Judgement and New Creation

The first reading is Genesis chapter 6, and we're going to read from verses 5 to 7, verse 1.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention

of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the Lord regretted that he had made man on 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, for I am sorry that I have

made them.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

These are the generations of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.

Noah walked with God, and Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence.

And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the

earth.

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.

Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.

Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch.

This is how you are to make it.

The length of the ark, 300 cubits.

Its breadth, 50 cubits.

And its height, 30 cubits.

Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above.

And set the door of the ark in its 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 the earth shall die.

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.

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.

Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds.

Of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind.

Two of every sort shall come into you to keep them alive.

Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up.

It shall serve as food for you and for them.

Noah did this.

He did all that the Lord commanded him.

Then the Lord said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and all your household.

For I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.

Good morning, everyone.

I saw Ruby somewhere.

Hi, Ruby.

Great to have you back with us from America, which is why I'm pointing out Ruby and embarrassing

her right now.

I'm just going to give you a heads up.

The three sections of this sermon, the first one is a lot longer.

So if at the second interval you're like, Oh, we're here for a while.

It's okay.

We'll be okay.

All right.

Why don't we pray as we come to God's word?

Let's pray.

Father, I pray as we come to a passage that is well known in one sense,

even we think as Christians.

Lord, your word is alive and active and we've probably all got assumptions about this story

that need correcting and we need further insight.

So I pray that you would give us a learning spirit as we come to your word.

Father, show us your character in all its glory, I pray.

Amen.

Well, you can fear the God of the flood, but can you love him?

The pictures in our children's Bibles, maybe some people in their children's bedrooms have

a mural of the flood, of Noah's Ark really, on the wall.

They don't do justice to this sentence that is in the passage.

Everything on the dry land, in whose nostrils was the breath of life, died.

Like, this is a horrific story.

Like, what has happened from chapter 1, verse 31?

God saw all that he had made and behold, it was very good.

What would motivate such a life-giving God?

We saw in Genesis 1, he loves order out of the chaos.

He loves peace.

He loves life.

What would bring him to bring such destructive chaos of the flood?

Like, is he like a big bully at school?

You just better not get him upset.

Is he like the ancient Babylonian ideas of the gods?

Unpredictable.

He's just moody.

Watch out, kids, if your dad wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.

Is he moody?

Unpredictable.

Ancient Babylonians, the gods sent the flood because people were noisy.

What idea of God do you see here in the flood?

You can fear him, that's for sure, but can you love him?

Well, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have loved one another before anything else was.

And so he had no reason to be angry.

No reason to be angry until evil and darkness came.

Listen to the testimony of, I'm going to mispronounce this guy's name, but Miroslav Volf, a Croatian.

I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God.

Isn't God love?

God loves every person and every creature.

And then he recalls the war in his hometown and the destruction that happened there.

And then he says, think of Rwanda in 1994, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in 100 days.

1994, this happened.

How did God react to the carnage?

By doting on the perpetrators in a grandparently fashion?

By refusing to condemn the bloodbath, but instead affirming the perpetrator's basic goodness?

I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn't wrathful at the sight of the world's evil.

God isn't wrathful in spite of being love.

God is wrathful because God is love.

That's his testimony.

Isaiah 28-21 says that God's wrath is strange to God.

It's foreign to him.

It's his foreign work.

It's not essential to him.

It's what love does.

Pure love does when it sees evil.

God blesses what is good, what gives life, what enhances life.

And he curses, he punishes what's evil, what destroys and takes away from life.

Could you love him if he saw evil and didn't care?

Could you love such a God who didn't care about evil?

I couldn't.

Could you love a God who blessed it?

No way.

As creator, he alone has the wisdom, he has the power, and he has the right to be the judge of all the earth.

And that's what we see here at the flood.

Now, I reckon the need for justice, it's in our DNA, isn't it?

Anyone heard of Sherlock Holmes?

Anyone not heard of Sherlock Holmes?

Sherlock Holmes?

Okay.

Or even if you haven't, you're probably too embarrassed to put your hand up.

But Sherlock, why is he such a classic?

I love Sherlock Holmes.

I reckon it's because we need someone strong.

Someone wise enough who sees through the truth and can untangle it,

and he's able to catch the evildoer and bring them to justice, right?

He's stronger than even Moriarty.

Like, isn't that why we love Sherlock Holmes?

Or I love Sherlock Holmes.

It's in our DNA, justice.

I don't know what you think about movies and books where the villain doesn't get justice.

How do you find those?

Like, one evidence that Emma is more godly than me, this is just one of the evidences,

is that when we watch a show or movie where there's just injustice after injustice,

I feel a bit sick and uncomfortable.

Emma, she has to walk away.

Like, she can't stand to watch it.

I think she's closer to the character of God.

God can't stand to watch it.

What God saw in Noah's generation grieved him to his heart.

Working through the Constitution, I'm looking at sentences differently, reading the Constitution.

Just like, can you find a loophole in this sentence?

John, you must be doing this all the time.

Can you find a...

If you want to not have a loophole for future generations, how do you need a word this sentence?

Let's see if you can find a loophole in chapter 6, verse 5.

What a sentence.

I can't find a loophole in that.

It's not necessarily saying all the behaviour looked evil all the time.

But it's saying God saw the heart.

He saw the design, the purpose, the goal of every thought.

Every goal was self-centred, was evil.

It was trying to take away from the good life God had designed.

Now, before we just chuck our own imaginations in of what that looked like, Genesis has already told us.

The most immediate context shows us that even the descendants of Seth, the people who were holding on to the knowledge of God,

they were worshipping, calling on the name of the Lord, even these descendants were now...

They were like Adam and Eve, the original sin.

They saw and they took.

They saw the attractiveness of the descendants of Cain and they took.

Look, even they are corrupted now.

If even the godly are corrupted, human race is in trouble.

And we've seen in chapter 4 how violent that taking looks like.

It looks like Cain.

It looks like Lamech.

Now, apparently in the Hebrew, the word for destroy sounds like the word for corrupt.

Which is just an indicator that God's judgment, it's not excessive, it's fitting, it's reaping what we've sown.

It's completing the destruction that their actions have already begun.

I don't think we've got an issue with the idea that there is such a thing as good and evil.

Some people might, I don't know, philosophically debate that, but I don't know.

I don't believe anyone actually lives like that.

But you've got another movie, a recent one, Noah, Russell Crowe in it.

That movie had no problem with the idea of good and evil, but the point of that movie, the message...

I don't know if you've seen it or not, but it's animals land good, humankind bad.

That's the message of that.

The world would be a better place if we weren't here, is the message of the movie.

It's not the message here.

So I don't think we have a problem with distinguishing good and evil, but I think we've got a problem with we don't get to determine what is good and evil.

God discerns what's good and evil.

He's the only one wise enough to do that.

I can only see your behaviour.

I can't see your heart.

I can't see your thoughts.

God does.

I don't even know my own motives sometimes.

I can't untangle them a lot of the time.

Have you ever had an occasion where you thought someone was doing the wrong thing and later on you're like,

oh, hang on.

They had a really good purpose for doing that.

I don't think we're wise enough to distinguish good from evil.

I think of the priest Eli thinking Hannah was drunk.

She wasn't drunk.

She was pouring out her grief to God in prayer.

I don't think we're wise enough to see the heart, but God is.

Only our creator is wise enough to be the judge.

I was skiing at Thredbo one time years ago now and it was a really rainy couple of days and where we were skiing,

we were trying to traverse across this flat section and the water had come over the top.

So we're just waiting for some help from, I don't know what you call them, employees.

We're waiting for help to get across.

But while we're waiting, the sound of rushing waters was coming from the mountain above.

And when the Bible talks about the sound of mighty waters, it was deafening.

And it was this, I don't know what you call it, landslide of snow, water.

It was coming right towards us.

Now, obviously I'm here today, but there was a cliff on the other side.

And this avalanche coming down, it missed me by, I don't know, five metres maybe.

I had no chance.

I don't think I would have survived if I was five metres forward.

I was powerless.

I was absolutely powerless.

And I think that's what we see here in the flood.

God has, as creator, he has all the power, which is really good news.

For those who are oppressing people with their power, God has the power to bring about justice.

He's got the wisdom and he's got the power to execute justice.

And he alone has the right, because it's his creation, to judge.

The flood shows us that the judge of all the earth, he can't stand to look on evil.

And it warns us today that we learn from elsewhere in scripture that a worldwide judgement is coming again.

Jesus himself, don't separate Old Testament, God of wrath, New Testament, God of love.

That's a misunderstanding of God.

Jesus himself says,

It's a warning to us.

Don't let anyone redefine what salvation means.

Can I suggest just be careful of people subtly changing why Jesus came to save us.

Jesus gave his blood to absorb the anger of God against evil.

Don't let anyone move us away from the idea of God's anger.

That is why we need salvation.

So the judge of all the earth, he sees the evil, but here's also the good news.

He sees the righteous.

Abraham later calls on God,

Will not the judge of all the earth do right?

Like talking about Sodom,

Will you just sweep the righteous away with the wicked?

What you do right?

Imagine saying that to God.

What a man of faith.

Yes, he will do right.

He sees the righteous.

He sees Noah.

Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.

One man.

Now what made Noah different?

Favour is the same word as grace.

Unmerited kindness.

The idea that he found favour.

He didn't earn favour.

The prophecy at his birth, if you remember last week,

before he'd done anything good or bad,

there was a prophecy that he would bring rest.

I think they're all suggesting that God freely chose to give his grace to Noah.

In other words, verse 8 is the reason for verse 9,

and not the other way around.

God chose to give favour, grace to Noah,

and that's why he's a righteous man.

He walked righteously.

This is a really big term, righteous.

The first time we get it in scripture,

it's to act according to the relationship God has with you.

He's blameless.

He's without blemish.

He walks with God.

We've seen that term before.

And what we see in the story is,

and Tinian brought this out in the kids' talk,

is his obedience.

He's received the instructions.

In verse 22, Noah did this.

He did all that God commanded of him.

And 7 verse 5 says,

Noah did,

let me find it, 7 verse 5,

Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.

So a close walk with God looks like obedience.

I think we often use that phrase

in terms of our feelings and things.

But a close walk with God looks like obedience.

Noah alone, he's righteous.

We're not told about his wife.

We're not told about his kids and their wives.

That's not the important thing.

The important thing is they belong to Noah.

They belong to the one righteous man.

Now where did his obedience come from?

We've got Hebrews 11, 7 that helps us with this.

By faith, Noah,

being warned by God concerning events yet unseen,

in reverent fear,

constructed an ark for the saving of his household.

By this he condemned the world

and became an heir of the righteousness

that comes by faith.

All Noah had,

he couldn't see the rain clouds coming.

He couldn't see the judgment.

He had God's word.

He had his warning.

He had his promise

that he would save him.

That's all he had, God's word.

For years,

like at least 55 years,

years and years.

Imagine cutting your own timber

and milling it

and then constructing that ark.

The job itself,

like you put that order in at Saddington's,

it would take them a while,

even at Saddington's with our technology.

Even the job itself,

let alone,

I'm going to use some poetic license here,

but imagine the taunts he got,

the ridicule,

maybe the threats

like every sprinkle of rain

before the flood came.

You could imagine the cheers at Noah.

He believed God's warning.

He took God at his word.

Obedience comes from faith

in God's word.

But Noah's obedience

isn't the main focus.

I'm glad Tin brought this out

in the kids' talk as well.

The main focus is seen,

chapters 6 through 8,

is the structure of the story,

is what's called a chiasm.

Once you learn the term,

everyone's looking for chiasms everywhere,

but here is a chiasm.

A chiasm is a mirror image

of themes

where it's working inwards

and the centre

is the main point.

It's a thing

to take away from it.

I'm not going to go through the whole story.

I'm going to try and tell you

the mirror image.

God resolves to destroy

the corrupt race.

And then at the end of chapter 8,

the Lord resolves

not to destroy mankind.

Next bit in.

Noah builds an ark.

Noah builds an altar.

Coming again.

The Lord commands Noah's family

to enter the ark.

He commands the family

to leave the ark.

The flood begins.

The earth dries out.

The flood lasts 150 days,

covering the mountain.

The flood recedes 150 days.

The mountains become visible.

And here's the heart of the story.

Chapter 8, verse 1.

But God remembered Noah

and all the beasts

and all the livestock

that were with him in the ark.

This isn't like our human remembering.

Three hours after you should have

picked your son up

from soccer practice.

Noah.

It's not our remembering.

God's remembering means

God always acts

according to his covenant commitment.

Always.

He keeps his promises.

He's a covenant-keeping God.

That's why Noah survived.

It's the fundamental reason

why Noah and his family survived.

He remembered his covenant.

It's the fundamental reason

why Jesus went to the cross.

It's the fundamental reason

why faith in Jesus means

we will sail through death

and judgment into eternal life.

He keeps his word.

God's word.

It's good news.

Okay.

I'm going to invite Gareth up

for the second, shorter reading.

Thanks, Gary.

So our next reading is chapter 8

Isaiah 8 · chapter mention

and it's verses 20 to 9, verse 1.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord

and took some of every clean animal

and some of every clean bird

and offered a burnt offering

on the altar.

And when the Lord smelled

the pleasing aroma,

the Lord said in his heart,

I will never again curse the ground

because of man.

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.

While the earth remains,

seed time and harvest,

cold and heat,

summer and winter,

day and night,

shall not cease.

And God blessed Noah

and his sons and said to them,

Be fruitful and multiply

and fill the earth.

The flood is all about

new beginnings,

a fresh start,

salvation.

The parallels to Genesis 1,

there are many,

I'm not going to go through them all,

but Noah is now pictured

as a new Adam.

He's now the head of humanity.

He's a righteous head.

Things are looking hopeful.

So the flood shows us

that God is determined

to have a new beginning,

a new creation.

Evil is blotted out

and just peace

and righteousness.

And Noah leads

the new humanity

in worship.

He offers sacrifice

out of gratitude for salvation,

out of total devotion

to the Lord,

but it actually took

my three-year-old

to,

rather than my books,

to ask a really obvious question.

Why,

he didn't put it like this,

but this was the gist

of the question,

okay?

Why did God

want the animals

to be burned?

I think I,

I scared,

see him.

Why did God,

why was he pleased

with burnt offerings?

That's the first act.

Isn't there enough?

Death.

He didn't say all that,

but he was horrified

when I was reading

the story out loud.

It's a really good question.

Why was he pleased?

Because if we did that today,

from what we know

from the rest of Scripture,

he would not be pleased.

Garden of Eden,

he told Adam

to name the animals,

not to offer them.

Why was he pleased

when he smelt

the aroma?

I think we have

a hint here

that Noah

understood

that he and his family

needed to be made clean.

I think the Lord

was pleased

because he knew

what it would really take.

It wasn't these sacrifices.

He knew what it would take

to cleanse Noah.

to cleanse all

who are righteous

by faith.

It's what Hebrews

talks about,

that once

and for all sacrifice.

I think that's why

he was pleased.

When Jesus

offered himself.

We might get

the wrong idea

from the flood

that God has a,

he thinks human life

is disposable.

But the covenant

he makes with Noah

corrects any

misunderstanding here.

God has a huge

value on human life.

All human life

are in his image.

We didn't read

this section

but there's three

threats

to the sacredness

of human life

that God

protects from.

One is from animals.

To put it simply,

he's put the fear

of man in animals.

whatever it was like

in Noah's day,

he's now put us

at the top

of the food chain.

It's to stop animals

from destroying

the sacredness

of life.

He's even going

to require

reckoning of animals

who kill humans

which I'm not sure

how that works.

So firstly,

from animals.

Secondly,

from people.

Whoever sheds

the blood of man,

verse 6,

by man shall his

blood be shed

for God made man

in his own image.

There once was

protection of Cain.

Now,

there's authority

given to mankind

to punish

murder.

It restrains society

from being as evil

as it might

otherwise become again.

And then third,

most importantly,

so from animals,

from people

and from God himself.

You might want to look

at verse 14 and 15

with me.

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.

The word bow

apparently is

not bow wong

but bow

rainbow.

It's for a warrior's bow.

So when we see

a rainbow,

I don't know what you think,

oh, that's pretty.

Whatever you think

when you see a rainbow,

when God sees it,

he sees his warrior's bow

hung up.

Imagine if the rainbow

was the other way around

facing us.

you'd feel a little bit

uneasy

if it,

but it's facing him.

He's hung up his bow,

his war bow.

And he makes this promise

even though

he knows

there's going to be

violence again.

He says in verse 21,

the intention

of man's heart

is evil

from his youth.

The Lord knew

that evil

came with Noah

and his family

on that ark.

How can

the judge of the earth

hang up his bow?

All right, Gareth,

let's have that third reading.

9 verse 18

if you're following along.

The sons of Noah

who went forth

from the ark

were Shem,

Ham,

and Japheth.

Ham was the father

of Canaan.

These three

were the sons of Noah

and from these

the people

of the whole earth

were dispersed.

Noah began

to be a man

of the soil

and he planted

a vineyard.

He drank

of the wine

and became drunk

and lay uncovered

in his tent.

And Ham,

the father of Canaan,

saw the nakedness

of his father

and told his two

brothers outside.

Then Shem

and Japheth

took a garment,

laid it on both

their shoulders

and walked backward

and covered the nakedness

of their father.

Their faces

were turned backward

and they did not see

their father's nakedness.

When Noah awoke

from his wine

and knew

that his youngest son

had done

what his youngest son

had done to him,

he said,

Cursed be Canaan,

a servant of servants

shall he be

to his brothers.

He also said,

Blessed be the Lord,

the God of Shem,

and let Canaan

be his servant.

May God

enlarge Japheth

and let him dwell

in the tents of Shem.

and let Canaan

be his servant.

After the flood,

Noah lived 350 years.

All the days of Noah

were 950 years

and he died.

Well,

this is a perplexing

part of scripture

if you're still

awakened with me.

This is strange, right?

It raises a lot

of questions.

And

I'm not going

to answer them all.

I'm not even confident

I have all the answers.

But

let me show you

what I have come to.

We've seen

in the flood

that God's goal

is a new beginning,

a totally fresh start

where righteousness is.

Noah is the new Adam.

He's the head of humanity.

He's this giant

of faith

and obedience.

It's rather shocking

that out of the 350 years

of Noah's life,

everything that Moses

could have told us about.

What did Noah do

after the flood?

We're told one thing.

He gets drunk.

What's that about?

Scripture says

God gave wine

to gladden the heart.

It's not the wine itself.

He's lost control.

It's unfitting

of an image bearer

and Scripture also shows

it's especially unfitting

of those in authority

and he's the head

of the human race.

Noah is the new Adam.

He's a new beginning

but what we see here

is a new beginning of sin.

The Bible doesn't do

what we hear

at a lot of funerals.

It always presents

people's blemishes.

Noah gets drunk.

Abraham, cowardly,

risks his wife

to protect his own skin.

And then Hagar incident.

Moses, a murderer,

fleeing from Egypt

and then losing his,

getting into a rage,

striking the rock.

Elijah, just self-pitying,

I'm the only one left.

David with Bathsheba

and Uriah.

Peter, denying Christ.

Paul and Barnabas,

getting into a conflict.

Blemish everywhere.

All these giants of the faith,

which is just by the by.

It's encouraging in a way,

is it not?

God can graciously use

flawed people.

But it all shows us

that when a man turns up

without any blemish

whatsoever,

he stands out.

you sit up and listen.

So there's a new beginning of sin.

We need a better Noah,

a better head of the race.

The biggest focus here

is on Ham

and his response to this.

Now,

we don't have time

to go into it,

but the passage cares more

about the consequences

for future generations,

like all the societies

that come from these three guys,

more than the individuals themselves.

We might think of our actions

as individualistic,

the consequences are here and now,

but,

I don't know,

the teachers,

the psychologists,

the social workers among us,

we know,

we know intergenerational consequences,

even in our individualistic society.

So here,

he sees Noah naked

and drunk,

and then he seems

to go to his brothers

to gossip

and have a good laugh about it.

He takes a good look

and he wants to go talk about it

and have a good laugh.

It doesn't say laugh,

he just,

I'm reading into it there,

okay?

He wants to talk about it

for some reason.

It's either gossip

or slander,

something.

What's the big deal?

We might ask,

what's the big deal?

Well,

the respectful actions

of the other brothers,

they're so careful

in walking backwards,

it's almost humorous,

but they're so careful

to honour

this blemish

of their father.

And it highlights

Ham's dishonour.

He enjoys

Noah's humiliation.

Ham enjoys

his humiliation.

Which suggests

something spiritually

is not right.

And perhaps

that's why

Noah saw

in these three

a spiritual condition

that's going to

intensify

as the generations

go on.

But yes,

Noah had lost

control of himself.

I'm not excusing that.

I don't think

scripture is

excusing that.

But he's

Ham's father.

He's the head

of humanity.

He's the reason

why Ham

survived

the judgement.

And he enjoys

his humiliation.

Something's wrong there.

It made me think

how people today

enjoy

ridiculing Jesus

even though

he's got no blemish.

what's going on there?

The flood

is all about

new beginnings.

He's committed

to a world

no more evil

only peace

and blessing

but

there's a beginning

of sin

and there's a beginning

of curse again.

It's telling us

that the human heart

needs a deeper

cleansing

than water.

I think

this passage

also shows us

how patient

God is

and the rainbow

reminds us of it

how patient

the Lord is

because it's not

Shem

who's going to

reverse the curse

but it's through

his line

that we get to

Abraham

and so many

generations

until we reach

Jesus Christ.

The Lord

is patient.

We need a deeper

cleansing.

So I think

we've seen

so many reasons

why we can

not only

fear

the God

of the flood

but we

ought to love

him.

He's so pure

in his love

he just

can't stand

to look at

evil.

He's

determined

to purge

the world

of all

evil and

violence.

That is

good news.

That is

really good

news.

He's determined

he wants a

new beginning.

He wants a

new creation

where peace

and righteousness

reigns.

He's

determined

to give us

rest.

shalom

as

scripture

calls it.

He's a

God who

always remembers

his covenant

promise.

He's

patient

incredibly

patient

hanging up

his bow

but he's

more than

patient

we eventually

see that

bow aimed

at himself

on the

cross.

God

has

to

come

to

see that

God

is

looking

for a

fresh

start.

If you're

looking for a

new beginning

if you feel

like you're

just at the

bottom of

the barrel

the flood

is good

news.

The God

is all

about a

new

beginning.

He invites

you into

a new

creation.

And

brothers and

sisters

those of

us with

faith in

Jesus who

believe he's

coming again

to judge

and to

bring that

new creation

may our

faith look

as radical

as Noah.

We can't

see it.

All

that God

is his

word.

We walk

in the

footsteps

of Noah.

I want

to finish

with the

words of

2 Peter.

The

heavens

let me

start a bit

earlier.

The

Lord is

not slow

to

fulfill

his

promise

as some

count

slowness

but is

patient

toward

you

not

wishing

that

any

should

perish

but that

all

should

reach

repentance.

The

heavens

will be

set on

fire

and

dissolved

and the

heavenly

bodies

will

melt

as they

burn.

But

according

to his

promise

we are

waiting

for new

heavens

and a

new

earth

in which

righteousness

dwells.

therefore

beloved

since you

are waiting

for these

be diligent

to be found

by him

without spot

or blemish

and at

peace

and count

the patience

of our

Lord

as salvation.

May you pray

me.

Let's pray.

Father,

we praise

you for

your patience

and

thank you

for absorbing

your own

anger

in yourself.

Lord,

thank you

that

as we

look at

the cross

even though

the day

of judgment

is ahead

we can

see

that

the

judgment

has

already

been

poured

out

for

our

sins

on

your

son.

Thank

you

for

this

confidence

that

we

are

in

him

the

righteous

one

and

that

all

we've

got

to

look

forward

to

is

that

new

creation.

Father,

pray for

us

that

you

would

help

us

have

that

reference

point

in

our

lives

that

we

would

live

by

faith

seeking

the

salvation

of

others.

I pray

this

in

Jesus

name

Amen.