Sunday Night Sept 10 2017

Christ, that this would not be true of us. It would not be true that every intent of the thoughts of our hearts was only evil continually. Why? Because all things have passed away, behold all things have become new.

New Creatures in Christ and the Problem of Human Sin

We are born again, made new creatures, new creations in Christ and He is the one who makes the difference. To understand Genesis 6 -5, there would be two things. One, let's clarify, this was not simply a pre-flood problem, or to use the $10 language, an antediluvian malady.

This was not a problem just for the folks before Noah built the ark and just before the flood. This was a problem even afterwards. So just to make sure that you know that, let's flip ahead to chapter 8.

And in verse 21, after Noah built the altar and offered up some sacrifices, the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man. For the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth.

This is after the flood. The issue still stands. It's not just pre-flood, it's post-flood. And we discover something rather important. There seems to be in pop culture today the idea that if there's ever a great global catastrophic disaster that all of humanity will finally overcome all of our prejudices and racisms and problems and we're all going to come together as one united whole.

It's already been tried. It didn't end up that way. In the immediate shadow of the flood, we have family division and curses being leveled and whole parts of humanity being at odds with one another. So it's important to notice that this condition is not simply about something getting out of hand and just cleaning things up with a bunch of water.

The greatest external cleansing and washing that has ever been accomplished the flood did not change the heart of man. There's no amount of water that's going to wash us clean. The flood shows that. Why then is verse 5 true?

That every intent of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually. Why is this so? What has occurred in the Genesis story to bring that about? It was the original sin. God promised in his prohibition in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 17, he promised that in the day that you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

And this death, death came through Adam because sin came through Adam and death spread to all men because all men sinned, Romans 5. So this death, in the day that Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, they surely died.

They didn't physically drop dead, but spiritually they died as they were exiled from the holy life of God. And as created in God's image, we don't have the slightest possibility of living out who we're supposed to be in exile from God because we're made in God's image.

If we live for ourselves, trying to remake ourselves in our own image, this is the height of perversity, making ourselves God. And thus every intent of the thoughts of their heart were only evil continually because even the most remarkable virtues end up to be splendid vices when you don't do them for the glory of God.

And unless you're spiritually alive, you can't do anything for the glory of God. We have these hurricanes hitting our country and all sorts of people are sending money to help people in Houston, help people in Mississippi, help people in Florida and in Georgia, and so on and so forth.

And there's just all this money flowing from all sorts of people to help the folks in the islands. Could that be evil? People having evil thoughts as they send that money to help others? Well, it sure looks good.

And I'm glad they're sending money. And I think I know why at the root of it, because we are made in the image of God and we have this sense we ought to do something. Our fellow human beings were made that way.

But if we don't do it for the glory of God, if we're not doing it out of a love for God, it ends up coming back in conversation, oh, I sent some money, or man, I haven't really lived a good life, but I think if I send this, it'll kind of make up for something I've done, right?

False God, false idolatry, false understanding of salvation, so on and so forth. And the most splendid things that we can do end up being somehow twisted in our hearts. And this is what God sees. Now, of course, there was great violence on the earth.

We know that from verses 1 through 4. But this doesn't mean that there wasn't any appearance of something good happening. But God noticed what he looks at. He looks at every intent of the thoughts of the heart.

What God sees going on is a lot different than what we can see going on, right? He's looking deeper. And this is what grieves him. So the Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth. He was grieved in his heart, even as he was pleased as he made all of creation and set his special creatures at the center of it, man and woman, and said, very good, and was pleased with what he had made.

He is very displeased with man and how sin has corrupted everything. And so the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals, to creeping things, and to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them.

Now, he's going to blot out who? Man. And then he adds everything else. The focus is on man, because we are created in his image. We're responsible. The image of God. We are the intersection between God and other humans and the world around us.

For man to sin impacts all of creation. It impacts the entirety of the universe that man would sin. But notice, why is it right for God to take this action? In verse 7, he's the creator. That's why it's right for him to do so.

I will blot out man whom I have created. He has all authority over those he has made. He has the authority to do that, because he's the creator of man. That's not very popular to think about. None of us in our flesh really like to think about God having absolute authority over our lives.

But we do have authority issues. Everybody does. We were made in God's image to mediate his authority throughout all of our relations and all of our responsibilities. But if in our flesh, if in our sin, we will struggle against that authority, not willing to accept it and rejoice in that.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Not that no one can verbalize those words, but no one will celebrate the lordship of Jesus Christ and the authority of Jesus Christ unless their hearts have been changed by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Now verse 8, but Noah found favor in the eyes of God. Noah, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. The term favor is the term grace. And we come back to the eyes of God. And this is a building theme.

In verses one through four, we recall the continued cycle of sin in that the sons of God saw the daughters of men and took them for themselves, even as Eve saw the fruit and took it for herself. But they're not the only ones looking about for the Lord saw that the likeness of men was great on the earth.

And, and also now the eyes of the Lord in the eyes of the Lord, Noah found favor, found grace. And so this was something that God gives to Noah is something that God bestows upon Noah. Now, if, if, and this is important that verse eight comes before verse nine, read verse nine.

These are the records of the generation of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time. Noah walked with God. Why? Why was he right in his dealings? Why did he have this kind of reputation with everybody around him that no one could really blame him for anything, that he was living with integrity with people around him?

Why was it that he was walking with God? Why all the truths of verse nine? What lies behind verse nine? Verse eight. This is, these are the effects of grace. When God has grace in someone's life, they end up looking like that over time.

That they have right dealings, that they are faithful and just, that they, that their reputation will be blameless, and that they walk with God. This is meaning that he's perfect, but it means that he's, that he is being renewed into the image that God intended for him all the time.

So Noah became the father of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And we have Adam, who was the father of three sons. Remember who they are? Well, what about Adam? Adam was the father of three sons, listed?

Cain, and Abel, and Seth. And were they all stand-up gentlemen? One of them proved a problem, didn't it? And if we are being read this story out loud, and we hear that we come to Noah, and the tenth from Adam, and he has three sons as well.

Oh, I wonder how all three sons will turn out. Of course, we know that Ham was the rotten one. Verse 11. Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God. Come back to the sight of God. The earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.

God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. When you're reading that, again, just remember, when you're reading that, I either keep saying the same thing twice.

Remember that the Bible was written as an oral document to be read aloud. To be read aloud. The Bible originally was written in such a way that it would stick in the mind as it was being read aloud. And Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in the Acacia Grove, in the shadow of Mount Peor, is writing down the words that he's going to be reading, that the Levites are going to be copying, and that they are going to be reading in the encampments of Israel.

And they're hearing this over and over again, that God sees, God knows, God evaluates. And his analysis is that all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. So then God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.

And behold, I'm about to destroy them with the earth. You have the sense of the earth being filled up with violence. So what will God do? He'll fill up the earth with water, as an appropriate judgment to what is going on.

So he says, make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. You could translate it this way, make for yourself a box. It's essentially what is being said. We think of this fanciful toy-looking object that has lots of curves.

It's all curves and rounded off, and it looks like it's fun to play with. God told Noah to build a box, a box. And that's what the Ark of the Covenant was. It was a box. And Noah is to build a box out of gopher wood, make the ark with rooms, and you'll cover it inside and out with pitch.

It's interesting, the word pitch is the same root word in the Hebrew as the word for atonement. It's the word for sacrifice, atonement. That which covers over. And he is supposed to seal the ark with this pitch, so it'll float.

This is going to be a sailing ship, this is going to be a barge. It's just designed to float on top of the waters and keep everybody inside safe. And then he begins to give instructions. This is how you shall make it.

The length of the ark, 300 cubits. Its breadth, 50 cubits. And its height, 30 cubits. Which, if you do the math, a cubit is from the tip of your finger to your elbow. We're talking about a vessel 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.

If Noah's arms are the same length as yours, they may have been bigger. I don't know, he lived for a very long time. He may have had bigger arms than you. So, we're not really sure what the cubit was back then, but it's reasonably close to, I guess, what we would say there.

You shall make a window for the ark and finish it to a cubit from the top, and set a door of the ark in the side of it. You shall also make it with lower, second, and third decks. So, a three-level vessel, plenty of room to put in samples of all the animals that they need to.

Even if they put dinosaurs on there, they're probably putting them in small versions and eggs and so on and so forth. It's very clear they had plenty of room for all of the animals. Behold, I, even I, am bringing the flood of water upon the earth.

We often try to absolve God of any responsibility of that which we think is bad. How embarrassing that our God would kill all these people. He made them. He's the creator. He's all-powerful. He's holy.

He's good. He's a good God, and all that he does is good. We ought not try to absolve him of responsibility. He's taking responsibility. Behold, I, even I, am bringing the flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven.

Everything that is on the earth shall perish. Verse 17. What is the scope of this flood, according to verse 17? We say it's worldwide because of the words like what? All, what else? Under heaven. Everything under the sky, right?

Everything. Everything on earth. That's why it's so curious to me that the people who take Genesis 1 and 2 and make it all myth, Adam and Eve were not real people. Humans emerged 150 ,000 years ago in mass, in an accidental mutation brought about by Evolution, capital E, which is the god of the atheists.

Whenever there's a problem, they say Evolution did that, and it has a capital E on it. Sorry, I thought that was a hypothesis. How does a hypothesis make things? Oh, it was natural selection chose. I'm sorry, how does an idea do that?

That's kind of confusing. They're perfectly honest in a world of nothing but matter. Nothing matters. And C .S. Lewis says atheism turns out to be far too simple. If the world should have no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.

We shouldn't have found out the meaning of the meaningless universe. But it makes absolutely no sense. But those who would take Genesis 1 and 2 and say it's myth, Adam and Eve, weren't actually real. We talked about this in great length, that the whole process of evolution, of death and mutation and disease and disaster over millions of years, even if they would put a Christian spin on it and say God used the instruments of death and mutation and disease.

They would say that that would be that which produces God's good creation, not the effects of sin. So they've totally perverted that. When they come to the story of the flood, everyone who denies a young earth also denies a worldwide flood.

Every single one. And as I said, if you deny the plain reading of Genesis 1 and 2, you're going to have problems throughout the rest of the Bible. It's totally incompatible. Because here it says all flesh and everything on the earth shall perish.

But everyone who denies six day creation also denies this. And they say it was a regional flood. It was a regional flood. It was just in one area where humanity happened to be located and that's what happened.

And yet when you read out loud, and this is important, when you read it out loud, Genesis 6, 7 and 8, and I've done this as a discipline and a practice, the amount of times you say all and every and under all the heavens and over every single mountain and so on and so it just reemphasizes the plain reading of the text.

It's impossible, I think, to come away from any other reading. As a challenge of faith, Hebrews tells us by faith we understand. By faith we understand. Not once we have comprehended all things then we might consider choosing faith.

But by faith we understand. C .S. Lewis' illustration in his tool shed is that when he walks up to his tool shed, he sees a hole. There's a hole in the roof of his tool shed and he knows that because he can see this narrow shaft of light coming down from the roof and he can see the dust floating through this narrow beam of light.

He walks into the tool shed and he walks into the shaft of light and looks up and what does he see? He doesn't see light. He sees tree branches, leaves. He sees fruit. He sees a squirrel, a bird. He sees a blue sky, maybe a wisp of cloud.

That's what he sees. He says that's what Christianity is. That's what Christianity is. He says I don't believe in Christianity because I think it's, he believes it's objectively true, but he says I'm not looking at Christianity from the outside saying I think that works.

He says I enter into the light and through it I can see everything else and everything else is finally clear. Well, verse 18, God says, But I will establish my covenant with you and you shall enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.

And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every kind into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.

So that means he's going to bring them, he's going to lead them to Noah. As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible and gather it to yourself and it shall be food for you and for them.

So God is saying I'm going to, I've made my covenant with you. I've made my agreement with you. I will preserve you. I have poured out my grace on you and I'm going to preserve you and your family and a representative amount of all of the animals, of all of the creatures I'm going to bring and you're going to keep them safe in the ark.

You're going to feed them, keep them alive for the time that you're in the ark. God, therefore, retains a remnant of the created order in the ark with Noah. He has all of the different species there so that they can still propagate the earth afterwards.

Because after all, each species produces after its own kind. We read over and over in chapter one, verse 22. Thus Noah did according to all that God had commanded him so he did. What kind of impact do you think that would have had on the children of Israel as Moses is reading that passage to the children of Israel?

They're over there in the wilderness. They're getting their manna from heaven, getting their water from a rock. Getting their light and heat by night from a pillar of fire and their shade and their guidance from a pillar of cloud by day.

Their sandals haven't worn out. Their clothes haven't worn out. They've been wandering through the wilderness 40 years. The old generation that rebelled and did not go in, most of them are dead. They soon will all be dead except for Joshua and Caleb.

And the new generation is there and they're listening to the reading of Genesis. All thus Noah did according to all that God commanded him so he did. What kind of impact does it have on the Israelites before they cross the Jordan?

Sure. Absolutely. And what if God gives them some rather strange instructions to follow? God gave Noah some odd instructions to do. Man, that's just strange. That's odd. But God gives Israel some strange instructions to do as well, doesn't he?

About how to conquer Jericho and not to take anything for yourself and so on and so forth. And if they were to follow God's instructions, this would be the result. Yes. That's right. Noah was a preacher of righteousness, Peter says.

Any other questions or thoughts about Genesis 6? Yes, and I think that the great task for Noah was to believe what God commanded him to do and to follow through in obedience. Ultimately, the story of Noah shows us a picture of Christ, of the one with whom God has the covenant.

The one who is absolutely obedient in our place and for our sake. And that all those with him are safe and protected from the judgment of God. And we'll look more about that as we go through chapter 7.

He knows all things. And for us just to say that, well, he's up on this person, this grace. And we can't question who he placed his grace upon. But I'm wondering, maybe it was because Noah walked with God.

Isn't there a scripture that talks about children not keeping bad company because they are corrupt? But maybe it's because they weren't walking with God.

Well, what we have to do, Ms. Vonnie, and this is one of the privileges that we have because we all have our own copies of scripture. Is to employ what we call the analogy of scripture. Meaning that as we try to answer questions like that, that we do our very best to interpret the one scripture by the rest of the Bible.

And we have to think about sometimes, especially in Genesis, which might be considered the frontier of gospel revelation. Sometimes to understand the features we see on the frontier, we go to some place that is more clear and more well defined for us.

For instance, we might go to Ephesians chapter 2, which indicates what Genesis 6 does. That we're dead in trespasses and sins. That we're enslaved following in line with the prince of the power of the air.

It says much of the same thing as Genesis 6 does. But then it says, but God, because of his great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. And reiterates all of that by saying again, it's not of works, lest any man should boast.

And then verse 10 says that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he prepared beforehand for us to walk in them. And so the order of things is defined for us throughout the scripture. And this doesn't mean that man's will is not involved.

No, it's involved. And man is always, always doing that which man desires. Always. Man is always in line with his will. But even that, Ms. Vonnie, we have, for instance, an example here. All these people who were doing wickedness were doing what their hearts desired.

Noah, walking with God, was doing what he desired. And when we're trying to figure out what makes the difference, ultimately we say it's the grace of God. It doesn't mean that we don't have a choice. And, you know, the queasiness that we have sometimes when we think about how does that all work out.

Paul says in Romans 9, he brings it all the way down to the nth degree. It says, well, if it's about God who wills and who has mercy, then why are we being judged for? Because who can resist his will?

And he comes all the way down to it and he says, it's now time for us to act like Job. Right? And we come up to it and then we say, how shall the thing made say that against the one who has made us? I think one illustration is this.

If you ever, now don't do this at home. I'm not saying do this. But if you were to stand on the railroad tracks and you have two straight lines and you look up, what do they appear to do? Converge at some point in the distance?

This is often where we are in trying to understand the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. And we're not quite sure how they converge. But somewhere in the distance, we know they do. And God has it under wraps.

But always, always people are doing what they desire. When we talk about the grace of God at work in somebody's life, it's him getting involved to work in their heart to break them free from the total enslavement to Satan.

So that they can see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And they see Christ and they love Christ and they run to Christ. And they do so of their own will. But it is an awakening of grace that God has to work.

We love him because he first loved us. He has to take the first step. And I think that's what we're really looking at. And we emphasize that verse 8 comes before verse 9. Ms. Vonnie, not because it's crystal clear in this text.

But we know from other passages that the order is important. That's the only reason why. And so we're all still working on that and thinking through it. But it's a helpful illustration that we need the whole witness of scripture, not just one little area.

Because that may end up not being sufficient. God gave us more than just a few passages. He gave us the whole thing. So I think that's why I made the point that I made. And Vonnie, you're right. It's not that clear from the text.

But we know from other passages why we would read it that way. In the scriptures, and you're right about that. In the scriptures, when we find emphasis about the grace of God in the work of salvation, it is always to edify the saints unto worshiping the Lord.

Revelation 7, we have a multitude which no man can count surrounding the throne, giving worship to God on the throne and to the Lamb who is on the throne. And at the end of all things, the number of the redeemed is a number so high we can't count.

And they're all saying the same thing. Salvation belongs to God and to the Lamb. Salvation belongs to God. At the end, we're all saying it's all of God. In the meantime, we should emphasize that salvation is of grace and not of works.

You should trust in Jesus Christ. It's not what you can do that can save you. And so grace is part of our gospel witness. But the gospel is a message to be preached to everyone, everywhere, at all times.

Because that's the whoever, right? John 3 .16, that's the grace of John 3 .16. And so we're not supposed to be, when we're witnessing and evangelizing and calling people to faith in Christ, we're to follow the method of Christ as He came preaching the gospel.

When the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. That's what we go preaching. Yes, absolutely. Let's close by singing the doxology.