Genesis 5 - 9

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  Genesis 6:5

Genesis four ended with a high note in that it describes the birth of Seth and His son Enosh and it says that at that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD. Chapter five describes the lives of the descendants of Adam. But this is different from Cain and it is clear that Moses is making a distinction between Seth and Cain. Many ttheologians talk about the godly line of Seth and the ungodly line of Cain. It shows that there are basically two types of people. Those of God and those not of God.

We need to remember that sin has come into the world and as we will see throughout the book of Genesis the unstoppable downward spiral of sin and its effect of humans escalates until we come to the place where our focus verse above is God's proclamation concerning humankind, and it leads to God's judgment, the Flood. But before we go there lets look at the fact that sin has come in, God did not come in and destroy everything because of Adam's sin. Although Adam and all humans would now died because of sin - for death is a curse on all of us because of sin. Our bodies get old and weak and we die. That is the fact of life and it is the glaring fact of sin. So God did judge Adam and Eve just as He judges all of us in our own sin. The amazing thing however is that God also preached the first gospel message to Adam, Eve and Satan, its recorded in chapter three: He said One was coming an offspring of the woman that would bruise Satan's head. We know that that Offspring was Jesus Christ.

So, in reading Genesis five we also come to another amazing point in verse twenty two and twenty four we read about Enoch and it says that he did not die but he "walked with God and God took him." He had intimate fellowship with God, he was 365 years old and God just brought him up to heaven without experiencing death, only he and Elijah were graced by God to experience this.

In chapter six we see how rapidly sin spreads and corrupts everything. That God says that every thought of man's heart is evil. That speaks to the fact that sin is all encompassing. God says that He was sorry that He had made man, that is a vivid description of how God looks at sin and how we should look at. God's intention for Adam was for him to live in intimate fellowship with Him, and for humankind to do the same. Man choose sin. Although God was sorry that He made man, He is also sovereign and knows the beginning from the end, nothing happens and surprises Him, in fact, He knows all variance of all actions and they are always before Him. Nothing happens without Him allowing it. The God that is describe in the Bible is that kind of God, He is not the God of our imaginations, not a God that we can control, but a God that is in absolute and complete control. Because of the spread of sin in the world, the fact that man was sinful to his very core, the LORD said "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. Bless God, here is another example of God's fulfilling His promise made in the gospel. God was going to judge all living things because of man's sin. His promise made to Adam, Eve, and Satan was that One was coming. But how when all were going to die. But Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD. I don't know how many people were alive on the earth at this time, but only eight were going to be able to pass through the judgment of God, in the Flood. God's promise which He spoke to Adam and which was displayed in the godly line of Seth, now must come through Noah. God's promises never fail. His hand is mighty to deliver. This is what is said concerning the promises God made to Israel: "Not one of the good promises which the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed: all came to pass. (Joshua 21:45) NASB. The Bible says Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. Noah was saved by God's grace, not because of his integrity, just as we are saved by God's unmerited favor. Noah is a type of Christ, God save through Christ, and He saves Noah's family because of him. God tells Noah what He is going to do. Noah believed God. Christian are to believe God, the only sure source we have of, about God is His Word. Christians must believe the Word. There is no middle ground, we may not understand all of it. We may be confused about some of it. Because we believe it is the Word of God, we pursue it with vigor, we seek to know and learn. We hold it in high esteem.

One important point to see here is that this is the first place where God expresses His covenant, He tells Noah "I will establish my covenant with you." (verse 18) The word used here is not to imply that God is doing something new, but the confirmation to Noah of a covenant already in existence, Noah salvation from the flood is an example of God's covenant grace and mercy.(Reformation Study Bible).  Noah builts the Ark and gathered some of the animals to form the foundation of life in the world, once the Flood is over. On the day that it starts to rain Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth and their wives entered the Ark and it rained on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and all the animals as God had commanded entered in and the LORD shut him in. The Bible says "Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds, they were all blotted out from the earth. And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.  This is a sad condition, sin has worked in man's earth in such a way that God had to destroy all life. This is like the Day of the Lord, which the New Testament calls the day of judgment, which will be also God's judgment against man and his sin, just as Noah was the Savior for the eight, Jesus Christ is the Savior of those who trust in Him. Once the Flood is over and Noah and his family are saved, Noah builds and altar to the LORD and God blesses Noah and as He told Adam He tells Noah to be fruitful and multiply. God promises to not destroy the earth again with water. He gives the sign of the rainbow to confirm it. In the latter portion of chapter nine we are told just as Adam was our original father it now tells us that from the sons of Noah all the people of the earth came forth. It also tells us that Ham was very disrespectful to Noah, who had gotten drunk and was laying naked in his tent, Ham looks upon Noah with scorn and tells his brothers about, both sinful acts, being disrespectful to his father. Most of us have heard of the curse of Ham, but we can see from Scripture that the curse was on Canaan and not Ham. This concept of Ham and all of his descendants being cursed has lead to the fallacy of racial superiority and as a justification of the enslavement and wicked treatment of Black people in the United States. Although some of Ham's descendants became some of the enemies of Israel (Egypt, Philistia, Assyria, and Babylon) , there is no justification of portraying Black people as cursed of God and doomed to servant hood. That's an attempt by ignorant people to try to justify there own wickedness. Further proof shows that Canaan was Caucasian  (Reformation Bible Study)  The point is that all people stand under that curse of sin, irregardless of race, all races of people will go to hell who are not in Jesus Christ. God is not a racist. Revelation tells us that from every tongue and tribe, will come the people of God. So learn about the true God, and don't feel inferior to someone or superior to someone because of your race. God's truth gives us the right perspective, get in line with the Word. Racism has been a tool of Satan that always works. Only the grace of Gos and His Holy Spirit can break that sin.

Blessings!