Genesis 6:1-8
God made man in his image, longing to have a relationship with him. God is a personal God: he has a mind (intellect), he has a will and he has emotions or feelings. Since man was created in the image of God, he also has those characteristics. Human beings are unique among all God’s creation in that they can have a personal relationship with God.
The relationships between man and God was broken in the Fall. Adam and Eve chose to follow their own desires rather than obey and remain rightly related to their creator and were sent out of the Garden of Eden. Cain, because he murdered his brother, was sent away from God’s presence.
After Cain killed Abel, Adam and Eve had another son Seth. Even though they had other sons and daughters, the account in Genesis only relates the lineage of Adam and Eve through Cain and Seth. Cain’s lineage is associated with evil and rebellion against God, while the men in Seth’s lineage called on the name of the Lord. Seth’s lineage leads to Noah who was the tenth generation from Adam and was a righteous man in a time of great evil.
Sin is anything that fall short of the good that God desires for his creation and the way he designed it to function. Because God has emotions, sin grieves him. Grieve means to experience great sorrow over something.
God grieves over sin because it hurts the people that he created and loves. As God is holy and perfect, sin separates people from him. However, even though he detests sin and there are consequences to it, God is long-suffering.
To be long-suffering means that God puts up with man’s sin for a long time, always desiring for people to repent and turn back to him. Ultimately, however, sin is always judged by God. At the time of Noah, the sin of mankind had gotten so bad that God could no longer tolerate it. People were so given over to evil that God had to put a stop to it.
Genesis 6:1-8
1When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days–and also afterward–when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
5The 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. 6The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7So 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.” 8But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
God was grieved by the wickedness and how the inclination of man’s heart was to evil all the time. The cause of their wickedness was the inclination of their hearts. They rejected God and their thoughts were void of God. They did the things they wanted to do rather that what pleased God.
Noah was different from the people around him. His heart was inclined to God. He had faith in God and wanted to please him. Whether a person chooses to follow God or follow evil will depend on the inclination of the heart.
Jeremiah 17:9-10 says, 9The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 10“I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”
A heart is deceitful if it isn’t trustworthy or faithful to choose to do what is right and good. A deceitful heart rejects the God who has made it. When people reject God, they pursue other things in place of God, thinking that those things are the source of life and satisfaction.
Our actions show the inclination of our heart. If our actions are good, then we will find favor with God like Noah did. If our actions are bad then it shows our heart is hard toward God, deceitful and bent towards evil and we will receive just punishment for what our deeds deserve.
The heart can’t be cured; it needs to be replaced with a new heart. This happens when a person recognizes his need for a new heart, confesses his sin and puts his faith in Jesus to deliver him from both the penalty and power of sin.
If we want to remain rightly related to God, we need to examine our heart on a daily basis and determine what it is inclined toward. We do that by examining the things we say and do. If our heart is inclined toward evil, we need to uncover and confess our sin and turn to Jesus to be made right.
- Overview Questions: Why was God grieved he had made people? What did God decide to do? What was different about Noah from the other people of his time? What does the inclination of the heart determine?
- Thought Questions: Do you think it was right for God to wipe all the wicked people from the face of the earth? Explain your answer. What would have happened if God hadn’t put an end to people and their wickedness? Which is worse to destroy wickedness or to let wickedness destroy others? Why is God long-suffering and allows wickedness to continue for so long?
- Prayer: Thank God that he cares about all people and doesn’t want to see anyone perish. Thank God that he wants what is good and right for all people and sent his Son to make them right. Pray that your heart would be inclined towards God and that you would want to do right because it pleases God and enables you to be an influence for good.
- Memory Verse: Jeremiah 17:9-10
What is the problem of the heart?
The heart is deceitful and needs a cure.
9The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 10“I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”