1 This is the written account of Adam’s family line.
When God created mankind, he made them
in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and
blessed them. And he named them ‘Mankind’ when they were created.
32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became
the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
61 When human beings
began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2
the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they
married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit
will not contend with humans for ever, for they are mortal; their days will be a
hundred and twenty years.’
4 The Nephilim were
on the earth in those days – and also afterwards – when the sons of God went to
the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men
of renown.
5 The Lord saw how
great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination
of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The
Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply
troubled. 7 So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the
earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and the
creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them.’ 8
But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.
Bringing Love in a Time of Disorder and Chaos.
We have missed
out a list of names and ages, contained in verses 3 to 31. There are some interesting
points in there, such as Enoch, the man who didn’t die (v.24), and also some fascinating
number patterns. Ask me and I will send you details!
So chapter 5 begins
with Adam and goes through to Noah. There are ten generations listed, and if we
take a literal view of these chapters, we would say that we are all descended from
Noah, and therefore these ten generations from Adam are ancestors of every one of
us. These same ten names appear in the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 4: 36 - 38.
Chapter 5 is
an orderly progression of the generations. The opening verses of chapter 6 are,
by contrast, a description of disorder and chaos over the earth. They are
not the easiest verses for us to understand. The question of who the ‘sons of God’
and ‘Nephilim’ are is one that has never been truly solved. Maybe the ‘sons of God’
are fallen angels, or simply earthly rulers (who might have claimed divinity). Or
some other explanation. It appears that the ‘Nephilim’ are the offspring of these
‘sons of God’ with any women whom they chose. None of this matters all that much
– the important thing that we see here is that the human beings have gone a long
way from obedience to God, and honouring him. There was great wickedness, and ‘every
inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.’
That is a tragic description of what people were like, and God’s heart was
deeply grieved by what he saw. Some would say that humanity is the same today,
but as we can’t know exactly what they were like then, it is hard to know.
Whilst it is true that some people today are only ‘evil all the time’, I
believe that love and hope and kindness exist in many human hearts, and not
only those who trust in Christ.
In Matt. 24:
37 - 38, Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of
the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark.” He was
talking about what it will be like before the Second Coming – just like the
days of Noah. An increase in evil, and people who are unaware of what is about
to happen to them. We need to be ready (and we looked at this recently in 1 and
2 Thessalonians). We have a message of salvation, a message of love and hope in
Christ that we need to be sharing, so that people will not miss out as they did
in the days of Noah.
Prayer
Lord, when we see chaos
and disorder, caused by evil and disobedience to you, we know that we have a
call and a responsibility to bring the message of love and kindness, and
salvation in Christ. May we be like Noah, and ‘find favour in the
eyes of the Lord.’ Amen.
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