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In Genesis chapter 6, verse 1, the Bible reads, And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for then he also is flesh, yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. And the Bible reads in verse 4, There were giants in the earth in those days, And also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men, which were bold men of renown. Let me start, I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on this tonight, because I've preached so many sermons where I've dealt with this issue. But there are many that would take this passage to mean that angels came down to this earth, of course, there's no angels mentioned in the chapter, don't let that bother you, but they'll tell you that, you know, angels came down to this earth, and fornicated with human beings, and produced these hybrid children that were half angel, half human being. Now, that is not found in this passage at all. Now, I'll tell you where that comes from, it comes from modern perversions of God's word. Let me hand out some of these modern perversions. You've heard that before, who else has heard that before? Probably a lot of people have heard that. And in many places growing up, I've been taught that. You know, somebody took my NIV out of the pulpit here, and it's really been bothering me. Unless the guy's taken me preaching against the NIV or something. It's so much easier to read. What's that? Who took it home and read it? Is this track? Somebody took it home and studied out of it or something? Okay, here we go, I got it. Man, it's falling apart. Who wants to do this? You want to do a track? Oh, a track? Yeah, that's the one I do. I'll look it up in here. Yeah, so look that up if you would. You there? What do you got, you got angels or sons of God? You're at Genesis 6. Two. Verse two. It's hard to even find stuff in these new Bibles, because they don't even lay it out by verse, they lay it out by verse. What do you got, try it. A population explosion took place upon the earth. Oh, I forget that. A population explosion? Read that out. This is verse one. Now a population explosion took place upon the earth. It was at this time that beings from the spirit world looked upon the beautiful earth women. Okay, wait, hold on a second. Did you guys hear that? So in the Living Bible, it says in Genesis 6.1, there's a population explosion on the earth. Then it says, spirit beings from another world looked upon the earth women and saw that they were beautiful. So this is like aliens, according to the Living Bible. What do you got in the NIV? Try it. When they began to increase in number on the earth, the daughters were born unto them, the sons of God's sons. Okay, so that one stays with the sons of God. In most places in the NIV, they change sons of God to angels over and over again. And I've been taught many times, they say, well, the sons of God here are the angels. Here it's, you know, beings from another planet, okay. But the bottom line is, there's nothing in this passage to teach that. And it's a really easy way to identify false doctrine. Whenever you're dealing with false doctrine, there's never a clear verse that teaches that doctrine. Somebody always has to explain it to you. Now, when people preach false doctrine, they can usually find Bible verses to support their false doctrine, okay. And you've probably heard people say this before. Oh, you can make the Bible say whatever you want. You can take stuff out of conduct. Well, that's true to an extent. You can always use verses from the Bible to support or prop up a false doctrine, but those verses will never explicitly teach that. You know, you can find verses and explain things and say, well, this kind of teaches this, this kind of teaches that. But if you read the passage here, there's no mention of the angels, and there's no place in the entire Bible that says that the sons of God are angels. Now, keep your finger there and go to Hebrews 1.5 quickly, and I'll point this out to you, that there is a very clear scripture in the Bible that says that the sons of God are not angels, okay. There is no clear scripture that says the sons of God are angels, but people will explain to you all these reasons why the sons of God must be angels because of A, B, C, D, and E, but they can never show you a verse where it ever just says, hey, the sons of God are angels, or hey, I'm calling the angels sons of God in this passage. Look at Hebrews chapter one, verse four. It's talking about Jesus Christ being made so much better than the angels, as he had by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. So the Bible says that Jesus has obtained a more excellent name than the angels. For unto which of the angels said ye at any time, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. So according to Hebrews 1.5, there was never any time that Jesus said to any of the angels, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Now, in order to believe that the sons of God, in Genesis 6, that God was calling the angels the sons of God, you have to believe that Hebrews 1 is a lie, because Hebrews 1, it doesn't say, well, he used to call the angels the sons of God in the Old Testament, and that's what I've heard people teach. They said, well, in the Old Testament, he called angels the sons of God. The Bible says he didn't say that at any time. Wouldn't that include the Old Testament? Now, I've heard a lot of people say this, well, the S is capitalized, so he just didn't call him a capital S son. But wait a minute, the Bible teaches very clearly that the word of God is not just a written word, it's also a spoken word. You see, the Bible says that no scripture, and scripture is a written word, like script, like writing something down. The Bible says that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation, for the word came not of old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So according to the Bible, the way that we got scripture, or the written word, is that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and then it was written down. Sort of like the book of Romans, which Paul wrote, right? Well, Paul didn't use a pen to the paper. Paul dictated it unto Tertius, that's why it says in Romans 16, I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute thee in the Lord. So Tertius was the one who actually penned down the book of Romans. Paul spoke the word of God unto him, and he wrote it down. Jeremiah spoke the word of God unto Barak the scribe. You see, God's word is both spoken and written, that's why the Bible says, Lesson is he that readeth, and he that heareth the words of this prophecy, and keepeth those things which are written there, and to put the times down. So the Bible is not intended only to be spoken, it's also intended to be read and written, but it's also intended to be spoken and heard. Now, in order for God to be able to speak his truth, and to be able to give his truth in written form, that means that it has to mean the same thing. Does everybody understand that? It has to mean the same thing when you speak it as when you read it. If it means two different things, you're interpreting it wrong. So if someone spoke Hebrews chapter one, it is saying that God never called any of the angels at any time sons of God. You shouldn't have to look at the page and see the capital letter, not to mention the fact that all different languages capitalize all different things. In German, every noun is capitalized. In Greek, nothing is capitalized, so it's nonsense. The Bible doesn't say man should live by every capitalization, it says man lives by every word of God, and that he'll preserve every word. It's the words that matter. Punctuation, spellings, capitalizations, even in the King James have changed many times, but the words of the King James have not changed. It's been the same for 400 years. However, punctuation, spelling, and things of that nature change, but when you speak it, it's the same. It means the same thing. So you can't sit there and say, well, it's a capital letter. That makes no sense, because then it would be a lie when you speak it, and it would be true when you read it. Well, that doesn't make any sense. And so Jesus, or I'm sorry, God the Father never said at any time to the angels, you're my son. He never called them his son. He never said that he begat them, and so forth. So that has no basis in scripture. Go back to Genesis 6. So therefore, there is no verse in the entire Bible that says that the angels are the sons of God, and we have many scriptures that tell us that everyone who is saved is a son of God. Like, for example, John 1.12, when the Bible reads, but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Or when the Bible says, behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore, the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God. And the Bible says that if we are sons, Romans chapter 8, then we are also joint heirs with Christ. Well, the angels are not joint heirs with Christ. They will not inherit the kingdom of God. Human beings who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will inherit the kingdom of God. We are the children of God. God gave, sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. Jesus Christ, listen to me now, is the only begotten son of God. The only begotten son of God. But the Bible says that he's begotten us again to a lively hope that we have been begotten again, the Bible says. And so Jesus Christ, the only begotten, we then come after as the begotten sons of God because we're in Christ. We have a spirit of adoption and so forth. And so the Bible's real clear that believers are sons of God, and there's no scripture anywhere that says that the angels are sons of God. And then the NIV changes sons of God to angels in Job 1 and Job 2. And also I believe in Job 38. So why is Satan in his version, the NIV, changing it to angels? Well, because he's the father of lies. And it's not angels. Hebrews 1.5, open and shut case. But not only all that, and I've gone through all that evidence in more detail in other times. But aside from that, who is God mad at in this passage in verse three? Does it say that he's mad at the angels? No. It says my spirit shall not always strive with man because he's a spirit. Is that what it says? No, it says my spirit shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh. And the angels, according to Hebrews 1, are ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. Jesus Christ also said you do err not knowing the scriptures, neither nor the power of God. For he said in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels which are in heaven. He said the angels do not marry or are given in marriage. So we've got clear scripture backing up what we believe. Clear verses. And by the way, everything I believe should be based on clear scripture, I shouldn't even believe it. Right. Amen. God's not leaving us in the dark. And whenever you have all this vague doctrine and vague scriptures and you have to look at 10 verses next to each other to figure out what you even believe, think about every legitimate doctrine that has a clear verse. The virgin birth has a clear verse. Behold a virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son. Period. Done. I mean, clear verse on the deity of Christ. God was manifest in the flesh unto the son he saved. Thy throne, O God is forever and ever except for righteousness is except for thy kingdom. Clear verse on the inspiration of scripture. Clear verses on the fact that hell is eternal. Clear verses that hell is fire when he said hell fire, when he said everlasting fire, when he said everlasting punishment. That's why we believe hell is eternal. We believe salvation is by faith because of clear scriptures that say that it's by faith. Over and over and over again. Believe, believe, you'll be saved, you'll be saved. Everything we believe is based on clear scripture. So who are the sons of God in Genesis six? Well, I got a bunch of clear scripture, if you want to see it, that says it's believers. Amen. And you got nothing but somebody's theory telling you that it's angels. You got nothing but the living Bible that'll tell you they came in a spaceship or whatever. You got nothing except a bunch of modern perversions and you got somebody teaching you and explaining it to you that, oh, this is the angels, even though there's no scripture that teaches that. And I defy you to show me a scripture that says the sons of God are angels or angels are the sons of God or anything even remotely like that. The angels aren't even flesh, they're spirits. They don't get married. These are clear scriptures that Jesus said. If you don't know that, it's because you don't know the scriptures that you think angels get married. Not only that, but this doesn't say that, do you see the word fornication in this passage? Do you see fornication? Does it say they came and fornicated with them? What does it say they did? They took wives. What is a wife? Somebody who's married. So this isn't angels coming down and fornicating. These are believers marrying unbelievers. That's all it is. And the reason that that makes so much sense is because in chapter four, if you remember in Genesis chapter four, we have the genealogy of Cain and his ungodly lineage that he raised these ungodly wicked people and so forth. Then we have in Genesis five, the godly line of Seth. And you notice that when Seth had a son named Enos, it says, then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. So you have those who are calling upon the name of the Lord in the days of Seth and his son Enos and their descendants. Then you have Cain and his descendants. And then the next thing you know, it's a logical progression. Chapter four is Cain's genealogy, or his descendants. Chapter five is Seth's genealogy. Chapter six, the sons of God look on the daughters of man. Hey, they see that they're fair. They take the wives that they choose. God looks down and gets angry at man and says that all of mankind is corrupted. Because when you mix that which is godly and that which is ungodly, everything becomes ungodly. And so when you have the godly, righteous, saved people on this earth, intermarrying with the ungodly, the unsaved, the natural man, the carnal man, the whole earth is overspread with wickedness. Over and over in this passage, he says that he's angry at mankind. He even brings up the fact that mankind is flesh. He says in verse number five, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. He's never bringing up anything about the spirit world, about angels. The Bible says that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. So you can't mix flesh and spirit. And people will say this, well, they're called the sons of God because they were directly created by God. But so were the animals. So were cows. Are cows sons of God? Because they were direct. Because they said, you know, God directly created Adam, therefore he's the son of God. And same with the angels. We directly created Satan. Is Satan the son of God? Are you Mormon? Are you pagan? He directly created animals. He directly created plants. But the difference between Satan, who is a cherub, who is a creature that has wings, and that is a cherub, the Bible says, who is a serpent, and the difference between the angels, the seraphims, the cherubits, whatever type of spirit beings that we want to talk about, and the difference between animals and plants is that they're not made in the image of God. Man was made in the image and likeness of God. Human beings were made in the image and likeness of God, not angels. That's not recorded of angels. They are not the sons of God. They never have been called that. God never called them that. The Bible doesn't call them that. And you'll never convince me that it's what this passage is talking about. Somebody recently attacked me on this and said, you know, I'm totally wrong on this, and they said, you know, how do I explain the UFOs and the abductions? They're real. You know, I don't know. I've never been abducted. I've never known anybody who's abducted. Me either. You've never been abducted? Okay. So, hey, why do I have to answer to some abduction in New Mexico that I don't know anything about? You know, I don't have to sit here and base what I believe on some kind of a late night talk show about alien abductions, okay? That's the kind of nonsense that you get when you're not using the Bible as your authority, because you're not going to find it in the Bible. I'm sure you're going to find it on the internet. I'm sure you're going to find it amongst the Book of Mormon and other sacrilegious documents. You're not going to find it. You're going to find it, I'm sure, in the Book of Enoch and these false apocryphal Bible books that are coming out every year, but you're not going to find it in the Holy Bible. Now, a lot of people will point to verse four, and they'll say that according to verse four, when the spirit beings or the angels went in unto the humans, they produced giants, but that's not what the Bible says at all. And I've even heard people intentionally misquote this verse to try to make it say something that it doesn't, because if we read verse four together, it says, there were giants in the earth in those days. Okay? Now, first of all, let me ask you this. Were there giants in the earth in the days of King David? Thousands of years later. Absolutely. Called it the sons of the giant. Called Goliath the giant. Called his whole family giants. But even way before David, hundreds of years before that, when the children of Israel came into the promised land with Joshua and Caleb, there were giants in the land. They said we were in their sights as grasshoppers. He said they were huge, giant men. And the Bible even talks about their height. Sounds like they were pretty tall. I mean, not, I mean, we're not talking King Kong or something, but you know, 10, 11 feet tall, you know, depending on how you measure it. And we're talking about a really tall man, like the king, Sihon and Og are mentioned. So there were giants in the earth in those days, but look at this. Look at how this is worded. And also after that, when the sons of God came in under the daughters of men and they bared children under them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown. So let me ask you something. Which came first, the giants in the earth or the sons of God going into the daughters of men? Yeah, because it says after that. It said there were giants in the earth and also after that when the sons of God went into the daughters of men. So wait a minute, that proves that the giants were not a result of the sons of God going into the daughters of men because the Bible says the giants were already there first. Okay, so that makes no sense. But look what the product of the union between the sons of God and the daughters of men was. It says also after that, when the sons of God came in under the daughters of men and they bared children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown. Now let me ask you this. What does it mean to be renowned? Famous. Famous. What are the last letters of renown? Known. It means people know you, people know who you are. So if you're renowned, if you said a renowned musician, a renowned leader, what this is saying is that the ones who were raised by these ungodly people became mighty or powerful men, mighty means powerful. We don't use the word might in today's vernacular. In 2012, we used the word powerful, right? We don't say, oh wow, he's a really mighty man. And you'd say he's powerful, or he has great strength or power. And when the Bible talks about a mighty man, like Nimrod later is gonna be called a mighty man on the earth, what the Bible's telling us is that the people who had power and the people who were famous were these ungodly people, the people who resulted from this ungodly union. That's why the whole earth is given over to wickedness. Because if you have the godly and the ungodly intermarrying raising children in an ungodly home, then those people are running things. Those are the people that are in power. Those are the people that are mighty. Those are the people that are renowned. Those are the heroes that everybody's looking up to. And pretty soon, the whole earth is filled with wickedness. Now, I'm taking the scripture literally today. And I'm not adding things, I'm not making stuff up, I'm not adding things that aren't there. If we just take it for face value and just take literally what the Bible says, it says that the sons of God, whoever they were, married, the daughters of men, not fornicated, married. Don't tell me they did a marriage ceremony with the UFO and that angels came down and walked down the aisle and who gives this woman away? That doesn't make any sense. And obviously I realize there are other ways to get married. But marriage does not imply fornication. Those are two different things in the Bible. And so what we see here is not the Twilight series being acted out in Genesis chapter six. We don't see the paranormal romance. And look, this is what people are into today. You go to Barnes and Noble, there's a whole section. Paranormal teen romance. I took a picture of it on my phone. It's not a book. It's not a book, my friend, it's a section. You know, you got your reference here, you've got your historical books, you've got your science, and then you've got your paranormal teen romance. Okay, where you have romance between humans and these other spirit beings and stuff. It's not a god. You know, the author of Twilight was Mormon. They believe in this kind of stuff. And the author of Twilight also said that she got it all in dreams that she had in the middle of the night in her Mormon twisted mind. Well, that should tell you right there that it's of the devil. And so I'm not gonna watch it, I'm not gonna read it. I don't want something that came from some supernatural dream state of a Mormon, okay? So the Bible's teaching here really clearly that they married these women. God got mad at humans. He got mad at man. He got mad at the flesh that was on the earth. He said, I'm gonna destroy man. I saw that the wickedness of man was great, that the imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. It says there were giants in those days, but also after that, when the sons of God went in under the daughters of men, it says that they, and they took them wives, that they were born under them were mighty men and men of renown. So these are important people. These are powerful people that they produced. So that being said, let's move on. 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. That's a pretty strong statement. I mean, there is nothing good about these people. Just everything that they're thinking, everything they're imagining is only evil continually. Verse six, and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him in his heart. Now this is interesting because it's the first time repentance is ever mentioned in the Bible. First time. First time the word ever comes up. Who's the one who repented first in the Bible? God. God. He's the first one that repented. And when he repented, what he's saying is that he wished he hadn't have done something or he's changed his mind about something. Or when he says it repented him that he made man, he's basically saying, I shouldn't have made man. I shouldn't have done that. He's saying, I wished I hadn't done it, okay? It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him in his heart. So he's sorry that he did it. As in, hey, looking back, I shouldn't have even made man. That's what's going through God's mind. You say, well, that doesn't sound like something that God would do. God doesn't change his mind and so forth. But you see, God repents in the Bible many, many times. Many times. Now on one hand, the Bible says that God never changes. He said, I'm the Lord, I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. He also says that he is not a man that he should repent. So on one hand it says he does not change and that he does not repent. But then on the other hand, it says that he does repent many, many times. This is just one of the many times that God repents. You say, well, that's a contradiction. No, what it is is that God's nature, who he is, never changes. His attributes never change, his word never changes. What he believes and stands for and teaches in his word never changes. But what does change is God's course of action. Not because he did something wrong. It's not that God made a mistake by making man or that God did something wrong and he needs to go back and repent and change that. What it means when it says that God repents is that God's changing his course of action based upon what man has done. So it's not God that made a mistake that caused him to repent. It's what man did that caused him to repent. Because man has free will. God did not create man as a robot fulfilling his will. Now Calvinists, they don't believe this. Calvinists think that everything that happens is God's will. Whatever happens, God's doing it. Well, that doesn't make any sense if God's repenting. Because follow, I'm trying not to go too deep, but if God never changes, right? Does everybody believe that, that God doesn't change? That the word of God doesn't change? If God doesn't change and God's repenting, if God is controlling everything, that makes no sense. There has to be something outside of God that caused God to repent. And it was us. It's man that caused God to repent. Every time you see God repent in the Bible, every time you see God repent in the Bible, it's because of man's actions. Because man is not under the control of God. God does not control man. You say, yes, God does control man. Then God's controlling rapists, and God's controlling murderers, and God's controlling perversion? Of course he isn't. God is not the author of confusion. But is there confusion in this world? That means that someone other than God authored that confusion, because it didn't come from God. Someone other than God authored perversion and wickedness and filth. Because the Bible's very clear to even tell us in Romans 1, when it talks about sick people who do sick things, he said that it's after the imagination of their own heart. God didn't dream up all these perverted things in the world today. God is not the one causing all the pain and suffering in this world. It's man's free will that is causing pain and suffering today, not God. And so if God repents or changes his course of action, or says, you know, I was gonna do this, but now I'm gonna do this. Isn't that repentance? If I say, I'm gonna go to the store, but then I repented, that means I plan to do one thing, now I'm gonna do something different. That's what God did. God had a plan for mankind, for the earth. But when God looked at what man did, he had to change his plan. It's not that who he was changed. It's not that his word or his nature or his opinion changed. It's that his actions had to change because of man. Just like the Old Testament. Was there something wrong with the Old Testament? Go to Hebrews eight. Hebrews chapter eight. I just wanna quickly clear up the subject because it's an important subject about God repenting in the Bible. A lot of people are confused about it. They try to explain it away. You know what Calvinists do? Calvinists just came out with their own Bible version, the ESV, which just takes out every time God repents. That was an easy way to fix that problem. Oh, we don't understand why God repented? Let's just remove it every single time. So basically the ESV, which is put out by Calvinists, the English standard version, removes every time God repented. I believe that the New King James removes every time God repented. The NIV removes every time God repented. And sometimes they'll change it to relented because they just think, ah, they won't know this. This is one letter different. But it's a totally different word. And so you've got all these modern versions twisting God's word. The King James version clearly says, God repented over and over. He repented in Exodus. He repented in Psalms. He repents all throughout the Bible. There are about 30-some scriptures that directly reference God repenting. That's a lot of scriptures. One of them is Jonah 3.10, when God repented. Where did I have to turn? Hebrews chapter eight. Now it says in verse seven, this is talking about the Old Testament versus the New Testament. Hebrews 8.7. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. Now if we read verse seven by itself, doesn't it clearly sound like there's something wrong with that first covenant? He says very clearly that that first covenant was not faultless, right? But look at the next words. That's why you gotta read it in context. Look at verse eight. For finding fault with them, he's saying. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. Why? Why is he making a new covenant? Look at the next words. Because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not saith the Lord. So there was nothing wrong with the old covenant on God's end there was something wrong with the old covenant on man's end. The Old Testament doesn't have anything wrong with it, except the people who were living under it. They're the ones that God found fault with. So the fault with the old covenant was on man's side, not on God's side, because God never makes mistakes. God is never wrong. You can't point to something in the Old Testament and say, hey, this was where God was wrong. He's never wrong. It's man that messes things up, and he has to adjust to fit man. That doesn't fit in with Calvinism. Calvinism is in total opposition to that. Calvinism says everything's God's plan, God never changed. Well, then God's doing a lot of weird stuff in the world. Because there's a lot of weird stuff going on in the world, but I'm not going to blame God on that stuff. I'm going to blame man for that stuff, which was created with free will. And the reason that Calvinists can't understand that is because man cannot create something with free will. We can create a computer or a robot that will walk and talk. We can create an iPhone that will talk to you. And I haven't seen this yet, but somebody told me that the new iPhone, you talk to it and it talks back to you. And it actually converses with you. Okay. And you say to it, hey, would you call my mom and tell her that I'll be there at three o'clock? And it'll answer you. Okay, so you're saying you want me to call her and tell her three o'clock? Is that what you mean? Okay, yeah, I'll do that right away. Who knows what I'm talking about? Has anybody seen that? Am I being accurate with how I'm describing it? So it's a virtual assistant that will talk to you, but guess what? It does not have a mind of its own. It only does what it's been programmed to do. Well, the Calvinist thinks that God is basically a glorified Apple, a glorified iPhone maker. And that he just makes us all as these virtual who just do what we're programmed to do, a puppet. That's what he thinks we are. The whole world's a big puppet theater. And God's just acting out. That's not what the Bible teaches. God is so much more powerful than Steve Jobs. That God can create a being that has a mind of its own. And no computer company has ever created that. A computer that has a mind of its own that can think and make decisions. Now, they can make it do random things, but we don't operate randomly. We decide what we're gonna do with our soul. And nobody else can create something like that except God. So because the Calvinist doesn't understand that, his mind is not big enough to wrap around that. So he just basically says, no, we're all robots being controlled by God. It's nonsense. It's false doctrine. It's garbage. The Bible teaches that we have free will over and over and over again. The word free will is found in the Bible. That exact statement. He talks about the free will offering that people robotically offer. No, it's the one that they offer of their own free will. And so the Bible's real clear about this, that God repents not because he changed, but because man changed. He must change his actions accordingly. For example, before the flood, there was no death penalty for murderers. Was God wrong? No. But because man became so violent and so murderous in Genesis chapter six, then in Genesis chapter nine, he has to institute the death penalty. Why? Because man has committed so much violence, he says, well, this doesn't work. Not having a death penalty, this isn't gonna work. God wasn't wrong. Man did wrong. And so I just wanted to clear that up, that it is not a contradiction when the Bible sometimes says that God repents and sometimes it says he doesn't repent. It's two different types of repenting. He's not gonna repent as it changes work. And the Bible even says that he'll not repent and neither alter the thing that's going on in his lips. He will not change what he has said. He will not change who he is. But he will change his actions toward you, depending upon what you do. He might have a plan, for example. He might have a plan to bless you in a lot of ways and give you all kinds of good things. But then all of a sudden you start living a life of sin, all of a sudden he has to change his mind and say, you know what? I'm not gonna do good things for you. With Nineveh, he was gonna destroy it. But then when they turned from their evil way, he looked at that and said, okay, I'll change my mind. It's not that he just said, I'm gonna destroy you. Nah, I guess I won't. It's that he said, I'm gonna destroy you. And they said, okay, God, we're sorry. And he said, okay, I'll back off. Because he's merciful. And so that's what that means when it says God repented. It's not that God did a foolish thing when he created man. It's just that man corrupted his way. So it made God sorry that he made man because the sorrow that man sends caused God up in heaven. Let me hurry up and get through this. But in Genesis chapter six, verse number six, it says, it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him in his heart. 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 fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them. You say, well, God, why do you have to destroy the animals? Why not just destroy man? Because God created the animals for man. He didn't just create the animals because he liked to have a lot of animals. The Bible says he created them for man. And man was to have dominion over them. And the creeping thing was created for man's benefit. And so were the plants. So he says in verse number eight, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That tells me that Noah was not a perfect person. Noah did not earn the right to be saved and earn the right to go to heaven or even to earn the right to get on the ark. God found him, that he had grace in the eyes of the Lord. Why? Because the Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 11 that he believed God, he had faith in God. When we believe the Lord God and have faith in God, he'll give us his grace. And the Bible says, by grace are you saved through faith. And the not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. So God's grace comes to those who believe. Noah, because he believed God's word, found grace in the eyes of the Lord. It says in verse nine, these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations. And Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Shamham and Japheth. Let me say quickly, I misspoke last week. I said that we were talking about the genealogies in chapter five, and I misspoke and I stated that it went Ham, then Sham, then Japheth. I got that backwards. It was supposed to be Japheth was the oldest, then Sham, then Ham. I misspoke, sorry I made a mistake, I'm not perfect. It's funny, one time I made a mistake in a sermon like that and somebody wrote to me and said, you know, you made this mistake in your sermon. And now, I can't even listen to your preaching anymore. Because they said, well if you were wrong about that, if you made that mistake, then how do I know that other things you're saying are mistakes? So I'm just gonna stop listening to you. Well, but here's the thing about that. You shouldn't just trust everything I'm saying because I'm gonna make mistakes, okay? Because that's why you need to read the Bible yourself. Oh, am I gonna know which part of what you say is true and which part's not true? Here's the thing, buy a Bible and read it and then you'll know which part of what I'm saying is true and which part's not true. Because guess what, that's not the first mistake I've ever made and it's not gonna be the last when I said that Ham was the older brother. You know, you try getting up here in front of everybody and you're trying to preach and you're looking at your notes and you're looking at the Bible, you're gonna make some mistakes too, okay? And so it was Japheth and Ham's birth order that I mixed up, so sorry about that. But anyway, it says in verse number 10, and Noah begat three cents, Shem, Ham and Japheth. I point that out because they were not born in that order. The Bible's clear that Shem was born two years later than the oldest son and I talked about that last week. And the reason that Shem is listed first is because Shem is the preeminent of the three because Shem is the one who was the progenitor of Abraham and he was the progenitor of Jesus Christ and God often lists them in that way just like with Ephraim and Manasseh. They were not born in that order but Ephraim got the blessing and so he began to be listed first and that's how the Bible lists it. So it says they begat three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. What is violence? Well, it's harming other people. It comes from the word violate, same root word and it's talking about hurting people. I mean, there was a lot of murder in the earth is what it's saying. There was a lot of assault and battery going on and it says that God looked upon the earth and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth. Again, verse 12, making it very clear that it was man that had sinned, not angels or spirits but that it was the flesh man on this earth that had sinned and it says, and God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me for the earth is filled with violence. There he brings it up again. Through them and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. See, God hates violence. The Bible says in Psalms 11 five, it says, the Lord trieth the righteous but the wicked and him that loveth violence, his soul hated. The Bible says that if you love violence, God hates you. That's what it says in Psalm 11, I'm sorry, Psalm 11 five. And so a lot of times we think of violence and somebody will look at a boxing match and say, oh, that's violence. That's not what violence means. Or they'll even look at maybe somebody going to war and I'm not talking about an aggressive war or a preemptive war, but a war as far as a defensive war is legitimate according to the Bible. The Bible is very clear that individuals and families and also nations have the right to defend themselves by going to war against an invading army. There were also certain circumstances where God would send them to invade in order to punish a wicked nation. But that wasn't God's specific directive. It wasn't something that they were just supposed to just, well, these people look pretty ungodly, let's go for it. It was always God specifically saying, hey, you need to go fight this particular battle. So when there's a legitimate war going on, yes, people are being killed, but that's not violence. And you say prove it. Well, in Luke chapter three, when John the Baptist preached, soldiers came to him and said, what should we do? He said, be content with your wages and do violence to no man. He's not telling them not to fight or else he'd tell them, quit being a soldier. Being a soldier is wrong. He just says, be content with your wages and do violence to no man. He's saying, don't kill innocent people. Don't do violence. Don't harm people that do not need to be harmed. Do not, you know, and that's why no soldier should be killing women and children and civilians, amen. Think about this, if John the Baptist clearly stated in Luke three, do violence, he looked at a soldier and a soldier said, what am I supposed to do? I'll tell you right now, if I were a soldier today living in 2012, and I'm not a soldier, but let's say I were a soldier, I were in some military, somewhere in this world, I would look up that passage because that's an instruction for soldiers. And John the Baptist is confronted by soldiers that asked him, what shall we do? And you know, if you were wise as a soldier, you'd ask the same question, what should I do? And he tells them, be content with your wages and do violence to no man. You say, what does that have to do with wages? Well, because a lot of violence could be to get money or goods. So he's saying, be content with your wages and do violence to no man, as in, hey, you don't need to be robbing other people. You're getting paid to be a soldier, that should be enough. You shouldn't be robbing and pillaging and taking what belongs to other people. And he says, do violence to no man. And look, if you want more instructions, you could go to the book of Deuteronomy and read rules for warfare and so forth. And you know, it just isn't right to just indiscriminately just kill them all and let God sort them out. That's not a biblical doctrine. And so he says here that the earth was filled with violence. We live in a very violent world today. There's a lot of murder going on in the world today. You know, abortion for one, but even just murder of adults and murders going on in Africa. People are being massacred and all over the world. There are people being killed. There are wars going on pretty much on every continent all the time. You know, there's something going on. And you say, what about North America? Well, you know, there's the so-called drug war and border violence where people are dying constantly and people are being killed and violated. And so there's a lot of violence in the earth today. But here it was even worse. At this time, there was even more violence. The whole earth was filled with violence to where the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually. But God says, I'm gonna destroy them. I'm gonna destroy the whole earth. Verse 14, make thee an ark of gopher wood. Room shalt thou make in the ark and shall pitch it within and without a pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it up. The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits and the breadth of it 50 cubits and the height of it 30 cubits. You say, okay, how big is that? Well, a cubit is the distance between the middle finger of a man's hand to his elbow. So that's approximately a foot and a half, right? If you look at the distance between your middle finger and your elbow, it's about a foot and a half. So if the Bible says the length of the ark is 300 cubits, that means it's about 450 feet long. So that's about a time and a half the length of a football field. So people say, oh man, they wouldn't have room to put all the animals. That's pretty big. Time and a half the length of a football field? 450 feet long and not only that, it says the breadth of it, which means the width of it, is 50 cubits, so it's 75 feet wide. And then the Bible says that not only is it 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and the height of it 30 cubits or 45 feet high. And the Bible says it's built in three stories. So each story you've got approximately 15 feet in there. So that's a pretty high ceiling. And you've got a high ceiling, you've got a very long, very wide apparatus here to bring the animals and Noah's family on the ark. It said, and possibly God made it extra big just so that other people could get on. Because he basically tells them that he's gonna bring the animals, but hopefully somebody else would get on. But it says in verse number six, it says a window shalt thou make to the ark and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof with lower second and third stories shalt thou make it. Now what's interesting is that the Bible is very specific that there's only one door. The door of the ark is gonna go on the side of the ark. The door. Now you say, why would you put the door on the side? You know, is it gonna go underwater? But the Bible makes clear God sealed up the door. God shut them in. When they get on the ark, God shut them in. Why is there one door on the ark? It makes sense to have multiple doors, but it's a picture of salvation because Jesus said I am the door, not I'm a door. He said I'm the door. If any man enter in by me, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. The Bible's clear, there's only one way to heaven. One way of salvation. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the light no man cometh unto the Father but by me. That's pictured by the ark. One way on that ark. One door, Jesus is the door. Once you're on the ark, like Noah and his family were, the Bible says God shut him in, the Lord shut him in. Once you're saved, you're saved, perfectly. You can't lose your salvation. Because you can't, all right. Once he was on there, God shut the door and the only time that door was open was once they were safely to the other side, all the danger was over, the flood was over, and they basically had a brand new earth as it were. Just like one day we will live in a new earth, new heaven, new earth. So it's symbolic here of the fact that salvation's through Jesus, there's only one door, there's only one way to be saved. You know, there's not multiple ways to get to heaven, there's only one way to get to heaven. And it says in verse 17, and behold I, even I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven, and everything that is in the earth shall die, very clear. But with thee will I establish my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons wise with thee, and of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shall thou bring into the ark to keep them alive with thee, they shall be male and female, of vows after their kind, and of creeping thing, or I'm sorry, cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth shall, after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee to keep them alive, and take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee, and it shall be for food for thee and for them. Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded and so did he. Now in chapter six there, he said, you know, you're gonna get on the ark, your wife, your three sons, and their three wives. Now, I don't know when God is saying it's gonna be those eight people. Because God talked about earlier in the chapter that man's days would be 120 years. So he's giving man 120 years. At the beginning of chapter seven it says, the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. So in chapter seven, verse one, he's telling him to get on the ark. So sometime between chapter six, early on when he said, hey, 120 years until he destroys the earth, and the beginning of chapter seven when he's saying get on the ark, okay, I don't know exactly when God is naming that there will be eight people getting on the ark. So what are you trying to say? I'm not sure when God made that decision that these are the only eight people that are gonna get on the ark. Because I'm sure just knowing God that he offers salvation to all, but the whole earth's full of violence, the whole earth's wicked. Noah was the only one who found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So it appears that he's telling, but the reason I say that is because a lot of people speculate that Noah's going around begging everybody to get on the ark. I mean, have you heard that before? He's going around, he's warning everybody. Now the Bible does say that Noah was a preacher of righteousness, okay? But does it really say that he was begging people to get on the ark? That's up for debate. I'm just saying I don't see it clearly in the Bible. I don't know whether God just said, hey, these are the eight people that are getting on the ark and everybody else, I'm sick of them. They're gonna drown. Or whether that was more toward the end of him building the ark, because it took him a long time to build the ark, of course. But in the end, he says, these are the eight people. He says, these are the people that are getting on the ark. Now, he said I'm gonna make my covenant with you in verse 18. He said, but with thee will I establish my covenant. What is a covenant? A covenant is a contract or a promise. And what is this covenant with Noah? This covenant with Noah is that Noah's gonna be saved. Noah's not gonna be destroyed by the flood. And the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11, verse six, it says, by faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the wind she condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. So, why did Noah condemn the world? Think about this, isn't that interesting? Verse, says in Hebrews 11, that Noah moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, saving those eight people, including himself, by the wind she condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Why did Noah condemn the world by building the ark? God said my covenant is with you, Noah, my promise is with you. Because earlier, previously, he'd already made a promise in the book of Genesis chapter three where he said that the woman's seed would bruise Satan's head. You remember that in Genesis 3.15? So, if he's promising that the seed of the woman is going to bruise Satan's head, could he really wipe out the entire world without saving anyone? No, because then that promise would not come true. It had to be that seed. So, basically, by Noah believing God, finding grace in the eyes of God, and preparing an ark to save his house, that allowed God to go ahead and destroy the world, which he could not have done if Noah had not obeyed and built the ark and so forth. So, that's why Noah condemned the world by building the ark and being saved. It's sort of like, I made this a silly illustration, but I'm just trying to help you understand. It's sort of like when you take a test. And did you ever take a test in school and the whole class did really bad? And because the whole class did really bad, the teacher said, look, the best kid in the class, the nerdy kid, he got an 88%. Therefore, I'm going to grade on a curve. Who knows what I'm talking about? Because they say, hey, if nobody got 100%, then we'll grade it on a curve. So, therefore, the 88 becomes 100, everybody else goes up by 12%. You know, I've been to classes where they did that. You ever been to a class like that? Wasn't very often, but sometimes. But what if there was just this one guy that got 100? He condemns the class. You know what I mean? Because if you think about it, if you've got, let's say, the passing score is 60. That's what it was when I was a kid. D- but you passed with a 60%. Well, let's say you had like a 55, right? And, you know, the top kid's got an 88. Well, you're going to pass because you're going to get graded up on that curve. You're going to get to add 12 points, get a 67. You're in like Clint. You know, you're a D student. You can be proud of that. But, you know, the teacher's going through all the papers at 88, 88, 75, 64, blah, blah, and you're like, come on. You know, it's like, oh, oh, you know, Reginald got a 100. And it's just like, oh, die. So, Reginald has condemned the entire, you know, class that had the grades in the 50s unto failure because he proved that it could be done, okay? So, that's what I believe that God meant when God said that Noah condemned the world by preparing an ark to the saving himself. He proved that not everybody's corrupt, not everybody's wicked. Some people still believe the Bible. Some people still believe God's word and so forth. And so, that's why he condemned the world. That's what that's saying. So, he made his covenant with him, the covenant that he made with Adam and Eve. Well, now he's making a covenant with Noah that he's gonna save him alive, that he's gonna bring him through the flood, that he's going to allow him to repopulate the earth with his own seed. Salvation is a covenant that God makes with us. The Bible says in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the foundation of the world. God's never gonna break his promise. And God never has broken his promise and he never will. And so, the Bible says that he made his covenant with him. He said in verse 18, thou shall come into the ark, thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons' wives with thee and of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shall they bring into the ark to keep them alive with thee, they shall be male and female. Now, a lot of people have questioned whether Noah could fit all the animals on the ark and I alluded to that earlier. But the reason that that's silly is because the Bible doesn't say that he brought every species on the ark. It just says that he brought every kind on the ark. So basically, he didn't bring every dog breed and every kind of cat. He basically just brought two cats, two dogs. He didn't believe that, I'm sorry, he didn't bring a cocker spaniel and he had to bring a sacred arm and he had to bring a great dave and he had to bring a chihuahua. He just brought two dogs, two cats, okay. Now, people will scoff at this and say, you mean to tell me that all these different dogs came from one common ancestor, that all these different dog breeds came from that one? But here's what's funny, they think all animals came from a common ancestor. That's weird. I mean, isn't it pretty easy to believe that all dogs came from one father dog and one mother dog? Then to believe that all animals and all plants came from one father organism and mother organism and they're giving birth to all this stuff? But all this is just billions of years. We'll fix all that. I mean, they think that, excuse me for thinking that wolves and cocker spaniels and St. Bernard's and chihuahuas are all related. You think bananas and cocker spaniels are related. You think that chickens are related to peas and potatoes. You think that a palm tree is related to a snake. Okay, and you think I'm crazy for thinking that, you know, all dogs come from a common ancestor? You can breed dogs and make them do, you know, there's everything from the full-size poodle, the standard poodle, all the way down to a teacup poodle that you can hold in your hand. There's the miniature poodle. You can breed dogs and create different aberrations, but guess what? They always have two eyes. They always have a mouth. They always have four legs. I mean, they're still a dog at the end of the day. They're just different kinds of dogs. I mean, if you look at a lion and you look at a house cat, they're not really that different. I mean, one's just a lot bigger than the other and there are other differences obviously, but I mean, they're similar. Now, I don't know where God draws the line on kind. Maybe there were four dogs on the ark, okay? You know, they're two different branches. But he brought one of each kind. And so he didn't have to bring every single species, but he did bring every kind. There was plenty of room. Other people said, well, you know how the dinosaurs fit? Because, you know, Joe talked about things that seem like dinosaurs, gigantic creatures existing in the book of Job. You know, how he put the dinosaur on the ark is still big. Well, you know, maybe he just brought a small one. You know, maybe he brought a baby. You know, maybe he just bought a young one. He doesn't have to bring the biggest one. The oldest one. You know, and certain animals, they grow for a really long time. He's only on the ark for a year. And huge animals, they grow for a long time. So he could have just brought a little young pup, Tyrannosaurus or whatever. If Tyrannosaurus is something that really existed in the way that we perceive it. Like a hedon monster. Yeah, exactly. So, I don't think those share a common ancestor, okay? I think that he brought these small dinosaurs or, you know, whatever. And that's not really a hard thing to wrap your mind around. I don't think at all. And so, real quick, let me just finish by saying this. God is serious about hating sin. And God does not blink an eye to destroy the whole world and kill everybody in this story. Isn't that amazing? Now it grieved him in his heart. It made him sorrowful to do it, but he still did it. Now that should tell you something. People think, oh, God's such a loving God, he'll never send anybody to hell. Have you heard people say that? He's so merciful, he's so loving, he's eventually gonna forgive everybody. He's gonna let everything go. He'll never send anybody to hell. Look, if you read the Bible cover to cover, you don't think that he's that merciful that he'll never send anybody to hell. It's people who don't read the Bible who think that. Because you don't have to get very far in the Bible. Only in chapter six. If you start reading your Bible, you'd be about a half hour into it before God kills everyone. I mean, you're only at, okay, I mean, look. I think I'm gonna read the Bible and see what it says. I wanna get to know who God is. Okay, I'm a half hour into it. Oh, he just killed everyone, except eight people. He just drowned millions of people. Maybe he's not as nice as I thought. Wicked people. Yeah, he hates wickedness. He hates wicked people. He sends them to hell. And so, I don't understand how people can walk away from this, you know why? I'll tell you why. Because when they think of Noah's Ark, they think of like a Sunday school story where nobody dies. See, in the Sunday school story, it's a little more benign. Noah builds a boat and he goes for a little cruise with all the animals. No mention of all the people drowning and dying. All of mankind being wiped out. I mean, literally. A lot of times, that doesn't appear in the philanthropy. Now, hopefully it does. And if I were teaching children about this story, I would mention the fact that, you know what? People who did not believe God, people who did not find grace in the eyes of God, they drowned. And that's a picture of salvation where you gotta get the grace of God to be saved. You gotta go through the door. You gotta believe in Christ. Jesus is the door. And otherwise, you know, he's not gonna have mercy on you. He's gonna drown you. Except it won't be in the water. It'll be in the lake of fire. And so, this should be a sobering story. Not a story just about animals getting on the ark and Noah's smiling really big, got a really long beard and Noah's wife is there and they got the children and the animals and two get on and three get off and it's a big happy story. You know. You gotta realize what's the main key point of the story. Every verse, he's just like, man's wickedness, man's sin, man's sinful, violence, wickedness, corruption. I'm gonna destroy them all. I'm gonna kill them all. They're all gonna die. That should tell you something about how much God hates sin. That should tell you how serious God is about sin. And that should tell you that God that created heaven is the same God that created hell. And so, God is not someone to be toyed around with and to just think, oh, he's just playing games. You know, he's one of those parents that says, you know, if you do that again, if you do that again, this fanking never comes. No, with God, this fanking does come. Let's pray our eyes and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, dear God, and it really is a sad story. We don't really know the people. We don't know the characters. You didn't really tell us much about the people who drowned, but it's a sad story that all these people drowned, but thank you, thank you, Lord, that we don't have to drown. We don't have to go to hell. We don't have to die. All we have to do is believe on you because you did everything. You died on the cross for our sins and rose again. And thank you for grace. And thank you for the spiritual art, which is salvation through Christ. Thank you for everything that you've done for us. Please help us to continue to read your word and to learn the truth about who you are. And Jesus, we pray.