The Day God Repented

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Have you ever done something, then immediately wished you hadn’t? Maybe you said something you couldn’t take back and in that moment you felt the weight of regret. Pastor Nick Gatzke explains why this struggle is not a symptom, but the diagnosis.

As we’ve been going through Genesis these number of weeks, we see again and again the question that’s being introduced with greater intensity at seemingly every juncture of this book, and that is, is this cosmic project of God beyond repair? I mean, what God made was perfect. The people he made were perfect, but sin entered the world and spread like a cancer. The curse came into its effect and death began to reign. And as we look at how this whole story of Genesis 1-11 is continuing to unfold, if we’re paying close attention, we’re beginning to wonder, is God’s project for earth and humanity beyond repair?

And the question looms largely over the text for today. So turn with me to Genesis chapter six. Today, we’re looking at a fairly short passage, Genesis chapter six, verses one through eight. But it’s difficult in a number of ways, as you’ll see, interesting in a number of ways, and has some important insight for how God works. Genesis chapter six, verses one to eight, this is what it says. “It says, when man began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years.”

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 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. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So 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 the birds of heaven, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

I’ve entitled this morning’s message, The Day God Repented. The most striking part of Genesis chapter six verses one to eight is not the thing that fascinates people so often, and that is this idea of the sons of God and the daughters of men. The striking part of Genesis chapter six is not the Nephilim, whoever they were, the ancient men of renown, the heroes of a day gone by. The most striking part about this chapter is found in verse six. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on earth, and it grieved him to his heart. The word here for regret means to relent or to turn, to be sorry, to grieve, and to lament. The idea here is that in some ways God repented for making man and woman. Think about that for a minute, because that causes all kinds of other questions for us, doesn’t it? Like, does God actually repent? I mean, he’s God. God isn’t supposed to repent, is he? He’s perfect in all of his ways. Psalm 18:30 reminds us, says, “This God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord proves true. He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.” Further, we see again and again and again throughout the Bible that God is unchanging in his person and he doesn’t change his mind.

So there’s a sense when we see as we try to understand who God is and how he works that the biblical picture of God is that to be God means that you don’t repent and you don’t have to repent because you’re God, and so now you get the tension of Genesis 6. The tension is that to be God means that everything you do is perfect in its ways, and yet at the same time we see this expression of regret that God has about making humankind. This regret for the crowning achievement of his creation, the ones who were made in his image, the ones who were given purpose and work and promise and blessing. And in a certain sense, in a certain sense anyway, God repents.

But as Numbers 23 reminds us, God’s repentance is not like man’s repentance. I mean, his repentance isn’t due to sin. His regret is not because of a lack of foresight or poor planning on his part. I mean, after all, he knows everything that’s going to happen before it happens. That’s part of the advantage of standing outside of time, isn’t it? God’s repentance is a way of expressing a different attitude or disposition toward the circumstances at hand than he had before. He wasn’t taken off guard by the fact that sin was so rapidly spreading through creation. But as he ordained events of history to come about, so too he allows his mood or his disposition to align with these circumstances. And as the second half of verse six tells us, this mood that we see is grief. It’s grief that cuts to the very core of God’s heart. So what causes God this much grief? Well, we see two things in chapter six that point us to understanding this. The first is found in verses one to four, and that is this dynamic with the sons of God and their actions. The second is even more pointed, and that is the dynamics of the human heart.

And before we get into this description of the sons of God who take the daughters of men and they give birth to the Nephilim, this is a topic of great interest in conversation for people for a long time and there are a number of different views out there. But as I present just two of them this morning, make sure that you don’t miss the major points. And that is the sons of God in their actions and rebellion against God have caused such grief to him that he withdraws his presence and limits the very days of humans on earth. There are four major views for who the sons of God are. I’m gonna just give two for the sake of time this morning. And these are the two that carry the most credence.

The first is that these sons of God, Genesis chapter six, verses one and two, look with me, it says in verse two, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any that they chose.” Going down to verse four, “the Nephilim were on the earth those days, also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and bore children with them.” Some scholars believe that the sons of God is simply a reference to the kings of old who saw not just one woman that they found attractive but saw many that they found attractive and as a result, they drew to themselves harems of women for the very first time in human history. The Nephilim then were some of the offspring of these sons of God who were particularly unique in their skills and abilities. The second view is the one that holds a little bit more biblical weight to it, but it’s a lot messier when you begin to unravel it. And that is that the sons of God here are fallen angels and fallen angels are actually demons. Why do we think that? Well, we think that because the other places in the Bible where the term sons of God are used, particularly in the book of Job, it always refers to angels. And what happens then if these indeed are angels is that these angels who would become demons left their appointed positions. They engaged in illicit activities with women on earth and they spawned these spiritually empowered beings called the Nephilim.

And the sin or the rebellion aspect here then is that in the heavenly realms, these angels do not trust God in their given roles and positions. They break ranks with him and they will ultimately be punished and judged by him. We see this referred to in a couple other places in the New Testament. In the book of Jude, verse six, it talks about angels who leave their position of authority and try to assume another position. It says “the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.”

Likewise, 2 Peter, verses four and five, seems to allude to this very reality, the power of sin and the allure of sin, even within the heavenly realms for created beings. How sin takes over the world and yet God shows grace to this one man, Noah. But he refers to the angels as well. He says, “For God did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to the chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. If he did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” So what causes God grief?

Well, we see in the first part of Genesis six that sinful rebellion against his order and rebellion against himself causes God tremendous grief, so much grief that it cuts to the core of his heart. Now, the second part of this grief is maybe even a little bit more pointed for us today. And that is we see in verse five that the human heart, the condition of your heart, my heart, has the potential to cause God grief. Verse five, “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.” Continually.

Evil had taken control of society at large, and it had taken control of the individual hearts of humankind. And in case you didn’t get just how pervasive and profound this dynamic actually is, look again with me at verse five. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great. So wickedness was great, every intention was evil, and it was evil continually. There’s not a lot of wiggle room here. The depths of sin had taken control completely.

And most of us think that God’s response to sin, that his immediate response to sin is anger, don’t we? That’s what we’re taught from a very young age sometimes. But here we see that God’s immediate response to sin is not anger, it’s grief, it’s sadness, it’s sorrow, and it’s overwhelming in its sentiment. It’s not just sadness, it’s prolonged sadness, and it’s not just disconnected sadness, it’s combined with tremendous personal hurt attached to it. That is the nature of grief. It’s profound in its nature. It cuts to the core of God’s heart and it’s sinful desires of humankind that causes this type of grief.

Now how, in just the first six chapters of the Bible, can humankind go from being in fellowship with God to being completely evil in every thought of their heart continually? I mean, that is a long road to travel in a very short amount of time. When you think about how people go from a place where they are generally in fellowship with God, maybe struggling with sin, but still in fellowship with God, to a place where every thought of their heart is only evil continually, the answer is pretty simple. How do you go from here to there? If you feed it, it will grow. There are two points of application that I want you to take away from the sermon, and the first one comes in the form of a question. Are you feeding your sinful desires or are you feeding your righteous desires or your godly desires?

Because what you feed will grow. If you don’t fight temptation, but simply feed sinful desires, then know that sinful tendencies will become ever more common in your life. Sin begets sin in this type of way. If you feed it, it’ll grow. It’ll feel normal to you after a while. Conversely, if you are pursuing the things of God or godly desires for your life, then very often these godly desires by the power of the Holy Spirit will grow into further and even greater godly desires. When you feed them, they grow. Which one are you feeding? Because what you feed will grow.

This can be really helpful for us when we’re at that juncture, that crossroads of temptation. When I say, man, I really am thinking about doing this or saying this or pursuing this. I know it’s not quite right, but I really want it in my flesh. Think to yourself, if I feed this, where’s it gonna grow? So what would God do with this grief? This grief that is now deep in its nature, where it’s pervasive among humankind, we see two ways that God responds. And this is where we move toward the conclusion of the message. The first way we see in verse seven. The Lord God, after this grief into his heart said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land.” How does God respond to wickedness? What does his grief lead him to? Judgment.

And to blot something out, there’s a term that’s used elsewhere in the Bible, and it literally means to wipe somebody off the face of the planet with no lingering remnants of their existence left behind. Why would God do that? Because a holy God cannot and will not tolerate sin. And he cannot and will not tolerate ultimately a sinful humanity. And this is a truth that we look at, and we see from the very beginning in Genesis chapter six, and this is a truth that we’ll see in eternity, that in the midst of his holiness, he cannot and will not abide sinful beings forever. And in the meantime, between then and now, he is exercising extreme patience with us.

But here’s the good news, that the totality of his response is not just judgment, but for some people, he provides grace. Look with me at verse eight. We see this terrible story of rebellion, and then a long pause before we see, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. This favor is God’s grace. And after all, I mean, think about it. Noah was a sinful man himself. He lived among a sinful people. There were no real justifiable ways in which God could say he’s significantly different from the rest of them, with the exception of his faith in God. Which we know isn’t really an action. It doesn’t really cause him good graces and such, but God shows grace upon him. Unmerited favor, even though he was among this wicked, wicked people. And so now we start to see what’s going on here, that in response to evil, God judges, he destroys the wicked, but shockingly, the good news is that sometimes he shows grace even to people who don’t deserve it. You really stop to think about the nature of grace, if you understand that at all, it causes me a sigh of relief. And a weight feels like it’s been lifted off of my shoulders.

Grace, favor that I didn’t earn, but something that God gives so generously, that despite my own wicked tendencies and the sinful desires of my heart, that God still takes those who would be his enemies and he makes them his friends. Grace, that is so generous in its dispensing that you cannot out-sin the grace of God, nor should you try. But again and again and again when you fall, you go back and you rely on the fact that this God gives grace. Grace is what you need for fellowship with God. Grace is the only thing that keeps us in the midst of this holy and just and righteous God.

The second application point: the first I gave you a moment ago was just very simply, what are you feeding? Are you feeding, make sure you’re feeding the good things, the righteous things of God, not the evil desires of your heart. The second application is, where do I go when I come to the place where I realize that no matter how good I am, no matter how much I continue to feed the righteous things, that I’m still a sin saturated person? What do I do then? Application number two, you plead for. You beg and you trust in the grace that only God can give you. Friends, this is why we don’t take conversion to Christianity lightly. When somebody casually accepts Christ, it usually means that they have a casual understanding of their sin and almost no understanding of God’s grace.

But to really understand how God saves you and what it means for you going forward, there needs to be some recognition of the depth of despair that our sin creates in us and the overwhelming power of this generous grace that God gives. And he’s trustworthy to give or deliver this grace to everyone who has faith, not just on the day of their salvation, but in ongoing fashion throughout the course of all of their days. God’s response to evil is to destroy the wicked, but shockingly, he gives grace. Enjoy, trust, revel in the grace that he offers so freely to you for your daily living and for your salvation.

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** This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.