Era 1 Episode 7 A World Gone Wrong

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Voiceover

You are listening to the Bible Breakthrough with Pastor David Engman and Scott Brekke. In this study, we will break down the Bible from B.C. to A.D. chronologically while offering historical context and real-life application for today. This series is brought to you by the Breakthrough Media Network.

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Pastor Dave

Hi, my name is Pastor Dave Engman, and this is Scott Brekke, and we want to welcome you to the Bible Breakthrough. And we want to thank you for joining us. Ultimately, know this, our goal is to lead you into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Jesus.

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Scott

And please look for the bonus video to this episode as we discuss various topics that come up because of the scripture we cover today. Also, the show notes will be linked in the description of this video.

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Pastor Dave

All right. So, in the last episode, we read Genesis 5:1 through 32, and here we read about Adam's descendants and how humanity grew to become independent families and tribes. The scripture that we're going to cover today is Genesis 6:1 through 22 and learn about a world gone wrong and a new beginning for humanity, starting with the flood. Questions you should be considering as you listen are,

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Pastor Dave

what does this mean? And how can I apply what I am learning to my life? Now…

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Scott

Yeah. Before we read and open the Bible, let's pray. So, Lord, Father, I just pray that you would… your word says to teach the word and so Lord, I just pray that you would give us the knowledge to do that. And Father, I pray for our audience that you would open their minds and their ears to hear the scriptures, Lord.

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Scott

In Jesus name, amen.

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Pastor Dave

Amen. All right, so let's open up the Bible and let's read the passage starting in Genesis chapter six, verse one through 22. Scott, would you read that?

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Scott

All right. A world gone wrong. Then the people began to multiply on the earth. And daughters were born to them. The sons of God saw the beautiful women and took any they wanted as their wives. Then the Lord said, my spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal life span will be no more than 120 years. In those days,

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Scott

and for some time after giant Nephilites lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times. The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.

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Scott

So, the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the Earth. It broke His heart. And the Lord said, I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the Earth. Yes. And I will destroy every living thing, all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground and even the birds of the sky.

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Scott

I am sorry I ever made them. But Noah found favor with the Lord. The story of Noah. This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on the earth at the time. And he walked in close fellowship with God. Noah was the father of three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.

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Scott

Now, God saw that the Earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. God observed all this corruption in the world for everyone on the Earth was corrupt. So, God said to Noah, I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the Earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the Earth. Build a large boat from cypress wood and waterproof it with tar inside and out.

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Scott

Then can construct decks and stalls throughout its interior. Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Leave an 18-inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat. Put the door on the side and build three decks inside the boat. Lower, middle, and upper. Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes Everything on Earth will die.

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Scott

But I will confirm my covenant with you. So, enter the boat. You and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring a pair of every kind of animal, a male and female, into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood. Pairs of every kind of bird and every kind of animal and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground

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Scott

will come to you to be kept alive. And be sure to take on board, enough food for your family and for all the animals. So, Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.

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Pastor Dave

Well done.

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Pastor Dave

Well done, Scott!

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Scott

Moving into the facts. The facts, Pastor!

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Pastor Dave

Nothing but the facts.

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Pastor Dave

All right. Well, at this point in history, we can see that Earth was no longer the perfect paradise, that God had intended, and that broke his heart. And this, what we just read, of course, is a record of why the destruction of the old world was necessary. So, it's here that we can see a few things. Number one, we can see how quickly all of humanity forgot about God.

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Pastor Dave

We can see how much God hates sin and judges those who enjoy it. We can see how serious the consequences are of sin. We can see how God also protects those who are faithful and obedient. And then, because of Noah's character, what I've noticed is God gave him special favor. And we can see that in the way he communicated with Noah, that he provided very specific and special instruction to Noah to build the ark and to do that for his safety, really, to protect him and his family.

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Pastor Dave

And then we also notice that God brought all the animals to Noah and to the ark. In other words, he didn't have to go out and round them up. So, these are the facts. These are the facts. Scott, what do you see are the main points of what we're talking about, what we just read?

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Scott

Yeah. So, God, really, he reveals really how much like our actions affect him. And here we have that man's actions break God's heart. Sometimes we think of God, of maybe being bigger than, like, actually having a like that not affecting him. But it does. Our actions are affecting you know…

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Pastor Dave

They affect God!

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Scott

Yeah, they affect him.

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Pastor Dave

So, the two reasons, two reasons for this level of wickedness that we can discuss and so forth. But I saw two reasons. Number one, the level of wickedness increased as the population increased. And so, if you think about this, there was a blessing back in Genesis 1:28. And the blessing was God saying, I'm blessing you now go, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

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Pastor Dave

So, there was a blessing there. And then what the enemy has done, as he brought that blessing, he tried to convert that into a curse. Because the more people began to populate the Earth, and as time went on, people were forgetting about God. And then the second thing is, is that the level of wickedness we read right here had to do with this idea of the sons of God, you know, having intercourse with the daughters of men.

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Pastor Dave

Now, we can talk a long time about that because I think there's a lot there. But what it boils down… and by the way, we will dive into that in our Question Time. But what it boils down to is an unequally yoked relationship will almost always take good and convert it to evil, not the other way around.

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Pastor Dave

And so, the two reasons for the level of wickedness, one, large population growth which… and over time which people forgot about God. And then two, all of these unequally yoked relationships, believers marrying or having sex, if you will, with unbelievers.

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Scott

And then one thing that I wanted to bring up is like, their, you know, their disobedience to God. And he’s like shortening their time. So, he goes on and says, look, he's going to put a limit to how much he's going to put up with this disobedience, with this sin. And obviously, this broke his heart, but he recognized it as being rebellion against him.

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Scott

And he sets that limit as… and we know that moving into Noah building the ark, that there's coming a great flood. And there's only so many… so much time before God’s just like, all right, enough is enough! Right. So, you know, obviously sin, disobedience, and violence. I mean, all these things break out… wickedness that come up. So…

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Pastor Dave

So, you know, disobedience leads to God's withdrawing from us, from humanity. And then we can read it right there. I mean, he made it very clear that it was… the Lord said in verse three, my spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time. So what God is essentially saying here is this, you know what? There's a limit to how much I'm going to put up with here.

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Pastor Dave

And at that point, we knew that these people, as we discovered in the previous episodes, as we read, they lived 900 and some odd years. And you know, what I feel like God is saying here is this, because God's sovereign, he knows as he’s revealing this to us. What he knows is, is that they're not going to change.

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Pastor Dave

So, 900 years of putting up with this is just too much. Yeah! When he knows they're not going to change. When he can look into the heart of every human being and see no good, he said, right there, consistently and totally evil every thought.

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Scott

Yeah.

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Pastor Dave

Right? God's like, all right, I'm done. I'm going to say right here and now, going forward, and in the future, 120 years is the life span, at least as far as this particular version of the Bible speaks, is going to be 120 years. And so… anyway.

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Scott

Isn't it funny that we see that today implemented in. There is not… there's very, very few people that are living to 120.

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Pastor Dave

Yeah. I mean it's almost unheard of.

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Scott

The average I think the average person in the United States is living to like 78 years old.

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Pastor Dave

Exactly.

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Scott

So, it’s shortening it. I mean and I'm so, I'm grateful that that's what God's plan was because this is what he wanted to do. Right. He saw that if people are going to live to be this long, then every single thought imagine it's going to be evil. So that's God's plan. All right. I trust that he knows what he's doing. So…

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Pastor Dave

Yeah, God is revealing to us the level for which he will put up with. And then he defines a limit to that. And so, I think that's an important thing for us to recognize that, you know, no matter where you are in your journey with the Lord, if you are someone who's been prone to rejecting God and you're listening to this, you know, I just want to encourage you to stop doing that because our days are numbered.

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Pastor Dave

We don't know when our last day on Earth will be. Could be today for some of us.

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Scott

Yeah.

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Pastor Dave

And if you're not… if you're still in a place where you are rejecting God, then once you go, once you die, you don't get that second chance. You know, the most important thing that happens when we die, and we will know it the minute we die! We will go, “All right!” The first thing we'll think of is, is our name written in that book over there?

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Pastor Dave

You know, I mean, immediately you'll be like because it'll be right there. You'll be right there. And you'll be like, oh, man, I… is my name in there? Right?

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Scott

Yeah! Maybe that's a good transition to our last key point. So, it says that, you know, we can actually… that man can actually find favor with God. And we see that in verse eight that. But Noah, thank goodness there's a “but, Noah” in there… found favor with the Lord.

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Pastor Dave

Mm hmm.

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Scott

So how do you think he did that? How do you think that, you know, Noah was able to find favor out of all these people? Obviously, we don’t know exactly how many people were on the earth of this time? But thank goodness there's at least one.

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Pastor Dave

Well, and I think that that's a key point, too, just make before we transition that. Here's the deal. There was a ton of wickedness.

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Scott

Yeah.

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Pastor Dave

It was everywhere. It was rampant. God searched, he looked, and he only found one. But here's the good news. There was one.

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Scott

Mm, hmm.

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Pastor Dave

God found one. And God can find favor with you. If you are faithful and obedient to him, he'll find favor with you. And that's good news! We want to be there. So. Yeah, how? First of all, look, I think it's important to note that Noah was not a sinless man.

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Scott

No, he's a man just like me and you!

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Pastor Dave

Right. And he didn't have a redeemer at that stage in history. There wasn’t… Jesus wasn't his redeemer at that point. And God, in his infinite wisdom, looked upon the heart of Noah and recognized him as a man of righteousness. A man that didn't forget about God. And it was because of that, and His obedience, by the way, faithfulness is believing what you're told.

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Pastor Dave

God tells Noah something. God, and Noah believes it. And then God says, I want you to do something, and Noah obeys it. Yup. It’s the part of the process that gave Noah that favor with God. In my humble opinion!

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Scott

Mm hmm. Well, I think, too, look at what God gave him to do. At that time, we still know no rain had fell on the earth. Yet He calls him to build a… what is it… a 450-foot-long boat. I mean, this is no little boat! Right. And my goodness. I mean, I may have questioned that at the beginning of maybe my walk.

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Scott

Was that really from the Lord? Well, according to what God told me and obedience to him, he went and did exactly what God had told him to do. And look, it saved him.

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Pastor Dave

And it saved his family.

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Scott

And his wife and sons and his and sons wives.

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Pastor Dave

But nobody else. But can you imagine again? Here's the deal. There was no rain that had ever fallen on the earth. We're talking a couple thousand years probably at this stage of history. No rain ever fell. And here's a guy out building an ark.

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Scott

Yeah. (laughter)

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Pastor Dave

They're like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm building an ark. Well, why? Well, because God said it's going to rain. What's rain?

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Scott

Everybody would be like, What the heck's an ark?

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Pastor Dave

You know, can you imagine? They're making fun of him, the ridiculing him. And this is like 450 feet long is a football field and a half of length.

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Scott

Yeah, that's...

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Pastor Dave

You know, that's a big boat! You know? Imagine a long and hard that was, and he didn't have much help. Right? All right. I want to move into application here because, you know, we always have to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit regarding application. Application is about obedience. And being obedient is, as we discuss all the time, the key that unlocks the door to transformation.

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Pastor Dave

So, what good is knowledge if we don't apply it, right? Scott, did you see any application?

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Scott

I did. So, one of the things that I thought of was, are we acknowledging God even exists? I think one of the greatest lies the enemy tells people is that, well, when you die, you’re just dead. You just end. Really?! So, are we acknowledging that God is even there? And then are we if we do acknowledge him, right?

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Scott

Are we in like what Noah was in close relationship with him? Are we having that intimate time between you and the father? And a lot of times it comes in prayer, just talking with God. Sometimes we people think it's like this thing that only the holy people can do. The only these people can do this. They can pray to the Lord. And it's like, well, this is just talking with the Lord.

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Scott

And part of it, like, part of becoming righteous, like, like Noah was… for myself was just recognizing my need, recognizing that there is a Lord, that I needed him, and that I cried out in repentance to him.

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Pastor Dave

Oh, yeah.

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Scott

So. So that was one thing.

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Pastor Dave

So, what is prayer? Right? Prayer is a conversation. That's what it really is. And so, if you believe there's God, there is a God. If you believe that there is a God and you never talk to him, that'd be like getting married... Right? It would be like getting married to the love of your life. And as soon as you seal the deal, you never talk to the love of your life again.

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Scott

Yeah.

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Pastor Dave

I mean, how would that relationship look? Right? So, prayer… application point, prayer and communication is something to consider in regards to application. Another thing is this. How do we know if our actions are pleasing to God? How do we know? Noah's actions were clearly pleasing to God. And He, in a word, found him, called him righteous and found and gave him favor.

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Pastor Dave

So, if you wonder… if you wonder if your actions are pleasing to God. How do you know the difference between right and wrong? If you know what you're doing is wrong and you keep doing it, that’s sin! If you know what you're doing is right and you keep doing it, that's obedience. Okay? So, and another application point is what might be…

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Pastor Dave

What might I be doing that I know is wrong? So, and then what am I going to do about that? Am I going to stop, recognize it and change course? Because that's what repentance is. It's turning in the opposite direction from that for which we know is absolutely wrong.

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Scott

Would you call that just conviction? That you have something in your life, you know, that you shouldn't be doing it, yet we know as sinful people we… you know, sin’s enjoyable. But God’s saying, no, I want you to come to me more than more than that. Listen to me trying to pour that out of you.

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Pastor Dave

Absolutely. A conviction. And that's the difference. It's conviction. It's us, maybe our conscience. Right? Like our conscience is telling us, don't do that. And then when we stop, then we begin to please the Lord, because that's his desire to transform our life. All right.

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Scott

So how about you, our audience? Will you commit to apply what you've learned today and what the Lord's teaching you from hearing the scripture that we read from today?

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Pastor Dave

Look, if you're struggling with any of these scriptures, if you're wrestling with anything in them or even anything that we're talking about.

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Scott

Any questions.

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Pastor Dave

We just want you to know it's all right to struggle. I mean, that's how we get from where we are to where we're going. We have to struggle our way through some of that and fight our way through. And I just want you to encourage you. You're not alone in your struggle. You're not, all of us struggle.

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Pastor Dave

You're not alone. A lot of people do. We want to encourage you to just hang in there, just keep coming back, keep listening, keep diving into the word of God.

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Scott

So just a reminder to check out the bonus video to this episode as we dive deeper and discuss the topics to this episode.

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Pastor Dave

Thanks for being a part of this, Scott. And we want to thank our listening audience as well. And we look forward to our next meeting together in episode eight. And in episode eight, we're going to be discussing how the flood receded and we're going to talk about God's promises and our ongoing study of the first era beginnings.

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Pastor Dave

Thank you. And God bless.

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Voiceover

Thank you for tuning into the Bible Breakthrough with Pastor David Engman and Scott Brekke. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and will join us again for more of the Bible from B.C. to A.D. We are a volunteer driven ministry and rely on you to help us get the word out to the world. Please, like this podcast on Facebook. Share it to your page and continue to listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere you find your favorite podcasts. This has been a broadcast of the Breakthrough Media Network.