Father, some of us here this morning need a miracle.
Some of us, Father, need several miracles.
And Father, we ask that you help us to believe that you hear our prayers,
that often you say no, sometimes you say not yet, but sometimes you say yes,
and that you can hear and answer our prayers.
For Father, we know that every one of us, whether we need a miracle today or not,
there will be times in our life where we do need you to act.
So, Father, we ask that you grant us a humble dependence upon you in prayer
and a humble dependence to trust your word, both your warnings and your promises.
Father, may your Holy Spirit do a mighty work within us this morning,
and we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
Amen.
So, this is sort of, I felt really bad after my sermon last week,
and I'm not saying that so you can all give me comfortable words afterwards.
I'm not saying that at all.
You know, guys like myself who get up and have to open the word,
and then, you know, there's different things you have to deal with afterwards.
And as I was preaching last week and as I finished, I didn't think I'd done a very good job.
And, you know, I think the points were good, but I think I had too many,
and I didn't quite make it clear why some of the points that I had to make
were actually really important points.
So, one of the things you can do for me every week is just pray.
There's an old saying that mist in the pulpit creates fog in the pews.
Mist in the pulpit creates fog in the pews.
So, if you could just pray not only for me, but for every one of your small groups for the Sunday school,
that we will be mist-free zones, and that God would do a mighty work beyond what we humanly are capable of.
That would be a great benefit for me and for others.
So, we're going to look, I'm going to go back and look at a few of those other things connected to the flood.
It's a very, very complicated, it's not a complicated story.
It's complicated for a lot of us nowadays, just to be honest.
It's complicated for a lot of people, and even as I'm going to speak about the flood again,
and we're going to talk about it again next week, because that's where we are, going through Genesis 1 to 11,
some of you are sitting back thinking to themselves,
is George going to show himself to be one of those kooky fundamentalists?
And others of you are going,
is George going to show himself to want to be one of those liberals who dances around the scriptures?
Well, before we get to that, you know, the flood story raises all sorts of other problems.
I'm going to get to that, as to whether the flood happened and how we're to hear this part of the Bible.
But, you know, there's another big part of this whole thing about the story.
In the story of the flood, God destroys all the animals, everything that has the breath of life.
So, is God crazy and bloodthirsty?
Is he crazy and bloodthirsty?
So, let's look.
We're going to go back to chapter 6, verse 1.
We're going to go through some of these things fairly quickly.
Just to try to bring into a context what the Bible is saying about the flood and why it's there in the Bible.
So, if you have your Bibles, go to chapter 6, verse 1.
And so, what's happened in the Bible?
God has created all things out of nothing.
Then there's sort of a, he teaches us different things through the first creation story.
The second creation story, we have the fall of Adam and Eve wanting to be like God.
We have Adam and we have Cain and Abel and murder.
We have the entrance of polygamy.
We have the genealogy.
And now we get to this.
And here's how it goes.
When man, meaning here the human race, began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them,
the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose.
Now, just pause here.
Somebody shared this with me that when he first read this, he just thought this is crazy.
Why on earth would God get mad at people for men for finding women attractive?
One of the things which is going on in the Bible here is that because there's some complexities in the Hebrew,
the translators here have chosen just to translate this part quite literally.
And in the rest of the Bible, generally speaking, when sons of God are mentioned,
it's referring to angels as a general rule in the Old Testament.
But what on earth is going on here?
Like, is God just saying, all you Christian men don't find women attractive?
And if you don't find women attractive, then you're going to please me because we're going to get right into everything being destroyed.
So what's going on here?
Well, what we have to do, the Bible actually usually interprets itself.
It's just really a matter of trying to read very carefully and also using your imagination and your curiosity, but to read carefully.
And so this whole little story here of the end of the world that was before the flood, the key verse is verse 5.
So you go down to verse 5, and it's a very, very striking verse.
It's a very important verse to meditate upon.
And here's what 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.
So whatever we're going to think about when trying to understand the sons of God text, the Nephilim, all of the other things,
even the whole story of the flood, and even the story of the judgment,
this verse is what helps us to understand, oh, okay, we should interpret this earlier thing this way,
and these other things this way.
And just before we go anything further, there's a big problem we often have with the word the heart.
Because, well, actually, Andrew, could you show me the Care Bears picture, please?
I like to make sure I get the best of Latin scholarship and Greek scholarship to try to illustrate things.
So some of you of a certain generation and parents of kids of a certain generation, this is the Care Bears.
And, you know, one of the things when they have to deal with no heart is all their positive emotions flow out of their chest.
And because it's just all about emotions and positive emotions.
And so for a lot of Christians today, when we hear the word heart, we think of feelings.
So here's the thing.
If you could put up the next image.
Okay, that's a bit of a clue.
How many people recognize what this is a picture of?
Okay, this is a picture of the captain's seat in the Starship Enterprise.
This is the command center of everything that goes on.
So when you hear the word, or when you see the word heart in the Bible,
don't think of Care Bears.
Think of where Captain Kirk sits.
Because every human being has a command center.
Every human being has a command center.
And from the command center, the things that we believe to be true,
how the way our mind works, the emotions that we feel, our plans, our desires,
everything emerges from a command center.
They all go back to one command center.
And so generally speaking, in fact, I would say 99.9% of the time,
there's going to be little nuances, but it's always, whenever you see the word heart in the Bible,
think where does Captain Kirk sit?
And think of the fact that underneath who you are, at the very center of who you are,
you have a command center.
And then you can ask yourself, and see, one of the things about the Bible is the Bible is regularly asking us
to figure out who we are at that command center of our lives.
And what, at the command center of our lives, we're thinking, believing, planning, feeling, emoting.
So that's the thing.
So look at verse 5 again.
In light of this, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth
and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart,
everything that went on in the command center of his heart,
was only evil continually.
So that is how the world before the flood is described.
If you could put up the first point, Andrew,
some of you, if you've never read The Lord of the Rings,
you've never seen the movies, you won't understand this.
But what the Bible is describing in a very, very few deft strokes,
you know, have you seen some artists who can just use five lines that they just do like this?
And you can see a horse running or a bird flying or the face of a person that you recognize.
And that's what the Bible is doing in the Hebrew in these first things here.
They're just drawing a few lines.
But what it's trying to describe is something akin to Mordor.
The earth has become Mordor.
Mordor has won.
So mindful of that, let's look up again at verse 1 and 2, okay?
Look up again at verse 1 and 2.
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them,
these demons saw that the daughters of men were attractive and they took them as their wives,
any that they chose.
And then just sort of skip down to verse 4.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days,
and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of man
and they bore children to them.
They were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
that some great evil of demonic presence on the earth,
which is more, just think of Mordor.
Some great rupture had happened that human beings also desired.
And as you go back, and we're going to look at it in a moment when we read it,
it's a description, as it goes on,
of not only all of the thoughts are evil,
but that ruination is upon the earth,
and violence is upon the earth,
and that the only way that you can understand human beings
and what's going on in the creation order,
and even we're thrilling to animals,
is destruction and ruination and violence and evil and fell forces.
Mordor.
So, you see, right off the bat,
if you're wondering,
is God being really mean to destroy the earth?
If you understand that it's painting something like Mordor,
all of a sudden you realize,
maybe God isn't going to be mean.
But you know what?
This whole text is going to show time and time and time again God's mercy.
Look at verse 3 of chapter 6.
Then the Lord said,
My spirit shall not abide in man forever,
for he is flesh.
His day shall be 120 years.
Now, two things.
This isn't saying that God's Holy Spirit lives in every person.
In the creed, we said we believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and giver of life.
In other words, the Bible is saying,
and this is one of the passages that would use to,
why that's in the creed,
human life has a Lord and a giver.
Life comes from God,
and God, not man, is Lord of life.
And this text here,
when it's saying,
then the Lord said,
My spirit shall not abide in man forever,
for he is flesh.
In other words,
my time for dealing with this generation is coming to an end.
And then it says,
His day shall be 120 years.
Spirit, it's a little bit unclear in the English,
but in the Hebrew,
in 120 years,
I will bring an end to Mordor.
Now that's actually pretty patient.
God is going to give that generation,
that time,
120 years to repent.
And as we're going to see in a moment,
what is it that God does
to help that generation know
that they need to repent?
He's going to have a guy
build a huge wooden structure
for 120 years.
And when they ask Noah,
Why are you building it?
As we're going to see in a moment,
he says,
Because God,
the true God,
is going to bring an end to this created order.
And this is the means of rescue.
For 120 years,
there's a task given to Noah,
and 120 years,
he speaks.
And as we'll see in that,
part of the speaking of Noah,
part of what God says to Noah,
is that a new covenant will be offered
to you and to your family,
to you and those in a sense
who follow you,
who heed you.
120 years.
So what we can see here
is that it's not the case
that God is mean.
In fact,
if you could put up the next point,
here's the thing,
which is how the Bible reveals
how we read,
how we really are working
at the level of our heart.
The next point.
You see,
it's very easy.
Every time we read about judgment
in the Bible,
our hearts,
which are in rebellion against God,
instantly jump
to a particular worry.
Why?
Because the gods
of our imagination
kill ordinary people.
But what does the Bible reveal
from beginning to end?
And especially in the cross,
the real God died
for ordinary people.
You see,
for us as Christians,
there's going to be things
of mercy here in the text.
That's always the thing.
Every time we read a text
of judgment
and instantly we think
that God is mean.
Instantly we think
that God is unjust.
Instantly we think
that God is capricious.
Instantly we think
that God is just going
to kill ordinary people
because that shows
where our heart still is.
But the Bible tells us
that the true God,
the real God,
died for ordinary people.
That even in justice,
there is always mercy.
So,
did this all happen?
Well, let's keep reading.
Verse 6.
And the Lord regretted
that he had made man
on the earth
and it grieved him
to his heart.
Just pause there.
What it's saying here,
the Bible doesn't say
that God doesn't feel emotions.
God does feel emotions
or whatever that would mean
in God.
The main thing is
that emotions never drive God
like they do you and me.
That's the big thing.
And what we see here
is God says,
I want to go
a different direction.
That's what regret
and I'm going to go
a different direction.
See, one of the things
the Bible is telling us
about the flood
is that in the flood,
God reverses creation
and then recreates
or resets creation.
And so right here,
we see that God says,
I want to go
a different direction.
This whole thing
has gone terribly wrong.
So the Lord said,
I will blot,
verse seven,
I will blot out man,
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.
In other words,
in Mordor,
only Noah
is not of Mordor.
only Noah.
So,
did the flood happen?
Is this a recounting
of what happens
in nature?
Or is it,
in fact,
something different?
Let's keep on reading.
These are the generations
of Noah.
Noah was a righteous man,
blameless in his generation.
By the way,
blameless here doesn't,
righteous means that God
has made him right
with himself.
God made Noah right
with himself.
And blameless doesn't mean
you don't do any sin.
Blameless means that Noah
had a tender conscience,
unlike Mordor,
and tried to keep
his relationship
fresh and real with God.
In other words,
he'd repent.
But first,
God makes him right,
and then Noah,
as being made right
with God,
keeps his relationship
fresh
and penitent
and going towards God.
Noah walked with God
and Noah had three sons,
Shem,
Ham,
and Japheth.
Now,
the earth was corrupt
in God's sight.
Remember I said
that there's more about
how the earth is like
Mordor after this.
Here it is.
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.
Notice that again.
I will destroy them
with the earth.
And there's something
really important here.
If you could put up
the next point,
Andrew,
that would be great.
One of the important things
here that God says
to Noah is,
and this is really important
because, you know,
we all know
when we live in a culture
and everybody in the culture
is saying that certain things
are right,
certain things are fine,
and we just know
that they're not right
and fine,
it's so important
to hear God's word
to remind us
that it's not right
to take innocent human life
or that there's a certain way
that God has designed sexuality
where there's a certain way
that human beings
should be treated.
How important was it
for Wilberforce
in the time
when he was fighting
for many, many decades
to abolish slavery,
to constantly be refreshed
by God's word,
that even though
the culture
and the economy
and the politics
said it was fine,
that God's word
kept reminding him
what normal
is deeply
and tragically evil.
See,
that can go on
in a society
that,
and that's what's saying here,
before the flood,
the normal
has become deeply
and tragically evil,
and so for God
to reveal to Noah
that it's all evil,
it's all wrong,
is very important
for Noah
to continue
to press on to God.
It's one of the reasons
why we need God's word
to press on to him,
because there will always
be things in a culture
that the normal,
and it just seems normal,
and it just is a casual
commonplace,
whether it's the citizen
or the Globe and Mail,
or whether it's the blogs
that we like to read
or the Disney movies
that we like to watch
that are normal,
and God's word
has to keep coming
into the normal
to remind us
it might be normal,
but it's evil.
That's not a contradiction.
It might be normal,
but it's evil.
It's wrong.
And that's one of the things
that goes on here
in this text,
which is very,
very important.
And it's another thing,
you know,
look at this again
in verse 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.
And the language
of them having
made things corrupt
and making things destroyed
and of ruined,
and the same word
is here
of what God
is going to do.
In a sense,
if you could put up
the next point,
here's what God says.
God says,
you have wanted ruin,
ruin you shall have.
This is so important
to understand
about most
of God's judgment.
You know,
most of God's judgment
is human beings' desire.
What is it that's,
in a sense,
what is hell?
A lot of human beings say,
God,
it's my way
or the highway
to God.
God,
it's my way
or the highway.
God,
it's my way
or the highway.
And at the end of the day,
God says,
you have consistently
told me to leave,
I will be gone.
You will get
what you want,
but it's hell.
And that's how
God's judgment
is going to work.
Mordor is eating itself.
It's destroying itself.
It's ruining itself.
It is choosing
demonic powers
over God.
It is choosing
its own way
over God.
And God says,
at the end of the day,
I will give you
what you desire.
Ruin you will have.
God is still sovereign.
He does this.
And in an unbelievably
tragic way,
he does what they desire,
which brings,
is also God's judgment.
I mean,
what a profound thing.
To meditate upon.
What if God's judgment
of me was to let me
have what I want?
You have wanted ruin.
Ruin you shall have.
But notice here,
notice here,
that,
he goes on to say
something else.
Verse 14,
he says to Noah,
make yourself
an ark
of gopher wood.
Now just pause here.
Do you want to know
the one other place
in the Old Testament
where the word ark appears?
It's not the ark
of the covenant.
The one other place
in the Old Testament
where that word appears,
other than the flood story,
is when Moses' mother,
because she doesn't
want him to die,
she puts him
in a basket,
and the word for basket
is actually,
she puts him
in an ark.
Only other place
in the Old Testament
that occurs.
And then it says,
so make yourself
an ark of gopher wood,
make rooms
in the ark.
Do you know what the word
in Hebrew literally is
for rooms?
Nests.
In the midst of death,
you are to build nests.
And then it says,
make room in the ark
and cover it inside
and out with pitch.
In classical Hebrew,
not modern Hebrew,
but in classical Hebrew,
and remember,
in classical Hebrew
is what the Old Testament
is written in,
or the Tanakh,
and for most people,
they're hearing
the Bible read,
they're not reading it.
So the word for pitch
is the word for pitch,
but when they hear it
in classical Hebrew,
the word pitch
sounds identical
to another Hebrew word,
and the other Hebrew word
is atonement.
So for a Jewish person
listening to this
at the day
in classical Hebrew,
it says,
make yourself
an ark of gopher wood,
and a Jewish person
would say,
ark.
Moses was saved
from murder
by the Egyptians
in an ark.
Make nests
in the ark
and cover it
inside and out
with atonement.
Cover it inside
and out
with atonement.
So there's an option
between desiring ruin,
ruin you shall have.
For 120 years,
an ark is to be built,
and the ark
that is to be built
is to have nests
to deliver from death
and to be covered
inside and out
with atonement.
Did it happen?
So,
one of the things,
if you go back
and listen to my
first and third sermon,
it's always good
to listen to my sermons
if you're having trouble
falling asleep.
You just put them on
nice and low
and soothing voice,
you know,
just help you fall asleep.
But if you go back
and listen to the first
and third,
in particular,
I talk a little bit
about the doctrine
of creation
and how that is important
to understand
why the naturalistic
understanding of evolution
is wrong
and how it helps us
to think.
And here,
what I want to say
is that the same thing,
if we want to try
to understand
whether this happened
or not,
what we need to do
is think about
New Testament teaching
about what happens
in miracles.
And I'm going to use
one miracle in particular
to help us
to understand this.
And Andrew,
if you could put up
the next point.
Here's the big point.
The flood.
The big God
does a big miracle
which is believably
historical.
Oh no,
George jumped the,
ah,
he's a crazy
brain-dead fundamentalist.
Not at all.
The flood.
The big God
does a big miracle
which is believably
historical.
So,
why do I say this?
Okay,
well,
here's the thing.
In John 9,
let's think about
a miracle
in the New Testament.
In John 9,
there's a famous story
in John 9
where God,
where Jesus,
heals a man
who is born blind.
Very,
very,
very wonderful story
to read later on.
Read it and meditate upon.
I'm not going to read it.
Just,
that's what happens.
He's born blind.
Jesus says,
I'm going to heal you.
Jesus heals him.
Just like that.
Now,
imagine for a second
that what Jesus does,
he doesn't do healing,
but he does something
like surgery.
Maybe he's just like
a very advanced surgeon.
And if Jesus was like
a very advanced surgeon,
then,
I don't know,
he knocks,
you know,
he puts the man
in a,
you know,
knocks him out.
And with his,
all of a sudden,
I don't know,
lasers that come out
of his fingers,
he makes an incision
and he's able to go back
and he sees the stuff
that's getting in the way
of the eye scene
and he uses his laser fingers
to remove the parts
that have to be taken away.
And then he sees
that maybe the optic nerve
hasn't been attached
to the cornea,
I think.
I hope I have
the medical stuff right.
And so,
you know,
he uses his ability
to move things
and he's able
because he's a brilliant surgeon,
he has laser fingers
and he's doing surgery
and he's able to go
and he's zap,
zap,
zap and the cornea's,
you know,
fixed back up to the eyeball
and then he sews everything up
with,
you know,
whatever stitches
or whatever
and then the man has a,
you know,
a scar maybe somewhere or other,
maybe he doesn't
because I don't know
enough about it,
but,
you know,
he's done surgery
and the guy can see.
And then,
you know,
later on,
we send,
Jesus allows a time machine
to go back in time
and after the man
who's been,
you know,
born blind
that Jesus had done
the surgery on
where the scientists
and physicians
are allowed to do
an autopsy on the man
and they go back
and they do the autopsy
on the man
and when they do
the autopsy on the man
they say,
oh yeah,
you know,
this guy obviously
has had surgery
because when you do
the autopsy
you can see
some of the stuff
that wasn't good
still there,
you can see
surgical scars
and you say,
yeah,
somebody went
and actually did surgery
on this guy.
Here's the big thing
about understanding
the flood.
Miracles are not surgery.
Here's,
if you could put this up
the next point,
this is something
for you to try
to meditate upon
and try to understand
miracles in general
but this is this,
in most miracles
as the laws of nature
flow on,
cause and effect,
cause and effect
because that's the way
that God designed
the universe,
in most miracles
God creates
something new
in his creation
and or
he removes something
out of his creation.
Right?
Because God creates,
it's his creation,
he made it,
he sustains it
and he made it
all out of nothing.
He didn't have
to use materials.
He makes it all
out of nothing.
So in most miracles,
so here's what happens
then in the miracle,
here's what I would say
if we understand,
and this comes from
some philosophers
and theologians
who study all of the miracles
and try to understand
how they work
and how it fits in
with knowledge.
So if you go back
and you think about
the miracle of Jesus
healing the man
who's born blind,
Jesus,
because he is God,
the son of God,
the second person
of the Trinity,
as he reaches,
I can't remember
if he reaches his hand
out or not,
but however he does,
even if it's just
a matter of speaking
the word,
as he speaks the word,
things within
that man's eye
which are stopping
seeing,
gone.
Gone.
God removes them
from the creation.
The parts of the body
that need to be there
for sight to happen,
they're there.
You see,
the more we know
about medicine
and the more we know
about science,
no medicine
and no science
disproves miracles.
Medicine and science
increase the wow.
Medicine and science
increase the wow
when God does miracles.
Now here's the thing,
if in a miracle,
Jesus doesn't do surgery,
he does a miracle.
The things which stop
the sight,
gone.
the things that need
to be there
for the man to see,
there.
Scientists go back now
after the man has died,
they do an autopsy
and what do they find?
The scientists would say
that this man
was not born blind.
Because unless God
chose to leave
some sign inside,
like a little message,
Jesus healed
the man born blind.
I'm just joking.
Unless he does that
inside,
the autopsy will show
that the man
had never been blind.
Do you see the difference?
So here's the thing,
I think the big,
and I'm an apologist,
as you can gather,
I love apologetics
and I am not trying
to diss all of these
very faithful Christians
who study Genesis 6,
7, 8, and 9
and try to look
for geological proof
and proof and myth.
I'm not dissing them at all,
but I think that most people
have made a mistake
because they think
that God has to work
with stuff,
that it's a little bit
like God using
Ikea stuff.
Like when I make
a bookcase,
I buy something from Ikea
and I have to put it
back together.
And Christians keep
slipping back
into thinking
that when God
does things,
it's like me
working with Ikea.
God doesn't need stuff.
Speaks,
it's gone.
Speaks,
it's there.
So if we see
that when Jesus heals
the man born blind,
there's no sign afterwards
that a miracle
has been done physically,
I would suggest
that what goes on
in this miracle,
this text says
that God is going
to do this.
And in fact,
when you go through,
we're going to skip
through a bit of
Genesis 7 and 8
because it's already
31 minutes into the sermon.
We're going to skip
through it.
You can read it later on.
You'll see constantly,
I will do this,
I sent this,
this comes from heaven,
I did this,
I did this.
The text,
about 12 times,
says God's doing
a really big miracle.
Now,
why is it that we believe
that Jesus healed
the man born blind?
It wouldn't be
because you could
go back in time,
maybe find the body
and do a test
historically
to see whether or not
Jesus healed
man born blind
because a miracle
means that there's
no physical evidence
afterwards.
How do we know?
Testimony.
Human testimony.
Now,
not always
in the resurrection
of Jesus,
which is the big miracle,
it's the big
battleground miracle
and the big
battleground miracle,
there is other types
of things apart
because of the nature
of the miracle,
apart merely from testimony,
but the testimony
is spectacularly important
that can also
help us to understand
why it's reasonable
to believe
that Jesus predicted
that he would die
upon the cross,
that he would rise
upon the,
from the dead
and that on the third
day,
the grave was empty.
He was risen from the dead.
He had defeated death.
Death no longer
has any power over him
and his death
upon the cross
and his resurrection
was not for himself,
but for you and me
that on the cross,
my doom was laid on him
and his destiny
is offered to me
if I receive it by faith
and if you receive it
by faith.
But for most miracles,
the evidence we have
is human testimony,
which is what we have here.
And if you even think about it,
we're going to just look
at something very,
very, very briefly.
I'm mindful of my time
and I might not get
through all of my points
or just really have to
gallop at the end,
but this is a really,
really big thing
because you see,
so many of us,
rather than trying to just
try to listen to the text
and even just dwell upon
the fact as I just did
with verse 14.
The ark is what Moses was in.
The ark nests
covered inside and out
with atonement
and the world like Mordor
and rather than just trying
to get our minds around that
and be fed by it
and to understand that,
you know,
you and I,
we need miracles in our lives.
That's why we pray.
We'll pray that we will be
a prayerful church
that calls out to God
for direction
and doesn't try
to figure out
whether we should do things
because we have the resources,
although we have to be wise,
but sometimes you only,
Peter only was able
to walk on the water
when he got out of the boat
and sometimes every church,
you got to be willing
just to trust God's word
and get out of the boat
if you want to walk on the water.
And this text says
time and time again,
there's a miracle.
Even if you think about it,
God destroys everything.
He says you're going
to blot out everything.
I'm going to show you
in a moment
how it's a reversal
and a recreation.
And if you even think about it,
God's,
Noah shut up in the ark,
even if he's looking out,
when he's looking out,
everything that God is doing
to recreate the earth
is done underneath the water.
And the text even says
the water doesn't come
from the earth,
it comes from God.
That's what the text
actually literally says.
So in other words,
if scientists go back
and calculate
that there's not enough water
to do this,
that's not a disproving of it
because you say,
one moment,
we didn't say there was enough,
we didn't say this was
a natural thing.
The Bible doesn't say
this just happened.
The Bible says
that God does
a really big miracle.
That God does it.
So taking the feeling
that we have to know
enough geology
and biology
and all that,
you can let that aside.
It's on the big strong shoulders
of the God
who's created
all things out of nothing,
who preserves
and sustains all things,
will bring all things
to their end.
The God who does miracles
in his creation.
And if there's geology
and myth
and other stuff
that helps
and there are stuff
in that
that all helps
to give little hints,
but you can say this side,
God is a God
who does miracles.
Brothers and sisters,
if we are here today
and we need a miracle,
I don't know if God
is going to do
that miracle for you
or if the miracle
is going to be
how you endure.
You know,
a friend of mine
who died,
what he would tell people
is that as he prayed
for healing,
he believed one of three things.
He believed God
was going to heal him.
That God would heal him
slowly through medicine.
God would heal him
quickly through a miracle.
Or God would heal him
finally and perfectly,
eternally,
when he died.
And in Christ's arms,
he appears before God
for all eternity
with a resurrection body.
to live in the new creation,
healed eternally.
But we need miracles.
So let's go back
to the text.
Let's go back
to the text.
Sorry,
let's go back
to verse 15.
I'll look at my time.
You know what
we're going to do?
We're just going to,
you know,
so I'm going to say one thing.
You could put up
the next point here,
Andrew.
I'm going to try
to run through
a few of these things.
Oh, no,
yeah,
the next point.
Here's the thing
which I think
the text shows.
The flood,
in the flood,
God first reverses,
then recreates
his creation.
So,
if you go back
and you look at,
later on in your spare time,
read chapter 7.
And what you see
at the end of chapter 7
is that,
you know,
God says,
Noah,
I'm going to do this.
Noah actually builds
the ark.
It describes how
after 120 years,
God says,
Noah,
it's going to come
in seven days.
You have time
to get it in.
God sends the animals.
God shuts Noah
into the ark.
It's funny,
if you go back,
actually,
let's look at verse 11.
Yeah,
verse 11 of chapter 7.
In the 600th year
of Noah's life
in the second month
and the 17th day
of the month.
Doesn't that sound
like history?
On that day,
all the fountains
of the great deep
burst forth
and the windows
of the heavens
were open
and the rain
fell on the earth
40 days and 40 nights
and often commentators,
and I'm,
you know,
people can handle
those different ways.
If you actually
take it very literally,
what it just says
is that Noah looks out
and all of a sudden
he can see this,
the waters just rising
but more importantly,
he looks out
and it's even,
even in the rest
of the text,
it talks about celestial waters
and God looks out.
Maybe it's actually
being literal
rather than being
something to be
embarrassed about.
Maybe when Noah
looked out,
he saw a hole
and out of the hole
water comes down.
And in the rest
of the text,
when it says
that the waters
subside,
really it's actually
literally saying
the waters go
because God
creates things
out of nothing
and he takes
things that exist
and just makes
them go away.
And look at the,
just to jump ahead,
look at chapter 8,
verse 1.
This is the key verse
in the whole story
of the flood.
God remembered Noah.
Sorry,
look at the verse
just before that.
And the waters
prevailed on the earth
150 days.
We now have a picture.
There's only water
and this one boat
bobbing along
on the surface.
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 go,
begin to go.
And in the Bible,
the word remembered,
in the Old Testament,
the word remembered
is a very important word.
It's not like
we usually use it.
You know,
Louise will say to me,
George,
did you remember
to get that
at Loblaws
or at Costco?
And I'll say,
dang,
I forgot.
Or I remember
because I'd forgotten
and I remembered.
That's not what it means
in the Bible.
In the Bible,
when it talks
of God remembering,
it's always used
that God,
who has made a promise
to somebody,
is now about
to complete the promise.
That's what it means.
And here we have
a little boat
relative to a planet
on the water
and the wind is blowing.
Now,
what does that
remind you of?
Those of you
who know your Bibles,
Genesis chapter 1,
verse 2,
waters cover the earth.
And the word
for wind
and the word
for Holy Spirit
in Hebrew
is the same word.
And in Genesis
chapter 1, 2,
before the first
creation story
and before the second
creation story,
there's only water
in the Holy Spirit.
God has reversed
creation.
And now he's
going to recreate it.
And if you go back
later on
and just take
the first creation
and the second creation
story,
and the first
and fourth days
which refer to lights
aren't present,
but all of the other
things in the second,
the third,
the fifth,
the sixth,
the seventh day
in the second creation
story reappear
in the next 19 verses.
They all reappear.
The rest of the text
is going to describe
how the world
is both similar
and different
than before,
but God has
recreated the earth.
And there's going to be
a new covenant.
So it's 41 minutes.
Let's just,
could you put up
the next point?
Let's just wrap this up.
One of the things
about the text,
if you go back
and look,
one of the things
in our heart,
I was just sharing
the gospel
with somebody
just about
a week and a half ago.
And one of the things
I was trying to share
with her
is that religion
and spirituality
tells you
that if you do
enough rules,
God will love you.
And the gospel message
is that you never
do enough rules
for God to love you,
but what happens
is that grace
comes first.
And if you go back
and look at this story,
when it says
that Noah is made
righteous,
God makes him
right with himself.
And God makes
the promise
of deliverance.
And after God
makes the promise
of deliverance,
then Noah obeys.
You see,
God's grace
nurtures our obedience.
Human obedience
does not produce grace.
And it's all the way
through the story.
Our fallen command centers
want to keep trying
to not see
how the,
in fact,
this young woman
that I was witnessing to,
she brought up
the Ten Commandments
and I said,
I'm so glad
you brought up
the Ten Commandments.
Go back and read them.
I am the God
who has redeemed you.
So,
you shall have
no other gods
before me.
You shall not
make an idol.
I am the God
who redeemed you.
grace
nurtures
obedience.
Obedience
does not
create grace.
And as we all know,
rule-based systems
of spirituality
and religion
are always
ultimately
self-justifying,
self-righteousness,
and ultimately
rooted in anxiety.
But when we realize
that,
well,
in fact,
can you put up
the next point?
God keeps
his warnings
and his promises.
That's just a freebie.
I'm running out of time.
Next one.
You can look it up
on the web
if you want to write
these down.
It says,
at best,
we human beings
want an ark,
but God loves us truly.
He provided
Jesus Christ crucified.
You see,
a lot of us
at the best,
most of us,
what we want to just say
to God is,
it's my way
or the highway,
God.
It's my way
or the highway.
You can't tell me
how to live.
You can't tell me
how I should identify myself.
You can't tell me.
It's my way
or the highway.
The best we have
is when things go bad
is we want to get
into an ark.
At the end of the ark,
as we're going to see
next week,
we come out of it
delivered from judgment
but unchanged.
God does something
so much better.
He sends his son
to be the Lamb of God
who takes away
the sin of the world.
He comes to be
the one
who will bear
our doom
and give us
his destiny.
He is the one
who will pay
for everything
that we have done wrong.
He is the one
who will clothe us
with his righteousness
and his perfect obedience.
He is the one
who does that
for us
in a new covenant.
God does something
better
than an ark,
a true
and greater
Noah.
Next point.
Oh yeah,
please stand.
Please stand.
One of the things
that I've been thinking about
as I looked at this text
is
I'm not going to live
120 years.
And who knows,
maybe Jesus
will return tomorrow
and
and then I don't
have to worry about
in the next
120 years.
But maybe
he won't come
for a long time
and God
sometimes asks us
to do things
which will take
120 years
to complete.
To pass the baton.
and God
is calling us
not out of
a fear of him
because if we
obey perfectly
he'll finally
love us
but as we're
gripped by the
gospel
as we're
gripped by the
gospel
as the gospel
is what is
sitting
the person
work of Jesus
is what is
sitting at the
command center
of our lives
so that how
we look at
things,
how we feel,
how we think,
how we plan,
how we
do everything,
it's the command
center,
at the very
command center
is Jesus
and what he
does for us
on the cross
and God's
power that
makes us his
when we believe
it and trust it.
That one of the
things as grace
nurtures obedience
is we
undertake things
that might take
120 years
to complete.
A long obedience
in the same
direction.
So I invite you
to pray this
with me.
If you have
never given
your life to
Jesus,
this is a
conversion prayer.
But a
conversion prayer
is the same
prayer that we
need to spend
all of our
lives praying.
Not that we
have to be
saved over
and over
again.
But every
human being
needs to be
gripped by the
gospel.
So I invite you
to pray this
out loud with
me.
Heavenly
Father,
please pour
out the
Holy Spirit
upon us
and make us
disciples of
Jesus gripped
by the
gospel,
living a
long obedience
in the same
direction as
we live for
your glory.
In Jesus'
name,
Amen.
Father,
pour out your
Holy Spirit
upon us.
Make us
gripped by
the gospel
and use us
to make
disciples of
Jesus gripped
by the gospel,
living for
your glory.
And we
ask this in
Jesus'
name,
Amen.