Noah B (Flood)

Good morning. You probably found on your seat or close to it a card that looks like this.

It serves two purposes. One, to let dads know you got a boat for Father's Day. So there you go.

Congratulations. And more importantly, it does play a role as we close out the

sermon today. So have it close by to you. There you go. So good.

Happy, happy Father's Day. We've said that a few times and I mean it.

Happy Father's Day to you. I am not sure how you were going to celebrate Father's

Day or if you're going to celebrate it at all.

But whatever the case may be for you today, I think it is at least a good day

to tolerate dad and his infamously famous dad jokes.

Do any of you have a dad who thinks he's the king of the corny one-liners?

We've got a couple here. Anyone else on the other side? Just a couple.

All right. Oh yeah, now we have fingers going. That's good. So yes,

as a way to honor dads this morning, I'm going to give you two dad jokes that

you can give to them, right? But just two.

Like, this is not really my thing, so I'm trying. So here we go.

I think he'll love you for it. You can ask him, dad, why are you getting an

extra pair of golf pants for Father's Day?

Because you got a hole in one.

Or what did the grape say to his dad on Father's Day? Thanks for raising me right.

All right oh dads we have we have an incredible calling on our lives to raise

our children in a proverbs 22 6 kind of way of training up your child in the

way he or she should go and when they are old they won't depart from it.

It's not always easy, but with God's help, it's not impossible.

And so I would encourage you, have a home that is full of love and laughter.

Like even if you have to go to dad jokes to make it happen, it's worth it.

And I also want to say it is good. It is a blessing for me personally to be

surrounded with so many dads who take this seriously.

I am blessed. I hope you feel the same way, to be in a community of families,

and especially here for dads that

want to live godly lives and desire that their families do it as well.

And it's a special place to be.

The whole world is not like that. And so it is good to have this community.

I do think it makes for an easy transition for us today. Today is how it started,

part eight, Noah and the flood.

Noah was a dad. I don't know if he told dad jokes or not, but he is often associated

with a flood and the flood was no joke.

It was a serious time. It was a judgment of God.

It is described this way in Genesis six, verse five, in Noah's day that the

wickedness of man was great in the earth.

And you think, my, oh my, how much things have drastically changed since Genesis

chapter one, when we've gone from this perfect sinless start to widespread wickedness.

It's like this tidal wave of violence and corruption, wickedness spreading across

the entire earth, and it's getting worse and worse with each generation.

And now the wickedness has grown so wildly out of control that when God looks

out, he sees mankind, as we saw a couple weeks ago, as only evil all the time.

In Genesis 6 verse 13, God said to Noah, I have decided to put an end to every creature.

Genesis 6:13

For the earth is filled with wickedness because of them. Therefore,

I am going to destroy them along with the earth.

And in this one verse, we are given the central problem, we're told the central

problem of the entire Bible.

And the problem is wickedness, that mankind is wicked. Wickedness is entered

into us. It's in our minds.

It's in the core being of us. And therefore, this wickedness is a problem.

And God's remedy to the wickedness of the people is not to only destroy them,

but to also destroy every living thing on the earth.

And the only exception is Noah and his family.

Now, Daniel mentioned something last week, and I want to bring it up again today.

What comes to your mind when you hear Noah's ark?

Perhaps it's a picture like this.

I am not against children's Bible story books.

I think they're great. And often they have these fun little animals and they

all look real happy with big smiley faces on them and they're peering out windows sometimes.

And of course, we get the brilliant rainbow, a great promise that's there all the way through.

And if you really think about it, I mean, the story does end really, really good.

There's a lot of stuff that we should talk about with this happy ending for Noah and his family.

However, if we think about the description of the flood that we're going to

read about here in just a few minutes, we realize rather quickly that there

is much more to this story.

And what we realize is that in our children's Bible storybooks,

we have put one of the most gruesome, devastating, horrific events ever that's

taken place in their book.

And up until now, this point in history here at Genesis 7, nothing like a flood

has ever happened and nothing like a flood has ever happened since then.

So when you stop and think about it and you compare this cute G-rated picture,

if you will, of Noah's Ark with a more R-rated picture here of Gustave Dor.

He was a French artist. He has a lot of these paintings.

He's trying to highlight some of the dark and light of pencil artwork right here.

But what we really look at is something maybe a little more,

it's certainly more visual disturbing,

but the idea that perhaps Noah, as the flood receded and drawed back,

that he and his family will actually have to like walk over and step over rotten,

dying, carnage, bodies, men, women, children, babies, animals.

It's a very different perspective than the Noah's Ark. From the children's book.

The story of the flood, it's chilling. It's a sobering story of judgment.

It's a story that shouts out how offended God is by sin and how he has an absolute holy hatred of it.

But it's not the only story of the story. It's not only a story of judgment.

Noah's flood is also a story about recreating, and it's also a story about grace and salvation.

It's a story that shows us that there is a way to escape the judgment,

God's judgment, even though we are wicked and corrupt and man has sin,

that there's a way to escape that judgment.

And so here we come to the flood story. And let's remember a few things that

have happened so far is God has given favor to Noah. He's given grace to Noah.

He has warned Noah about this coming flood.

He instructs Noah with some very exact measurements on how to make an ark.

The ark would be a big boat, more than a football field long with three different

levels to it, plenty of room for lots of animals and eight people.

If we compare it by modern standards, this boat would be the size of like a small cargo ship.

But for the ancient world, this would be quite the undertaking.

Massive boat, massive undertaking.

And normally we think of the animals, they all came two by two,

and that is true, but that some of them also came seven by seven.

And that's because what we're gonna see next week, Noah will use some of these

animals to sacrifice to God, which means whether Noah knew it or not,

God was already preparing for life after the storm on the other side of the flood.

And worship is going to be their first act, Noah and his family's first act,

when their feet touch the dry ground.

So next, God willing, next week, that's what we'll look at. But for now,

we've got God's grace is upon Noah. The ark is built.

Noah and his family are all on board with all the assigned animals loaded up

with them. and now we can read the flood story here starting in Genesis 7, verse 11.

Genesis 7:11

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 sources of the watery depths burst open.

The floodgates of the sky were opened.

This is history. Moses wants the readers to know that this flood happened on

a specific time and date.

He wants people to know this is history. It's not make-believe.

It's not a myth. It's not a fairy tale. It's history.

It happened on year 600 of Noah's life in the second month, on the 17th day. Very distinct.

Verse 12, and the rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights.

That's a lot of rain. Like we Floridians, we know what it's like to go through

a two or three day hurricane rains, the torrential poundings that we get.

Imagine 40 days of nonstop rain.

And the number 40 is an interesting number used throughout the Bible.

It's often associated with trials and testings.

40 years, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness.

40 days, Goliath came out and taunted Israel. And then David comes out to fight him.

40 days of fasting for Jesus and Satan tempts him.

But the first 40 day trial in the Bible is here. It's the 40 days and 40 nights

of rain for Noah and his family.

In verse 13, on the same day, on that same day, Noah, along with his sons,

Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah's wife and his three sons' wives entered the ark with him.

They entered it with all the wildlife according to their kinds,

all the livestock according to their kinds, the creatures that crawl on the

earth according to their kinds, all birds, every fowl, and everything with wings

according to their kinds.

Two of all the flesh that has the breath of life in it entered the ark with Noah.

Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered just as God had commanded

him. Then the Lord shut him in.

The flood continued for 40 days on the earth. The waters increased and lifted

up the ark so that it rose above the earth.

The water surged and increased greatly on the earth and the ark floated on the surface of the water.

Then the water surged even higher on the earth and all the high mountains under

the whole sky were covered.

The mountains were covered as the water surged above them more than 20 feet.

Every creature perished. Those that crawl on the earth, birds,

livestock, wildlife, and all those that swarm on the earth, as well as all mankind.

Everything with the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils,

everything on dry land died.

He wiped out every living thing that was on the surface of the ground,

from mankind to livestock, to creatures that crawl, to the birds of the sky,

and they were wiped off the earth.

Only Noah was left and those that were with him in the ark.

And the waters surged on the earth 150 days.".

God remembered Noah, as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.

God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water began to subside.

The sources of the watery depths and the floodgates of the sky were closed,

and the rain from the sky stopped.

The water steadily receded from the earth, and by the end of 150 days,

the waters had decreased significantly. The ark came to rest in the seventh

month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

The waters continued to recede until the tenth month.

In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.

After forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made, and he sent out a raven.

It went back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth.

Then he sent out a dove to see whether the water on the earth's surface had gone down.

But the dove found no resting place for her foot.

She returned to him in the ark because the water covered the surface of the whole earth.

He reached out and brought her into the ark to himself.

So Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove from the ark again.

When the dove came to him at evening, there was a plucked olive leaf in her beak.

So Noah knew that the waters on the earth's surface had gone down.

After he had waited another seven days, he sent out the dove,

but she did not return to him again.

In the 600 year, in 600 and first year, in the first month, on the first day

of the month, the water that covered the earth was dried up.

Then Noah removed the ark's cover and saw that the surface of the ground was drying.

By the 27th day of the second month, the earth was dry.

That's a lot of numbers of days and weeks and months on a boat.

And so if you're wondering like, whoa, how long were they on the ark?

If you work your way through the numbers, and there's a little bit of flexibility

on some of when some things begin and vice versa there, you would come up with

the answer of one year, right about one year.

That is one long, long,

and if you're thinking, well, a cruise for a year, well, maybe that's a great idea.

Personally, I don't think so. But the ride Noah took was not on a cruise liner

with endless amounts of food and all kinds of entertainment,

you know, and everyone is just surrounded there catering to your every need.

Noah was on a boat surrounded by animals with probably limited ventilation at times.

And he probably spent a lot of time, I wondering,

shoveling manure. not for a couple of days, weeks, months, but for a full year.

But how the ark was made, like what were the living quarters like,

what animals were on which deck, were they fully grown animals, how'd they eat?

Those are not the focus story of Noah and the flood.

The focus is primarily three things, the judgment of God, the recreation of

God, and the salvation of God.

If you take these chapters here of Genesis 6 through 8, they serve as a small

sampling of summarizing like the entire theme of the Bible.

Creation, fall, redemption, restoration.

So I want us to look at these three focuses. First, the judgment of God.

That was long promised by God back in Genesis 6 when he gave people 120 years

to repent for their sins.

Like you want to talk about extreme patience, God waited and waited and waited

for repentance and it never happened.

And when it didn't happen, finally enough is enough.

And God, though excessively, excessively patient, but holy and almighty unleashed

a judgment like had never been seen or since seen before. Right?

God is not to be blamed for the flood, as some people try to do.

There's a popular question sometimes that gets asked, what kind of God would

destroy everyone from the earth?

And this might be hard for us to fully grasp. They are getting what they deserve.

Unless a person can understand how utterly disgusting and offensive sin is to

a holy, righteous God of the universe, this will not make sense.

Rarely do we see our own sin as bad as God sees our sins. I think that's a fact.

Romans 3 tells us how God sees it. As it is written, there's no one righteous, not even one.

There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God. All have turned away.

All alike have become useless. There is no one who does what is good. Not even one.

Their throat is an open grave. They deceive with their tongues.

Vipers' venom is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood.

Ruin and wickedness are in their paths. In the path of peace, they do not know.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

If a person can get, God is a big, big, holy God.

And you, me, us, we are big, big sinners.

If you can get that, the Bible will change you.

The Bible will make more sense than it ever has to you as to how and why God

deals with sin the way that he does.

The judgment of God was a worldwide flood.

The floodwaters covered everything. Now, some will say that it's a local flood,

but the way Moses records these details of this historic flood,

like verse 19, everything under the skies was covered.

Verse 20, the waters rose more than 20 feet above the mountains,

resulting in a worldwide flood.

And then verse 21, 22, 23, say, every creature perished, everything with breath

and its nostrils perished.

Every living thing that was on the surface, God wiped out.

Everything perished. Everything wiped out. And if it's a local flood, that's not everything.

That's only some things.

This flood is a worldwide judgment flood from God. It's destroying,

it destroyed everything.

And this brings us to a very key point into the book of Genesis from where we've

started to where we are now and it's this,

there was a beginning in the beginning

God created and there is an ending everything was wiped off the earth,

what you believe about a beginning and what you believe about the ending will

determine your direction and your purpose over the course of your life,

If you believe, like at the beginning, God created you.

He owns you. He sustains you. He gives you your life and the blessings of it

and all that come with it.

If you believe that, you will live your life with a purpose and a feeling of

knowing that your greatest joy is to know him and your highest calling is to serve him.

But if you believe at the beginning God is non-existent, fake,

limited in his abilities,

you are prone to conclude that every part of your life, good or bad,

is nothing more than chance or coincidence.

And if that's the case, your highest calling is to be true to you,

to please you, to look out for you.

There's even a group of people who go, well, I really like to help others as

well. That really makes me feel good. Well, that's about you as well.

And they are two entirely different directions of living.

And if you believe at the end of your days that you will stand in person face to face with God,

like more likely bowed down, to the one who made you and knows everything about

you, like there will be no secrets here.

If you believe that, you will sense that no matter what is going on in life

right now, your first and your highest and your greatest priority will be ready for that day.

But if you believe at the end of your days, you just stop existing or you go

with a very popular and growing idea that God has stopped judging and instead just accepts everyone.

If you believe that, you will make life and living about personal satisfaction

and personal enjoyment. That will be the top priority.

And often people in this group here, often they come up with the attitude of

you can believe what you wanna believe, that works for you, and you can believe

what you wanna work, and someone else can believe whatever else they wanna work.

It all works out at the end.

Plus, who are we to judge?

Completely different worldviews. Both cannot be correct.

One is God-centered. The other is me-centered.

Do you believe the beginning, creation, and do you believe the ending, the flood?

Jesus believes it. He uses Noah and the flood as an example to describe a yet

coming judgment. It's still to come.

He does this in Matthew chapter 24, starting in verse 37.

Matthew 24 · chapter mention

As the days of Noah were, okay, what were they like? So the coming of the son of man will be.

For in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking and marrying

and giving in marriage until the day Noah boarded the ark.

Nothing wrong with those things, but that's what they were doing.

They didn't know, verse 39, until the flood came and swept them all away.

So this is the way the coming of the Son of man will be.

Jesus is making the comparison and the point that in an instant,

everything will change.

And the question will be whether you are ready or not. So what you believe about the ending matters.

There is another judgment coming and it will be as real as the flood.

So what I think we should do for this point here of, okay, the judgment of God, the flood, two things.

We should see this as God's true hatred for sin.

And two, we should see this as a warning from God, a kind warning from God.

Be prepared for the judgment to come. A second focus here in this flood verses

of Noah is the recreation of God.

In the flood, God causes a decreation, wiping everything out,

and a recreation, making everything new again.

Look at chapter seven, verse 11.

On that day, the day the flood started, all the sources of the watery depths burst open.

The floodgates of the sky were opened.

At creation. If you remember, God separates the waters.

He puts some of the waters way up in the sky and he puts a lot of some of the

waters way down below in the depth of the ground.

And the way that God is going to undo creation is he is going to have these

two bodies, these two water sources come crashing together, bursting up from

the depths, crashing down from the top.

It's quite a scene.

It'd be a horrific scene if you were in the middle of it.

But also notice the creation resemblance that God puts as he puts the earth back together again.

It's found in Genesis 8 verses one and two. He's gonna recreate things.

God caused a wind to pass over the earth and the water began to subside.

The sources of the watery depths and the floodgates of the sky were closed and

the rain from the sky stopped.

Just like at the creation, there was a wind over the waters.

The Holy Spirit is referred to as wind.

God now shuts off the water valves from above and below and the Holy Spirit,

the wind is hovering over the earth and recreating it just like he did at the start.

That's pretty cool. Like both the creation and the recreation are formed by

water doing something as directed by the wind.

The Adam creation, 1.0, and now a Noah recreation, 2.0.

Noah and Adam, they have a lot of compelling comparisons.

I worked up a slide first so you can see this. Noah is like a new Adam.

Both walked with God. Both worked the ground. Both were told to be fruitful and multiply.

Both had dominion over the animals. Both sin, and both times when they sinned,

their nakedness is what's exposed.

Both have three named sons. Both have offspring of cursed and favored generational lines.

Basically, God has replaced Adam with Noah.

God has, in essence, recreated the world, but not in the exact same way because

at the original creation, there was no sin. Here, sin still exists.

And that brings us to the last focus. So we've got the judgment of God,

the recreation of God, and the salvation of God.

God brings salvation to Noah through an ark.

And he provides the same kind of salvation to us today. Genesis 6, verse 8.

Genesis 6:8

Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord. Two weeks ago, I mentioned how the

word favor and grace, that they are nearly meaning the same thing.

Like Noah, he did not earn God's favor. That's impossible to do.

Rather, this grace was given to Noah.

He totally is undeserving of it. But God being compassionate, kind, gives it to him.

I mentioned earlier that there was a popular question that people ask.

Here's another one people often ask. Well, why doesn't God save everyone?

And perhaps a better question to ask, once we get a firm grasp on understanding

sin and why God has this holy hatred for it, better question might be,

why does God save anyone at all?

No one deserves it. but the answer

is because of God's grace and mercy and that's what he has done for Noah,

doesn't deserve it but he gets it that's favor

and grace and then if you look in verse 9 there are a few nice things said about

Noah like these are the kinds of things that as a Christian we would desire

others to say about us Noah was a righteous man blameless among his contemporaries.

Noah walked with God.

Noah was righteous. He was honorable, morally right.

Noah was blameless. He wasn't sinless. Only Jesus gets that status.

Blameless means he was upright and full of integrity.

And Noah walked with God. He conversed with God, hung out with God,

had a relationship with God.

So by God's grace, Noah was given favor and found to be righteous,

blameless, and one who walks with God.

The righteousness, the blamelessness, the walking with God, they all come after the favor.

It's not like Noah was doing all these good things and then God sees him from above.

Oh, I need to do something good for Noah. That's not how it happens.

First, the grace of God was given to Noah. Then these godly traits come after the grace.

So Noah was saved by grace and Noah was saved through faith.

Through faith, Noah acted out what he believed.

Faith is much more than knowing something. It is much more than intellectual.

Faith is much more than saying you have it.

Faith does things. Look at this slide of verses of things that Noah did because of his faith.

Genesis 6, 22. Noah did as God commanded, referring to building the ark.

Genesis 7, 5, Noah did all the Lord commanded him, following the instructions about the animals.

Genesis 7, 9, Noah did just as God commanded him. He entered the ark with his family.

It goes on in the New Testament, Hebrews 11, 7,

By faith, Noah, after he was warned about what was not yet seen and motivated

by godly fear, he built an ark to deliver his family.

By faith, he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

Noah believed God and acted on what God said.

God was speaking about things that were still to come. They hadn't happened yet.

There had never been a flood in the history of the world. Why would anyone ever

believe such a thing would come and happen?

And Noah's answer to that would be because God said so.

And it's kind of a famous statement. I think we sometimes say,

we hear it said, God said it, I believe it, that settles it.

And I will act upon it is what Noah was thinking. I'll act upon that.

I'll build a boat because of my faith in God.

Faith is action.

Now, I wonder if he ever had his doubts. And I say that because I think sometimes

we have our doubts. Like, is this really all worth it?

I wonder if Noah ever thought, I'm staking everything, trying to believe you, God.

Here I am building a boat that's supposed to save me and my family from something

that has never, ever happened before.

Everyone else is carrying on business as usual.

And now I'm sort of starting to look weirdo here while building a boat.

Everyone thinks I'm crazy.

They walk by and I tell them, hey, a judgment's coming, you gotta be ready.

And they, uh-huh, Noah, it's a long way from water. How's that gonna get there?

But Noah, by faith, acted upon what he believed.

And this applies just the same to us as Christians today.

If you have a faith and you're going to live your life believing in a God that you can't see,

while everyone around you claims he doesn't even exist, or most people,

and you believe in a judgment that isn't yet here,

while many around us will scoff,

sneer, reject such a notion,

and you believe in a heaven that you have not yet been to,

you're gonna have to have faith and act upon it.

Noah is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

This story points us to the importance of Noah being in the ark.

Being in the ark means Noah is safe from the judgment going on on the outside of the ark.

God has provided an ark for us.

Jesus Christ is the ark. In Noah's day, Noah preached and preached and preached,

telling people, repent, get on the ark, be safe from the judgment.

And in the same way today, God points us to Christ and tells us we can be saved

and safe if we come to Jesus.

It's interesting in this passage here that we find that once Noah got on the

ark, that it was God who shut the door.

Man, that was permanently sealed, good.

And there's coming a day where God's going to say, that is all.

And I don't want that to sound like a scare tactic to you.

It is not meant to be a scare tactic to anyone who's not on the ark.

It's meant to say, it's an earnest plea, genuine plea. Get on the ark.

Which gets us to our paper. If you'll take out your paper, you can do this now.

You can do it at home, you can do it later.

I once did this with a youth group that I was leading a long, long, long time ago.

And it was basically, it's, you know, here's your ark. And I asked teenagers,

like, draw Noah and his family.

Give me some stick figures. Put Noah and his family on the boat.

There they go. And you do them. And I kind of upgraded one. So here now it looks like this, right?

Not an art scholar, not, you know, achieving artist here, but there are my stick figures.

They represent people who are in Christ.

Well now draw some people outside of the ark representing the people who are

under the judgment of God not in Christ,

and then when you get those again I don't know if you want to put one times

eight for your people on the boat and one times a million outside I don't know

what numbers there but then the last one is now draw yourself.

Are you in the

ark of Jesus are you safe safely in Christ that does not mean that there's still

in our struggles and difficulties and problems and battles now but it does mean

despite these troubles,

being in the ark of Jesus, you are safe from the coming judgment.

But if you are outside of the ark, outside of Jesus Christ, you are exposed

to this coming judgment.

And if that's you, why? Like what is preventing you from coming to Jesus?

There is room on the ark for you.

We are saved. God saves by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, your ark. Let's pray.

Father, again, I thank you for your word. At times it is so challenging.

Often convicting,

exposing our greatest problem of sin,

and it can be heavy.

We would often rather not talk about those kinds of things and maybe focus on something else.

And yet in your word, it is so bright and encouraging and beautiful,

that despite us and our sin, you give grace.

You provide a rescue in Jesus Christ.

Father, help us grasp just the utter horrid that you have for sin.

Help us to hate it the same way.

And at the same time, oh, Father, let us be so, so, so excited about grace,

and salvation.

And the hope that you are still working in your kingdom,

and a greater creation is still yet to come and you fix it all.

What a day.

Lord Ocala needs an ark of Jesus Christ and so does our entire United States it's the world,

thank you for providing an ark,

I don't know, Lord, you convict in so many different ways.

Like it's easy. It was easy for me this week to read through and go,

man, these people are bad.

They deserve that. Or watch the news. Whoa, what they're doing out there on

the West side of the United States, that's bad. They deserve all this.

And yet you are loving enough, direct enough to just say, well, Doug, what about you?

And so I thank you for how you work in our lives.

Thank you for Jesus it's in his name we pray amen,

from Ephesians 2 for a grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God.

For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which he prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. That's good news.