The Earth Is Filled With Violence (e)

Genesis 6

James R. Davis

This past week there was an article in the Saint Petersburg Times where a 5-year-old and a 13-year-old used a baby for a punching bag. My wife read this article and turned to me and asks, "Why would they want to do such a thing?"

America is a country devoid of moral values, with no absolute truths to tell us how to live. The problem runs deeper than the need for more police, better laws, and tougher punishment.

The conscience of America is dying, and that’s why we have crimes without motives, crime as sport, running rampant through the streets of America. Crime in America has a new face. No longer do we see only hate, greed, or envy as motives. Young people with no motive or reason commit many of today's crimes, and who show no remorse afterward. Murder is sport; crime is just for fun.

Charles Partee wrote, "As is true everywhere, the most dangerous animal in Africa is the savage beast called man. For all kinds of reasons, and for no reason, this cruel predator will attack those who intend him no harm, bear him no malice, and pose him no threat. This animal will even kill those of his own species who desire only his happiness and wish for nothing more than the opportunity to love and serve him."

Every time moral values are broken down in society, chaos follows. History shows that no country can survive long without a strong moral code, and no strong moral code exists apart from God. When moral values break down, society disintegrates.

In the book, The Mind at the End of Its Tether, H. G. Wells wrote, "Our world is like a convoy lost in darkness on an unknown rocky coast, with quarreling pirates in the chart room and savages climbing up the sides of the ship to plunder and do evil as the whim may take them. Where is the Captain? The ship is driving for the rocks, and man cannot stop it."

We may have reached the end of our rope as Israel had done in Ezekiel’s day. Ezekiel 7:10-11 says, "The day is here! It has come! Doom has burst forth, the rod has budded, arrogance has blossomed! Violence has grown into a rod to punish wickedness; none of the people will be left, none of that crowd—no wealth, nothing of value."

Earth filled with violence

In Genesis chapter two the most descriptive phrase about the newly created world is: The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame." The most descriptive thing about the world in Noah’s time is: "the earth is filled with violence" (Genesis 6:3).
In Genesis chapter three, when Satan tempted the first couple in Eden, he said, "You shall be like god, you will know good and evil. Sin does make a man into his own god. But it turns out to be a god of destruction. Sin always ends in violence. It may start out very subtle, but in the end it becomes violent.

By the time you read Genesis chapter four you begin to understand the destruction sin leaves in its wake; Cain kills Abel. In Genesis 5, Lamech kills two men. In Genesis 6, the earth is filled with violence. In the first few chapters of Genesis God gives a bird’s-eye-view of the forces of evil. Adam and Eve in their lust, pride and selfishness never dreamed of such destruction and personal loss that would follow their disobedience.

Sin has a way of creeping into our lives in the most subtle ways, then we become entangled, then enslaved, and then destroyed. One look at Cain and Abel tells the whole story. It just started with anger, anger turned to envy, envy turned to hate and hate turned to murder.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:21-22, "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell."

Jesus attacked the root of the problem. Violence doesn’t just suddenly happen. It builds through a series of ungodly attitudes. Jesus sought to stop violence at its very inception. It begins with what seems incidental, with a bad attitude toward another, and builds to unbelievable proportions. Jesus endeavors to eliminate it in its very conception.

I remember while hiking in the Sequoia National Park seeing huge boulders piled up. It looked as though someone had just dumped huge boulders in a pile. What had actually happened was that all these huge boulders once were one big rock. As the winter snow and rain fell the water got between the crevices in the rock and froze. The small hairline crevices would get bigger each year until the freezing action over hundreds of years split the one large rock into many smaller ones. This is how sin works. It creeps into the crevices of our lives and continues to work until all is destroyed.

We have never made the connection in our world that our lust in any form ends up in violence. There are 4,000 abortions each day and 8,000 children mistreated every day. It started with lust and ended in violence.

I remember, when I was in college that it was stated numerous times by those teaching about abortion, that euthanasia would naturally follow. The reason is that when disrespect for life is manifested in one area, as it is in abortion, then disrespect naturally follows in other areas. Today we have "doctor death" walking around in a very proud manner inviting people to end their lives. How long will it be before the earth is once again filled with violence. It is here already!!!

We end up worshipping the sin of our destruction.

The trouble is that we end up worshipping the very thing that destroys us in very subtle and deceitful ways. Genesis 6 says, When the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. The sons of God married the daughters of the ungodly and their children became ungodly. "Their descendants became the heroes of old, men of renown." They became the heroes. They were the people with influence and clout. They influenced the sons of God to evil.

An article from Religion and Society Report written by Harold O. J. Brown said: "It says something strange about the modern secular mentality when the acts which traditional Christian moral values condemn transmit a most horrible and totally incurable disease, society draws the conclusion that the acts are precisely not to be condemned, hardly even to be criticized, and that those who suffer from the disease so contracted are to be admired as martyrs or heroes."

As you look around today and think about who our heroes are, it is a little scary. A few weeks ago a rock band that was sold out at Madison Square Gardens was forced to cancel the concert. They had gone on a drug binge and one of their key people died. We hear about football heroes, baseball heroes, arrested for drugs, rape, murder. Where are we headed or are we already there?

As one reads Genesis 6, one can see the problems that led to their destruction.

Man has tried to look within himself for guidance. We say that the answer lies within the person. Genesis 6:1-2 says, "When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose." Genesis 6:5 says ". . .that every inclination of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil all the time."

Mt 15:19 says, "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies."

Romans 1:21 says, "When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."

God’s word say the answer does not lie within the human heart, that’s where the evil originates. We need to be reacquainted with the fundamentals of divine nature and character. Just as it was in the days of Noah, there is today a disconcerting trend toward disregard of God’s rule and disobedience of God’s laws.

The flood victims refused God’s sovereignty. God made all manner of things and determined their sphere of being. All created things existed exclusively as the result of God’s sovereign choice. God has determined the bounds of their habitation. Creeping things creep and beast are beastly; birds fly and men are manly. When properly reflected on, this reveals that mankind is dependent on God. This leads to the principle of dependence. When our dependence is properly evaluated it directs our attention to the principle of obedience.

When one looks at the principles of dependence and obedience they insist that man functions properly only when he acts in accordance with the Creator’s directions.

What if man is disobedient? This, of course is the root of the human problem, the cause of human anguish and heartache. The "principle of consequence" follows "the principle of obedience." God’s commands cannot be disregarded with impunity any more than the natural laws of the universe can be disobeyed without consequence.

Genesis 6:5-7 says, "The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.’"

There was a perception in the days of Noah that God in some way was divorced from his creation, that He was not intimately concerned with the details of man’s lifestyle. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Regardless of their oblivion God saw. Genesis 6 says, "GOD SAW."

The book of Job gives insight to how the people were thinking before the flood: "Is not God in the heights of heaven? And see how lofty are the highest stars! yet you say, ‘What does God know? Does he judge through such darkness? Thick clouds veil him, so he does not see us as he goes about in the vaulted heavens.’ Will you keep to the old path that evil men have trod? They were carried off before their time, their foundations washed away by a flood. They said to God, ‘Leave us alone! What can the Almighty do to us?’" (Job 22:12-17)?

They had the concept that God could not see them and that the Almighty could not do anything to them. The eyes of the Lord a like a laser beam. He not only observes the actions of man, but he judges the motives and intents of the heart (Genesis 6:5). It is one thing to note a person’s action; it is an entirely different thing to accurately identify the motive. The civil and criminal courts are sometimes required to discern the intents of the heart. Basketball, baseball, and football referees are required to determine whether actions were intentional or otherwise. This is tricky territory for all but God, but He judges rightly. He calls them as He sees them. His vision of the seen and unseen is 20/20 at all times. This is sobering. They thought God was disinterested and uninvolved in human affairs. "The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart" (Genesis 6:6).

Do you ever think about the pain that our sin has caused God? In a very real sense God was not exempt from the pain and anguish which sin had introduced into His creation. It grieved God that he had made man. It’s the pain parents experience when a child rebels and chooses a life of self-destruction. Grief carries with it the idea of enormous pain.
The thought that God was sorry He had made man is somewhat unnerving as any child knows who has been told by angry parents in a fit of anger that they are sorry "they had him"! At the moment of God’s anger, he is grieved and distraught and is thinking in terms of grace even at the moment of judgment.

Genesis 6:7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth-- men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air-- for I am grieved that I have made them."

The godly became worldly and immoral, and they fed their minds upon sex. They did not control nor deny their immoral sexual urges. The godly men began to look at the women of the world, at those who did not follow God. Notice what they began to notice: that the women were fair, beautiful, and shapely. They focused their thoughts upon their beautiful faces and shapely bodies, and they desired them. They looked at the outward, physical appearance and forgot the inward, spiritual beauty. They did not control their eyes or their thoughts. The result was tragic: they co-mingled with the ungodly and did all that co-mingling involves: dating, partying, playing around, touching, caressing, kissing, fondling; and they engaged in illicit sex. They looked and saw, and fed their minds upon the worldly and immoral and they engaged in sexual immorality. They completely ignored God and went about doing their own thing, satisfying the lusts of their flesh. They refused to control and deny their carnal lusts.

Genesis 6:13 says, "So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth."

God ordained marriage in the Garden of Eden. Children are to leave their father and mother and cleave to one another and become one flesh. Matthew 19:6 says, "Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." God ordained marriage as the basic structure of society. But down through the centuries man has devised methods of deriving the benefits of the marital state without having to accept the responsibilities of marriage. We now call some of these human inventions "alternate lifestyles," and of course that is a perfectly accurate description. But they also need to be recognized as illicit alternative lifestyles and in a strange way this apparently is beginning to dawn on the conscience of modern man. It is not the result of a great spiritual awakening. It is because of the proliferation of sexually communicable diseases through sexual activity outside the realm of marriage.

As a result of our alternative lifestyles, today children have much less supervision and parental involvement. And there is little public support for the moral standards once accepted by virtually everyone in society. Children left to decide right and wrong for themselves grow up unable to make moral distinctions or to control their impulses and urges. We are producing a whole generation without a conscience, and ultimately they will "push us not only beyond the bounds of morality and legality, but beyond the outer
limits of civilized behavior."

They misunderstood God’s grace.

In Genesis 6 we find the word grace for the first time in God’s Word. Noah found grace in the eyes of God. But grace was extended to all that perished; they failed to discover it.

Gen 6:3 "Then the LORD said, 'My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.'" The idea is that they had a hundred years before God would bring the flood upon the earth.

First Peter 3:20 "God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built." In 2 Peter 2:5 it says, "Noah was a preacher of righteousness." When the earth was filled with violence God gave man 120 years. It was during that 120 years that Noah built the ark and preached righteousness. But the people failed to respond.

In Titus 2:11-12 Paul says, "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age." That same grace appeared to them, but they refused to say NO to ungodliness and worldly passions. They refused to live self-controlled lives.

In spite of Noah’s warning they continued to eat, drink and be merry. I remember a news brief a few months ago. The news was that a legal battle was being waged about a cross that had been erected in a public park. They were taking the cross down. Many God fearing people met in the park and protested the removal of the cross. One unbeliever put his finger in the face of one of the God-fearing men and said, "You are a fool for believing that garbage." I’m sure that was the kind of response Noah received as he built the ark and preached righteousness.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:37-38, "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."

They misunderstood God’s patience.

Modern man either believes that God does not exist or he believes that if He does exist He is such a nice guy that He wouldn’t be unkind enough to judge anybody or anything. This wishful thinking needs to be corrected by proper teaching of who God really is and what He has already said and done in human history.

Some believe that since there is no immediate punishment for sin that God must approve of sin. First Peter 3:9 says, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

The message of the rainbow

After the flood Genesis 9:12-16 says, "And God said, 'This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.'"

Every time we see a rainbow we should remember that God does rule this world and that God sees what is going in our world. God is grieved by violence that is going on in our world. The rainbow should also remind us that God’s grace is the only answer to the violence. God’s grace will teach those of our world about godliness and God’s grace will judge our world. It also reminds us that one day God’s patience will come to an end. Second Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. "

First Peter 3:20-21 says, "Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."