Chuck Missler describes the Bible as a message system. Not simply 66 books penned by 40 different authors but rather it’s a sophisticated, supernatural integrated whole which has intricate evidence of God’s authorship. He’s not alone either. The Jews believe that everything in the scriptures is supernaturally significant and they believe that the full meaning of the scriptures will be interpreted entirely only by the Messiah…but not just the verses…they’re looking forward to Him interpreting every word, every letter, even the spaces between the letters! Every little detail is supernaturally significant and as we study, yes we are learning and growing and glimpsing the heart of God…but there is eternally more!

Maybe this is why two people, three people, twelve people (in the case of Freedom Church) can read and study the same set of scriptures and all get different (yet entirely compatible) glimpses of God’s heart! Why do I bring this up? Because something like this, a supernatural significance somewhat hidden in plain sight, one of these has occurred in the text we have studied in Genesis and I want to take a minute to show you…

Within the genealogy of Adam to Noah there is a fascinating statement embedded by God that points to the Gospel! Hidden in plain sight for the student of God’s Word to find like treasure in a field! Many of you have seen this and know this but perhaps some of you do not, that in the original names of the first 10 fathers is the story of God’s grace…

Adam means “man.” Seth means “appointed.” Enosh means “mortal.” Cainan means “sorrow.” Mahalalel means “the blessed God.” Jared means “shall come down.” Enoch means “teaching.” Methuselah means “His death shall bring.” Lamech means “the despairing.” Noah means “rest” or “comfort.” Read together, any Hebrew speaking Jewish boy, girl, family, community would read…, “Man appointed mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down teaching that His death shall bring the hopeless comfort and rest!” Man, the Gospel! And I love what Chuck says, “You will never convince me that a group of Jewish rabbis conspired to hide the Christian Gospel right here in a genealogy within their venerated Torah!”

Chuck also comments, and I entirely agree, that “the Bible is an integrated message system…it is astonishing to discover how many Biblical controversies seem to evaporate if one simply recognized the unity and integrity of these 66 books, penned by 40 authors over thousands of years.”

And so the wonderful implication is that the more you study, the more you sit under verse by verse Biblical teaching…truly, not just the more you know in terms of adding to your knowledge, but look man, the more you will know in adding to your understanding…that’s new knowledge that is so integrated and symbiotic that it shines new light on old knowledge! That’s awesome! And so time in the Word on your own, time in Corporate Bible study…supernaturally profitable! Because each verse compliments each verse…precisely how we have to march through Genesis Chapter 6 and even the next couple of chapters as we encounter Biblical mysteries like the beginning of Genesis 6 and even the flood!

I mean there is a part of me that I just have to deal with as I read through the flood account that gets a little confused. God loves the world…for God so loved the world that He gave His all to save us out of it…but here we read and watch and consider God, well, wiping the world out…and listen, there’s a part of me that has a real problem here and that’s ok…there’s a part of God that has a real problem here…HA! But I remember and remind myself that the Bible is one integrated whole, a singular message in singular purpose…to proclaim the grace and goodness of God even in light of the pride and badness of man…so I hold to what I know to be true…what cannot be taken from me because man I’ve earned it in sorrows, tears, hardships and conflicts…and that is my bedrock foundational KNOW knowledge that God is good and that God is love and God is grace and that God is mercy and that God is pure…I cannot lay down what is clear in scripture for what is murky…savvy!?

And so we hold truth upon truth and we continue in our study…knowing in a faith-filled knowing way that as we read and study and worship…one of two things will come…peace from understanding or peace that surpasses understanding…

There’s peace that surpasses understanding for me in the first 4 verses. We talked about this last week…who are these “sons of God?” And there are countless perspectives…Two questions were raised even during the study that I’ve delved into a bit this week and yet still, as new thoughts arise like I heard last week…(I had never heard those points before)…still new thoughts, no new peace. The thought that the seed of the serpent mentioned in Genesis 3 could somehow be the biological/physical offspring of Satan and therefore an angel having angel babies…doesn’t quite help because that would take me interpreting the two “seeds” mentioned in Genesis Chapter 3 differently…the “Seed” of Mary is actually not her seed…the female has no seed so I can’t then apply a different inductive interpretation to the seed of the serpent…I can conclude that it’s not his seed just like the seed of the female would not be her seed and that is given in John Chapter 8 verse 44 when Jesus says to the haters, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do…” These children are the ones that bruised His heel as they nailed Him to the cross…so that additional point is a point…but there’s no peace there…

And then there was offered the point that angels do not marry in heaven as Matthew 22:30 says but what about the angels on earth…the angels on earth act in a different way than the angels in heaven…demons verses angels…but that doesn’t bring peace either for me because we see angels that are not demons upon the earth as well…and so while my point offers really no peace…that Jesus says they don’t marry…neither does the rejection of that verse as proof that angels don’t engage in marriage activities…

And so in a scripture like this, peace from understanding, for now, isn’t really there…and that’s ok. When we are with the Lord He will explain it to us…and even with that statement there is peace that surpasses understanding…you know what I’m saying…? That whether it’s this or that, whether the sons of God are sons of Seth, angel offspring or aliens from the planet Zod (or France in the case of the Coneheads), the God who is love has taken away our unrighteousness and has reconciled us to the Father of Lights such that we have eternal life through Him! There is GREAT peace there and even in the midst of countless opinions, there is GREAT unity in anchoring to bedrock foundational truths that cannot be taken…!

Genesis Chapter 6 Verses 5 – 8

• When God created the earth and everything in it, Genesis Chapter 1 says that, “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” But since then, man has made as well…and the creation of man is not like the creation of God. God created and it was good, all good…but now the world is populated with man’s creation, man’s intents, man’s thoughts and man’s hearts and the truth of the matter then is the same as today, it was all bad…
• We ought to consider as we do what we do…that if we default to what we think is right and what we naturally intend…have the tendency to do…then man, you’re looking for good…but what you’ll find is the opposite. When God creates, what God intends, God’s heart is the pathway to good…Noah found that…says here that Noah found grace…how?

Genesis Chapter 6 Verse 9

• Just like Enoch. To find the grace of God, you must walk with God…it’s just the way it is…you’re welcome to the justice of God…but you’re also welcome to the grace of God…which is only found in faith, man…

Genesis Chapter 6 Verses 10 – 22

• Now this is an act of GREAT faith! Noah, I want you to build a huge BOAT in the middle of the land…ok I can do that…and I want you to take your sons and their wives into it with you…ok I can do that…and take two of every animal, bird and insect….ummmmmmm, how am I going to do THAT! HA! God will take you to the realm of the impossible, man…causing life to be spared around you…causing intimate relationship and covenant with God Himself…but notice this…that stuff doesn’t start with the command and call of God…it starts with verse 22…God commanded….so he did….