Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good Morning everyone,

We have a dozy of a text this morning and I want to just get into it.

Genesis 6 is where we will be.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard or read the phrase this is one of the most debated passages in Genesis, Old Testament, or Bible, I would have enough nickels to pay off the water tower.

If you have questions please let me know, I am certain you will and I have already planned two Sunday nights to talk about things that come up in this ext, but I would still value your questions, just text them to me!

Let’s Pray and dive in

Pray

Sin in the World

Every since Adam and Eve ate the fruit, we see sin continues spreading.

Cain murdered Abel.

Cain’s descendants were not what we call good people by anyone standard.

Abel’s descendants have their high points, but even then death reigns and sin is spreading more and more.

So we come to this passage and we see it is still under the Tol Dot the generation of Adam.

Mankind has obeyed God in that they have been fruitful and multiplied, however sin has multiplied quicker.

What we see here is a picture of humanity living out in depravity.

It is extremely grotesque and terrible what is happening.

There is a lot of debate on who the sons of God refers to.

Do to the highly debated nature of this text I will not be able to fully walk through some of the things that come up in this text.

So my commitment is the next time I teach on Sunday Night I will walk through the sons of God and Nephilim fully, because it is pretty interesting.

For the sake of time, as best as I can understand right now the sons of God is referring to demon possessed men from the line of Cain, or those who are lost.

It’s terrible in how these men took wives they looked at which ones they wanted to the took them.

Most like they took as many as they saw fit.

The fathers of these men encouraged them to do this.

The fathers of the women sent their daughters to this.

Sex was king, and these demonic men tried to fill that lustful thirst with more and more women.

Women are treated as objects to be used not as co-image bearers meant to subdue the Earth.

Demonic activity in the bible is almost always seen in cultures and places that try to have sexual liberation.

Look at any empire, any nation, and what you will find is before they fall sexuality flawed and skewed.

We see the Nephilim are present.

We are not told much about them in all of the bible which has lead to speculation.

In Numbers they are called giants, and they are before sons of God had children with Daughters of man so they represent some type of status or were seen as an authoritative position.

These men were the men of renown of old.

We have to keep in mind Moses is writing then as they are wondering in the Desert.

When the spies go into the Promised land all but Joshua come back afraid and not wanting to go because of these giants these Nephilim.

So one of the things that God through Moses writing this is saying, you think these Nephilim are unbeatable, but I wiped them out in the flood once, and I will defeat them again.

They are not opposing gods, who stand a threat against God, they are men fallen and broken and perverted and will be judged and destroyed.

These mighty mythical warriors do not stand a change against the Lord.

He is de-mythologizing them.

The Lord demonstrates grace by saying the world will not flood for 120 more years, God gives an opportunity for people to repent and turn to him.

But we know the story.

fast forwards and we see...

God’s Disappointment

Sin’s consequences and ripples spread into deeper and more unintended and un-thought about areas.

This is a hard passage because it seems to contradict what is said elsewhere in the bible.

It also paints an extremely bleak picture of man.

Unfortunately, in the American church circle, especially in the bible belt like where we are at, Sin doesn’t sell.

You want to become a popular author or have a following , especially in ministry spheres (women's, kids, and youth) then you teach, preach, write books, do videos, or social media posts about how valuable someone is and how God saved you because you have value.

So every struggle, every temptation, every misstep, break your nail and it’s Satan himself attacking you because you are that valuable in of yourself.

We will walk through this because we do the stamp of the image of God upon us, there is something about humanity that requires dignity and value, but ultimately what happens is those message are from the Devil.

Here is subtly and all dressed up what is being taught in those things… You deserve a God who caters to you because you are valuable God has no choice.

Satan is not omnipotent, he is not omniscient, he is not omnipresent, He is NOT all powerful, He is NOT all knowing, He is NOT everywhere.

He is limited, and fighting a limitless God, so his strategy is to control the message, and then use his limited power to influence as much as he can.

This is what he did it the garden with Eve, He didn’t eat the fruit, but he tempted Eve into it.

This is what he attempted with Jesus during his temptation and life.

In all all honesty he is probably not in Ira.

But the messaging that we buy into it I am god, lowercase g.

We never see it this way, because it is not that blatant and obvious, but if you boil down those messages, the temptation it is always, every sin, every struggle, every temptation comes down to us serving the false god of self.

I want this so I will… lie, cheat, steal, cover up, hate, envy, on and on and on.

I don’t want to be embarrassed so I will, blame, hide, fight , argue, cut out “negative people”, because ultimately it’s not about bringing God glory, its about bringing me happiness and comfort.

I need me time, because I deserve to papered.

Sin isn’t that bad, think about all the “good” things that you do.

It’s ok to let your guard down every now and then.

What we see here in Genesis, is still true.

wickedness of man was great in the earth.

every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Heart for us means to center of emotion, but to the Hebrews it meant the center of their being.

So this is where thoughts originate, emotions, feeling, ideas, this is the core of who they are, their identity, their personality.

And it’s only evil continually.

No t-shirts with that verse are being sold.

Hobby Lobby doesn’t have that sign to hang above the mantle.

Your grandma isn’t cross stitching that on a pillow,

That’s not anyone's life verse.

Do you see what sin does.

When God created everything in Genesis 1, God looked and said this is good.

And now 6 chapters later God looks and says this is wicked and evil.

Why?

It’s because of Man’s sinful heart.

whatever the sinful heart touches it corrupts.

It’s like a dirty glass that has clean water poured into it.

All the sudden that water in contaminated.

This is effects of sin.

Everything is spoiled.

What we do is sinful because we operate out of a sinful heart.

Now God in his grace and limited us.

We are not as sinful as we possibly could be, there is common grace present.

But everything that we do, all of who we are is sinful.

This is why those self help, empowerment messages work.

We long for relief from what we know to be true even if we cannot give it a name.

We cry for justice, and when justice comes through a jury, it leaves many longing for something more.

It leaves many thinking that’s not justice.

So remake the world into the images we long for it to be, only to find out that whatever we remake the world into is still not what the world was created to be.

It still lacks the power, so we are left hopeless, tired, and living in a state of evil.

It was so bad before the flood that Moses tells us that God regretted that the had made man.

This passage has been a difficult one to understand, the word regretted elsewhere is translated repented.

I want to delve deeper into the unchangeable of God, however I will save it for a Sunday night.

I’ll leave the understanding of it as this, God NEVER changes.

It’s common sense for believers, if God changes does he change for the better or worse?

If it’s for the better, then he was not perfect, if it is for the worse then he becomes imperfect.

We can also look to the bible that talked about Jesus being the same yesterday today and forever in Hebrews and many other places.