The Flood Shows God's Wrath and Mercy

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, the 6th chapter.

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Glory to the Lord. Immediately Jesus made

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His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He dismissed the crowd.

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And after He had taken leave of them, He went up on the mountain to pray. And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and He was alone on the land.

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And He saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night,

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He came to them walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw Him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost, and they cried out, for they all saw

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Him, and they were terrified. But immediately He spoke to them and said, Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.

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And He got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

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When they had crossed over, they came to the land at Gennesaret and moored to the shore. And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized

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Him and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard

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He was. And wherever He came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored

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Him that they might touch even the fringe of His garment. And as many as touched it were made well.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen. I remember years ago,

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I was doing research on the emergent church movement. You have to put church in quotes there. And listening to Tony Jones and Doug Padgett and Brian McLaren and this new form of liberalism that sprung up, came to life maybe more than a decade ago.

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And one of the things I thought was interesting is that they do not like, and I mean this, do not like the story of the

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Flood. In fact, I remember reading one of them on a blog saying, why is it that Christian parents paint their nurseries with scenes of the ark and the animals and the rainbow?

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The Flood story is absolutely abominable. Why? You ask, why is it abominable?

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Because it's a story of God's wrath. And then they go on to explain how this is just a terrible way to think about God.

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God doesn't have wrath. God is a big, senile grandpa who lives up in the sky in the clouds, who likes to hand out butterscotch to his, well, disobedient, bratty little grandkids.

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This is how they describe him, right? But here's the thing. The story of the

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Flood is not merely a story of God's wrath. It is also a story of salvation and God's mercy.

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And so I would note that the story of the Flood is one that there's a lot that you could unpack from it.

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I mean, a lot. And so what we're gonna do today, I don't think we can exhaustively pull all of the stops out.

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We're gonna do a little bit of a study on the Flood because, I mean, if you're gonna talk about the noadic covenant and the rainbow and all this kind of stuff, all that's pointing to something.

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So we're gonna start in a weird place, 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter two.

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And I'm gonna start in verse four because here, Peter, the apostle Peter, you know the guy who, well, sank when he tried walking on the water?

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I just bring that up. By the way, the whole story about Jesus walking on the water is not about you getting out of any boat.

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I just wanna make that clear. In fact, I like the ark story because there's nothing about walking on water or getting out of the boat in that story.

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You gotta stay in the boat. That's kind of the point. But here's what it says in 2 Peter chapter two, verse four.

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If God did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell, and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world, but he preserved

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Noah, a herald of righteousness. Now, pay attention to that word, herald of righteousness.

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And here, the word kerukso actually means a preacher, somebody who is a preacher of righteousness.

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And so he preserved Noah, a herald, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others. When he brought a flood upon the world, he was a herald of the ungodly.

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If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, then making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.

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Ah, okay. So, what is the whole flood narrative? The whole flood narrative, along with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, these are examples of what is going to happen to the ungodly.

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And note that what Peter said, that when God brought the flood, that the flood was upon the world of the ungodly.

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That's an important bit. You see, we must come to grips with this fact. We are not good people.

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Over and again, I am just amazed by how blind to our own evil we are.

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You talk to the average person. Are you going to go to heaven when you die? Yes. Why?

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Because I'm a good person. Are you really? Really. And this is where we must take a look at God's law.

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I mean, let's look at the Ten Commandments here. Are any of us good? Scripture says, you shall have no other gods before me.

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And anything that you trust in God to deliver you, to comfort you, whether it be money or even escapism, well, that becomes your deity.

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Are you an idolater? You betcha. Even if you trust in yourself. That's the idol that we like to make.

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I will get myself out of my own problems because I can solve this. I will be in control.

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I will make the world a better place. Yeah, then you become your own deity. And then we'll talk about not taking

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God's name in vain. You know, that would mean not deceiving or teaching false things about God or even believing them.

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Remembering the Sabbath day, keeping it holy. Do you despise hearing God's word? Do you think, Sunday, I don't know.

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I'm gonna get out of bed and go to church. Right? And then let's not even talk about honoring our father and mother.

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That has more to do with all the people who are in authority over us, not just dad and mom.

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It also includes presidents and governors and bosses and things like that. And then, of course, we shall not murder.

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We shall not commit adultery. We shall not steal. Does any of this sound familiar with you all?

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And you sit there and go, well, it's not really stealing. I know that, you know, it's not really stealing if the thing

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I'm stealing is under $20 or weird things like this, you know. And then, of course, you shall not, well, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

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You know, lie about them, tear them down, break, you know, make other people think that their character is horrible.

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And all based upon what? Oh, gossip, rumors, things like this. And then don't even get me started with the coveting thing.

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Notice the whole commandments against coveting. That's going down deep into what's inside of our heart.

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Do you really wanna tell me you're a good person after working through those 10? You're not.

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I'm not. None of us have kept it. And so you'll note that here, this text tells us that the story of the flood is an example of what's going to happen to the ungodly.

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And here's where I might wanna bring a little gospel to bear. Romans chapter four makes it very clear that Christ died for the ungodly.

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Good news, you qualify. I qualify. And because Christ has died for the ungodly, we can be declared righteous by God by faith.

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In fact, we are. Do you believe the words of the absolution that you heard today, that you are forgiven for Christ's sake, that he is the one who suffered in your place, who took your ungodliness upon himself and died so that you might live?

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Then you are declared righteous. And we'll talk about that a little bit more. So note then, here's kind of our key thought, that the flood is an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.

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It's a type and shadow of what we confess in the creed that Jesus will return in glory to judge the living and the dead.

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Jesus himself makes this very clear in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, that his return is going to be just like the days of Noah.

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The unbelieving, ungodly world will not even see it coming. All right?

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And Jesus says that just as in the days of Noah they were eating and giving in marriage and things like this, kind of the picture that Jesus paints is this idea that somebody in the ancient world, maybe many couples,

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I don't know, they had planned their wedding for the day that the flood would come. They didn't even know it was coming.

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But they should have because Noah was a what? Preacher of righteousness. He preached for 120 years that God was going to send a flood upon the earth.

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120. They should have seen it coming, but did they listen to that old kooky guy, Noah, who was building that big boat in his backyard?

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Right? No, they didn't listen to him at all. So what did they do on the day the flood came?

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There were people who were getting married that day. Maybe they had just gone to the ceremony and they were all at the reception.

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The photography had been done and they were all sitting there raising their glasses and toast to the new couple and their future together when off in the distance, you can hear the rumble coming and the tsunami that is the flood covering the earth.

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But see, scriptures tell us these things so that unlike those people, we would not be caught unawares.

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That's why you're here today, to hear the truth. Because we all know that we stand condemned before God and we want to hear words of hope.

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We want to hear comforting words that we will somehow survive the deluge that's coming on the earth.

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But the only way to do that is to believe. And so back in Genesis, back in Genesis chapter 6,

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I'll start at verse 5. Let's work our way through a large swath of this today. We don't have communion, so I just kind of think of that as an invitation to preach more

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Bible, you know. So, ahem. Clevin just gave me the weird eyebrow thingy.

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I'm going to get a talking to after the sermon. All right, Genesis chapter 6, verse 5.

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Yahweh 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.

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This is a result of our fall into sin. We are born dead in trespasses and sins. We are by nature objects of God's wrath.

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And listen, I'll give you a little confession about myself. There have been times in my life where I've woken up in the morning and I haven't quite gotten out of bed yet.

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You know, because getting out of bed is a little bit of a commitment, because you're warm and cozy and toasty. And then you know that you have to get your feet cold on the tile in the bathroom and stuff like this.

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And so I would be sitting there in bed, awake, and you know what I was doing?

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I was thinking about sin. I was thinking about doing something wrong and planning it out and working it out in my mind.

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And you know what? If you're honest, you've done the same thing, right? How is it that we do this?

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It's because we are by nature sinful and unclean. And as God says, every intention of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually, as it relates to the old

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Adam that we have. So Yahweh regretted that he had made man on the earth. It grieved him to his heart.

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So Yahweh said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land. Man, animals, creeping things, birds of the heavens,

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I'm sorry that I've made them. But listen to these words, verse 8. But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh.

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Well, how did he do that? I've heard some pretty awful sermons on the flood.

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And usually the sermons go something like this. The word of the Lord came to Noah and said, build an ark.

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And of course, everyone likes to do the old Bill Cosby routine. But now that he's been to prison and stuff like that, people kind of avoid

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Bill Cosby's humor, right? But you get the idea. But people would say, and so there's

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Noah going, what's an ark? What's a cupid? And people go, that's funny, right? And so the idea then is that the pastor then says, so when the word of the

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Lord comes to you, he's going to tell you to do something that sounds crazy. In fact, the crazier it is, that's proof that it's from God.

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God, you want me to be a ballerina? Are you sure? Right? And so Noah obeyed

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God, even though the whole thing sounded crazy. So are you going to obey God when God tells you to do something crazy?

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You just sit there and go, are you kidding me? That's not what this is about.

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Far, far from it. Peter tells us this is a picture of what is coming. It's a picture of God's wrath, but also his rescue of those who trust in him.

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So Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh. How did he do that?

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I mean, that's the big question, right? Well, Hebrews tells us, Hebrews 11.

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Hebrews 11 verse six says this, without faith, it is impossible to please

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God. Not hard, not difficult, not challenging, impossible.

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Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and he rewards those who seek him.

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Verse seven. By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household.

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

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You see, before Noah went to Home Depot and started buying lumber, before he did that, he believed

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God. He trusted the words of God. And this scripture says that he is an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

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Aren't we also, who are in Christ, heirs of the righteousness that comes by faith?

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And that's the point. So you can try as you might, obey as you will. And always and again,

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I just find it odd that people think that God's going to tell you to do something, and are you going to obey his voice?

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And the reason I find that odd is because he's already told you what to do. Read the Ten Commandments. How well are you obeying them?

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It's been written out for you, so you don't even have to wonder if it's from God. How well are you doing on obeying that?

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Well, if you're honest, miserable. You're terrible at it. So am I. This is why our

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God is so merciful, because he saves us by grace through faith, not by any obedience or works of the law to somehow earn his merit or favor.

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We can't. So the story then goes on to say, I'll start at verse 11, back in chapter 6, the earth was corrupt in God's sight.

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I love those words, in God's sight. In man's sight, is the world corrupt?

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In humanity's sight, is the world corrupt? Well, we've got some problems. I mean, we've got systemic racism and poverty.

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And of course, there's issues of people who have drug addictions and things like this.

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And yeah, there's human trafficking and people who don't pay their taxes. And there's tin penny tyrants who rule in different obscure places throughout the earth.

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But overall, overall, we're pretty good, right? But the text says the earth was corrupt in God's sight.

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His opinion is the only one that matters here, not yours or mine. And if our opinion differs than God's, the problem lies with us, not with God.

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So the earth was filled with violence, and God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt.

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All flesh had corrupted their way on the earth, and God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh. Yet the earth is filled with violence through them.

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Behold, I will destroy them along with the earth. So make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark.

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Cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it. The length of the ark is 300 cubits.

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Its breadth, 50 cubits. Its height, 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark. Finish it to a cubit above.

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Set the door of the ark on the inside. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. Behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh.

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And which is the breadth of life under heaven, everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, your sons' wives with you, and of every living thing of all flesh.

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You shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female, the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kind, and of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind.

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Two of every sort shall come into you to keep them alive. Also, take with you every sort of food that is eaten.

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Store it up, and it shall serve as food for you and for them. And Noah did this.

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He did all that God commanded him. Why? Because he believed. He believed the word of the

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Lord. He knew that God doesn't lie, and his threats are not idle. And we know that, too.

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Even if we act like we don't, we know it's true. We know it's true that Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead.

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We know this. So then, Yahweh said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and all your household.

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I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Love it. Righteous before me because we know from Hebrews 11,

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Noah is an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. So take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, male and its mate, a pair of animals that are not clean, a male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens, also a male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all of the earth.

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For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. Now, a little bit of a note here.

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When you consider the dimensions of the ark, throughout Christian history, many, many notable church fathers and others have basically noted that the ark kind of looks like a big floating coffin.

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It's not a bad way to think about it if you were to do it. But here's where it gets interesting. All of this is type and shadow.

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This is a picture of what's coming. So how is it that we are to be saved from the deluge that's going to come on the earth, not of water but of fire?

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We'll hear that at the end of the sermon. Well, we need to be in the ark. What's the ark?

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Jesus. Jesus is the ark. You're pointing to him, right? Yeah, that helps. Okay, maybe we should lay him down for this example.

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But that's exactly right. You'll note that when it talks about our baptism, it says that we are baptized into Christ.

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We are in Christ. And the question is, are you in Christ or not?

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I assume you are. But if you're not, then note that only in Christ is there salvation from the flood of God's wrath that is to come.

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Only in him. And so the picture then is that when we were baptized, we were placed into Christ, into his death, and into his resurrection.

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We are safely tucked away in Jesus. There are many passages throughout the

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New Testament that talk about us being in Christ. This is a good picture. Because only those who are in the ark, are in Christ, will be saved from the deluge.

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Their sins have been forgiven. They have been pardoned, reconciled to God. Their ungodliness atoned for.

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And God's wrath propitiated. And then you'll also note here, just kind of a little bit of a side note.

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I oftentimes get people asking me questions. They kind of go something like this. Pastor Chris, do you think there are going to be animals in the new earth?

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Yes! Absolutely! This is another example of this.

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Because here we have a picture of the reboot of creation. It's not a real reboot, but it's very close to it.

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As far as you can get into the types and shadows. And what's the reboot picture? New heavens, new earth, with what?

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Animals! So there's going to be dogs, and bunnies, and cats, and hamsters, and parakeets.

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Lots of parakeets. But you get the idea. All of them are going to be there.

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The world, the way it was supposed to be, will be given back to us. And we will no longer have sin.

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And so God makes careful preparations, not only for humanity's survival, but for the survival of all flesh.

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So Noah was 600 years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. Noah and his sons and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood.

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Of the clean animals, of the animals that are not clean, and of the birds and everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah as God had commanded

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Noah. And after seven days, the waters of the flood came upon the earth. In the 600th year of Noah's life.

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Now I want you to pay attention to these little details. One of the interesting things is that the Bible has minutia in it.

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Have you ever read the minutia and your eyes roll back into your head? This is so boring. What is all of this stuff?

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So and so begat so and so, who begat so and so, who begat so and so. This is begetting boredom.

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You're going to note something here. The way this is written, Noah was 600 years old.

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In the 600th year of his life. Second month. 17th day of the month. What does this tell you?

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This is history. How many people have you heard say, you know, the flood is not really a historical account.

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It didn't really happen. It's just a Babylonian myth that kind of steered its way into the ancient

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Jewish scrolls. Balogna. That's absolutely false. This is a history.

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Which mythology have you ever heard has phrases like, 17th day of the month, on that day the fountains of the great deep burst forth.

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Star Wars. It's a mythology. The original ones go back to 3, 4, and 5. How did they begin?

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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Where did it take place? I couldn't tell you. When? It doesn't matter.

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Just a long time ago. Here it gives us the details of the actual day of the month.

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Which month it was. How old Noah was. That says this is history. By the way,

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Jesus believed it was history too. If Jesus thought it was history, I'm going to believe it's history because he rose from the dead.

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All of that being said, the great deep burst forth. The windows of the heavens were opened. The rain fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights.

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The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness for 40 days.

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There's always that picture then that invokes a human lifetime of things going wrong.

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40 days and 40 nights the heavens were opened. The rain fell. On that very same day

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

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And then every beast according to its kind and all the livestock according to their kind every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind every bird according to its kind every winged creature they went into the ark with Noah two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.

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Looks like humanity and well creatures are binary. Don't let the feminists know that.

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Male and female and all that kind of stuff. Those that entered male and female of all flesh went in as God had commanded them and note the last sentence of verse 16 the

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Lord shut him in. So everybody's in the ark and Mrs.

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Noah freaks out. How are we going to close the door? God says don't worry I got it. And God himself is the one who closes the door of the ark.

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Beautiful picture. And what is God doing? He's saving them. Just like he is saving you now.

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This is a picture of the wrath to come and how God's great love and mercy towards you is not that you perish but that you live.

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And he himself in the waters of baptism shuts you into Christ. Hid you away inside of him and there you safely wait until the flood of sin passes by.

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The flood of God's wrath to follow flashes before us. Safely in Christ.

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The flood continued for 40 days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark. It rose high above the earth.

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The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth. The ark floated on the face of the waters and the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains and the whole heavens were covered.

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By the way this is why we have fossils. Just saying. So then the waters prevailed above the mountains covering them for 15 cubits deep.

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All flesh died that moved on the earth. Birds, livestock, beasts, swarming creatures that swarm on the earth.

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I really wish Noah hadn't brought any spiders on the ark but oh well. All mankind everything on the dry land whose nostrils was the breath of life died.

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He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground. Man and animals creeping things and birds of the heavens they were blotted out from the earth and only

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Noah was left and those who were with him in the ark and the waters prevailed on the earth for 150 days.

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That is a long, long time. And where is everybody at this point?

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Dead. Except for Noah and his family. Those who believed, listened to the voice of God.

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That is the only way they could be saved. And then we hear these wonderful words. God remembered

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Noah. Everybody else is forgotten. Everybody else is judged.

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Everybody else is condemned. But God remembers Noah. And he remembered all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.

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And God made a wind blow over the earth and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed.

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The rain from the heavens was restrained and the waters receded from the earth continually at the end of 150 days the waters had abated and in the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat and the waters continued to abate until the 10th month.

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In the 10th month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. And at the end of 40 days, Noah opened the windows of the ark that he had made and he sent forth a raven.

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It went to and fro until the waters dried up from the earth. But then he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground.

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But the dove found no place to set her foot and she returned to him to the ark for the waters were still in the face of the whole earth.

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Fascinating, right? By the way, it seems like a throwaway detail, but it's not.

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The dove. When Jesus was baptized, didn't the Holy Spirit descend in the form of a dove?

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There's another place where this shows up, but you have to know Hebrew to kind of pick it up. And that is that in Genesis chapter 1 in the opening sentences of Genesis it says, in the beginning

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God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep.

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And then it says that the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of God, was...

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And here's your verb in Hebrew, merekaphet. He was well, hovering, brooding, like a bird over the face of the waters.

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This is what it says. Merekaphet is a bird verb. You would. And so there at the beginning of Genesis you have this picture of the

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Holy Spirit brooding over the waters of creation. Brooding, hovering, merekaphetting, that's the wrong way to say it by the way, over this.

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And so here at the flood you have a picture again of reenactment in types and shadows of the

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Holy Spirit making a new creation. But we see that same imagery then where?

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When Jesus is baptized. There's Jesus being baptized by John the

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Baptist and the heavens open, the Holy Spirit merekaphets right over him, over the waters of his baptism, alights on him and stays on him and the voice of the

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Father says, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. When you connect the dots, you sit there and go, wait a second, are you saying that when we're baptized, baptism is a way by which

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God is making the new creation? You betcha. You betcha.

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You see, because we are a new creation in Christ. We who have been joined with Christ in his death and his resurrection, we have been regenerated.

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Baptism is a picture of the Holy Spirit working and taking us now and making us citizens of the kingdom to come and recreating us.

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The new man that you are in Christ is already part of that new creation. The old man that you have, the old

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Adam, that's part of this one. And there's a different world coming so you can see how the pictures work.

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So here in the types and shadows you have this dove merekaphetting and nowhere to go. Ah, I see the picture.

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So he put out his hand and took her and brought her back into the ark and then Noah waited for seven days and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark and the dove came back to him in the evening and behold in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf.

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Boy, you could do a lot with that, right? See, the olive branch, isn't that a sign of peace?

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Right? The dove with an olive branch, that's a sign of peace. But I would even note this, there's a little bit more in the types of shadow than merely peace.

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Peace we have for sure. But isn't it Christ described as that olive tree in which we are the branches who have been grafted in?

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It's a picture of the new Israel. Ah, the new Israel's growing in the new earth.

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That's the point. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth and he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove and she did not return to him anymore.

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And then fast -forwarding just a little bit, it says in verse 20, Noah built an altar to Yahweh, took some of every clean animal, some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

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And when Yahweh smelled the pleasing aroma, Yahweh said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.

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And neither again will I ever strike down every living creature as I have done, while the earth remains. Seed, time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.

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And we know this also then from the New Testament that all of the sacrifices of the Old Testament are pointing to the one sacrifice of Christ.

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And so you'll note there is no need for sacrifices in the new earth. The sacrifice has been given here.

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God has given his son, who willingly laid down his life, who became sin so that you might be the righteousness of God.

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And because of this, never again will we experience the curses brought onto us because of our sin and rebellion against God in the new earth.

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All of them are gone. And this is then where we hear our Old Testament text that God had blessed

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Noah and his sons, told them to be fruitful and multiply and established his covenant with them.

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A covenant that had a sign, the sign of the rainbow. And every time the rainbow appears in the sky,

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God says I will remember my covenant. And I will remember and I will see.

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And what is the promise of the Noahic covenant? That God will never again flood the earth with the waters. But there is a flood coming of fire.

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So you'll note then that all of this covenant talk points us to the new covenant that we find ourselves in.

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And so coming back to 2 Peter, Peter makes it clear that the flood itself is an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.

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And that being the case, he goes on to say, if God rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and he heard.

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Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, as well as to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, especially of those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

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And then in chapter 3, we get kind of the cash out of this concept here.

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Peter writes, he says, this is the second letter that I'm writing to you, beloved. In both of them, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder so that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the

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Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all. The scoffers will come in the last days, scoffing, they will follow their own sinful desires.

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They will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.

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For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God.

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And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

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But by the same word, the heavens and the earth that now exist, they are currently stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly.

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So do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day.

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And the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness. Instead, he is patient toward you.

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He is not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Have you ever thought, why doesn't

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Christ just get it over with? The world is just a mess! It's all gone crazy.

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It's getting crazier by the minute, right? Answer. God is patient.

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Christ is patiently plodding away, building his kingdom right now, saving people, calling them through the gospel, washing away their sins in the waters of baptism.

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Why? Because it is not his will that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

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That's Christ's intent, his intent for you and for me. And so let us rejoice in the mercy of God, that he, even though he found us as ungodly, that he has washed away our sins, and he has granted us repentance in him.

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So the day of the Lord, it will come. It'll come like a thief, but not for us, because we know it's coming.

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And then when that happens, the heavens will pass away with a roar. The heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and all the works that are done in it will be exposed.

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In other words, kind of think of it this way. No point in empire building for yourself, or building a kingdom for yourself, or monuments for yourself.

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Think of all the wonders of the earth. You think of the Eiffel Tower, or you think of our great and magnificent buildings that we build, or even the

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Republic that we've built here in the United States. All these things are going to burn, right?

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Pack light. You're just passing through. All of it, the moon, the sun, the stars, the

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Milky Way, Orion and his belt, and all of the constellations, it's all going to burn.

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The heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, the earth and all the works that are done in it will be exposed, and since all these things are thus to be dissolved, and by the way, that's kind of a big, sobering fact.

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I've got to admit, when Hollywood tries to do movies like this, it always is stupid. You know what

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I'm talking about? I forget the name of the movie, but there was a movie about the earth being destroyed by hurricane snowstorms.

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Hurricane snowstorms. Even if you're all bundled up, if you go out, you have 30 seconds before you turn into a frozen ice statue.

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I just cracked up. Then I think of the movies when I was growing up. Earthquake, 1984, and all of Los Angeles falling into the

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San Andreas Fault, and there's death and mayhem and helicopters crashing into buildings and all this.

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It's just a joke. Here's the thing. What Hollywood cannot depict, Scripture can.

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When we think about what is coming, this is the type of thing that should keep us humble and give us pause.

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Everything that we see, smell, taste, touch, it's all going to burn.

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Isn't it sad, knowing this, that there are so many people who live their lives with kind of the

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YOLO mentality, you only live once, and they just hang on to this life.

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But the thing is, is that the tighter you hold on to it, the more it's going to slip through your fingers, because there's nothing here that's permanent, including you.

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Since all these things are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to live, ought you to be in lives of holiness, godliness?

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You see, all of this is happening, all of this is coming, all of this wrath is stored up because of what?

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Because of our sin, our rebellion, our ungodliness, we are not good in God's sight.

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And so because of this, do we turn the gospel then into a license to live sinfully?

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How could we? How could we? Because all of this destruction is coming because of sin.

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And it makes you realize we need to be done with it. So, these sober thoughts and God's judgment help us to recognize that sin is not something that we should entertain or imbibe in or think lightly of.

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Instead, in light of God's judgment, we should cry out to God, to the power of the

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Holy Spirit, that he grant us the ability to bear the fruit of repentance and love towards each other, and that through the

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Holy Spirit that we daily mortify our sinful flesh and return to the waters of our baptism on a daily basis.

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While we wait for the hastening and the coming of the day of the Lord, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn, but according to his promise, and I love these words, but according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

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So therefore, Peter says, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found in Christ without spot or blemish.

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And it's only in Jesus that before God you stand before him without spot or blemish.

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Not in your own righteousness, not in your own good works, not in your law -keeping, not in your almsgiving, not in your prayers.

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Only in Christ are you found without spot or blemish and at peace. And then count the patience of our

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Lord, then, as salvation, salvation for you and salvation for others, just as our beloved Paul wrote.

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And so here now he references Paul. So brothers and sisters, the flood is a picture of God's wrath, but so much more.

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The flood is a picture of God's mercy for those who will hear his word and heed his call to repent and believe, to trust in him.

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His will is not that you perish, his will is that you live. So come to Christ.

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Trust the words of Jesus that in him there is the forgiveness of sins because Noah found favor with God by faith and we do as well.

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In the name of Jesus, Amen. We thank you for your support.

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