The Catastrophe (Flood)
The Story - How the Bible Explains Everything February 8, 2026 Genesis 6-9 Notes
Have you ever looked at the world and wondered, “How bad does it have to get before God does something?” Violence, corruption, moral confusion… it can feel like evil is winning and God is silent. Genesis 6–9 shows us that God is never indifferent to sin, but He is also never absent in mercy.
Moses recorded how God judged the sin and rebellion of humanity by sending a worldwide flood to destroy all the living, yet preserved a remnant by providing an ark of salvation for Noah and his family. We can see how God reveals both His justice and His mercy in the account of the Flood.
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Good morning, church! It's great to be here on a Sunday.
Some of you know this, that we had Sunday on a Saturday two weeks ago. We had Sunday on a Friday last week. But finally Sunday on a Sunday. How about it? And so we're happy to be here today.
We're in part two of our series that we started last week and it's entitled, “How the Bible Explains Everything.” And we're on a twelve- week journey going through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And we won't be able to study every part, but we're going to dip down into the major themes along the way and we're going to show how the Gospel holds it all together, that the Bible is gospel centered, but even more than that, it's Christ centered. We're going to be looking for Christ on every page. And how it's one book.
It may have been written by over 40 authors. It's 66 books written by over 40 authors over a period of 1500 years. But yet it's one unique book that tells one metanarrative, one major story. And the major themes really revolve around four: creation, fall, redemption, restoration. And as we look at it, we'll see that from creation to consummation, the Bible tells one great story of a good and holy God rescuing a broken world through the person of Jesus Christ.
And so today we're going to be looking at the story of the Genesis flood, of Noah's ark and the worldwide flood. Now, a lot of people view this story as being about a big boat, but it's more than that. It's more than a big boat. It's about a big God. And as we're looking at this story, the Bible reveals his justice and his mercy to us in this story.
So let's understand that this isn't a myth. This isn't a fairy tale. This isn't just wallpaper for your child's nursery. It's a true story. The prophets quoted it, the apostles affirmed it, and Jesus himself believed it.
As we look in the book of Matthew, he was in Matthew chapter 24 talking about the end times. He says this, Matthew 24:37-39 (ESV) 37 “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”
So Jesus affirms this story as a true story, as an historical event. Now, I believe that the flood was a literal worldwide global deluge that destroyed all life and reshaped the earth geologically. A book that I would refer you to, I don't have time to go into great detail, is a book written by Dr. Henry Morris and Dr. John Whitcomb called “The Genesis Flood.” This book was a great help to me when I was at my university in the late 70s, early 80s, and as a young man that was encountering a lot of atheistic professors. And it helped me to take a strong scientific view while affirming the scripture.
And so I would recommend this book to you, “The Genesis Flood,” if you don't have this one in your Christian library. Now, people doubting the flood account is nothing new, but it's not the only thing that people question today. Perhaps you've even asked this question. Have you ever looked at the world and wondered, how much longer will God put up with this?
God, when are you going to do something about all the violence, all of the division, all the moral decay in our world today? God, where are you? And so that's a question that believers will ask God, have you forgotten us? Do you remember your promises? Well, we are in Genesis 6:9, and we're going to be looking at certain excerpts of these chapters, chapters six through nine of Genesis.
We'll see that God is never indifferent to sin, but he's also never absent in mercy. He's never indifferent to sin, but he's also never absent in mercy. In Genesis 6 through 9, Moses recorded how God judged the sin and rebellion of the ancient world by sending a worldwide flood to destroy all the living. Yet at the same time, he preserved a remnant, providing an ark of salvation for Noah and his family. And we can see in this story how God's justice and mercy are put on display for us to consider.
And as we look at the text today, I think we'll see three ways the flood account reveals both God's justice and his mercy to us today. Now, my pattern today is we have a lot of scripture to cover. So as we did last week, I'm going to read some and then we'll comment on it and so forth. And we'll take a break after each reading. And so let's dig in.
We'll start with chapter six, and I have certain readings that we've put in your bulletin. We put them on the screen and we'll dip down and get some of each chapter, starting at verse five. Genesis 6:5-8, 13-19 (ESV) 5 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. 6 And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 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 the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. … 13 And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
14 Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. 16 Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above,
and set the door of the ark on its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.
18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.
This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three ways that the flood account reveals both God's justice and mercy. Now here's the first way:
1. By showing the depth of our sin and the height of His grace.
By showing the depth of our sin and the height of his grace. I would have you first take note of how this story shows us the depth of humanity's sin and separation from God. And I would also have you take note of God's response. Verse 5 says, “The LORD saw…” You might wonder about that sometimes.
Lord, do you see this? Do you see what's going on on planet Earth? Do you see what's going on? Or maybe it's more particular for you. There's something going on in your life and you're wondering, does the Lord see me?
Do you see my situation? Know this, my friends, the Lord sees. He's omniscient. He's an all knowing God.
5 “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.” It wasn't small, it was large. It was beyond what he could allow. It got to the point where a holy God had to respond. And not only were their actions wicked, but their attitude was.
It says, 5 “...and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Even when they weren't acting evilly and wickedly, they were thinking about their next evil act. And so God saw that man was utterly wicked. Now how does he respond? He saw this.
And then we see in verse 6, “And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth…” It's an interesting phrase, the word regretted. And then again down in verse seven where it says, “...for I am sorry that I have made them.” It's the same Hebrew word. It's translated regretted here in the ESV and then later sorry in the King James.
It's translated repented. It's the same Hebrew word to regret, to be sorry, to repent of. Not to repent as we do of sin, but to change your mind about a thing like a potter who made a pot where the clay had a problem with it, it had an inaccuracy to it that would ruin the pot so that the potter would then just put it back into the clay and put the water back in and mix it back together and start over. He regretted that he had made man.
Such was the depth of his sin. He was sorry that he made man. And then we look at his deeper response in verse 6, “He regretted that he made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart.” It grieved him to his heart.
Friends, until we get to the place where we recognize that our sin has grieved a holy God, we haven't really understood the grace of God until we get to that place where we as believers recognize our rebellion, our sin, no matter how small, no matter how great, it breaks the Father's heart. It grieves him. And I used to hear the old preachers back in the day when I was growing up. They'd say, “When you preach, you got to get them lost before you can get them saved.”
And we live in a world today that loves a therapeutic sermon, a feel good sermon, a sermon that would make you feel good about you, but the scripture comes to you and it comes to you today. First of all, you'll never recognize your need for a savior until you recognize your need that you're drowning and distant from God because of a sinful heart that we're all born with. We're all born with a human condition called sin. And it grieves the heart of God. Have you gotten to the place, believer, where you recognize that you grieve God when You sin an unbeliever.
Have you gotten to the place where you're willing to admit that you're a sinner? We see in this story God's response, a holy God's response, his feeling about it and his response to it that he judges sin because he's a holy God. He was sorry that he made man. But then at the same time, at the same time that we see the depth of our sin, we also see in verse 8,a “But.” And it's nice to get this particular contraction to find a but here.
8 “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” We find here in the Bible, in chapter six of Genesis, the first occurrence of God's grace. The word favor and grace are synonymous in the scripture. It's often translated one or the other. Indeed, when we define grace, we define it like this.
We say that grace is God's unmerited favor. Unmerited, meaning you can't earn it that God bestows it upon you. And we find that salvation of humanity came through one man named Noah. And so we see here a Christological type. What do I mean by that?
We see a prefiguring, a foreshadowing of one who is to come. Because as a believer that believes that the Bible is one book, I look for Jesus on every page, and I look for where God's already given us little crumbs along the way to find the path to Jesus. And so we see here the salvation of humanity comes through one man. And through this one man, his household is saved.
And so we see later in verse 18, as we just read, he said that you, your sons, your wife and their wives will be saved. Why? Because Noah found favor with the Lord. So we see not only the depth of our sin, but we also see the height of God's grace, of his favor that he shows to Noah. We have details here.
Let's not forget them. Verse 13, he says, “...Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” He's going to destroy all breathing life except for that which is within the ark of God. Not only that, but he's going to destroy the earth. Which I think speaks to something more than just humanity, that this was a catastrophic event that impacted not only all that was living, but the geology of our planet was affected.
And I think that we see this, that the Earth has changed. And even though many modern scientists from the time of Lyell, who was a big influence upon Darwin, who purported the theory of uniformitarianism, that you could see what happened in the past based on observations in the present. That's not what we see in the Bible. What we see in the Bible is a catastrophic explanation for the way the world looks today. And so he says, I will destroy the breathing life as well as the earth.
And so that says more than what we sometimes suppose, I think. He gives details about the size of this ark. In the ESV, we have it in cubits. A cubit was normally measured from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.
On average, for a man, that's around 18 inches if you do the math. The ark was to be built 450 ft long, 75 ft wide and 45 ft tall. Now, here's a photo of my son Stephen and his family. They went to this ark experience or this ark encounter in Williamston, Kentucky, where they've built an ark to full size or to the size that the Bible describes. And it's pretty overwhelmingly large, isn't it?
It's taller than a four story building. And so I want you to get your mind around it. This is not the Lego ark that you bought for your kids. This is a historical event described by the scripture where Noah was to build it. And it took place over a period of 100 years.
We find in chapter five, we didn't read it today, but Noah was around 500 years old when God gave him the word that was coming about the flood. And the flood comes, as we'll find in chapter seven, when he was 600 years old. And so the New Testament says that Noah was preaching during this time. And so there were 600, or excuse me, 100 years from 500 to 600, where I believe Noah was preaching, repent for God's about to judge the earth. And a lot of people are going, boy, that's something you're building there, Noah, crazy Noah.
And no one believed. And so we have this reality of this story that has great detail. And then he says this to Noah. He says in verse 18, I will establish my covenant with you.
I'm going to make a covenant with you. The Hebrew word is “bᵊrîṯ,” which has the idea of to cut. It literally means to cut. Many have noticed that our modern marketplace way of talking about making a contract is we say we cut a deal. I'm going to cut a deal with you.
Which we think references itself all the way back to the Jewish idea of there had to be blood. When a covenant was made, there was a cutting that took place. He says, I'm going to cut a deal with you, Noah. You found favor in my eyes, and I'm going to rescue you. And so we see God's great mercy in view here in his great grace.
The depth of our sinfulness is seen. In the book of Romans, chapter three, we read, Romans 3:10-12, 23 (ESV) “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Romans 3:23 (ESV) “...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Friends, there's not one person in this room who hasn't sinned and been in rebellion against God.
There's only been one sinless person who's ever lived on planet Earth, and that's Jesus Christ. And he came and lived a sinless life and died in our place for our sins. And so we read then In Romans chapter 5, not only the depth of our sinfulness in Romans 3, but the height of God's love and grace in Romans chapter 5, where it says, Romans 5:8 (ESV) “...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is God's mercy in view. Tim Keller says that the Gospel comes bearing both the news of God's justice and grace simultaneously.
He says it like this,“The gospel is this: we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” This is true of the Gospel.
The gospel comes to us and it says, you're a sinner, but Christ has died for your sins. It tells us that we are both sinners, but we are also saved in Jesus. Have you ever bought a diamond at a jewelry store? Have you ever bought some really expensive jewelry? Those of us young men, older men, you probably remember buying an engagement ring, perhaps for your bride.
I remember when I asked my wife to marry me. We headed back to my house in Bristol, Virginia, to tell my mama. We came and told her. Oh, she was thrilled. She loved Robin.
In fact, as time went on, I really think my mama loved Robin better than me. Those of you that know Robin probably understand why. My daddy died when I was 8 years old, and so my mom still had the engagement ring in her jewelry box. She wasn't wearing it anymore. Her fingers had swollen as she'd gotten older.
She wasn't able to wear it. And so we were so tired because we'd stayed up all night. When I asked her to marry me, we were so thrilled. And then we drove all the way to Bristol to be with mom from Radford University. We were both students there.
And my mom just decided on her own. She's so thrilled about Robin. She came out with that engagement ring that my dad had given her and stuck that on Robin's finger. I was like, mom, that was my job.
But fortunately, I was able to do one thing, and that was it didn't fit Robin, so I had to take it away from her. I said, I'm going to have to have that back. And I took it to the jeweler to have it repaired. I remember the jeweler, when he brought it out of the little box, he put out a black velvet cloth on top of the showcase and he put it on there. You know why they do that?
It's so that that gold and that diamond, they just pop off of that black background. And I want you to know something. That's what Jesus is. He's that diamond on that black background. That black background is our sin.
It's the darkness of the fallen world, but it's the purchase of Jesus that shines brightly. I don't fully understand God's plan. I don't understand his sovereignty. But within his perfect plan, he allowed what happened to happen so that the glory would be increased. When we see the diamond of Jesus sitting on the blackness of man's fallenness, that he would rescue us a sinner.
Have you ever treasured God's grace? Well, you'll never treasure it fully if you keep making excuses for your sin, if you keep minimizing it, if you keep saying, I didn't mean to. Somebody else made me do it. You blame it on your parents, you blame it on your peer group, you blame it on the world, you blame it on your addictions, you blame it on whatever you blame it on.
But when you'll finally come to the place and you see the depth of your sin, that you've broken the Father's heart, you've grieved God. When you get to that place where the Holy Spirit is, you feel his grief like we do. And we read about in Ephesians, chapter four, where it talks about how our disunity grieves the Holy Spirit, like someone died. When you get to that place and your heart is broken and you finally repent of your sins, now you're ready, now you're ready to receive a Savior and to fully understand what God has done for you, it's like your sin is the black cloth and Jesus is the diamond. The problem isn't the world.
The problem isn't somebody else. Until you come to the place. You say the problem's me. I'm the problem. Lord, save me, a sinner. And then mercy comes and you find favor with the Lord.
Let's keep reading. We're going to look at chapter 7, verse 11. Genesis 7:11-21 (ESV) 11 “In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.
16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in. 17 The flood continued for forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.
18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. 21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind.”
2. By showing the certainty of His judgment and the security of His provision.
We see God's judgment and mercy on display here by seeing the certainty of his judgment that be sure your sins will find you out. Be sure that God is not lapsing, that he will judge and that he will save those he's promised. Notice the word prevailed here three times the waters prevailed.
And so it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, the scripture says. And then it says in verses 19, 20 and 21, prevailed, prevailed, prevailed. So it rained for that period of time. And then as we kept reading down into verse 24, we didn't read that far. It says the waters lingered for another 150 days.
The waters covered the entire planet, like even Mount Everest. Well, I'm not even sure Mount Everest had come into being. Yet I think there's the possibility that the geology of the world has changed. And so perhaps at this point Mount Everest was being formed by the activity. Perhaps what we see in verse 11, where it says the fountains of the great deep burst forth.
And so something happened so that the greatest amount of the water seemed to burst forth from under the earth somehow, and it was stored in a certain way that caused a disruption to the continental shelf, and it even caused the formation of the continents and of the modern mountains. And so perhaps one of the best explanations of the Grand Canyon is not eons and eons of time, but a sudden catastrophic event. And so we see a bursting forth of the water, but also the heavens were opened and it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. And some would say, how in the world is this possible? Again, I would refer to Dr. Henry Morris and others who have talked about the possibility of a vapor canopy surrounding the earth prior to the flood that somehow was extinguished.
And so it just, it changed the whole way so that prior to that, perhaps the earth was surrounded by this vapor canopy that kept a constant temperature and would have allowed for longevity and for different types of life around the world than what we see post flood. Some have even suggested that perhaps the first rain that was ever seen on planet Earth was at the time of the flood, that the earth had been fed by dew prior to this. Now, some of this, as I'm saying, is supposition, but it's also based on a different view. Rather than the view of uniformitarianism, it's the view of catastrophism, the idea that a catastrophe happened in the past that is the best explanation for the world we see today.
So I say all of this to those of you that are young people, that are still in the school system and still on the internet, believing that the Internet will give you the answers to all your questions. I would say to you as a believer, trust God's word. All truth is God's truth. And the world just hasn't caught up to God's truth yet. And I'm not sure I'm quoting this accurately, but I believe it was Einstein who once commented that all the scientists were climbing the mount of truth and one day they would get to its apex only to find out that the prophets had already been there a long time, that the word of God had already been there.
And I think that we don't have to make an apology to science. I think science is a great friend of Christianity and that the idea that the world makes sense and that it's not chaotic and without meaning gives us the best prerequisite for good science. Well, I chased a rabbit and I'm going to let him go now. I'm going to come back. I just said that for the young people because I don't want your faith to be demolished or challenged by the world.
We notice some things here that I want to bring out - the 40 days and 40 nights we see repeated throughout scripture. Forty is an important number in the Bible. They have 40 years in the wilderness. We know that Jesus, when he goes under the deluge of water at his baptism, goes out for 40 days and 40 nights in order to be tempted in the wilderness of Satan.
We know that this is an ongoing kind of observation that we can make. And so we look at the scripture and I want us to think about now, how do we see Jesus in chapter seven? Well, let's look again at verse 16, “...And the LORD shut him in.” So I'm looking for the activity of God we looked for earlier.
The Lord saw, the Lord regretted, The Lord was sorry. The Lord destroyed, the Lord sent the rain. But we see what he does for Noah? Noah's obedient. He goes into the ark that God has given him the detailed instructions to make.
And I don't know what that door is like. It was on the side of the ark it says in the scripture. Maybe it was like a ramp so that you could walk up it. It's probably really heavy.
I don't know how you would seal it so the water doesn't get in it. I don't understand it. The Bible's not detailed enough. But for whatever reason, here's the detail: we know Noah didn't shut that door.
God did. And when I look at the Book of John, chapter 10, I see Jesus say, “I am the door to the sheep. No man comes to the Father except by me. I'm the gate. I'm the door.”
And then he goes on in chapter 10:27 that says, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all c ; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30I and the Father are one.” He says, I'm the door. I'm the lock on the door. And the Father's the deadbolt.
He's the one who has sealed us in, safe in the ark. And so he's the door. But he's not only the door of the ark, he's the ark itself. He's the ark itself. Jesus is our ark.
We can look at this passage and first of all, and recognize that God will not let sin go on forever. He's patient. But there's a certainty to judgment. It says in 2 Peter 2:5, 9 (NLT) “And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and the seven others in his family.
Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood. … So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment.” Peter affirms the Noah story, and he says it points to the final judgment, which is just as sure. I guarantee you, during those hundred years when Noah was praying, preaching, and the people were laughing at him, they were thinking, that'll never happen.
And here, Peter tells us, just as sure as that was in history, it really happened. Judgment day is coming for sure. Jesus is our ark. And are you in Jesus? I remember what Paul says in Romans 8:1.
He says, Romans 8:1 (ESV) “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Notice what it says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Christ is the ark. He's the ark of God.
Are you in Christ? Is Christ in you? And you in Christ? There's only one door into the ark, and that's Christ. He says, I'm the door.
There's no middle ground. You're either in Christ or you're still under God's judgment. When the rains of judgment fell upon planet earth, it fell upon the ark. But those in the ark were found safe. And God's wrath fell upon Jesus on the cross.
He said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And all the sin and all the wrath of God, all the judgment fell on him. But those that are in him are found safe in the ark, which is Christ Jesus. Well, let's keep reading. We're going to pick up some verses from chapter 8 and 9.
Genesis 8:1,6-11, 18-21. 9:8-9, 12-15 (ESV) 1 ‘But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. … 6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth.
8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days,
and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. …
18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.
Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. … 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, … 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” Well, let's pause there and conclude with this final way. This third way that we can see God's justice and mercy in view is:
3. By showing the faithfulness of His covenant and the patience of His mercy.
Notice in chapter eight, verse one, “But God remembered…” What a strange, strange thing to consider. “But God remembered Noah…”Is God a forgetful God? Did God have a lapse?
I don't know if you're like me. As I'm getting older. Seems like I get more forgetful. Sometimes I'll be in one room and I'll think, I need to go get something, and I'll go to the other end of the house to get it. And by the time I get to that room, I can't remember why I'm in that room.
And so I'll stand there and look around for a minute and go, hmm. And then I'll go back to the original room, hoping that whatever memory I had was still sitting back there in the original room. You're laughing because it's happened to you. Well, God doesn't have that problem. Our God is an all knowing God.
He's not a forgetful God. So why does it say, “But God remembered…” Whenever the Bible says God remembered, it's not showing that God is forgetting and then suddenly remembering. No, it's in God's covenantal time, his perfect timing.
He's acting on the thing he has promised for us. It looks like we're looking up from the bottom, looking up at heaven, thinking, it seems like God forgot us. Seems like he forgot the promise of his coming. Where is he? And then one day we'll go, well, God finally remembered.
Well, God didn't forget. It just wasn't time yet. And so from our perspective, we feel like, well, he finally remembered. But no, he always remembered. He finally has acted.
He's called it to mind.
There was some suspension, there was some delay, which was actually for our good because it would cause us to lean in closer and to call out louder to him so that when he does finally act, we are ready to receive. And when he acts, how does he act? It says that he made a wind blow over the earth. This is how he decided to sweep the waters clean of the earth. He got out a giant blower, like I do on my driveway, except much bigger.
And he blew off the whole earth. With what? The Hebrew word used here for wind is “rûaḥ.” It could be translated as wind, as it is here. It could be translated breath, as it is when God took the dust of the earth and rûaḥ into the dust of the earth and made man a living soul.
It could be translated as breath. Or it could be translated spirit, as it often is. So we see a recreation of the earth taken at this point, in a way. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void.
And the spirit hovered over the deep.” The rûaḥ hovered over. And so there was a separation at a later point between the land and the water that we see in the original creation. And here it's happening again. And it's the spirit of God, it's the breath of God, the wind of God acting here.
And so we see these two birds. It's an unusual story. There's a raven and a dove. He releases the raven first, and the raven is an unclean bird. In Jewish understanding, it's a bird they're not allowed to eat.
It's unclean; it represents impurity, and it does not return. He lets that bird go, it doesn't come back. I think it was Dr. Spurgeon who commented that the raven is like a worldly person. A raven. I don't know if you've ever noticed this.
You'd be driving down the road and you see something dead on the side of the road. You'll often see ravens because they'll eat dead things. And Dr. Spurgeon took note that perhaps the raven never returned because there were floating carcasses upon the waters and it could eat and find its own way out there. It didn't have to come back.
And then he took note that the dove had to come back because it's a clean bird. In Jewish understanding, it's considered a clean bird, a symbol, an emblem of purity. And it had to come back to the ark. And he goes on to say that. Are you a raven or a dove? Because if you're worldly, you'll go and feast on the worldly things and you'll be happy out there.
But if you're a believer, if you're a dove, you won't be satisfied out there. You'll always come back to the ark, which is Jesus. You'll return; you'll have to. You won't be able to stay out there because you won't be able to feed on what you once fed on. That's a good sermon all to itself.
I thought I'd preach it a little bit myself.
And then the dove returns with, finally, after a second attempt, with an olive leaf in his beak. And he comes back, which is evidence that the waters are receding and life is being restored. And when Augustine of Hippo looked at this and Tertullian from the early centuries of the early Church fathers looked at it, they began to talk about the dove being an emblem of peace and an olive branch being that which you offer as an emblem of being at peace. And so this bird comes back.
We know that the dove also points to what happens after Jesus is baptized under his deluge, under the flood, that he goes under as a representative in our place. And he comes up and the Holy Spirit descends upon him like a dove. Oh, I love this Old Testament and how Jesus fulfills all of it in the New Testament. And then we see the faithfulness of his covenant in that he did not forget his covenant. He remembers.
And then we see the bow in the cloud. The word bow could easily be translated as the kind of bow, archery bow. It's the same word that he puts in the sky. It's almost as if the Father said, there's no more war between me now because I've decided to make a covenant through Noah. And he takes his bow and he hangs it up in the clouds.
I have a longer reading here I want to give you from second Peter, but I want you to see it because I think we tend to fall into the same trap of this idea that God is somehow not going to somehow judge, that he's going to forget his covenant. Here's what Peter observes. Apparently this was already happening in Peter's day. He says, 2 Peter 3:3-7 (NLT) 3 “Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors,
everything has remained the same since the world was first created.” 5 They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. 6 Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. 7 And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire.
They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed. 8 But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake.
He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.” We see that he's not forgotten his covenant. He's not forgotten his promise to judge. But he neither has forgotten his mercy. And he's being patient.
And our timing is not his timing. God, have you forgotten? No. God has remembered. He has remembered.
We live in the rainbow years. We live in the time when God has shed his grace upon us. But there's a day coming when the door of grace will be shut. God will close the door, and then a day of judgment will follow. It's just as sure as the sun coming up tomorrow.
Now we know. The flood shows us. This story shows us God does act. But before he brings judgment, he offers and provides a way of mercy. Before the ark door closes, before that day comes.
And that day surely is coming for some of us sooner than others, because no man knoweth the hour or the day but the Lord himself. Why not enter the ark? Why not be assured that you are in Christ, repent of your sins. Recognize that you've grieved God. Confess your sins, repent and turn to the Savior.
Let's pray.
Lord, thank you for Jesus. He is our ark.
He is the door to knowing you and being right with you. He's the one that took your wrath and judgment upon himself that we might receive your acceptance and eternal life. I pray for that person that's here today under my hearing. You've never admitted that you're a sinner. You've never confessed your sins and recognized how you've grieved God.
Would you do it right now and say, lord, forgive me, a sinner. Have mercy on me, a sinner, and recognize your salvation. Praying Lord, I believe that Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for me and that he was raised from the grave and that he lives today. Come, forgive me of my sins. Make me a child of God.
I want to follow you all the days of my life. If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, the Lord will save you. Others are here today and maybe you're a young person and maybe your faith has been challenged by something you've read on the Internet or something in the school classroom. I'm just praying for you right now. Lord, help undergird our minds so that we have a biblical worldview that can stand against the arrows of lies and false teaching in this world and help us not to be like ravens who feed upon this of the world, but to be like the dove who always returns to the ark, which is Jesus. For it's in his name we pray. Amen.
Audio
Alright, church, it's good to see you this morning. Very thankful you're here today. We are in part two of a series we're calling the story where we're going through bites of the Bible, if you will, some of the, probably for you, some of the more famous stories of scripture. But we're going to be digging deep to see just how this big grand narrative of scripture really tells us everything about what it means to be human, what it means to be a part of what God's doing, from creation all the way to consummation, from restoration. All of it is in this great story.
And last week we talked about the creation and just the wonder of what God did there. This week we're hopping into another really famous story about Noah's ark and the flood. And you might be thinking, man, I probably could have caught that in children's ministry. You'd be right. I bet that would be a lot of fun too.
They probably sing stuff. We're not going to do any Noah ditties together. But I want you to this morning, I want you to kind of pull away from that imagery for just a moment because in your mind, if you grew up in church or I think pretty much anybody anywhere, even if you weren't a churchgoer as a kid, this story of the flood in Noah's ark is a pretty prevalent, well known topic. And what I want to deal with today is not just the fact that this isn't some myth or fairytale. It's not.
It's in the written word of God. It actually happened. And that's important for us to deal with today. But not just that, but the whole story of scripture from Genesis to Revelation. This is a story of redemption which centers around the person of Jesus.
And I pray today you're going to see Jesus on these pages that yes, his name isn't written here, but it's here. He is the ark of salvation, as we'll see as we dig in today. So we're going to be in Genesis 6 through 9. I can't read all of that today or I would have very little time to preach. So I would invite you this week in your daily readings, whatever it is you do in spending time with the Lord, spend a little bit of time reading Genesis 6 through 9, asking God to, hey, give me fresh insight on this beyond what I've just heard at church and speak.
Spend some more time in this this week if you'd like, but we're going to be taking little bites of this text that kind of capture the whole of this scripture. Now, I want to just spend time, not so much on the idea that we're dealing here with a big boat and a big flood. All right, that's true. It's absolutely true. But the story is really not centered on that.
What is centered on is God's justice and his mercy. That the story is truly about the idea that God is. Is providing a way of salvation, and at the same time, he is going to judge the wicked. This is a part of who he is, and this is part of his nature. It's about a big God, and it's not a myth.
In fact, if you go there and you come to this text and go, well, this is a wonderful children's story, it's kind of a fairy tale in my mind. If you come with that, just know you disagree with not only the apostles of the New Testament, but Jesus himself. And so here's what Jesus says about the flood, and this isn't the only place. But in Matthew 24, it's written of Jesus saying, for as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them away, so will be the coming of the Son of man.
So Jesus believed in a true ark, a true flood. In fact, he compares it to the way the world will one day end, that it will be swift like this and unexpected in another place. It's written, it will come like a thief in the night, and no man knoweth the hour. And so this is the nature of the flood. Jesus believed it.
The apostles believed it. I believe it. The Scriptures speak of it. And there's a reason it's in your text. It all points to Jesus.
So we're going to spend some time here. Now, I could really, really dig in deep on just the scientific evidence of the flood. This stuff fascinates me. But I would bet it doesn't fascinate everybody. I like all the archaeological stuff, and I like all the nitty gritty stuff of trying to prove that this event really took place.
And there is actually a lot of evidence for that. But that is not the heart of the text today. All right, we're going to spend time in his word and preaching what Christ has to share with us today. But if you wanted to do a deeper dive, I would recommend a lot of books. But here's one that I would recommend first off.
And that is. It's called the Genesis Flood. It's an older book. If this kind of stuff fascinates you, there are some really good scientific evidence and things as they're dealing with the possibility of how the flood occurred, what happened that caused the amount of rain, some of the science behind it. So anyway, you would perhaps find that fascinating, if you're interested.
I loved that stuff. That's kind of my realm. But I want to ask two questions today. Not so much, hey, did this really happen? Jesus believed it.
I could spend time proving that. But there's a better question that I think is at the heart of this text. And that is, is God just. And what is he doing in the world we're currently in? Some of you may be asking a totally different question of this text.
And that is when you look at the world around you, when you look at what's going on in the news or whatever it is that's got you rattled, you might be asking a different question. And that's this, God, what is taking you so long? Like, why do you allow a famous question, if you've ever done any sort of evangelism or trying to help people believe, you often encounter this question, why does God allow evil? Why does he let bad things happen? And that's underneath this question of what's God up to?
Why does he seem patient in dealing with all of this violence and corruption and moral confusion? And it's the Epstein list, one week and it's this, oh my goodness, it's just non stop chaos. What's God doing about all this? Well, this story tells us that God has certainly got his eye on it and that he's patiently waiting for more people to come to Christ. That's what his patience is about.
He's holding back his justice for the season of mercy. That's what he's done here in the text. And so let's dig in together. Genesis 6, 9 tells us that God is not indifferent to sin. In fact, he is just.
And he is watching. And at the same time, he's never absent in mercy. His grace always abounds. That's the story of the flood. So let's dig in.
Genesis 6, 9. We're going to see. Moses here recorded the story of Noah as he wrote the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. And here he's talking about God's judgment on humanity, but at the same time his provision in the family of Noah and the ark. And we can see in this story three ways that God reveals his justice and his mercy.
So let's dig in. You'll notice I'm going to take bites. This is just a lot of text to cover, so I'm taking the highlights. All right. Genesis 6, 5, 8.
It says, 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 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 the heavens. And I am sorry, for I am sorry that I have made them.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Now, let's skip a few verses down to 13. It says, and God said to Noah, I've determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them from the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.
Make rooms in the ark. Cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it. The length of the ark is 300 cubits. Its breadth is 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits.
Make a roof for the ark and finish it a cubit above. And set the door of the ark in the side. Make it with lower second and third decks. For, behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the Earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on earth shall die.
But I will establish my covenant with you. And you shall come into the ark. You, your sons, your wife, your son's wives, with. With you and every living thing of all flesh. You shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you.
They shall be male and female. So this is the first reading today. We're going to take some bites as we kind of go through this. And what we see right away is the flood account revealing God's justice and his mercy. Here's the first picture we really see.
And that is, it shows the depth of our sin and the height of his grace. Shows the depth of our sin and the height of his grace. There's some really weird things that are said here of God. They're kind of weird on purpose. It says that God saw, that God regretted, that God grieved, that God is sorry.
These are strange things to say of God. He notices the wickedness of man. He's not unaware of it. He's not unaware of it. Now, God has continually been and will Always be the same.
He is an immutable God. That means he does not change. So his characteristics are both loving, merciful, gracious and just. And so he is observing all the chaos of not only this time of the earth, but the time we're in now. And he is fully aware of this wickedness.
And in that, it says that the Lord regretted. The King James says it even wilder. In the King James, it says it repented the Lord. Now, how is that possible? You should ask.
This would be good to ask this question of the text. How is it possible that God would regret? How could he have regrets? How could God? This would imply that somehow God didn't know or perhaps this surprised him.
Now, if you come to the Bible, as I do, believing a few things about God, that is, he is perfect, he is all good, he is all powerful, he is all knowing. Yes, yes, yes, I'm with you. I agree with you. As we come to the text, this is who God is. So how is it then that God regretted, as if he didn't see this coming.
I'm going to teach you a word today that is a word you can use to sound smart. If you, you know, if you're ever interested in just, you know, kind of. I'm trying to sound smart among my family and friends every time, every once in a while, you know, you may have heard the term before. Anthropomorphism. Anybody ever heard that term before?
Anthropomorphism, Big word, hard to spell. It has to do with the idea of giving human characteristics to God. So, like when God. And this happens throughout Scripture, that God is described as having feet or hands or running or seeing. And.
And that often happens. This is similar to that, the word of today. Here's your word of the day. It is anthropopathy. Pathy is at the end.
You probably know the word sympathy or empathy. That means emotion. So this is the I. Anthropopathy means to give God man's emotions. This isn't the only time in scripture that this happens. When we describe God, it's hard to describe him.
The Bible says his thoughts are above our thoughts and his ways are not our ways. The way he feels, the way he thinks, the way he interacts is beyond our understanding often. And so the way he felt about man's corruption. Well, Moses, when writing this, he envisioned it from a human perspective. And so when it says the Lord regretted, this is as close as he could get to understanding how God felt.
God is upset in his justice. All he sees in man is wickedness. And so, as John Gill puts it, one of the older commentators, he says, perhaps here God is like a potter. When he has formed the vessel that did not please him, he repents that he made it. And he takes it and breaks it into pieces and reshapes it.
Now, this is hard, right? I would admit to this. This is a difficult piece of scripture. Here's the way that I've somewhat been helped this week as I was pondering God's character here. How is it that God certainly knew when he made man that man would be a mess?
He knew this. In spite of that, he still did it. And all along he knew. I'm going to provide arks of safety. This isn't the only one.
The ark is a theme throughout Scripture, which begins here with Noah. It's seen again with Moses. It's seen again with Jesus. There are these archetypes all throughout scripture. So God knows this ahead of time.
I'm going to make man. I know he's going to be a mess, but I'm going to save him. It's interesting. The closest I can come to understanding this is as personally as a father. Here's what I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I knew this with utter confidence. When I have children, they are not going to be perfect. I knew this perfectly. I knew when they came out, they would disobey me. Sometimes they would say no.
They would not share. I knew there would be times where they would do the very things I told them not to do. At times they would embarrass me. At times I would be frustrated with what they were choosing. And guess what?
I did? I still had them. Do you know why I wanted them? I wanted children. I wanted to share my life with more.
I love my wife. I like sharing my life with her. But there's something special about children. I wanted them. In spite of the fact that I've watched other people with kids.
I've seen the chaos. I knew this. I've been at dinner before having kids and watched other people try to wrestle their children and go, man, this looks horrible. I'm going to do it.
And I love it. Honestly, friends, Honestly, I pick on this stuff a lot. I pick on my kids a lot. But guess what? I love being a father.
It is my favorite thing. I love being a pastor, but I love fatherhood more. I think that's okay. Being a husband's great. Being a father is so cool.
And they're dreadful at times. They don't obey me. Every day, one of them disobeys you have enough. You'll get one of them to disobey you every day. I wanted them and I love them.
And I would die for them. I would sacrifice for them. And I will continue to be this way to them. God is like that on a perfect level, on a level that I can't fathom. So God sees.
Yeah, these people are going to be dreadful. I want them anyway. He wanted to create. He's a creative God. He's.
He wanted to show love. He makes man in his image. He wants to share something with us, so he does it in spite of us. This is as close as I can get to understanding that. Look, God wants to show us in this story.
The reason this is part of recorded history, the reason it's in our biblical story is because he wants us to be aware we are worse than we would possibly ever admit to. And he is better than, than we could possibly imagine in spite of the fact that we are a broken mess and so am I. God is so good and loves us so much. That's the flood story. It says then in verse eight that Noah found favor.
We don't know why the Bible doesn't tell us. Was he still following God? Was he still praying? Was he still active in his faith? We don't know.
Here's what we do know is that Noah did what God said. There's something favorable just in being faithful. The story right before this, in chapter five we see that at this point Noah is 500 years old. Part of the pre flood period is that people were living a very long time. And part of the problem with that is they continually got eviler, if that's a word, over time, more evil.
And that is the nature of mankind. We tend to wax worse, not better. And that's what's happening. And there's, if you do the dating there in chapter five, you'll see somewhere around 1700 plus years have passed since creation in Adam. And Now Noah here, 500 years old, God comes and says, I am done.
The justice has to come. I need you to build an ark, a big giant boat for your salvation and the salvation of these creatures that I intend to restore. And then a hundred years passes. Now that's faithfulness, friends. That's some faithfulness.
So that's why Noah to me finds favor. I like what one commentator writes on this. He says this is one of the first places, if not, he says this is the first place where the word grace is mentioned in the Bible. Chapter six, verse eight. It's the first time it's mentioned the Hebrew word which means favor or grace.
He says then that Jehovah's purpose here, God's purpose in this text is not extermination, but regeneration. His purpose is reconciliation and redemption. Not to wipe us out, but to restore us. That's his job, that's his goal, that's his plan. I want to show you a few images.
Some of you may have gone here before. There's a place called the Ark Encounter in Kentucky. I think that's probably the closest one you can go to see something like this. I've not been. This is my older brother, so I got some photos from him.
I heard after the first service that some of our people have been. So next time if you got photos, I'll use yours. I haven't been yet, but anyway, this gives kind of a. They did a one to one scale on this to try to see what this may have looked like. Now, we don't know exactly the shape.
This is the common shape you see for the ark, but it is absolutely massive. It is huge. Somewhere around 450ft long, 75ft wide. I mean, that is like. That is four football fields and then a football field.
I mean, it's huge. Huge and 45ft tall. So this is this thing that Noah built for years and years of his life in faithfulness to God.
It tells us something here, this story that God is seeing the wickedness, but at the same time providing a way out. Now, when we come to this story, here's how we should first come. We should come with our own human brokenness, our own human nature. We shouldn't approach this story. Friends, I implore you, don't approach the flood story saying, I'm better than this.
No, we're just like these. The only difference between us and them is we're on this side of the cross. We're on this side of the ark of salvation, which is the cross of Christ and Jesus. And so when we see God's justice, it's upon us as well. The only reason it bypasses any of us is that it has now been poured out on Jesus on the cross for our sake.
That's the only reason we can approach this and go.
Narrowly escaped that one. Romans says very clearly in chapter three a couple of times, here's what it says in verse 10. It says, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands.
No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Goes on to write in chapter three, verse 23, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
This is the nature of mankind. Mine too. Yours too. This is how we approach the throne room of God. Here's the great news.
This is where the apostle Paul ends. In chapter five of Romans, he writes, God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Wow. So that means same. Back to the same story.
God wanted me. God loved me in spite of me. He knew I would be a big, big mess up. He looked at little old Jonathan thousands of years ago when he created the Word. I said, you know what?
I like that guy. I love him. I'm going to set him free. And he did that for you and I. It's wild to me because I'm a mess.
And he knows my every thought, my every action. In spite of that, it says, while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. Me. Tim Keller puts it so well. He once wrote the gospel is this.
We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. Yet at the very same time, we are loved and accepted in Jesus Christ more than we ever dared hope. Wow. He is better than we could imagine.
A few minutes. Well, it's been quite a few years ago now. I. Me and my wife just celebrated 20 years of marriage in August. So praise God for that and I'm thankful for her.
And some 20 years ago, I found my goofy self in a jeweler trying to figure out how to buy diamonds. I don't know anything about diamonds. I still don't. I don't understand it now. And they brought.
They started bringing things out. My wife's very petite, got a little bitty hand, and I knew she wanted a little cluster, right? She wanted little diamonds. Like, well, praise God, because I got a little budget, so. So they bring this stuff out on the black velvet.
And I'm looking at these things. This one's clearer, this one's whiter, this one's more yellow. I'm like, if you say so, man. But they bring it out on this black velvet so that. You know why?
Because it looks amazing. Like, you can hold it up like this. That's cool. That's pretty. But you put it on this, it's like, whoa.
All of a sudden it just shines. It's bright, it's fiery. So that's. I mean, it's a good sales tactic, for one. Everything looks great like that.
And I was thinking about that story this week because I was trying to picture this idea of why God keeps this story in the scripture for us. Why it is that he tells this catastrophe? Part of the reason, I think there are many, but a big reason perhaps is he wants to shine light on his salvation throughout scripture. So what he does is bring in a black velvet behind it here. This story, the flood, it's not the cartoon you grew up with, friends.
It's not all of humanity dies in this story. All of creation is wiped out. It floods above the mountains. There are likely floating things as the ark is floating across the waters. This is a dreadful story.
It's the black background. It's the black velvet cloth. So that what? So that you would see the diamonds. What are they?
God's salvation. His provision for you and I. That's why the Passion Week in your gospel story is most thoroughly taught of all the stories of Jesus, that one week is like a huge zoom in. In fact, John spends half his gospel in in one week. Why?
Because he wants to paint the black backdrop so that you could see the diamond which is the cross at the center of it. The Bible is trying to tell you something, friends. This is way worse life. This world is broken. It's a mess and it's not going to get better.
But Christ is good and he loves you. He's the diamond in there. This story looks at that. It's all pointing there. The stories before, the stories that they're in, they're all pointing there so that you might see for the first time, perhaps for some of you today, that God is good, that he loves you.
He is just. He's not overlooking your sin. You're a mess. So am I. But he's done something about it.
That's how much he loves you. So the question then becomes, will we treasure God's grace in this way? Because we could come to this and say, well, you know, I'm not as bad as some of these people. We like that, right? That's our line of thinking.
I mean, Jonathan, I've got some problems, but let's be honest, I've never killed anybody. You know, let's be honest, I'm not as bad as so and so. And you've got this person in your mind, like, oh, you ought to meet my cousin, you know, you ought to know my uncle. Remember, we've all got a crazy uncle. Whoop de doo, right?
Come to this story. You have to do something with it. You have to stop minimizing your own sin. You have to stop blaming the culture or your past or your parents or your circumstances. If you bring them to me in Your long list.
I might look at it and agree with you and say, man, I get it.
But it doesn't make it better.
It doesn't resolve the fact that you and I are a hot mess. At some point, the flood story helps me along. All of the scriptures help me to come and say, you know what the problem, it's not out here. It's right here. So let me step in the ark, too.
Let me come to salvation as well. The problem is me. I'm going to run then to the cross of Christ. The second time that a great piece of wood saved people, right? First it was this gigantic boat.
Later, it's the old rugged cross. Look, he's telling the same story, friends. He wants you to see it. Let's keep reading. Genesis, chapter seven.
We're going to pick back in chapter seven, verse 11. It picks up here. It says, in the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened and rain fell upon the earth. 40 days and 40 nights on the very same day, Noah and his sons Shem and Ham and Japheth and Noah's wife and all the three wives of his sons, they all entered the ark. They and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, every winged creature.
They went into the ark with Noah 2 and 2 of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord. The Lord shut him in. The flood continued for 40 days on the Earth.
The waters increased and bore up the ark. And it rose above the Earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the Earth. And the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the Earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.
The waters prevailed above the mountains covering them 15 cubits deep. And all flesh died that moved on the Earth. Birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the Earth and all mankind. Some have argued in the past that this was like some kind of regional story. Maybe it just happened in this little sector.
That is not the case, my friends. It says all mankind here. It shows our second way. It's this, that God is just and merciful. It shows that he is certain in his judgment.
There's A certainty of his judgment and his security of this provision.
It's the 600th year here of Noah's life. I said this a moment ago, but I just want to reiterate this. God comes and says, hey, Noah, build me. Build an ark that you're going to get in, because I'm about to judge the world. He does this when Noah's 500.
He doesn't show back up again with the rains until 600. So some of you have been saying perhaps lately, hey, you know what God? I think I thought God kind of led me to do a thing, but I'm getting pretty tired in it. Like, I don't know if I want to keep doing that thing. If 100 years has passed, we can start talking.
Noah stays faithful for 100 years. Building a boat, probably. People were coming by going, you're an idiot. What are you doing? I imagine people are walking by going, what is this?
Right? Oh, my God. Well, God's going to flood the earth. God's going to what? You gotta be joking.
I mean, I can't imagine what he was dealing with. And he just keeps laboring away somewhere around 100 years. And then. The Bible is really specific. I think it's on purpose.
I think the Bible at times is trying to remind us, hey, guess what, kids? This isn't fiction. This really happened. It happened in the second month, on the 17th day. The exact time is given.
This is somewhere then around the Hebrew month of Ayar, which is in the spring. It's somewhere around April or May. So God shows up with the flood in the spring. Kind of fitting. Always rains a lot.
Then that's when he shows up big time. And then something phenomenal happens. It says here in verse 11 that the fountains of the deep opened. So the water didn't just come from above, it came from below. That God does something, some kind of tectonic plate shift, something crazy happens on earth, and the waters spring forth.
And then he opens up the heavens with water, rain, and for 40 days the waters rise. This is what happens. This is what the word of God records for 40 days and 40 nights. And then verse 16, I made kind of emphasis on this. But the Lord shut him in.
One commentator writes on this. He says, closing the ark's door signals the divine protection that kept out the raging seas. The covenant of the Lord sealed the door. It's purposeful there. It's abstract.
In the rest of the reading, it's like suddenly God does this boom, this action shuts the door. There's a certainty to what God has done here. Look, God has not overlooked the wickedness of this world. He hasn't to this day. He sees it, he's aware of it.
And some of it's dreadful, some of it's just absolutely terrible. And God knows it. He sees it and his judgment is certain. At the same time, his security, his safety in the ark. First of this ark, but then the ark of salvation, which is the cross of Christ.
That is certain in such a way that God has shut the door. He's the divine protection. God is able to do this. He has the justice to judge sinners, but also the righteousness to save those believers. Second Peter, chapter two.
It says God did not spare the ancient world except for Noah and the seven others and his family. Noah warned that the world, he warned the world of God's righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood. So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. So this ark, my friends, I hope you're getting this picture.
Every story I tell in this whole series of the story is going to be centered around Jesus. The reason being is this story is about him. This ark is not just a cool boat in the story, it is that. It is that. But it's also meant to foreshadow something greater.
Many of the people of the Old Testament are meant to foreshadow the coming Christ. The prophet Samuel, David, the king. There's various characters. I mean, you might even ask, why is the book of Ruth in here? Is this supposed to be about how to get out of a tough situation?
What's that in? No, it's meant to point you to Jesus. Ruth is in the lineage of Christ. It's all about him. And this ark is meant for you to see it.
Now with all of these touch points to now say, alright, God is incredibly just and he loves me so much that he died for me. That's incredible news. So friends, today my question to you is this. Are you in the ark? Jesus says at one point, I'm the door.
So now no longer is the door shut. By God, the door is him. Said, you want in, you come in through me. You want the ark of safety in your life. It's the person of Jesus Christ.
The flood is rising, friends. The waters are rising around you. Some of you feel this. You feel the uncertainty of your life. You feel the darkness.
At times it's hard. There is an Arc for you, it's in the person of Christ. He says, I'm the door and there's no middle ground here. Some of you might would like to choose some other options. I just want to encourage you today.
God gave one and no other and it was more than good enough. It might astound you. It might be hard for you. I think honestly, for a lot of us, the hardest part is we have to come to this and say, I can't earn it. We want to know that we're doing good, right?
Don't we? Don't we want. I mean, I'm doing right, I'm going to be okay. But that's not what Christianity does. We come to this and say, I'm not going to be enough.
I'm not going to be able to get there on my own. I'm not going to be able to save myself. I have to come with that level of honesty and say, God, save me, a sinner, like the simplest sinner's prayer begins to come to your mind. I am a broken man. Save me.
Some of you need to take that step today and enter the ark of Christ Jesus. Are you there? Let's finish up our flood story today together. You're going to really see me bounce around in this last section because there's just so much information here. Please go back and read it.
Enjoy it. Chapter eight, verse one. And then we're going to bounce around. But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth and, and the waters subsided.
And then it goes on in verse six to say, at the end of those 40 days, Noah opened up the window of the ark that he had made and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the land, so it didn't come back. Verse 8. Then he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. But the dove found no place to set her foot, so she returned to him, to the ark.
For the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. He waited another seven days. And again he sent forth the dove out of the ark and the dove came back to him in the evening. And behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf.
So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Let's skip forward a little bit here, friends. Verse 18, it says, so Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons, wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, every bird, everything that moves on the earth went out by families from the ark. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
And the Lord, when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. Chapter nine, just a few verses, verse eight. Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you.
Verse 12. Then God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I will make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
God bless the reading of his word today. Amen. You got a heavy dose of scripture today. If nothing else, hopefully it was much more than that. But I pray that that fed you there.
That alone. There's some really fascinating things that end our text today. It ends in this way by showing the faithfulness of his covenant and the patience of his mercy, the faithfulness of his covenant and the patience of his mercy. It says that God sent the wind and the waters subsistence. And then there's this cool little moment where Noah's looking out and he's going, hmm, is it safe?
Sends out a raven. The raven doesn't come back. Now, there's 2000 years of Christian writing on this. People thinking various things as to what this all means. Why the raven and the dove.
And it could be some of these wonderful illustrations. Some have thought the reason the raven didn't return is because it could find. And this is really depressing, but it could find carcasses to feed on. And so it didn't have to return because a raven is a decomposing animal. It's an unclean bird.
Then he sends out the dove. The dove could find nowhere to rest. So it comes back. And some have made much of this. Perhaps they're right.
I like what Charles Spurgeon writes on this. He says the dove is a clean bird. She could not rest upon the carcasses. So the spirits soul, it finds no rest outside the ark, which is Christ. So that was the comparison.
He made that we should be. He made a comparison. We should be like the dove who comes back to the ark. Beautiful. But either way, this is what happens in the story.
He finally figures out the land's drying up and the first thing he does is build an altar. This is what's different. God's kept his covenant to him. He's restored this family. And guess what else?
Noah's a different covenant kind of guy. He's not like the rest of the world has been. He's more like Abel, if you remember the story from before, like Cain and Abel. Cain comes and brings not the great stuff. He brings the scraps of his stuff.
And God says, hey, you know, if you'll bring what is right, I'll be pleased. But Abel does what is right. Now we have a return to that, with Noah being more like the sacrifices of Abel. And because of this, God says in the end, some really beautiful things. He says now I will never curse the ground this way.
In fact, I'm going to put a sign in the sky now. You saw it, he said, I'm going to put a bow in the sky. You're like, what in the world? That bow is often in the scriptures seen as like an archer's bow. But now it's facing up like this.
The picture that he's talking about here is a rainbow. Perhaps it's the first time that people had ever seen a rainbow. We don't know for sure, but this is what God says. I'm going to put this in the sky. So just so you know, the rainbow was meant to picture God's provision and God's his peace with us, his covenant to us.
So that when we see it in the sky, it should remind us that God is for this season holding back his judgment, that he is showing us mercy. The bow in the clouds is meant to be God's covenant to us. But there's coming time, friends, and no man knows the hour. I would never come up here and say, hey man, it's going to be next week. We don't know it's going to come like a thief in the night.
In fact, Jesus tells us very plainly, no one knows, not even the Son of man at the time he was here. And so it's coming. We don't know when. But here's what we do know. God is going to be just.
And when it happens, it will be in his timing, and it's going to be somewhat of a surprise.
And probably more and more people nowadays are saying, hey, this whole thing is a big hoax. When is this Jesus coming? Well, Peter, the Apostle Peter once wrote this. And I want to end with this scriptural thought. 2 Peter 3.
It says, Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days, scoffers will come. They'll come mocking the truth and following their own desires. They will say, what happened to the promise of Jesus coming again from before the times of our ancestors? Everything has remained the same since the world was first created. They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command.
And he brought the earth from the water and surrounded it with water. Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. They conveniently forget this. He says, and by the same word, the present heavens. Hear this, church.
By the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment when ungodly people will be destroyed. But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends. A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn't really being slow about his promise as some people think.
No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. This is great news. The flood's supposed to point us to the overarching story of scripture, that God is just, but he's also patient. And he keeps showing people mercy because of his goodness.
So we live in this time of the rainbow, if you will, where God is holding back.
But my question to you is this as we close. Are you in the ark? Believers in the room? This applies to you. Are you in the ark?
You've received salvation. Good. Are you remaining faithful? Are you remaining faithful in this? For a hundred years?
Noah just worked his butt off building a boat, which must have looked foolish. Some of you are in paths like this where you felt like God really led you to something. Maybe it's a certain field of work. Or maybe you feel like he's led you to befriend some people to try to help them. Maybe there's areas like that.
I gotta tell you, I definitely had no intention of being smack dab and rocky mount when I was growing up. You know, I have still this part of me that wants to be near either oceans or mountains or both. I don't think it's a both option, but maybe in California. I'm not going there, but anyway. But maybe I could get Lake by Mountain.
I don't know. There's a part of me that really wants that, right? There's a part of me that, hey, if I had my way, I wouldn't have chosen Rocky Mountain. I'm kind of a foodie, too, so, like, there's just not a lot of restaurants here. I'm always kind of itching for something.
I'm like, me and my wife play this game probably more than you. Like, what do you want to eat? Game, which isn't fun. Like, I don't know if y' all find that game fun. I despise it.
In fact, years ago, I made a list of every restaurant in the whole city. And just anytime we got into this problem, we'd be like, all right, well, let's just start walking it out. And what's scary is when you get to the end of 90 some restaurants and go, guess we're going to starve.
None of us. We don't want any of this.
How do you remain faithful in that? I wouldn't have necessarily chosen this, but God did. He was shaping my life. He was pointing me where he desired. I'm thrilled to be pastoring this church.
There's been ups and downs. There's been waters rising and stuff in my life. But are you being faithful believers, faithful parents, persevering in that ministry, faithful to your spouse, persevering in that? Are you being faithful in your job, looking different than those around you? Because you work as unto the Lord and not unto men, you should be separate, set apart as holy and then unbelievers.
This story just should come right to your heart. Are you in the ark or not? Because the ark is in the person of Christ Jesus. Have you come by faith to the foot of the cross and said, I'm not good enough. I need you.
Have you come there? I want to give you an opportunity right now to take that step. Let's pray now together. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would guide us in this. As we look at this story, we would see the person of Jesus just on display in this as the ark of our salvation.
And. And I recognize today, Lord Jesus, that some may have come in today and have not come to the foot of the cross in this way. And they're ready today to say yes. As they look at the waters rising around and the chaos of this world and the knowledge that one day, Lord, you will come in justice and you have every right to do it, that that person this morning is so ready to say, hey, I want to step my foot in the ark. Lord Jesus, I believe.
If that's you today, my friend, pray this simple prayer with me. Jesus, I believe today that you are lord of my life, that you are the ark of my salvation. I believe that you died on the cross for my sin, my brokenness. And God, I believe that you raised Christ Jesus from the dead. And Lord, this gives me such hope that not only did you defeat my sin on the cross, but there is hope for the future, there is life beyond this place.
And God, you have a purpose for me even now.
Dear friend, I'm thankful you prayed that prayer. If you prayed that prayer today, I'm asking that God would guide you in these things. That he would do that in each and every one of us today. That this would be a church known for its faithfulness. That whatever it is God leads us to do, calls us to do and presses upon our lives to do.
Whether it's careers. It could be as simple as how we are faithful to our families. That God, we would be known for this. God, I pray that desperately. I pray that over my own life, Lord, guide me in these things.
Help me to be in one sense like Noah here, who is faithful for seemingly 100 years to just do what you told him. God, I want to find that favor in you as well. That I would simply be faithful in the things you've guided and told me to do. God be with us. We pray in Jesus name.
Amen.