 feet height – thirty cubits = 45 feet]
16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
[Gen 8:6]
[cubit – measurement from elbow to fingertip ~ 18-22 inches]
I have studied the dimensions of the Ark and have concluded that there was plenty of room to fit the animals. Not only was there room but there was plenty of room to spare. I have seen studies done that proclaim that Noah only brought little baby animals on the Ark.
The Christian apologists who are always trying to prove that the miraculous stories of the Bible are not real miracles but rather scientifically possible miss the simple fact that there was plenty of room on the Ark for full grown adult animals.
What about the dinosaurs? I believe God allowed most of them to be destroyed in the flood. Job mentions two different types of dinosaurs Leviathan and Behemoth but most scholars believe Job to be the only pre-flood book.
The ark is a beautiful picture of salvation; it was covered within and without with pitch to keep it from leaking and to keep it safe from judgment – the believer is covered with the blood of Christ that has washed away his or her sins and keeps them safe from God’s judgment; the ark had three levels just as God is a trinity, with the Father, Son and the Holy spirit all involved in our salvation; there was only one door into the ark just as Christ is the only door “into salvation”; the ark was made of living substances (wood, pitch from trees, etc.) that had to die in order to protect him from God’s judgment just as Jesus died on the cross to secure our salvation. Other comparisons can be seen if the student will meditate on these verses.
17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
[2nd Pet 2:5, Gen 6:13, Gen 7:21-23, Matt 24:39, Luke 17:27, 2nd Pet 3:6, Gen 7:4]
God had to destroy the world not because of mankind, but because of the pollution of the human race by these sons of God (fallen Angels).
18 But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
[Gen 7:1, Gen 7:7, Gen 7:13, 2 Pet 2:5]
[covenant = a promise]
19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
[Gen 7:8-9, Gen 7:15-16]
20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
[Gen 1:24, Gen 7:14, Gen 8:19]
21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
22 Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
[Gen 7:5, Gen 7:9. Gen 7: 16, Heb 11:7]
Note Noah’s faith – compare Hebrews 11:7 and note that sometimes fear can be a motivation of faith.
Study Question
What kind of “preacher” does II Peter 2:5 say that Noah was?
Commentary by Matthew Henry, 1710.
Verse 1-7 – The most remarkable thing concerning the old world, is the destroying of it by the deluge, or flood. We are told of the abounding iniquity of that wicked world: God’s just wrath, and his holy resolution to punish it. In all ages there has been a peculiar curse of God upon marriages between professors of true religion and its avowed enemies. The evil example of the ungodly party corrupts or greatly hurts the other. Family religion is put an end to, and the children are trained up according to the worldly maxims of that parent who is without the fear of God. If we profess to be the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, we must not marry without his consent. He will never give his blessing, if we prefer beauty, wit, wealth, or worldly honours, to faith and holiness. The Spirit of God strove with men, by sending Enoch, Noah, and perhaps others, to preach to them; by waiting to be gracious, notwithstanding their rebellions; and by exciting alarm and convictions in their consciences. But the Lord declared that his Spirit should not thus strive with men always; he would leave them to be hardened in sin, and ripened for destruction. This he determined on, because man was flesh: not only frail and feeble, but carnal and depraved; having misused the noble powers of his soul to gratify his corrupt inclinations. God sees all the wickedness that is among the children of men; it cannot be hid from him now; and if it be not repented of, it shall be made known by him shortly. The wickedness of a people is great indeed, when noted sinners are men renowned among them. Very much sin was committed in all places, by all sorts of people. Any one might see that the wickedness of man was great: but God saw that every imagination, or purpose, of the thoughts of man’s heart, was only evil continually. This was the bitter root, the corrupt spring. The heart was deceitful and desperately wicked; the principles were corrupt; the habits and dispositions evil. Their designs and devices were wicked. They did evil deliberately, contriving how to do mischief. There was no good among them. God saw man’s wickedness as one injured and wronged by it. He saw it as a tender father sees the folly and stubbornness of a rebellious and disobedient child, which grieves him, and makes him wish he had been childless. The words here used are remarkable; they are used after the manner of men, and do not mean that God can change, or be unhappy. Does God thus hate our sin? And shall not we be grieved to the heart for it? Oh that we may look on Him whom we have grieved, and mourn! God repented that he had made man; but we never find him repent that he redeemed man. God resolves to destroy man: the original word is very striking, ‘I will wipe off man from the earth,’ as dirt or filth is wiped off from a place which should be clean, and is thrown to the dunghill, the proper place for it. God speaks of man as his own creature, when he resolves upon his punishment. Those forfeit their lives who do not answer the end of their living. God speaks of resolution concerning men, after his Spirit had been long striving with them in vain. None are punished by the justice of God, but those who hate to be reformed by the grace of God.
Verse 8-11 – Noah did not find favour in the eyes of men; they hated and persecuted him, because both by his life and preaching he condemned the world: but he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and this made him more truly honourable than the men of renown. Let this be our chief desire, let us labour that we may be accepted of him. When the rest of the world was wicked, Noah kept his integrity. God’s good-will towards Noah produced this good work in him. He was a just man, that is, justified before God, by faith in the promised Seed. As such he was made holy, and had right principles; and was righteous in his conversation. He was not only honest, but devout; it was his constant care to do the will of God. God looks down upon those with an eye of favour, who sincerely look up to him with an eye of faith. It is easy to be religious when religion is in fashion; but it shows strong faith and resolution, to swim against the stream, and to appear for God when no one else appears for him; Noah did so. All kinds of sin were found among men. They corrupted God’s worship. Sin fills the earth with violence, and this fully justified God’s resolution to destroy the world. The contagion spread. When wickedness is become general, ruin is not far off; while there is a remnant of praying people in a nation, to empty the measure as it fills, judgments may be long kept off; but when all hands are at work to pull down the fences, by sin, and none stand in the gap to make up the breach, what can be expected but a flood of wrath?
Verse 12-21 – God told Noah his purpose to destroy the wicked world by water. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, Psalms 25:14. It is with all believers, enabling them to understand and apply the declarations and warnings of the written word. God chose to do it by a flood of waters, which should drown the world. As he chooses the rod with which he corrects his children, so he chooses the sword with which he cuts off his enemies. God established his covenant with Noah. This is the first place in the Bible where the word ‘covenant’ is found; it seems to mean,
1. The covenant of providence; that the course of nature shall be continued to the end of time.
2. The covenant of grace; that God would be a God to Noah, and that out of his seed God would take to himself a people. God directed Noah to make an ark. This ark was like the hulk of a ship, fitted to float upon the waters. It was very large, half the size of St. Paul’s cathedral, and would hold more than eighteen of the largest ships now used. God could have secured Noah without putting him to any care, or pains, or trouble; but employed him in making that which was to be the means to preserve him, for the trial of his faith and obedience. Both the providence of God, and the grace of God, own and crown the obedient and diligent. God gave Noah particular orders how to make the ark, which could not therefore but be well fitted for the purpose. God promised Noah that he and his family should be kept alive in the ark. What we do in obedience to God, we and our families are likely to have the benefit of. The piety of parents gets their children good in this life, and furthers them in the way to eternal life, if they improve it.
Verse 22 – Noah’s faith triumphed over all corrupt reasonings. To rear so large a building, such a one as he never saw, and to provide food for the living creatures, would require from him a great deal of care, and labour, and expense. His neighbours would laugh at him. But all such objections, Noah, by faith, got over; his obedience was ready and resolute. Having begun to build, he did not leave off till he had finished: so did he, and so must we do. He feared the deluge, and therefore prepared the ark. And in the warning given to Noah, there is a more solemn warning given to us, to flee from the wrath to come, which will sweep the world of unbelievers into the pit of destruction. Christ, the true Noah, which same shall comfort us, hath by his sufferings already prepared the ark, and kindly invites us by faith to enter in. While the day of his patience continues, let us hear and obey his voice.