Escape Judgment

Scripture Reading – Genesis 6:1-8

If you missed last Sunday, I announced a reading plan that could take us all together at the same time through the Bible with short readings each day, and in just two years we’d be through the whole Bible.

 The website and name of the plan is BibleStudyTogether.com. At that website you can find links to the app, and you can order journals if you’d like to. 

Paper versions of the plan are available, but if you use phone apps you’ll want to have it available too. It’s on the Google Plan and the Apple App store…and will read it to you.

I won’t use all these slides every Sunday for two years but I’ll use this one often AND:

If you get the app, set the start date to the first Sunday in January — Jan. 4, 2026 – the first Sunday of the year, and then when you hit “TODAY’S READING” it will be right every time. Today’s reading is 008.

If you jumped in with us last Sunday as day 1 and kept up, then you’re ready for today’s message AND you probably have been wrestling with some questions because WOW the Bible is mysterious and odd in those first six chapters!

HERE’S HOW COOL AND MYSTERIOUS THE BIBLE IS from the very start: The very beginning of the Bible starts with TWO creation stories combined into one that are CRAZY ancient. They go way way back in the history of ancient Israel. We Christians have them from the Jews, because the Old Testament is the original Hebrew Bible compiled by the Jews and their ancestors for 1500 years AFTER many more years than that of telling the stories from kids to grandkids.

In Chapter 1 — God isn’t explained or proven; it just jumps right in and assumes you believe in God. The translation from the Hebrew says: “In the beginning God created…” or “When God created.” For believers, it’s an awesome powerful statement that roots us in the deep truth that we can trust that God has power over everything – so if we trust that God, we have nothing to fear!

For those who don’t yet believe, they may be like, “Well who is this God? What is God like? Is there one or many?”

Then you may see that there are six days of creation in Genesis 1, ending with a seventh day of rest, but the story in Genesis 2 that gets into more specifics about humans doesn’t match up exactly with chapter 1. Maybe one is from God’s perspective, maybe one’s from earth’s perspective; maybe they’re two different traditions that help explain how things are and Moses or another author or ancient editor was led by God to include both…we’re not sure.

AND is the earth YOUNG, like if you add up all the dates and ages of people it may only be 10,000 years old OR is there evolution for billions of years and Genesis starts when a humanoid is given the spirit of God in some way?

There’s a mystery there…and legitimate, Apostles Creed and Bible believing traditional Christians have different explanations and interpretations…so if you want to do MORE research here are two different ministries you could check out.

TO ME, when you read, START with a literal straightforward approach to the text, then ask, “What’s this teach me about God? And what’s this teach me about Humans?” Then you can go back and look at whether or not it should be taken completely literal or not – but start literal, ask the theological questions, and THEN you can do more evaluation. If you do that, you’ll get to the overall truths that both AiG and Biologos agree upon.

WHEN WE GET TO Genesis CHAPTER 3 – the first humans and Eve are tempted to sin against God by a “serpent.” They’re GOOD and are in a good garden in a good world without brokenness and violence, but they are TEMPTED to go against God’s instructions. Who tempts them? A serpent….that’s clearly a created being, NOT an equal to God evil God – not at all! It’s a created being that has chosen to go against God. And the humans Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and eat from a tree that God said not to eat. It was literally the ONLY law God had given up to this point, but because they want to go their own way and do their own thing, they eat from that tree and disobey God.

What happens? Does God judge them? YES — GOD’S and curse falls upon them!

A similar thing happens in chapter 4 when Cain murders Abel! Now, what’s all of that tell us about God? God provides for our needs but also gives us the ability to choose to go our own way. God is not an evil dictator. BUT ALSO, our freedom to choose also means HORRIBLE things can happen if we sin against God.

SO, what’s that tell us about HUMANS? We’re created to be good, like God – and CAN, but we choose not to be some times as we have inherited that trait from our ancestors.

IT ALSO SHOWS US THAT HUMAN SIN BRINGS ABOUT GOD’S JUDGMENT.

Does this start a snowball of selfish sin? YES. Through chapter 5, lots and lots of people are mentioned but only a small few are mentioned as calling upon or walking with God.

By the time we get to today’s passage in Chapter 6, things have gone ROTTEN! There’s a short account of “sons of God” sleeping with “daughters of men” in a way that is evil, and Answers in Genesis and Biologos can give you the different interpretation of who the Sons of God are in this passage and who the Nephilim are… there’s great debate: Either powerful human men or angelic beings are mistreating women. So either way, what is NOT debated is the conclusion the Bible makes: the big picture —

5 The Lord observed the extent of human on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.

7 And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.”

OUCH. Now, some branches of Christianity believe God predestines everything and if people are saved or damned, sinful or not, ultimately it’s God’s decision and doing. Does this passage align with that? NO.

God created humans, willingly doing so without looking into the future OR causing them to be good or evil. To me this means that God limited God’s self when creating, so He could create them with the freedom to choose, and we chose to rebel and disobey and grow wicked and evil.

And so God, true to God’s good and just and righteous nature, has to judge the world… just as he had judged Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. Our actions demand consequences. Our wrong, sinful actions deserve punishment, and God is righteous and just and must judge us.

Usually the majority of people don’t care too much about God, don’t pray much, don’t try to REALLY be good and holy much. BUT there’s always one or two or a minority group… a “remnant” who does. Up to this point, there are people who have chosen to go against the sinful majority to call on God and walk with God – SETH and some people around him; ENOCH and some people around him… Just not many of them, and in Noah’s day, not many at all.

But NOAH – is going to get saved from the destruction of a great flood – and he’ll save his family, and a bunch of animals. “NOAH’S ARK” as it’s called.

God is a judge – but God is always looking for a Noah. Always hoping and watching and calling you and I to stand out from the crowd and stand up for God and what is right. You can be one of those people.

It may not be easy…because right now we’ve lost what Noah found. Let me go negative, and then I’ll come back and end positive. In Noah’s day, and in various times throughout the history the Bible speaks to, people got so messed up and sinful in their thinking that they started thing what was wrong is right.

Maybe 1000 years later the prophet Isaiah wrote these words to warn the people of his day:

Have you ever seen someone do something wrong and other people say it’s right and good? I just had an old friend of mine after many years of marriage and multiple wonderful kids declare he’s gay and they’re divorcing and he’ll live separate from his family. He’s a pastor. Now, that’s selfish, he’s lied and deceived for years, in most cases like this there’s pornography use and affairs that have happened…one’s whole mental and moral wiring gets messed up. He’s wrong wrong wrong. But, many people are like, “oh you’re so brave good for you.” We have THREE couples in our lives that this kind of thing has happened with homosexual sex, and MORE friends whose covenants were broken with extramarital heterosexual sex – and each time it’s self-centered and evil. This guy is communicating to his wife and kids that it’s more important to have illicit sex than it is to be truthful, committed, pure; it’s more important to have the sex he wants than to be present every night for his kids. It’s an epidemic….and….

It feels new, but it’s just new packaging of an ancient problem of sin. The people in Noah’s day had their version of it, and in Isaiah’s day, and in our day.

“Oh but a good and loving God doesn’t care if you betray your wife and family right? That God just wants you to be individually happy no matter what, right?

And in Noah’s day, he sent the flood and destroyed them.

“Oh but Jesus shows us God is just nice and tolerant and just wants you to feel good and happy, right?”

Um…well…Jesus said stuff like this, in Luke 12:5 – “But I’ll tell you whom to fear.  Fear God, who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell. Yes, he’s the one to fear.

Oh yeah – what book was JESUS’ Bible, as the Jewish Messiah? The OLD TESTAMENT. Now, Jesus changed many of the expectations and requirements, YES – that is true, because his death and resurrection and sending the Holy Spirit to us helps us in ways these Old Testament people didn’t have. BUT the changes are based on the understandings in the OT! Understandings like: GOD IS HOLY AND GOOD AND JUST AND ALL POWERFUL and do NOT mess with Him! Submit, fear, obey him and THEN you will find his great love and tenderness and help and peace. Be the ONE who finds this in your friend group!

Genesis 6:8 – “BUT NOAH found favor with the Lord.”

Will it be said of you, among the angels and saints in heaven who may be watching you:

BUT found favor with the Lord.

Turn to him NOW with respect and humility and ask and receive his forgiveness that you may find true love and peace in your heart. Turn to him NOW – and by all means you will escape judgment. Amen!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

• How have you grieved the heart of God?
• What does it mean to find favor in the eyes of the Lord?
• God gave Noah specific instructions to guide him in building the ark. How does God guide you?
• In what ways did God provide for Noah?
• In what ways does God provide for you?
• How is God revealed in today’s reading and what does this mean for your life?