Flood: Grace
If we look at the Old
Testament as it is laid out historically and get a grasp of this basic outline
then everything else plugs in. First of all there is the Pentateuch, the first
five books. This covers creation to the point where the nation Israel is at the borders of Canaan,
ready to go in and take the land that God had given to them. It was written
about 1440 BC on the plains of Moab by Moses. Then there are the historical books which
begin with Joshua, then Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles. These cover
the time from 1440 BC when Israel goes into the land until 586 BC when finally
the southern kingdom is taken out of the land under divine discipline. At the
beginning was a theocracy, then the united monarchy under Saul, David and Solomon,
but in 931 BC on the death of Solomon his son Rehoboam
follows the advice of his younger councilors and increases taxation and there
is one of the first tax revolts in history. The ten tribes in the north
separated and there was the divided kingdom—ten tribes in the north and the two
tribes of Benjamin and Judah in the south. In 722 BC the northern
kingdom is taken out, destroyed in divine discipline by the Assyrian armies,
and then in 586 BC the southern kingdom is destroyed by the armies of
Nebuchadnezzar and they go into seventy years of exile. Then there are the
three post-exilic historical books, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. That covers the
panorama of Israel’s history and the history of the Old Testament. All
the other books plug into that historical framework.
Genesis 6:5 NASB
“Then 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.” We want to go to a theme verse to focus on this section from
Genesis four to Genesis eleven which sets the stage for the call of Abram. This
would be the verse. Three verses down we find the
contrast. On the one hand we see the evil of man, man’s rebelliousness toward
God and the increase of sin. The main thing that stands out in chapters 4-11 is
that man continuously rebels against God. Man is not obedient to God, he continuously seeks to try to live his life
independent of God and to create his own reality. In contrast to the ebb and
flow of human history away from God we find the unique statement: Genesis 6:8 NASB
“But Noah found favor [grace] in the eyes of the LORD.” Here we see the twin
themes of this entire section: judgment and blessing, and God’s grace always
precedes judgment and goes along with judgment.
Genesis 6:11, 12 NASB “Now the earth
was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt;
for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.” Here we see a further
development of this theme. This is the indictment of the antediluvian
civilization.
What has happened in Genesis
chapter three is that man has fallen, nature has fallen, every
aspect of the natural world has been impacted by Adam’s sin. Adam and the woman
have been cast out of the garden and in the last verse of chapter three we
read: NASB “So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which
turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.” The interesting
thing here is that the garden of Eden was still on the
earth during the time of the antediluvian civilization. This was a physical,
geographical location on the earth and it was visible to anyone who wanted to
go see it. It is interesting that at this time there was the physical presence
of God on the earth just as there will be in the Millennial
kingdom. And just as at the end of the Millennial kingdom there will be
hundreds of thousands who reject God and His grace there were millions, if not
billions, who rejected God and His grace in the antediluvian civilization.
There is a parallel between the two. So man has been cast out of the garden, he
cannot come back into the garden, and God’s presence is still on the earth. He
is still executing judgment. Remember human government is not initiated and
established until after the flood. What did they do in terms of government
prior to that? God is executing judgment personally on the earth from the
garden. It was a totally different world from what we have in the postdiluvian
world and we must come to grips with that.
When we come to Cain and Abel
we note that God rejects Cain’s offering. Cain’s his offering is his own works,
what he has done, whereas Abel’s offering follows the mandates of God. His
offering is the sacrifice of a lamb and that is acceptable to God. God rejects
Cain’s offering indicating that God always rejects man’s works. Abel relies not
on what he has done but on what God has provided for him and what God has
instructed him to do. So we see a contest here. Cain went out and built a city.
A city is not evil in itself but it is evil when it is being used to raise
man’s standards against the authority of God. The remainder of Genesis chapter
four covers the descendants of Cain and his family and we see a picture of evil
that is taking place from one generation to the next. Genesis 4:18 NASB “Now to Enoch was born Irad, and Irad became the father
of Mehujael, and Mehujael
became the father of Methushael, and Methushael became the father of Lamech.”
This gets us into looking at the genealogy. Note the difference between this
and 5:6 NASB “Seth lived one hundred and five years, and became the
father of Enosh.” Seth was the replacement son for
Abel. [7] “Then Seth lived eight hundred and seven years after he became the
father of Enosh, and he had {other} sons and
daughters.” When we compare verses 5,6, and 7 with
Genesis 4:18 we see that the difference is numbers added in the genealogy of
chapter five. There are no numbers in the first genealogy. When numbers are
added the genealogy is protected against any insertion of any absences. There
can’t be gaps in a genealogy when there is a numerical formula.
What we see in chapters four
and five is the decline of the human race. One individual stands out. Genesis 5:22 NASB “Then Enoch walked with God…” Enoch
is in contrast to all of the descendants of Cain and many others who are
ignorant of God, who ignore God and are in rebellion against God. [24] “Enoch
walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” Enoch had such a close
relationship with God, was spending time with God—and God is physically present
on the earth—and one day he just walks right into heaven; he did not go through
physical death. Enoch goes to be with God just prior to the flood. His son Methuselah
died the year before the flood came.
The reason for the flood
is first of all because of man’s rebellion, man’s failure to execute God’s plan
and purposes. The second reason is given in Genesis 6:1, 2 NASB “Now
it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and
daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the
daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever
they chose.” The sons of God here is a technical term in the Hebrew, beni ha Elohim,
and it refers to the angels. It always refers to angels; it never discriminates
between fallen angels and holy angels. It is used to describe all the angels,
demon angels as well, in Job. Here it refers to fallen angels. It is a term to
describe that these angels sought to destroy God’s plan and purposes for
mankind. They sought to destroy the genetic purity of the human race. Now the
genetic make-up of the human race has been polluted by this angelic strain. If
God is going to redeem the human race He has to do that with a Son who is true
humanity. When the second person of the Trinity is incarnate He can’t have a
human body that has been tainted by angelic DNA, so God judges the human race in order to preserve
its purity. The passages in 1 Peter 3:20
and in Jude indicate that there is a segment of angels that are imprisoned in Tartarus right now. It is these demons that violated their
position in Genesis chapter six. From this point on God restricted the demons
from doing this sort of thing again.
Genesis 6:9 NASB “These
are {the records of} the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man,
blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.” The word “generations” indicates
a major division in the writing. God calls out Noah because he is one of the
few people left on the earth who is still obedient to
God, who has responded to the gospel at that time. Noah and his family are
among the few who are going to follow God and they are the ones who are going
to survive the flood. It takes Noah 120 years to build the ark; it was a
massive engineering feat.
How long did the flood
take? They went into the ark on the tenth day of the second month of Noah’s 600th
year, according to Genesis 7:11. They were in the ark for a week and then it
began to rain and God closed the door. This indicates that there is only one
way into God’s grace recovery system at the flood. There is only one way to
salvation—Jesus Christ. Noah did not close the door; God closed the door. This
is a picture of eternal security. God is the one who secures and protects us.
So the family goes into the ark with all the animals and for forty days and
forty nights it rained. After 150 days the ark rested on Mount Ararat. Then there were 74 days when the waters began to
decrease. The total number of days of the flood was 371.
Then we have a terrible
episode occur which indicated that man’s heart does not change; he is still
wicked. Noah gets drunk and there is the scene of embarrassment where Ham goes
in and looks upon Noah’s nakedness. It was simply a sign of disrespect for the
father. This is followed by the blessing and cursing statement of Noah.
Gen 9:25 So he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan;
A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers’.” Canaan
is the son of Ham. He doesn’t curse Ham; neither does he bless Ham. The cursing
goes to Canaan. Why is that important? The Jews were on the plains
of Moab, the nation was approximately 3-million strong and getting ready to go
into the land of the Canaanites, the descendants of Canaan, and God is giving
them into their hand as judgment upon the because of their sexual perversion.
Now it makes sense. Canaan was cursed, and we see a foreshadowing of this curse.
Ham, and specifically his son Canaan, probably are already living out this genetic
tendency in the family line towards sexual perversion. Genesis 9:26 NASB “He also said, ‘Blessed be the LORD, The God of
Shem; And let Canaan
be his servant.’” The Jews are the descendants of Shem. Shem has a
spiritual blessing on him which is developed through the Jews. Canaan
is going to serve the Shemites
(Jews). Genesis 9:27 NASB “May God enlarge
Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.” The Gentile races, the Indo-European races, are the
descendants of Japheth. They dwell in the tents of Shem. We are sitting here
reading the Scriptures given to the Shemites.
In Genesis chapter ten we
are once again we are struck with the same kind of depravity that we find back
in Genesis 4 & 5. Man continues to rebel against God and this culminates in
the massive international, global rebellion that takes place at the tower of Babel, and then God has to confuse the language. This
begins racial distinctions and the restriction of genetic tendencies.