We have now come to the key chapter of Genesis that bears the burden of the subject at hand which is God being grieved at his heart for creating the wicked and degenerate people on the land. We are talking about mostly every human alive in that time with a few exceptions. I believe we are close to that again now. The Lord will never use a flood to destroy the earth again, next time it is fire.
I must note for clarity that the earth populated very fast with descendants of Adam and Eve. As you read the genealogy and see the lines of families produced from Adam and Eve you might have a major question. Why don’t we hear about these family lines and people? When reading Genesis there is evidence that enough offspring were generated from some key people to build entire cities. The human race was exploding! One thing to keep in mind is that the Lord allowed men to live long, long lives and procreate the world. A man can make a lot of babies in 1,000 years. The population at the time of the flood was great as it is now. The population was high.
For some examples, we have just learned of Enoch in the last post. Enoch’s father Jared lived 962 years. He fathered Enoch at the age of 162 and the Bible says he went on and begat sons and daughters for another 800 years. Enoch was taken up by God at age 365 but beforehand he begat sons and daughters one of which was Methuselah. Methuselah lived 969 years and begat sons and daughters. An important fact is that Methuselah was the father of Lamech who was the father of Noah. Lamech lived 777 years and again this man fathered many sons and daughters.
The point I need to make here is the Bible will focus on the line that leads to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. All other lines are unimportant to the story. Pay attention to Noah and his 3 sons he had at around 500 years of age. Shem, Ham and Japheth. If you are reading this you are a descendent of Noah and one of his three sons.
We are now in Chapter 6 of Genesis and up to Chapter 9 we will have a drastic change in the way God treats mankind. He allowed these men to live over 900 years but during that time they became too wicked. Mankind had broken every single command the Lord gave except the command to procreate the world. They kept that command well. God will severely limit how many years a man can live going forward. I won’t address the Sons of God and daughters of men here because there is a special post on that subject you can go to. Please do … you can click the link at bottom of this page. In short there was an outpouring of Satanic activity. One thing I will mention about the Sons of God and Daughters of men is that mixed marriages occurred that went against the will of God. Believers were yoked with unbelievers. All of humanity was depraved and wickedness in both word and deed was universal and unparalleled. We have a full account of the worlds degeneracy, it’s apostacy from God and the rebellion against Him. Back in Chapter one and verse 28 mankind had a blessing. (Be fruitful and multiply.) What has happened is man’s corruption abused and perverted the blessing to the point of a curse and the sin that God forgave became more exceedingly sinful. It says in Proverbs 29:16, “When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth.” The more sinners there are the more sin increases and the multitude of offenders emboldens men.
And that brings us to the key verse which is verse six of chapter six. “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. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 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. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Genesis 6:5-8)
And then… woe to mankind… All humans and life except Noah and his family and what they were commanded to save in the Ark.
“For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.” (Genesis 7:4)
“Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.” (Genesis 7:20-24)
And so, at one time God saw that all was good, but now there was a change, a repentance, because it grieved God at his heart. He no longer saw it as good. Can you feel his grief? How terrible a situation where the evil became so bad that God had to wipe all life from the face of the earth and change the lifespan of man along with other things. It grieved him at His heart. Oh my…
Noah lived to age 950. And then we have a period called “The confusion of all things”, and the “Origin of Nations.”
Men unified to honor themselves and all spoke the same language. They built a huge city to keep together which was a breaking of God’s command to fill the earth. God separated them for their disobedience. He punished this evil attempt and separated mankind into small ethnic groups by confusing their universal language into many different dialects.
So now we have the origin of nations. The nations were all formed from the descendants of Noah’s three sons.
The first nation was the descendants of Japheth and would be Gomer (Germany), Magog, Tubal, and Mechech (Russia), Madai (Persia), Javan (Greece), Tiras (Italy), Togarmah (Armenia), Tarshish (Spain) and Kittim (Cyprus). Can you identify a land you are from?
The second nation was from the descendants of Ham and would be Cush (Ethiopia), Mizraim (Egypt), Phut (Africa), Canaan (the Canaanites of Palestine), Nimrod (Babylon and Assyria), Sidon (Phoenicia), Heth (Hittites), Jebus (the Jebusites, the occupants of Jerusalem before King David’s reign), Philistim (the Philistines) and Sin (Possibly the Asian people of China, Japan, India, etc.).
The last nation was made from the descendants of Shem and were through the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: the nation of Israel. And through the Abraham, Ishmael and Esau: the Arabic countries of the Middle East.
I will end with a writing from the Anthropologist Arthur Custance, “And thus we conclude that from the family of Noah have sprung all the peoples of the world, prehistoric and historic. The events described in Genesis 6 to 10 and particularly the prophetic statements of Noah himself in Genesis 9:25-28 with respect to the future of his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together combine to provide us with the most reasonable account of the early history of mankind, a history which , rightly understood, does not at all require us to believe that modern man began with the stature of an ape and only reached a civilized state after a long, long, evolutionary history, but made a fresh start as a single family who carried with them into an unpeopled earth the accumulated heritage of the pre-flood world.”
And so there you have it. So many times, God said it was good and it was, until the will of man and sin entered the picture. And it got so bad that God repented and it grieved Him at his heart. And then His wrath prevailed with the culmination of the great flood and the making of the nations of the future. All in the master plan. When I read this section it just tugs at my heart as a father. Can you imagine the huge family you have created becoming so evil you had to kill them all? Well, we cannot think like God thinks because we are human and he is the Almighty. I know what the death of a dream is and I know the love a father has for his children. All we can do is think like humans so it tugs at my heart. I hope you received something from these posts.
Click here to visit the Sons of God and Daughters of Men post.
God bless you,
The Tubthumper
