"God Remembered Noah"

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 7:17-8:4

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Well, this morning, Lord willing, we will work our way through the rest of chapter seven and the beginning of chapter eight.
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The first four verses, I can tell you're all champing at the bit to get beyond verse four based on our reading, and we'll get there in due time.
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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 six through chapter nine.
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I've included, and I'll reference this later, a handout just to show you how important the verses are that we're looking at this morning, particularly verse one of chapter eight.
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That is the key to the story of Noah, and the way that the narrative is constructed will show that.
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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.
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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.
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That was symbolic of God's curse upon human sinfulness, and we'll see just how
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God is bringing comfort through Noah as we make our way through chapter eight and chapter nine.
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What we're going to see this morning is that the comfort from the curse comes, as always, as salvation through judgment.
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So that's the major theme, not only of Genesis six through nine, not only of Genesis itself, indeed of the whole
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Bible, salvation through judgment. The account of the flood establishes this major paradigm for us.
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We've talked about the way that God is the creator, and when he brings judgment upon a corrupted creation, we have language of decreation.
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Things revert back, backwards. There's a regression of what God has established and made.
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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.
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We're going to highlight some of that. But thankfully, the story never ends with judgment, never ends with decreation.
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Rather, decreation is the necessary step toward recreation or a new creation, another way of talking about salvation or redemption.
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We're going to see these large themes in seed form here in Genesis seven and the beginning of eight.
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So we're beginning with verse 17. And I think to help us be situated, the old
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Scottish commentator, Robert S. Candlish, he says, Noah himself enters and the
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Lord shuts him in. That's where we were last week. Yet seven days and I will bring the flood.
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So he's shut in and there's a seven day period. How can this be? The heaven is serene.
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The earth is smiling. All nature is joyous. It being, as some reckon, the first breaking of spring.
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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?
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He's in the ark. Buried alive, self immolated, as good as dead, right?
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He's in that ark. We're not going to 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.
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And so that takes us to our passage in the context that day when the fountains erupt and the great deep burst forth and the rain begins to shatter and break up the earth.
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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.
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The waters prevailed greatly, increased on the earth and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters.
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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.
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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.
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We can pause and almost imagine the people scrambling when that rain began to erupt.
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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 be able to stay there until things went back to normal.
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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.
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Now it's a matter of survival. You get everyone and anything you can up to higher ground. And they keep climbing.
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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.
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There's agony as now fewer and fewer are able to climb and clinging to higher ground. And the torrents, of course, are insurmountable.
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Torrents rip certain people away, colonnades making it to higher ground, all of a sudden moved by a rockfall or a mudslide.
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Riptides, raging currents. Maybe some strong, able -bodied could make it to certain high places and be there for days, maybe weeks.
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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.
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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.
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And then there's just this awful silence after the rain ceases. Such horror.
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Luther says, Moses couldn't write it without tears and we have stony hearts if we read it with dry eyes.
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Manton says, the whole world perished in the deluge of water which sin vomited out.
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Men, women, infants, beasts, everything in the world perished.
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It would have melted a heart of stone to hear the cries and shrieks of parents, women and children.
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The judgment of God is horrific. The consequences of sin are horrific.
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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.
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The suffocation of the noise of life. The sphere of perfect water.
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If you had a satellite view of it, you'd hardly be able to find this little wooden arc bobbing around like some hopeless cork on this massive sphere of water.
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As we've said last week, we disarm the shock of this passage by decorating our kids' rooms with posters of smiley
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Noah and smiling giraffes and grinning lions and zebras. We miss the horror of this scene.
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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.
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Everything that had the breath of life was snuffed out. God wipes the earth clean.
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This is the result of sin. John Sailhammer, an Old Testament scholar, he points out how the narrative has shifted from chapter 6 to chapter 7.
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It's a tightly controlled point of view. In chapter 6, we begin with the divine point of view, the divine perspective.
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And so we're brought to the way that God is looking at the world. The whole earth has become corrupt.
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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,
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I'm going to destroy them with the earth. So this is the divine view of God upon a corrupted, sinful, and fallen world.
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But 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.
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We're experiencing what Noah's experiencing. In a sense, Noah and his family are shut up in the ark and so is the reader in chapter 7.
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Throughout the rest of chapter 7, we're basically seeing things from his perspective. We're not seeing the perishing of the world.
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We read none of the awful descriptions that we wouldn't want to read. We would fear just to imagine them.
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At a literary level, this perspective forces us to identify with Noah. We're not identifying, in other words, with God at this level.
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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.
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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.
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We're not told anything about his reaction or that of his family. We know nothing of his emotions as the ark was surging, lifting, being dragged and swirled around as the waters erupted.
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But just try to put yourself there. Almost everything you know is suddenly gone.
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That means not just the ark that you had built for all those years that now you're in, 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.
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The sense of community, the people that you knew they were lost and yet you could admire certain things about them.
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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.
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It's gone. It's been completely sunk and pulled away. I imagine for much of the initial period, there was just this shock.
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It was just the adrenaline of everything that was happening. I wonder if in the midst of that, of course, there would have been a lot of worship and praise for God's deliverance.
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Maybe at times with a quivering hope that certain things rocked and struck. But then also, there must have been weeping.
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There 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.
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What a range of emotions. Everything that had breath is destroyed. We have that in verse 22.
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All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land died.
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So he destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground, both man and cattle, creeping thing, bird of the air.
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They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive.
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That's it. Now, as we said, this is very important in the way that God typifies judgment and salvation as scripture unfolds.
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Total phrase, Noah and those who were with him is very important. Noah and those who were with him, we've already said, is a picture of the church, right?
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The ark is a picture of the church. It's always been understood that way. All except Noah and those who were with him.
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Those who were with him could be translated according to the root there, the remnant. Noah and the remnant were saved.
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And that's very significant. The Hebrew here, shaar, it means remnant, a group that's left over, a group that survives.
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And that becomes the word of those that are brought out of judgment by way of salvation.
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And so there's always a remnant that God is seeking to save among his people. And Paul talks about this in Romans 9.
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In Romans 9, keep in mind what he says in Romans 9, verse 6. They are not all
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Israel who are of Israel. He's beginning to explain now. It's not ethnic
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Israelites exclusively. Rather, there's something about faith in Christ that is the identity marker of the people of God, whether Jew or Gentile.
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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.
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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,
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Gentiles, and her beloved who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,
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You are not my people, there they shall be called sons of the living God. Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel.
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Please note, Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. Israel's now being redefined.
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Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it's a reference to the Abrahamic promise, only the remnant will be saved.
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Only the remnant will be saved. For Paul, the remnant is the church, the true
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Israel, whether Jew or Gentile, all those that have exercised saving faith in Christ. Brothers and sisters, you are that remnant.
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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.
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Now also, another important theme we find in verse 24, the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.
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The Hebrew there prevailed. It suggests that the waters were sort of like this invading force upon the earth and they were mighty, they were stronger, like a king's army prevailing over that of another nation.
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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
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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 one of the mountains in the range of Ararat and out pops the door and he's just floating there after the rain subsides for 150 days.
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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.
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Of course, they have the chorus and I'm sure the smell of all of the animal life.
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And I wonder if Noah just despaired. I wonder if Noah just despaired. That would be a very human thing to do.
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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.
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Very easy. We confront our mortality. We confront the inevitability of our death.
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We maybe are struck with the reality even for a passing moment of God's judgment. And it's so easy for us to become numb to it and despair.
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It's easy for fallen men and women to remain paralyzed to it and indifferent to it.
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And men go and their knees shake at a funeral service. They're confronted with death and they go home to look at pornography to get drunk.
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They self -medicate. They numb themselves away from these kinds of thoughts. I wonder if that's perhaps behind Noah's sinful drunkenness.
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As we'll see it later on in the narrative. Just the despair of what he's seen through. The shock of a world drowned in the judgment of God.
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And it was sinful for him to do that, of course. But we're looking at this devastating event.
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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.
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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.
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I can only imagine that they mourned as much as they worshipped. That they wept as much as they had praise of Thanksgiving.
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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 the cycle of judgment.
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Creation and judgment are always held closely together. I think we're going to uncover that further this morning.
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But just to show you again how important this is in terms of the great judgment to come. We have that held together in 2
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Peter where he talks about this world, this world of Noah in the days of Noah and how this world has passed away.
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He says it was the world that then existed. Literally, he says it's the then world as though it was a different world entirely.
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That world is gone. We might think it's just the world and then it gets filled with water and the water dries. Peter's conception of it is it's a different world.
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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 flood waters recede.
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And what does he say? It frames our hope for a new heavens and a new earth as we talked about last week.
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In other words, Peter presents the flood story as a new creation and that is itself a paradigm for the end times judgment.
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This was just a figure but that's the reality. The world as we know it now will become a then world.
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There's some continuity but it's a new heavens and a new earth. There's a cosmos cycle to God's judgment.
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2 Peter 3 beginning in verse 2. He says that you might be mindful. He's writing the letter.
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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
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Lord and Savior. Knowing this first that scoffers will come in the last days.
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If you're a Christian for 2 ,000 years Christians have been living in the last days. It's very important you understand that.
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Too many people waste too much time trying to identify whether we are in the last days.
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Here's the big news flash. We are in the last days. We've been in the last days ever since Jesus ascended.
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Biblically speaking the last days was a present reality from the time of the apostles.
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We are in the last days. We could go into detail about that but just take that for granted.
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Scoffers will come in the last days walking according to their own lusts and saying where's the promise of his coming?
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We hear these messages you've been preaching Peter. But it just seems like the world is carrying on.
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Doesn't seem like the Roman Empire is hurting these days. Seems like you're kind of that weird minority.
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We're not feeling pinched but it looks like you Christians are. Where's the promise of his coming? Since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.
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But he says this they willingly forget. Oh since the beginning of creation Peter says. Have you ever read
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Genesis 7? This they willfully forget that by the word of God the heavens were of old and 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.
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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.
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Do you see? They forgot that the then world was wiped away by the flood. And that's going to take place on the coming day of judgment.
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The world as we know it now will be wiped away. Not by the flood of water this time but by fire.
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Verse 13, nevertheless we according to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
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We don't walk as scoffers walk Peter says. We don't walk according to our lusts. There are two ways to live.
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Psalm 1, we live as the wicked who scoff and say all things seem to be continuing on or we live as the wise.
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The wise who order their steps according to the will of God who have received the light of God and the grace of God.
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Who seek to live for Christ their Savior living as the wise. Knowing that, Psalm 37, the wicked shall perish.
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They shall vanish into smoke, they shall vanish away. The wicked borrows and doesn't repay but the righteous shows mercy and gives.
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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.
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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.
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The judgment of the flood shows us an end times event, an eschatological event. This point cannot be missed,
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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.
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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.
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Until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Do you see?
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So it will be in the days of the son of man. When the son of man returns, so it will be. Where is the sign of his coming?
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Life seems to go on. Just as none escape the judgment of the flood, none will escape the judgment to come.
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That's the point. You're either in the ark or you're outside of the ark this morning. That's the reality.
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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.
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And they were either in that ark or they were shut out of it. And only eight souls were in that ark.
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And the rest of the world was shut out of it. Every other person on the face of the earth had to face
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God on a day that they were completely unprepared to face God. And it's no different this morning.
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When we consider these things, brothers and sisters, we've got to first examine whether we're ready to face our
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God. And as we consider facing our God, by what means and what manner are we able to stand against the living
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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
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God on a fixed day unless I'm 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.
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God now commands all men everywhere to repent, Acts 17. He has appointed a day on which he will judge the world.
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Many presume to be saved and they don't examine themselves in light of the judgment to come. The apostles are constantly pressing
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Christians to examine themselves in the light of the judgment to come. Many presume to be saved.
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I think it was the Puritans who pointed to the thief on the cross. Here's an example of someone who was literally on their deathbed when they surrendered to Christ.
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And it's interesting how, we'll touch back to this, I think Jeff Thomas has some words on this that beautifully connect, but I think it was one of the
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Puritans who said, we only have one account in Scripture of a deathbed conversion, deathbed repentance.
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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.
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That no man could ever despair. But we also only have one so that no man could ever presume.
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Don't wait. We go to deathbeds and nursing homes or ICUs and we can have confidence that even at the last hour,
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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 verse like a banner, thinking there's plenty of time for me to repent.
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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.
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How many people play with their souls, with their destiny, with their only hope day by day?
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They're scoffers, Peter says. They scoff. They scoff at the very idea of the judgment of God.
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How few examine themselves to see whether they're in the faith. How few work out their salvation in fear and trembling.
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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 de -creation.
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Creation becoming undone. De -creation is judgment. De -creation is a purging of corruption or unrighteousness.
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And these things intertwine together as de -creation. The waters burst from the fountains of the deep, we read.
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And that strikes to the heart of this water judgment imagery. Water is always the full frenzy of chaos.
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And what happens when the waters burst forth from the deep? The earth, the land returns to a lifeless void.
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Just like we have in Genesis 1. The deep is the same deep which the
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Spirit of God was brooding over, hovering over in Genesis 1 too. Notice, the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep and the
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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.
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We've gone from creation in the order of what was being separated according to all of these classifications.
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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.
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It's de -creation. It's the reversal of Genesis 1. It's utter judgment. But, God remembered
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Noah. God remembered
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Noah and every living thing and 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.
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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.
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And at the end of 150 days, the waters decreased and the ark rested. In the 7th month, the 17th day of the month on the mountains of Ararat and the waters decreased continually 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. 8 -1, and you have the handout here, 8 -1 is the key verse from Genesis 6 -9.
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God remembered Noah. This is a form of chiasm, a parallel structure.
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It's a literary device and it helps us locate the emphasis. All of the emphasis goes to chapter 8, verse 1.
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You can see, if you're confused at what that is showing you, line up the alphabetical pairs, the
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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.
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And so the whole thing is constructed to find its apex, its center, its key, at a point that is not reflected.
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Everything is paired up except verse 1. God remembered
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Noah. So what's the most emphatic part of the story? God acting toward Noah.
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God remembering Noah. That's the heart of Genesis 6 -9. The story is so skillfully woven to highlight
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God's covenant faithfulness to Noah. He remembered Noah.
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That verb in Hebrew when we translate remember, zekar, it often carries the sense of acting toward what is remembered.
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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,
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I forgot, 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.
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In other words, it's about God fulfilling a covenantal promise. Brevard Child says so well,
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God's remembering always implies his movement toward the object. The essence of God remembering lies in his acting toward someone because of a previous commitment.
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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.
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Genesis 19 -29 And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain that God remembered
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Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst. You see, he remembers his commitment to Abraham and saves
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Lot. Genesis 30 -22 God remembered Rachel and God listened to her cry and opened her womb.
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You see, God's remembering is a movement, it's an act toward his commitment.
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He remembers Noah. He's a covenant -keeping God. Let me just say by way of application of the cuff, whatever you're facing in your life, this promise holds true to you.
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In the covenant commitment he has made with you because of his son, God remembers you.
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Do you think Noah felt remembered as he's floating around weeks and months on, absolutely despairing of just a world that's been subsumed in God's judgment?
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And yet, God remembers him. God remembers him and that's true of you. In the
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Christian life you have these years that you can just be suffocated by depression. And the greatest saints, the saints whose gifts we celebrate and remember and encourage each other with, they often were ones who were pulled under by great seasons of despair and trial.
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And what an encouragement to know that in the very midst of that, God remembered them, God remembers them.
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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
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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
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Word. Let me urge you all to remember God. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth and ask
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God to remember you. This is what he says, Some of you are not yet Christians.
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And the thought that the Creator God, so mighty and glorious, could think of a person like you, so that you would become
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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,
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Lord remember me. There was once a dying criminal alongside Jesus. He was in the last hours of a completely wasted life.
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And all he said to the Savior was, It's interesting, isn't it? Lord, remember me. Isn't that interesting?
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What could he plea? You see what Thomas is getting at. What plea did he have? Lord, remember the good things
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I've done. He's a criminal. He's being executed for evil things that he's done.
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But he recognizes that this one who's being crucified next to him is not evil. He's not being executed for crimes.
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He's a blessed, an upright, a righteous man. And he says, remember me. Remember what?
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What do you mean remember you? Lord, remember me. When you come into your kingdom, don't forget about me.
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Show me mercy is another way of saying remember me, right? The Lord is dealing with the whole world of men this very moment.
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People crying to Him. From Australia and Mexico and Korea and Fiji. And He's giving each one
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His full attention. He's sanctifying and strengthening His people all over the world at this very moment.
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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?
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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.
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The literary structure that we have before us highlights God's covenant faithfulness.
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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.
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God literally passes over. That's a very significant verb, passes over. That's very much a picture of the
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Exodus deliverance, right? God's passing over the houses under the blood. He passes over a wind.
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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.
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Now first, just on the surface of it, this is speaking to God's authority over the forces of nature. He commands winds,
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He commands waters. Jesus stands upon the shore, says, peace be still. Proverbs 34 asks, who has gathered the wind in His fist?
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Who wears the waters like a garment? Who established the ends of the earth? We have it in the rebuke of Job.
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Have you told the waters to end here and go no further? Psalm 135, 7. God brings the wind out of His heavenly storehouse.
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Hurricanes, tornadoes, they all serve His purpose. Storms that batter the earth, tsunamis, they're all subject to His divine control.
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But there's more going on here in Genesis 8, 1. As we've said, the deep is the same deep which the
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Spirit of God broods over in Genesis 1. The Spirit of God was hovering, brooding over the face of the deep.
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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.
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But then, the wind. Then, the ruach. Could be wind, could be spirit, breath.
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Wind, spirit, breath. All the same word, ruach. I think it's right to translate it wind, but you must understand the significance of it.
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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.
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It's not a wind that's just kind of an interesting example or symbol of the
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Spirit. It really is the Spirit of God moving like a mighty wind. What happens when this
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Spirit moves over the face of the deep in Genesis 7? The same thing that happens in Genesis 1.
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Dry land begins to emerge from the chaos water, from the abyss. Re -creation.
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Do you see? Creation, Genesis 1. The corruption of creation. Brings about the judgment of God.
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That then world is de -created. And then He brings salvation. Re -creation.
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The Spirit of God moves upon the face of the deep. Dry land begins to emerge. It's funny that we see the same exact thing in Exodus.
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Throughout the book of Exodus, there's all of these beautiful parallels to Genesis. In Exodus 14, what happens?
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The people of God are staring before them at the abyss of the Red Sea. Being closed in by Pharaoh's army.
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And they're just fearing. This is judgment. They are going to be hacked down and cut down.
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And Moses stretches out his hand over the sea, over the deep. And it's made dry land.
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And the waters are divided. The chaos waters from the creation narrative are here. But how does he do it?
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A strong east wind. A strong east wind. The Ruach of God separates the deep.
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Dry land emerges for the people to pass over. So we have this picture of God's judgment.
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The flood. We have this picture of God's salvation. The dry land.
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The land emerges from the deep. That's the result of God's Spirit. That is God bringing salvation through judgment.
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Now, this theme. Judgment as flood. Salvation as dry land.
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Begins to be developed as this picture story unfolds. I'm just going to dance across just a few examples.
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To try to help you understand this. We come to Isaiah. The good news of Isaiah begins in chapter 40.
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This is the gospel pronouncement. And the development of what the gospel entails. We come to Isaiah 44.
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Beginning in verse 24. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer. He who formed you from the womb. I am the
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Lord who makes all things. Who stretches out the heavens all alone. Who spreads abroad the earth by myself.
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Verse 27. Who says to the deep, be dry. And I will dry up your rivers.
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Notice that God is commanding the deep to be dry. This is the
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Lord, our Redeemer. Commanding the deep to become dry. This is an address to the flood.
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What you're going to see. I'm going to give you several more examples. Flood is closely related to Exodus.
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God's deliverance of his people through the Red Sea. Out of the kingdom of fallen Egypt. And exile.
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God's judgment of his people. Tearing them out of the promised land. A land that they're now forced to wander back.
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Return from exile across the desert. So please remember these three words. In the next few moments. Flood, Exodus, Exile.
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This is a paradigm for the way we understand salvation through judgment. Flood, Exodus, Exile. Isaiah 51 .10
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Are you not the one who dried up the sea? The waters of the great deep?
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Flood. That made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to cross over? Exodus.
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So the ransom of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing. Exile. You see?
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In two sentences. Flood, Exodus, Exile. With the dry land, this picture is now beginning to shift.
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Dry land becomes a means of life in the flood narrative. No dry land, no life. But now, with the exile, dry land is a means of death.
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Do you see this shift taking place? Water in the flood narrative, that's the means of death. But now, water in a dry land, that's the means of life.
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Isaiah 43. But now thus says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, and he who formed you,
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O Israel, fear not. For I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name, your mind. When you pass through the waters,
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I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned.
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43, 16 and following. Thus says the Lord who makes a way in the sea, and a path through the mighty waters.
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Dry land, salvation. Right? Who brings forth the chariot and the horse, the army and the power, they shall lie down together.
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They shall not rise, they're extinguished, they're quenched like a wick. That's the Egyptian army, that's Pharaoh's army.
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Used paradigmatically. We're in Exodus now. Flood, mighty waters, Exodus. Do not remember the former things.
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Do not consider the things of old. Behold, I'm doing a new thing. Now it shall spring forth, shall you know it?
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Spring forth like a plant, being nourished by water. I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
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Oh, here we are. Dry land as a means of salvation now has become a picture of judgment. The waters that were once a picture of judgment have now become a picture of salvation.
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The beasts of the field will honor me. This is return from exile. The jackals and the ostriches because I give waters in the wilderness, rivers in the desert to give drink to my people, my chosen.
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44 .3 I will pour water on him who's thirsty and floods upon the dry ground.
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I pour my spirit upon your descendants. Do you see? The flood versus dry land has completely flipped between the dry land and the flood.
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What was a means of death now has become a means of life. What was a means of life has now become a means of death.
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Now God's people are not fearing the judgment of the flood water.
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They need the flood water. They need the flood. They're dying of thirst.
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They're wasting away their dry bones in the desert. They need the spirit of God. And what happens when
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Jesus comes? Where is he tested? He's tested in the wilderness. Command those stones to become bread.
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Surely the Lord doesn't want you to die of thirst here in the wilderness. And the obedient son he comes to the cross and he says fully identified with his people.
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They are in the exile of God's judgment outside of God's promises outside of his promised land and fully identified as Israel.
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What does Jesus say on the cross? Why is it recorded? I thirst. I thirst.
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I thirst. This isn't just, oh, I heard that. Let's record it and put it in all the gospels. Many things were heard and recorded.
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Why this detail? Just to highlight the suffering? His thirst is the least of his suffering on the cross.
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Why record this detail? He's fully identified with his people wasting away in the wilderness.
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I thirst. John 19 .34, a Roman soldier comes up.
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You know the story. The other thieves, their legs are broken. It's very painful in a
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Roman crucifixion as your feet, we don't exactly know how the feet were nailed in and it may have changed over time, but our best guess is that your feet were put on either side of the timber brace and they were nailed across.
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That wasn't always assumed. Usually in paintings you'll see one foot on top of the other with a single nail downward upon some sort of peg.
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And we thought that was the case until the 1980s when a bone box and ossuary was discovered and there happened to be a fragment of a
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Roman nail through the ankle bone. So now we had to redress the way we understood the nails to be done upon a crucified victim's feet.
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So if you can think about it, your feet are free hanging except for the nail that's underneath your ankle and you're suffocating and the only way you can move up your diaphragm to be able to draw breath is to push up on those nails underneath your ankle.
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So if you need to expedite the process of suffocation, you just break the knees.
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Right? Because then you can't push up at all and you just suffocate. While the sun is setting, the
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Romans don't want to upset the Jews heading toward the Holy Passover. So they take their spirits and they bash the kneecaps and these thieves are suffocating on either side of Christ.
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But the Roman soldier comes to Christ and as is recorded, not one of his bones will be broken.
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So what does he do? He thrusts the spear up his side. Another detail that's very important. What happens when that spear is thrust into the core of our
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Savior? Water and blood flow out. Living water flows out.
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Isaiah 48 Go forth from Babylon. Return from exile. With a voice of singing, declare, proclaim this to the utter end of the earth.
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Say, the Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob and they did not thirst when He led them through the deserts.
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He caused waters to flow from the rock for them. He split the rock and the waters gushed out.
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Moses, as the law, splits the rock and the waters gush out. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, that rock was
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Christ. Do you see the shift here, brothers and sisters?
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The Son of God is utterly submerged by a flood of God's wrath. He's utterly drowned in the fury of a judgment that was due us.
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And that rock was struck upon by the law of God, struck upon by Moses, and it was struck open.
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And when it was struck open, figuratively, literally by a Roman spearhead, the living waters poured forth and was torn aside.
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What's this picture to us? The floodwaters of God's judgment, which were a means of death to us, have become the waters of life for all who believe.
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For all who are now dying of thirst in the wilderness. Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him,
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Jesus says, will never thirst. The water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water, springing up into everlasting life.
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We've seen springing up language. We don't like springing up language. Jesus has not of the water I give to you. Water would be death to you unless it comes from me.
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I must first take the flood of God's wrath and having done that, having taken that into myself, I will give to you who are wasting away the waters of life.
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Now, how, as we come toward a close, how do we typify this? He gives us ordinances.
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He gives us these pictures to display to each other, doesn't he? Water as a means of death, flood as a means of death and water as a means of life.
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We have that in baptism, don't we? I love what Spurgeon says.
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Noah is the picture of one who is the Lord's witness and lives through evil days faithfully, enduring to the end.
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It was his to be delivered from death by death. The ark was, so to speak, a coffin to him.
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He entered it and became a dead man to the then world. And within its enclosure, he floated into a new world.
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As in the figure of baptism, we see life by burial. So it was of Noah.
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He passed by burial in the ark into new life. Water as a means of death becomes water as a means of life.
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Water as salvation. 1 Peter 3. When once the divine long -suffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few that is eight souls were saved through water.
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There is this anti type which now saves us. Baptism, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not.
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How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? What's the picture of dying to sin? What's the picture of passing from death into new life?
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Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
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Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
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Father, even so we should walk in newness of life buried with him in baptism in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.
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These are just a few examples of how the apostles talk about baptism. Peter says explicitly that baptism is the anti type.
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In other words, the fulfillment of Noah's Ark. It's a sign that points to salvation, but how?
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How does it point to salvation? Salvation through judgment. What was a judgment to him, what was death to him is life to us.
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The waters that would threaten to undo us and destroy us forever become the very waters of life to us flowing waters through him because he channels the flood of God's wrath and makes it into a stream for parched and desperate souls.
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Let me just close with this call. We've had a lot of direct or personal application stories or appeals this morning and I just trust that the awe of what
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God has shown in his word is enough. We had the call, the invitation last week. Come into the
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Ark. Come into the Ark. The Spirit and the bride say, Come.
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Revelation 22 picks up Isaiah 55. The Spirit and the bride say, Come. Let him who hears say,
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Come. Let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
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Come. Take the water of life freely. Let's pray.
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Oh Father, what a glorious picture of how the flood becomes a picture of our very hope.
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What was unimaginable destruction. What was unutterable judgment has become our very assurance because we stand under the shadow of the cross.
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We recognize Lord that that judgment has been fully exhausted upon your
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Son and that he fully satisfied the demands of your justice. And that therefore,
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Lord, we who are wasting away in this wilderness wandering as we're in exile from the promised land, from your presence, that you,
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Lord, spring open waters of life to us from that very flood. Oh, what a mercy,
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Lord, that you have converted the means of judgment into the very means of life.
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That you have taken what was surely death and made it eternal, everlasting life. That we can celebrate and enjoy what was misery and agony to our
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Savior. That we can boast in his cross. The paradox,
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Lord, it only shows your wisdom. Let us never be ashamed of this cross. Let us never be numb or distracted to consider your judgment.
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And most peculiarly, Lord, to think about your judgment as it was met by our Savior and our Redeemer. To know,
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Lord, that you're remembering us. Not because we have anything to be remembered for. Whereas that dying thief,
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Lord, we have nothing in our hand to bring, but you simply remember us because of the righteousness of your
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Son and his great love for his people. We pray, Lord, that you would remember us still and that you would remember those who have yet to know you,
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Lord, even this very morning, that there would be a lost son or daughter retrieved and brought into your presence, into your kingdom by your
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Spirit. Move, Lord, move as the Spirit moved. We ask these things in your