"God Remembered Noah"

Well this morning Lord willing we will work our way through the rest of chapter 7 and the beginning of Chapter 8 the first four verses I can tell you're all champing at the bit to get beyond verse 4 based on our reading.

And we'll get there in due time. We've been looking at Noah in the narrative of the story of the flood which really composes the book of Noah running from Genesis 6 through Chapter 9 and I've included and I'll reference this later Handout just to show you how important the verses are that we're looking at this morning particularly.

The Key to Noah’s Story in Genesis 8:1

Verse 8.

Sorry verse 1 of chapter 8 that is the key to the story of Noah. And the way that the narrative is constructed will show that you don't have to look at it now. I'll mention it and we can take a look at it shortly.

Noah as we said last week is a pivotal figure in relation to the fall in relation to God's curse upon human sinfulness. The prophecy that Lama gave when Noah came along was this one will give us rest or this one will Comfort us from the toil of our hands.

That was symbolic of God's curse upon human sinfulness and we'll see just how God is bringing comfort through Noah as We make our way through chapter 8 and chapter 9 what we're going to see this morning is that the comfort from the curse comes as always as Salvation through judgment.

So that's the major theme not only of Genesis 6 through 9 not only of Genesis itself indeed of the whole Bible salvation through Judgment. The account of the flood establishes this major paradigm for us.

The way that God is the creator and when he brings judgment upon a corrupted creation We have language of decreation things revert back backwards. There's a regression of what God has established and made and so throughout the scriptural storyline when God brings judgment upon pagan nations or pagan kingdoms or even his own people the prophets are often using this language of Decreation we're going to highlight some of that but thankfully the story never ends with judgment never ends with Decreation rather decreation is the necessary step toward recreation or a new creation another way of talking about Salvation or redemption we're going to see these large themes in seed form here in Genesis 7 in the beginning of 8 so we're beginning with verse 17 and I think to help us be situated the old Scottish commentator Robert S. Candlish.

He says Noah himself enters and the Lord shuts him in. That's where we were last week. Yet seven days and I will bring the flood. So he's shut in and there's a seven day period. How can this be? The heaven is serene.

The earth is smiling all nature is joyous. It being as some reckoned the first breaking of spring now is the season of mirth eating drinking marrying giving in marriage and Noah. The gloomy critic of the world's harmless joys.

Where is he now? He's in the ark. Buried alive self immolated as good as dead. Alright, he's in that ark. We're not gonna see him and the world is carrying on. What a contrast. During that awful week that mysterious pause while the elements were gathering their strength for the sudden crash.

And so that takes us to.

Our passage in the context that day when the fountains erupt and the great deep Bursts forth and the rain begins to shatter and break up the earth. This is God's judgment. The flood was on the earth 40 days.

The waters Increased and lifted up the ark and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed greatly. Increased on the earth and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered.

The waters prevailed 15 cubits upward over 20 feet upward and the mountains were covered and all flesh died all flesh died. That moved on the earth birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth and every man.

We can pause and almost imagine the people scrambling when that rain began to erupt. And it was clear that this wasn't just a monsoon. This was something beyond. Scrambling to bring whatever they could to higher ground.

Ransacking their rooms their homes looking for objects that they would need to survive precious things that had been handed down from Generation to generation gathering whatever they could and trying to move up to higher ground.

Hopefully to to be able to stay there until things went back to normal. And then it became clear that the water was chasing them even to those higher places. And so they kept climbing. Maybe now some of those precious belongings aren't so precious anymore now.

It's a matter of survival. You get everyone and anything you can up to higher ground. They keep climbing. Those that were not well enough not physically able to climb they get pulled away. They get sunk under little ones perhaps left behind the aged.

There's agony as now fewer and fewer able to climb and clinging to higher ground. And the torrents of course are Insurmountable torrents rip certain people away. That colonnades making it to higher ground all of a sudden moved by a rockfall or a mudslide riptides raging currents.

Maybe some strong able-bodied could make it to certain high places and be there for days maybe weeks. But the water even chases them up to the very tops of the hills. Maybe there was just a handful out of the hundreds of thousands of people that could make it to the highest places.

And then like sailors on a sinking ship the water chased them and they're forced finally to tread and to tread and to tread until they drown and Then there's just this awful silence after the rain ceases.

Such horror.

Luther says.

Moses couldn't write it without tears and we have stony hearts if we read it with dry eyes. Manton says the whole world perished in the deluge of water which sin vomited out.

Men.

Women infants beasts.

Everything in the world Perished. It would have melted a heart of stone to hear the cries and shrieks of parents.

Women and children.

The.

Judgment of God is horrific. The consequences of sin are.

Horrific.

The silence of the earth is something that strikes me. We take for granted the ambient noise, but can you just imagine nothing but the sound of lapping water? The suffocation of the noise of life. The sphere of perfect water.

If you had the satellite view of it, it would you'd hardly be able to find this little wooden arc bobbing around like some hopeless cork on this massive sphere of water as We've said last week. We disarmed the shock of this passage by decorating our kids rooms with posters of smiley Noah and smiling giraffes and grinning lions and zebras.

We miss the horror of this scene. It tends to be about all the animals being gathered in. That's the thing we marvel at. What We're meant to marvel at is the judgment that God displays. Everything that had the breath of life was snuffed out.

God wipes the earth clean. This is the result of sin. John Sailhammer and Old Testament scholar. He points out how the narrative has shifted from chapter 6 to chapter 7. It's a tightly controlled point of view.

In chapter 6 we begin with the divine point of view the divine perspective. And so we're we're brought to the way that God is looking at the world. The whole earth has become corrupt. It's full of violence.

And this is what I'm going to do since men have corrupted creation. Since men have corrupted the earth I'm going to destroy them with the earth. So this is the divine view of God upon a corrupted sinful and fallen world.

Then we come to chapter 7 and we leave that divine point of view in the narrative and we're sort of shut up with Noah in the ark. We're experiencing what knows experiencing. In a sense Noah and his family are shut up in the ark and so is the reader in chapter 7.

Throughout the rest of chapter 7. We're basically seeing things from his perspective. We're not seeing the perishing of the world. We read none of the awful descriptions that we wouldn't want to read.

We would fear just to imagine them at a literary level this perspective forces us to identify with Noah. We're not identifying in other words with God at this level, you know identifying with God bringing judgment upon the earth.

Rather we're identifying as those who are being saved by God as a cataclysmic judgment has erupted all around. Now I say we're brought to identify with Noah and yet we know very little about what's going on in that ark.

Over the course of time. We're not told anything about his reaction. That I was family where we know nothing of his emotions as the ark was surging lifting being dragged and swirled around. As the waters erupted, but just try to put yourself there.

Almost everything, you know is suddenly gone. That means not just the the ark that you had built for all those years that now you're in but but rather. Your home your livelihood all the places that you knew that you were familiar that you put effort into the places that you built up.

The places that you visited the places that you enjoyed. The the sense of community the people that You knew they were lost and yet you could admire certain things about them. You could appreciate them friendly to them.

Maybe they helped you in some way. The whole way of life whatever ambitions you held all of that is suddenly gone. It's gone. It's been completely sunk and pulled away. I Imagine for much of the initial period there was just this shock.

It's just the adrenaline of everything that was happening. And I wonder if in the midst of that, of course, there would have been a lot of worship and praise for God's deliverance. Maybe at times with a quivering hope as certain things rocked and and then struck.

But then also there must have been weeping must have been weeping. There's the hope of deliverance the Humility of trusting in God and then the horror of destruction the realization of what is taking place beyond the timber.

What a range of emotions everything that had breath is destroyed. We have that in verse 22 all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life all that was on the dry land died. So he destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground both man and cattle creeping thing bird of the air.

They were destroyed from the earth only Noah and those who are with him in the ark remained alive. That's it. Now as we said, this is very important in the way that God typifies judgment and salvation as scripture unfolds.

Total phrase. Noah and those who are with him is very important. Noah and those who are with him we've already said is a picture of the church, right? The ark is a picture of the church. It's always been understood that way all except Noah and those who were with him those who are with him could be Translated according to the root there the remnant.

Noah and the remnant were saved and that's very significant the Hebrew here. Sure. It means Remnant a group that's left over a group that survives and that becomes the word of those that are brought out of judgment.

By way of salvation. And so there's always a remnant that God is seeking to save among his people and Paul talks about this in Romans 9. In Romans 9 keep in mind what he says in Romans 9 verse 6. They are not all Israel who are of Israel.

He's beginning to explain now. It's not ethnic Israelites Exclusively rather there's something about faith in Christ. That is the identity marker of the people of God whether Jew or Gentile. And so Israel is being redefined to those who have faith in Israel's Messiah Jesus Christ and he makes this clear as chapter 9 unfolds.

Beginning in verse 24 even us whom he called not of the Jews only also of the Gentiles as he says in Hosea. I will call them my people who were not my people Gentiles and Beloved who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them.

You are not my people there. They shall be called sons of the Living God. Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel. Note, please note Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. Israel's now being redefined. Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea to reference to the Abrahamic promise.

Only the remnant will be saved. Only the remnant will be saved. For Paul the remnant is the church the true Israel whether Jew or Gentile all those that have exercised saving faith in Christ. Brothers and sisters you are that remnant.

You are in that ark in the midst of the judgment of God. Your salvation is being pictured here all the way back in Genesis 7 as those who are with Noah in the ark in a typical way.

Now.

Also another important theme we find in verse 24 the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days. The Hebrew there prevailed. That suggests that the waters were were sort of like this invading force upon the earth and they were a mighty.

They were stronger like a king's army prevailing over that of another nation. The earth and everything in it were no match in other words for the abyss. For the Chaotic waters the return of the deep that God had brought dry land out of in the Genesis creation.

150 days that's a long time. We tend to think of the 40 days of rain ending and then boom you hit. You know some one of the mountains in the range of Ararat and out pops the door and every you know. He's just sitting there after the rain subsides for 150 days.

That's a long time to be floating aimlessly. On an ark with the deafening silence of a vanished world on a sphere of the drowning waters in a creaking shifting ark. Of course, they have the chorus and I'm sure the smell of all of the animal life.

And I wonder if Noah just despair. I wonder if Noah just despair that would be a very human thing to do. All the adrenaline. All the awe it sort of just gives way to the reality and it's so easy to become numb staring at the judgment of God.

Very easy.

We confront our mortality. We confront the inevitability of our death. We maybe are struck with the reality even for a passing moment of God's judgment. And it's so easy for for us to become numb to it and despair.

It's easy for fallen men and women To remain paralyzed to it indifferent to it. Men go and their knees shake at a funeral service. They're confronted with death and they go home to look at pornography here to get drunk.

They self-medicate they numb themselves away from these kinds of thoughts. I wonder if that's perhaps behind Noah's sinful drunkenness as we'll see it later on in the narrative. Just just to despair what he's seen through that the shock of a world drowned in the judgment of God and it was sinful for him to do that, of course, but We're looking at this this devastating event and that silent year to absorb the reality of These handful these eight souls having been spared when all Living flesh was extinguished around them.

Think of just the shock of that the whole earth has been wiped clean except for these eight people and all of the memories of Everything that they knew from that world, which is now gone. I can only imagine that they mourned as much as they worshipped that they wept as much as they had praise of Thanksgiving.

It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. In fact, we see how motifs of creation are part of the deeper structure of of the cycle of judgment. Creation and judgment are always Held closely together.

I think we're going to uncover that further this morning. But just to show you again how important this is in terms of the great judgment to come. We have that held together in 2nd Peter where he talks about this world this world of Noah in the days of Noah.

And how this world has passed away. He says it was the world that then existed. But literally he says it's the then world as though it was a different world entirely that world is gone. We might think it's just the world and then it gets filled with water and the water dries.

Peters Conception of it is it's a different world. That was a different world that existed then do you see? So already there's something radically different about the new world that is Recreated as the chaos or the floodwaters recede and what does he say?

It frames our hope for a new heavens and a new earth as we talked about last week. In other words Peter presents the flood story as a new creation and that is itself a paradigm. For the end times judgment.

This was just a figure but that's the reality. The world as we know it now will become a then world. There's some continuity, but it's a new heavens and a new earth. There's a cosmos cycle to God's judgment.

The Flood as a Pattern of the Last Judgment

2nd Peter 3 beginning in verse 2. He says that you might be mindful. He's writing the letter why so that you would be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the Holy Prophets and of the commandments of us the Apostles of the Lord and Savior knowing this first.

That scoffers will come in the last days. You're a Christian for 2 ,000 years. Christians have been living in the last days. It's very important. You understand that. Too many people waste too much time trying to identify whether we are in the last days.

Here's the big news flash. We are in the last days. We've been in the last days ever since Jesus ascended. Okay, the biblically speaking the last days was a present reality. From the time of the Apostles we are in the last days and we could go into detail about that.

But just take that for granted. Scoffers will come in the last days walking according to their own lusts and saying where's the promise of his coming? We hear these messages you've been preaching Peter.

It just seems like the world is carrying on.

Doesn't seem like the Roman Empire is hurting these days. Seems like you're kind of that weird minority. We're not feeling pinched, but it looks like you Christians are. Where's the promise of his coming?

Since the father's fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. But he says this they willingly forget. Oh since the beginning of creation Peter says have you ever read Genesis 7?

This they willfully forget that by the Word of God the heavens were of old in the earth Standing out of water and in the water by which the world that then existed the then world.

Perished.

Being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word are reserved for fire until the day of judgment. And the perdition of ungodly men. Do you see? They forgot that the event world was wiped away by the flood.

And that's going to take place on the coming day of judgment. The world as we know it now will be wiped away. Not by the flood of water this time, but by fire verse 13. Nevertheless We according to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

We don't walk as scoffers walk. Peter says we don't walk according to our lusts. There are two ways to live. Someone we live as the wicked who scoff and say all things seem to be continuing on. Or we live as the wise.

The wise who order their steps according to the will of God who have received the the light of God and the grace of God. Who seek to live for Christ their Savior living and the wise knowing that psalm 37 the wicked shall perish.

They shall vanish into smoke. They shall vanish away. The wicked borrows and doesn't repay but the righteous shows mercy and gives for those blessed by him shall inherit the earth. But those cursed by him shall be cut off.

So the flood is that event which cuts off all of the wicked and the righteous. Who are only righteous by the grace of God inherit the earth? This is pointing us to what will take place on the last day.

The judgment of the flood shows us in end times event an eschatological event. This point cannot be missed. Jesus himself makes it in Luke 17. You find the same parallel in Matthew 24. Luke 17 26 as it was in the days of Noah.

So also it will be in the days of the Son of Man. They ate they drank. They had wives they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Do you see so it will be in the days of the Son of Man?

When the Son of Man returns, so it will be where's the sign of his coming life seems to go on. Just as none escaped the judgment of the flood none will escape the judgment to come. That's the point. You're either in the ark or you're outside of the ark this morning.

That's the reality.

You're either hidden in Christ or you're estranged from him and you have not known him. Whether these people in the days of Noah wanted it or not whether they were ready for it or not. The day was fixed when the flood erupted and they were either in that ark or they were shot out of it and.

Only eight souls were in that ark and the rest of the world was shot out of it. Every other person on the face of the earth had to face God on a day that they were completely unprepared to face God. And it's no different this morning.

When we consider these things brothers and sisters We've got to first examine whether we're ready to face our God and as we consider facing our God by. By what means and what manner are we able to stand against the Living God who's early holy?

What would prevent me from throwing my hand over my mouth in despair? If I'm to face the Living God on a fixed day. Unless I am convinced and assured by God himself that I've been shut in that I'm hidden in Christ.

That God knows me. That God remembers me as we'll see. God now commands all men everywhere to repent. Act 17. He has appointed a day on which he will judge the world. Many presumed to be saved and they don't examine themselves in light of the judgment to come.

The Apostles are constantly pressing Christians to examine themselves in the light of the judgment to come. Many presumed to be saved. Think it was the Puritans who pointed to the the thief on the cross.

You know, here's an example of someone who was literally on their deathbed when they they surrendered to Christ. And it's interesting how we'll touch back to this. I think Jeff Thomas has some words on this that that beautifully connects.

But it was I think it was one of the Puritans who said we only have one account in Scripture of a deathbed conversion. Deathbed repentance. Someone who was literally at their last hour when they repented and put their faith in Christ.

And he says we only have one in order that no man could ever despair. That that no man could ever despair. But we also only have one so that no man could ever presume.

Don't wait.

We go to deathbeds and nursing homes or ICUs and we can have confidence that even at the last hour God's grace is such that he will not turn away anyone who comes to him in repentance and faith. And yet if you're waving that purse like a banner thinking there's plenty of time for me to repent.

Oh how sad your end will be in the horror of the shock of being pulled into judgment. Just as these people were by the flood. How many people play with their souls with their destiny with their only hope day by day their scoffers.

Peter says they scoff. They scoff at the very idea of the judgment of God. How few examine themselves to see whether they're in the faith. How few work out their salvation and fear and trembling. You see the flood is the ultimate emblem of judgment.

As we've said over the past weeks. The flood is the ultimate picture of Decreation creation becoming undone. Decreation is judgment. Decreation is a purging of corruption or unrighteousness and these things intertwined together as Decreation.

The waters burst from the fountains of the deep we read and that strikes to the heart of this water judgment imagery. Water is always the full frenzy of chaos. And what happens when the waters burst forth from the Deep the earth.

The land returns to a lifeless void just like we have in Genesis 1. The deep is the same deep which the Spirit of God was brooding over hovering over in Genesis 1 to notice. The earth was without form in void and darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

So this is a picture of utter judgment as far as Genesis 7 is concerned. We've gone from creation and the order of what was being separated according to all of these classifications.

By.

Classification by class. All that God had created day after day has now been extinguished and even the dry land has gone back to the deep. It's decreation. It's the reversal of Genesis 1. It's utter judgment, but remembered Noah.

God Remembered Noah and Brought the Waters to Subside

God remembered Noah and every living thing into all of the animals that were with him in the ark and God made a wind To pass over the earth and the waters subsided. And the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped and the rain from heaven was restrained and the waters receded continually from the earth and.

At the end of 150 days the waters decreased in the ark rested in the seventh month the 17th day of the month on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the 10 month in the 10th month on the first day of the month the tops of the mountains Were seen.

8 1 and you have the handout here. 8 1 is the key verse from Genesis 6 to 9.

God.

Remembered Noah. This is a form of chiasm a parallel structure. It's a literary device and it helps us locate the emphasis. All of the emphasis goes To chapter 8 verse 1 you can see if you if you're confused at what that is showing you line up the alphabetical Pairs the A's the B's the C's and so on.

You can see that as you progress through the narrative. There's parallel statements or parallel themes. And so the whole thing is constructed to find its apex its center. It's key at a point that is not reflected right.

Everything is paired up except.

Verse 1.

God.

Remembered Noah, so what's the most emphatic part of the story. God? Acting toward Noah. God remembering Noah. That's the heart of Genesis 6 through 9. The story is so skillfully woven to highlight God's covenant and faithfulness.

To Noah he remembered Noah that verb in Hebrew when we translate Remember. As a car it often carries the sense of acting toward what is remembered. So it's not just remembering as if the omniscient Omnipresent God could forget something or something could occupy his attention.

And he becomes distracted or something slips his mind and oh my god. I have people in the ark down here. No no no.

When it talks about God.

Remembering it's about him acting toward what he has remembered. Acting toward what he has committed to in other words. It's about God fulfilling a covenants all promise. Brother child says so well God's remembering always implies his movement toward the object the essence of God.

Remembering lies in his acting towards someone because of a previous commitment. Let me just give you just a few examples of this. Genesis 9 15. I Will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature.

Genesis 19 29. And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain that God remembered Abraham and sent lot out of. The midst you see he remembers his commitment to Abraham and saves lot. Genesis 30 22.

God remembered Rachel and and God listened to her cry and opened her wound. You see God's remembering is an is a movement. It's an act. Toward his commitment. He remembers Noah. He's a covenant-keeping God.

Let me just just say a way of application of the cuff. Whatever you're facing in your life this promise holds true to you. In the covenant commitment he has made with you because of his son God remembers you.

Do you think Noah felt remembered as he's floating around? Weeks and months on. Absolutely despairing of of just a world that's been subsumed in God's judgment and yet God remembers him. God remembers him and that's true in the Christian life.

You have these years that you can just be suffocated by depression and the greatest Saints the Saints whose gifts we we celebrate. And remember and encourage each other with. They often were ones who who were pulled under by great seasons of despair and trial.

And what an encouragement to know that in the very midst of that God remembered them. God remembers them. God is acting on their behalf. He's a covenant-keeping God. Jeff Thomas says this is just so beautiful.

If God had not remembered him then Noah would have lost his soul. And we would have lost the one who would bruise the serpent's head and God would have lost his honor the honor of his word. Let me urge you all to remember God remember your creator in the days of your youth and ask God to remember you.

This is what he says. Some of you are not yet Christians and the thought that the Creator God so mighty and glorious. Could think of a person like you. So that you would become his child and you could call him father.

That's all too much. It's all too awesome. Well, I plead with you to pray Lord. Remember me. There was once a dying criminal alongside Jesus. He was in the last hours of a completely wasted life. And all he said to the Savior was exact interesting, isn't it.

Lord? Remember me? It's not interesting. What could he plea. You see what Thomas is getting at. What plea did he have. Lord remember the good things I've done.

He's a criminal.

He's being executed for evil things that he's done. But he recognizes that this one who's being crucified next to him is not evil. He's not being executed for crimes. He is a blessed not by a righteous man, and he says remember me.

Remember what? What do you mean remember you Lord. Remember me. When you come into your kingdom. Don't forget about me. Show me. Mercy is another way of saying remember me, right? The Lord is dealing with the whole world of men this very moment.

People crying to him. From Australia and Mexico and Korea and Fiji and he's giving each one his full attention. He's sanctifying and Strengthening his people all over the world at this very moment. He's administering to affairs in the Milky Way and every star outside of our gallery.

Wouldn't it be easy for him to overlook someone like you so guilty? Especially if you're a dying man, and you've done nothing for him in your whole life. And yet this man says with this little grasp of theology he has.

Remember me the literary structure that we have before us.

Highlights God's covenant faithfulness God's action of bringing salvation through judgment. God remembers Noah. Notice also in verse 1 that God now Sends a wind to pass over the earth and the waters begin to subside.

God literally passes over. That's a very significant verb passes over. That's very much a picture of the Exodus deliverance, right? Passing over the houses under the blood He passes over a wind. This wind moves across the whole earth and the effect of this wind Moving across the whole earth is the floodwaters.

The chaos waters begin to recede now first just on the surface of it. This is speaking to God's authority over the forces of nature. He commands winds. He commands waters. Jesus stands upon the shore says peace be still.

Proverbs 34 asked who has gathered the wind in his fists. Who wears the waters like a garment to establish the ends of the earth. We have in the rebuke the rebuke of Job. Have you told the waters to to end here and go no further.

Psalm 135 7 God brings the wind out of his heavenly storehouse. Hurricanes tornadoes they all serve his purpose storms that batter the earth tsunamis. They're all subject to his divine control, but there's more going on here in Genesis 8 1.

As we've said the deep. Is the same deep which the Spirit of God broods over in Genesis 1, right? The Spirit of God was hovering brooding over the face of the deep. The deep in the flood narrative births forth and Brings that world of creation and order back into chaos back into the abyss of the deep.

But then the wind then.

The Rua.

Could be wind.

Breath.

Wind spirit breath all the same word rock. And I think it's right to translate it wind, but you must understand the significance of it. It's it's the same way that we talk about the wind on the day of Pentecost a mighty wind.

It's that kind of wind. It's not a wind. That's just Kind of an interesting example or a symbol of the Spirit. It really is the Spirit of God Moving like a mighty wind. What happens when this spirit moves over the face of the deep in Genesis 7.