I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They’re really saying I love you
I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world
Jazz master Louis Armstrong’s hit “What a Wonderful World” reached the charts in the winter of 1968, which turned out to be a very turbulent year in the United States, with racial and political tension reaching a fever pitch. It was a presidential election year. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated that spring and summer, and there was growing civil and racial unrest with urban riots and Viet Nam War protests. In the midst of all this, songwriter Bob Thiele saw Armstrong as “the perfect ambassador to restore race relations” during America’s tumultuous summer.
Yet since the 1950s, Armstrong had been charged by some as being an “Uncle Tom,” catering to white America with his music. But Armstrong’s appeal at the time extended to all races, and the hope was that a 66-year-old singing a tune of goodwill on the airwaves might make a difference. Armstrong also felt the song needed to be heard to promote a sense of hope and optimism. At one performance, he reportedly introduced the song with this explanation:
“Some of you young folks been saying to me: ‘Hey, Pops – what do you mean, what a wonderful world? How about all them wars all over the place, you call them wonderful?’ …But how about listening to old Pops for a minute? Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing to it, and all I’m saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance…”
When we read Genesis 1-2, we see that God really did create a wonderful world! But when we get to Genesis 3, we see what people started doing to it. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Sin entered the world and brought suffering and death to the human race.
And in Genesis 4-5, we see how sin infiltrated the human family and decimated Adam and Eve’s descendants. Can you imagine the parental agony they must have felt when they found out that their firstborn son, Cain, killed his own brother in cold blood? Can you imagine their angst as they watched Cain defy God’s grace and completely abandon God by turning to his own egotistical endeavors? Can you image their aguish as they watched all of their descendants in Cain’s line drift further and further away from God and rely on their own human inventions and ingenuity? Can you imagine how their hearts must have broken when they heard the news that their great-grandson Lamech had embraced a life of bigamy and bloodshed? Can you imagine the guilt that weighed on their souls as they watched the world become more wicked with every generation?
When we read the beginning of the Bible, it causes us to wonder: How could such a wonderful world become such wicked world so quickly? How could such a wonderful world become so wicked that God actually regretted creating it? How could such a wonderful world become so wicked that God would decide to wash it away in a great flood? This is what the world has come to in Genesis 6!
1.) God’s View of the Wicked World (1-5)
Genesis 6 begins with the ominous report, “When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.” This implies that, as the population of the world increased, so did its wickedness. Sin multiplied as the human race expanded across the face of the earth. This is evidenced by the fact that the Sons of God married any of the daughters of men they wanted. But what does this statement mean? Who are the Sons of God? Who are the daughters of men? And what was so wrong about them marrying each other?
This is one of the most perplexing verses in the whole Bible. Over the centuries, three predominant interpretations have been proposed. The early church fathers believed that “the Sons of God referred to fallen angels who overstepped their boundaries by copulating with human women, thus producing a race of giants called the Nephilim. The medieval church believed that the Sons of God referred to the men in the godly line of Seth and the daughters of men referred to the women in the sinful line of Cain, thus polluting the pure line of Seth. Most modern interpreters believe that the Sons of God refers to a dynasty of royal tyrants who succeed Lamach in the line of Cain. All three interpretations have merit and can be supported by the Hebrew grammar.
Without getting bogged down in the weeds of biblical interpretation, let me just say that I believe that the third view is most likely correct—that “the Sons of God” refers to the wicked royal successors of Lamach in the corrupt line of Cain. They were men of great power and influence—nobles, aristocrats, and princes—who married girls outside their social status and took great numbers of them in their harems. These “divine kings” were supposed to administer justice, but instead they claimed for themselves to be deity, and violated the divine order by forming royal harems. They twisted God’s marriage pattern of one man and one woman in a one flesh relationship by taking multiple women for their wives—as many as they wanted. These powerful men preyed on vulnerable women and sexually exploited them for their own selfish purposes.
The offspring of these marriages, the Nephilim, may have become famous and powerful, but they were not god-kings. They were human flesh, and they would die in due time, like the rest of the human race. Once again, human beings had overstepped their boundaries, trying to become gods unto themselves, trying to achieve immortality on their own. Thus, humanity took another step away from God and delved even deeper into wickedness. (Ross 183) In response to the increasing wickedness in the world, God reduced the human lifespan to 120 years.
Verse 5 sums up just how wicked the world had become: “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”
As we consider how wickedness increased as the population multiplied before the great flood, we should not be surprised by the increasing wickedness that we see in our world today. As time goes on, do you think our world is getting better or worse? Most people think it is getting worse. In America, we don’t have to look any further than the rise of terrorism, school shootings, the opioid epidemic, relentless racism, human trafficking, economic corruption, and political dissension. What a national disgrace when our politicians refuse s to shake each other’s hands and tear up each other’s speeches.
And what about sexual exploitation? When I read this passage and see how these wealthy and powerful men exploited vulnerable women to satisfy their own perverted passions, I think to myself: “I sure am glad this doesn’t happen anymore!” I hope you catch my sarcasm! Harvey Weinstein, Jeffery Epstein, Prince Andrew are just the most recent figures to get caught, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. This type of exploitation happens all over the world every day—it happens right here in our own community! But just as he did before the flood, God sees all of this wickedness in his wonderful world.
2.) God’s Judgment of the Wicked World (6-7)
In verses 6-7, we find one of the most tragic statements in the whole Bible: “And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the 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 birds of heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” The author of Genesis portrays God’s sorrow in anthropomorphic terms, using human emotions to describe God’s remorse over the world he created. God’s heart was so grieved by all the evil in the world that he regretted creating it in the first place. And to uphold his attribute of justice, he decides to bring judgement upon the people who were defiling his wonderful world. He decrees to wipe them from the face of the earth.
It’s like a great artist who creates a beautiful painting and hangs it high for everyone to enjoy, but then a gang of vandals breaks in, rips it off the wall, smashes it with mallets, mutilates it with machetes. Then artist walks in and finds her masterpiece defaced on the floor. It’s still a painting—there are still remnants of beauty—but it is unrecognizable compared to what it once was. As she sobs, she thinks about all of the creative energy, all the hours of labor, and the fact that she put all of her heart and soul into that piece of art. Now it lies before her desecrated, bludgeoned by the very people it was meant to bless. And she is so overwhelmed with sorrow that she regrets ever creating the masterpiece.
Put yourself in the artist’s place for a moment—imagine the pain you would feel if someone pointlessly decimated your greatest masterpiece. This is exactly how God felt! After he created the wonderful world, he created the human race in his own image—it was his greatest work! But the creation rebelled against the creator—human beings turned away from God and began destroying God’s image in each other through various forms of wickedness—deception, murder, independence, sexual exploitation, and the list goes on.
As in the days of Noah, God is grieved by all of the wickedness in the world today! God’s heart breaks every time he sees us lying, coercing, bullying, manipulating, defrauding, and abusing—physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, financial abuse, and sexual abuse. God himself is afflicted every time we afflict one another.
We must remember that God’s declaration of judgment prior to the Great Flood was a precursor to the Great Judgment that will take place when Jesus returns. The Bible tells us that we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and answer for our wicked deeds! We are all guilty of sin against God and against our fellow human beings—we are all guilty of turning God’s wonderful world into a wicked world. If it wasn’t for God’s grace revealed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we would all be doomed! But thank God for his grace, both then and now!
3.) God’s Grace in the Midst of the Wicked World (8)
Speaking of God’s grace, notice how this passage ends—not in doom, but in hope. In the midst of divine judgment, verse 8 arrests our attention with the word “but.” Thank God for this little word that shines a ray of light amid the darkness. As God decreed a just and fair punishment for the wickedness of the world, he extended his grace to the human race through a man named Noah, who found favor in God’s eyes. Neither Noah nor anyone else deserved God’s favor, but he gave it to them anyway. As we will soon learn in the rest of Genesis 6 and 7, although God judged the world through the Great Flood, he had a plan to save the human race through Noah and his family.
Just as God extended grace to the human race in the Old Testament, so he has offered his grace to all of us through his Son Jesus Christ. The truth is that we all have wicked hearts—we have all done wicked deeds—we have to contributed to the wickedness in the world. Our sinful attitudes and actions have caused God so much pain and grief. Like the people in Noah’s day, we all deserve God’s righteous judgment! We deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth! But thanks be to God for his grace that he has offered us through his Son Jesus Christ, who suffered on the cross and died in our place. Jesus endured God’s judgment for our sin so that we wouldn’t have to!
Back in 1968, people asked Louis Armstrong how he could sing “What a Wonderful World” with so much racism, civil unrest, and war raging. When we look around our world today, many of us would ask the same question. But may we always remember that Jesus died on the cross so that this wicked world can one day be restored to the wonderful world it was meant to be!