Get on the boat
Genesis 6 verse 1, when man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever for he is flesh and his days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterwards when the son of man came into the daughters of man, So sons of God came to the doors of men and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who revolved, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually. The Lord regretted that he had made men on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God and Noah had three sons, Shem, Hem, and Japheth. Now, the earth was corrupt in God's sight and the earth was filled with violence. God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it. The length of the ark, 300 cubits. Its breadth, 50 cubits. Its height, 30 cubits. And make a roof of the ark and finish it a cubit above and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower second and third decks. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh and which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die, but I will establish my covenant with you. and you shall come into the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every sort shall come into you to keep them alive. Also, take with you every sort of food that is eaten and store it up, and it shall serve as food for you and for them. Noah did this and he did all that God commanded him. Now we'll just begin in prayer. Father, we know that you have now given us this time, so we pray that you would lay aside all distraction. Open up our hearts and our ears, Lord, to hear your word. And we pray, Lord, that we may be transformed, renewed, Father, in your image as we are transformed by your word. So speak to our minds and our hearts today, we pray. Jesus name. Cool. So, look, Genesis 6, 7 and 8. Lots of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. And I wish I could cover absolutely all of it. But unfortunately today, we're going to focus in as we have done. We're covering big portions of Scripture. We're going to focus in on one thing. Because we're really looking at what Genesis tells us about all the rest of the Bible. Remember, we've talked about, building a foundation here. A foundation that will shed light on the rest of Scripture. And the last couple of weeks, right, we talked about the start of sin, the origin of sin. Then the last week after that, we talked about its effects. How did it spread throughout the earth? And now we're getting to the point where God's getting a bit sick of them. He says, all right, I've given you a couple thousand years now. I'm getting a bit tired of it. And so what's his grand plan? How is he going to deal with it all? And so what we are talking about today is what God inevitably does with sin. He judges it. He is a judge. That is something we cannot avoid as Christians and it's actually a great thing. It's the best thing ever, as we will see today. Because you see, this was God's observation as he looked at it, in verse 11 of Genesis 6, he said, now the earth was corrupt in His sight. it was filled with violence. You know, it talked about these giants and the nephilim of men of renown, right? You know, these children that were being born to the sons of God and those men were men of renown. What it's really saying is that these were men of war, all right? These were warriors. Talking about the fact, if you have warriors, that means you have war everywhere, right? And so, blood is being spilled all over this earth. And so, how does God decide to end it all? it's gonna be even worse than the 2011, 2012 floods. All right, these are gonna be record levels you've never seen before, above the tops of even the highest mountains. And he warns a man called Noah, a righteous man, the only righteous man in his entire generation, him and his family, to build an ark that would carry those who trusted in God through the judgment. Now you see, literally in the first like six chapters, of Scripture, you are just given a bird's eye view of all the rest of what happens in the rest of the Bible, in the rest of the history of the earth. God creates, sin spreads, God judges. But we get this overview of it all. And so you see here in the flood, we actually get a shadow, seeming a glimpse into what is to come for us. We now live in a world where sin has spread all over the place once again. but God has said He will renew, He will bring an end to sin, just as He did in the flood. And so in the flood, we are gonna see truths which we need to learn, which we need to remember so that we are able to live in this world that has corrupted itself to its core. So we're gonna go through three points, two very short ones, one which I'm really gonna labor at the end, but essentially it'll go, God judges, God warns, and God delivers. So let's start in our first one. Sorry, I actually got it. Yeah, God judges. So this first point we're talking about, God judges. This is the inevitable, sorry, I can't go on that. There is a judgment day. Hands up if you knew there was a judgment day. Okay, cool, good. Okay, I'm glad. This is why it's a short point. Hopefully most of us get it. And it's quite a simple point. There will be a day when this world ends. It does not go on forever. And this is what the flood tells us. God isn't just sitting up in heaven just saying, ah, I'm not really worried about all that sin. No, no, no, He's very much worried about the sin. And He's very much working to do something about it, as the flood will show us. It shows us that God must punish sin. He's not just okay with it just being on this earth. And you see, this is something that us as Christians must wrestle with, that God is a judge. And that is actually a good thing. And you see, there are two flip sides that we struggle with. Is anyone, okay, I'm gonna do another hands up, is anyone super chill and really okay with the fact that people burn for eternity in hell? Yeah, right, it's a really horrible idea. It is true and it is good because it is from God, but no one likes the idea because of course we're sinners, we relate to sinners, we see ourselves there, like that sounds horrible, I don't wanna go there, why would I want someone else to go there? Maybe there's a few people we can think of should go there, but most us people are nice, right? We don't want all of them. And so you see, one of the struggles with this God being judged is that we must come to wrestle with the fact that He is just. And the fact that this entire eternal fiery torment that is constantly talked about in Scripture is good, is just. It is so hard for us to reconcile because we're like, we know the God of love and mercy. That's the one we have all experienced. You've been forgiven of a mountain of sin. We're like, doesn't He do that for all people? How can... How can he be so merciful and so gracious and so loving and yet seemingly so angry? It doesn't seem to fit. But you see, this is wrong because especially if we go to the point of saying, well, maybe we've got this hell thing wrong. Maybe we need to look more at the love of God than this wrath, than this anger, than this justice. That is wrong. Why? You see, it's funny because a view like that, a view that says God is more about love than He is about His wrath and His anger and His justice can only happen in a Western society like ours. A world where seemingly we're just surrounded by all these nice people and there doesn't seem like, you know, we're like, there are injustices, but that, it's just done by a few people. A God of justice is a God loved by people who have been... sex trafficked around the world by those people who being starved in countries because they're surrounded by corrupt governments. They need the God of justice. They need to know there's a God that is not going to let these things go by. We can only have that kind of God in a world where we are very comfortable. And so see many people, so many people have gone to the grave without paying the consequences of their sins. So many dictators over countries have lived full lives and then just died. They haven't paid for their crimes. And you see, this is the good thing that God's justice ensures they will not go away unpunished. God's love doesn't mean he's okay with sin. Do you realize the reason we say, sing amazing grace? Because it's amazing that he would show us grace because of his hatred against sin and of us who commit it. And so then we come to the flip side. It's the other point. We often struggle... to believe in a judgment day because of the world we're looking at. Like we did a series right a while back and I got everyone to put their hands up. Do you think the world's getting worse? And everyone put their hands up. We all noted that. This place just seems to be going down the drain. And one of the hardest things in sitting and waiting and for God telling us, prepared, wait, be patient. We're like, are you ever actually gonna come back? We're the 2,000 years Christians, right? It's been 2,000 years since Christ gave us those words. Are we gonna lose hope yet? It can be so hard to trust that God actually cares about the injustices, about the things going on in this world because it seems as though he's doing nothing. So where can we take hope? Look at the cross. The cross is the evidence that God cares about the things going on here. Why? because we could sit here and think he's just a God that doesn't really care. He's just kind of letting those people get off scot-free. But you see, when he sent his son to die on a cross, what was its purpose? Because he wanted to show us forgiveness, but couldn't he just let us get off scot-free? No. He must exact punishment for our sins. It's exactly what Rod was saying at communion, right? We needed a substitute. And you see that substitute, had to be there because the wrath of God, His justice, the punishment for our sins had to go somewhere and it went on Him. God had to deal with His justice so that He could show us grace. Okay? That had to be dealt with. And so you see, by making a way for us to be forgiven, He showed something, that He cares about justice. He cannot just let us get off scot-free. He must deal with it. And so, He would not send His Son to the cross to die and to suffer if He wasn't going to bring a judgment day. It will happen. It was part of the process. So understanding all this, God must judge, He will judge, and it is good that He does judge. We are going to rejoice one day that all evil is going to be gone. It's going to be great. So another quick point here. God warns. See, the flood, right, it shows us the very fact that God looked on the earth and He didn't just say, oh, you know, they're just murdering each other. And it's like, it's not that bad though. Like, look at the ones that are, you know, going out and having pizza nights with each other. Some of them are friends, that's pretty good. No, He was grieved at the corruption of the earth and He did something about it. But you see, when He declares His judgment, what does He do? Does He open up the windows of heaven and the springs? come up with all the water and they're all destroyed? No, he waits a hundred years, seemingly. He goes to Noah, this righteous man, and tells him, build an ark. And in those hundred years, the people were given a chance to do what? To repent. So you see here, God is not just like, oh my goodness, I am sick of these people. And just drops His destruction in an instant. And this is a gracious thing. This is actually part of the reason why we must wrestle with the fact that this world just seemingly keeps getting worse and worse and worse and worse and God is seemingly doing nothing about it. This is something that early Christians are struggling with as well. But Peter gave them this encouragement. Second Peter 3,9. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises, as some count slowness, but is patient to woodsy, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach. repentance. understand when judgment comes, what stops any chance for repentance? And so, when we're looking out at this world, when we're just thinking, what is God doing? Because the evil keeps getting worse. Everything's going astray. He's doing a mighty work of leading people to repentance. Us sitting here as Christians having to deal with the sinful and the wickedness of this world and just groaning and being sick of being here, understand it's for a good reason. Because there are still more to come into the family of God. There are still more coming in. And so God's delay in His judgment is that opportunity. Understand right, Noah spent a hundred years building his ark. Even before then, there was still a couple weeks before God shut them in. So it is the same for us. For 4,000 years, God was building our ark. Does anyone know what our ark is? The thing that will deliver us from judgment day. Anyone want to take a stab? Jesus, thank you, cool. Exactly. See, for 4,000 years, he was preparing, he was building his ark, and for 2,000 years, he has been calling people to come onto it. But we know, as I said in the first point, one day he will shut the door. One day that chance for repentance will be gone. See, but now I want to focus on this last point here. The fact that God delivers. Because you see, we've talked about the fact that He judges and now He is warning us as well. He has given us a time. But that must imply the fact that if He is giving us a warning, there is a means of escaping the judgment. So you see the ark for Noah and his family was the refuge from God's wrath, from his judgment. The water was his wrath and they were shielded from it by the ark. And so again, going back, remembering right, that this flood serves as a paradigm for us to see the last judgment day, the judgment day that is to come. We want to pay attention to some things. I want to ask you this question, right? Why did all of the people die? This seems like a really dumb question. I know, right? Why did they all die? Because you see, the judgment was pronounced. They were given a warning and a boat was built to carry them through. They were given the message, hop on the boat. Why didn't they? It wasn't because they were murderers or because they were sexually immoral or all other kinds of sins, because that didn't matter. Because if they hopped on the boat, the murderers and the sexually immoral will be carried through. They would be okay. So what was the thing? Why did they all die ultimately? What was the thing that stopped them getting on the boat? Their unbelief. They did not believe they refused to have faith. Okay, but what do you mean, how was the unbelief the final nail in the coffin? Why did they refuse to have faith? Was it just because they thought, look at this crazy guy building a big boat? I don't know if you guys ever seen, is it Evan Almighty where he bigs the bill boat, bigs the bill, sorry. builds the big boat. Have you guys ever seen that movie? Steve Carell builds a big boat in suburbia and they're all like, dude, you're crazy. What are you doing? And you see, we can often get that picture that that's what all the people were thinking. They were sitting there just thinking, he's crazy. And look, that definitely would have been part of it. But you see, the real reason they did not get on the boat is deeper than that. Because what would getting on the boat admit? Oh, I believe that God is right. That He is right to see that we are all guilty, that we are all sinful, and better yet, they have to accept there's nothing I can do. I cannot do enough swim training to be able to keep it up for 300 days or how long the water was on the earth for. All right. To accept getting on the boat was to accept I am a sinner, I am guilty, and I cannot save myself. And they were not gonna give that up. And so you see now, we sit here. our flood has been declared. God has judged us. From the moment Jesus died on the cross, judgment day was certain. It was coming. But He made an ark. But for some reason, a lot of people still refuse to get on that ark. You see, we are facing the same problem. Because the message of the gospel is you are a sinner. You do wrong, you are evil. Now get on the boat. You see, but this is hard because what does this bring to people? Guilt and shame. Right? We're exposed for who we truly are. We see ourselves as we really are and we feel guilty and shameful about it. People don't like that. No one likes that. This is the offense of the gospel, showing you who you really are. And so you see, people don't want to accept that, they will reject the gospel better yet, even if the guilt and shame does get through. They will refuse to accept that there is nothing they can do about it. They will refuse to accept that they cannot right the wrongs that they have done. You see, because we can always say, well, I'm not that bad a person, there are worse people. I can make up enough good karma to do for my bad karma, right? It's actually hilarious how much of us believe that, even though we don't believe in the Buddhist idea of karma. A lot of us believe if we do good, we'll get good. All these kinds of things. And so you see, thing that stops people coming into salvation, knowing Christ, being freed from the fear of judgment day, isn't that they're really bad people. Well, it is partly that, but it is their refusal to accept the truth. It is not because they murder and lie or because they participate in any one of the million other sins this world has to offer. It is because of the heart of every believer is a refusal. to accept the truth. And why do they refuse it? Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. You see, I'll labor this point in the last two messages. Our hearts are wicked and sinful. But then Jeremiah makes a good point. It is deceitful. You see, your heart's not just gonna come up and say, hey, did you know you're a really bad person? It's not gonna do that. It's deceitful, it covers up. It says, You're not that bad. Just, oh man, do you remember that time you did that really nice thing for your mother? Oh man, Jesus will let you get into heaven for that. My goodness, you're such a good person. Just think about all the good things. Don't think about that one time you did that thing. Just don't think about that. Don't think about that, all right? It is very smart in getting us to believe in ourselves. and it convinces us that we are good people. And so understand that when we look out at the wickedness of society, all the sins that are just being prolifically propagated in this country and in this world, it is primarily because of unbelief. That is the great problem with which the church must deal. So how do we deal with it? We are to declare God's judgment as Noah did and the ark that he has made for us, that being Christ. You see, we have to do what Noah was striving to do. Because understand, Noah wasn't just spending all his time building the ark. He had family and loved ones there. Do you not think he was telling them, guys, there's a flood coming. God has told me, get on the boat. He wasn't just saying, ha ha, God said, I can get on the boat and you guys can't. He wouldn't have had that triumph lived like, you just me and my family. He would want everyone to get on the boat. And so we want people to get on the boat. So we must stir up faith in others. How do we do that? This is Roman 10 17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. You see, the only thing, the only thing that works to get people on the boat is the message. of the gospel. It is this truth that Christ came down, Jesus came down, what did He do? Lived a sinless life, should have been perfectly taken up to heaven to enjoy His eternal reward, but instead died the death of a guilty criminal in our place because that was where we were meant to die and so we are given all His benefits, we are given His eternal life that should have been His. without all the suffering. But instead, He suffered in our place, took our punishment, took the wrath of God so that we might have relationship with God and enjoy eternal life with Him. You see, the gospel has so many fruits for you to enjoy. So many things, so many comforts, so many encouragements. It's this big fruit, big tree filled with so many fruits that you can enjoy. But something sits at its roots and that is this. It is what we talk about at communion, is what Rod was talking about, that you had a substitute, that on that cross, the storm waters of God's wrath and His judgment came down not upon you, but on Christ so that you might be spared. You see, that is the core of our message and that truth is the thing that sets people free from their unbelief so that they hop in the boat, the boat that is Christ. You see, I'm actually laboring this point because part of our job, we acknowledge the world is dark, but we know Christ, there is coming a judgment day and He is doing a work of saving people. We will be patient, but what is the church will we do in the meantime? What does people of Christ as follows? Will we do? We know that we must preach the message. And when I say preach, I don't mean me sitting up the front here. I mean just share it. Tell it with people, live it out in your lives, make it part of who you are. and why I'd labor that it is the only way in which people come to faith is because we can start to think that there are other ways. Do you think that you can persuade someone into the kingdom of God? Anyone wanna, do you think if you answer every question that someone has that eventually they will have to but yield and come in? No, they won't. It literally talks about Paul and Acts, that he would go into the synagogues and prove to the Pharisees and the leaders, he would prove, it says in the Bible, that Jesus is the Messiah. And what did they do? Bow on their knees and accept Him? No, they tried to kill Him. that's what you do when you can't win an argument with someone. You just try and kill them. You do not get on your knees and accept. And another truth is that we cannot bring them in by worldly means. We cannot make this church so attractive that people will just start coming in. There are certain things as a church that we... it's not all a free-for-all. If Noah was smart, he would have just had a cold chisel concert on the ark. That would have got everyone in the door. Sorry if you don't like cultures. Whoever, know, Taylor Swift, I don't know, whatever. But he would have used those means to bring people in. But you see, there is only one way in which people go through the door of the ark, through hearing the message of God's judgment and God's salvation in Christ. Why is it the only way that works? Ephesians 2, 8 to 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your doing, it is a gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. We cannot work really hard and somehow build up the numbers of this church and all these people are going to be saved because we put in a lot of effort. It's not going to happen. There is not some strategy, not some program because you think... Surely we've been sharing the message of the gospel here for, you know, how old is this church? A hundred years and it hasn't been filled with 5,000 people yet. That's because it doesn't make sense to us, but it does work. Every single one of you who calls yourself a Christian is sitting here today saved because of that message. It does work. It just may not be the way we think is wise. But you see and notice it right, it is a gift. So faith is not mustered up, it is received as a gift. Does anyone know how the gift of faith comes to us? Do you sit there with your mind and your heart and you go, and just try and muster it up? know, sit there and just, if I believe hard enough, it's never gonna happen. This was Jesus' testimony in John 6 63. It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. That flesh is you, that is the sinful you, that is that without the Spirit of God. Nothing, no help at all. It will do nothing in bringing you to God, doing nothing in helping your faith. That which brings faith into you, which brings you the gift of faith is the Spirit. You see, this is the important thing, because we cannot make the Spirit move. He only operates by one means, the means that God has given to us, and that is sharing the message of the gospel. You see, because this is the danger when we think faith is something that we have to make happen in people. We inevitably start trusting the ways of the world. Like I said, we're going to start having concerts here for every artist that comes into town. Because if we can just get people in, well, they're in, right? That's enough. or better yet worse still, we will begin to dilute the message of the gospel. We will get rid of those parts which are offensive. We will stop telling people that there is a judgment day, that God does not like their sin. So the truth is really what I want for all of you is that we see this world that it is dark, that it is changing at a million miles an hour and we are just like, how is the church are we meant to keep up in this? Do I need to learn every argument that is being thrown against the church? Understand the world changes, God's word hasn't. Do you remember the woman at the well in John 4? Literally the same day that she was brought to faith. She went into the town. She didn't know how to preach the message of the gospel. She didn't go to Bible college or anything like that. She just met Jesus that day. All she said was, come meet this man who told me everything I knew about that... Sorry, I don't quite know how it goes. But anyway, she just invited them, come see Jesus. And the whole town was brought to faith. You see, it is a simple thing. We must trust that it works. And so really as I'm wrapping up this point now, I want to deal with, because this is really the danger. We are dealing with a dark world and we can spin one of two ways. Either we fall into pessimism and fear, right? Thinking, ah, this world will never get any better. We just, I just want my 500 acres out in the middle of nowhere. Just give me one of those lots out near Tara with all the other, what are they calling them again? I forgot. The blockies, that's it. You just get me out there, away from everyone, and life will be great. I will just wait for the incoming day, right? Because we are so scared and lose sight of the fact that God is in control. I'm not actually gonna deal with that danger in depth today. I wanna deal with the flip side of it. If you wanna know the solution, just read the last three chapters of Genesis, out of Genesis Revelation. God's in control the whole time and he wins, right? You can read the rest of Revelation too if you wanna have some fun. Anyway. Anyway, but the flip side. We can be struck by the darkness of the world and instead of being thrown into pessimism and fear, we are filled with confidence. We are reminded of the gospel and we say, we must reclaim the world for Christ. We are going to take back the strongholds that were once ours and we will make them ours again. I just want you to pay attention to something. What was Noah's message? What do you think it would have been? Was it, hey guys, I know you've been murdering for the last 2000 years, but if you stop murdering, we can make this world a better place. Judgment day was set. They're not making the world better. It's already being judged. It's gonna wipe clean. The message was, get on the boat. Stop murdering, repent and get on the boat. You see, what I am talking about here is that as Christians, we can get lost in secondary things and these things are good. Do not let me, do not think that I'm saying they are not good. I'm talking about things that as Christians, we should be against things like abortion, right? We should be out there feeding the poor and the needy. We should be helping them. We should be fighting against the fact that Christian values are being quashed at the moment. We should be for those things and supporting them, but understand what they are secondary to. The glory of God and the display and the proclamation of His gospel. Understand this world will always have poor people. This world will always have people that want nothing to do with our Christian worldview and the way we see things. They will want nothing to do with God. There will always be people who will fight back against what we believe in. We can fight all we want to make this world a better place, and I'm not saying we shouldn't. But do not make that the primary thing that we are about. the greatest thing about a good society. See, many people say we live in a Christian nation, or at least in that much. We have been heavily influenced by Christianity. What is the best thing about that? I can preach here on a Sunday and not worried about being stoned outside. You guys get to openly and freely hear the gospel, the message I can freely declare and tell everyone, get on the boat. Okay? That is one of the gracious blessings of this world. That is one of the key goals of preserving the goodness of what as we call to be the salt of the earth. But understand, we're always going to have poor people. We will always have people who fight against us. When will those things end? Not when the church gets its act together and everyone unites and we fight with all our strength. It will end when Christ returns and He puts sin and evil to death forever. Again, I am not saying don't be about the secondary things. We can be about them. But remember, we will not be the ones to put them to death. Christ will. The main thing we should always be about is the spread of His gospel. And so, you see, there is so much in the story of Noah. And there are so many things as Christians that we are called to be out in this world. You are called to be a light in this world, but a light shining to the ark, the ark that is Christ. You see, if we are all about those things which are Christian-y and not that which makes us Christian, we have lost sight of what truly matters. If people can tell, well, I know they're a Christian, but they do not know the gospel which sits behind it. It's worthless. So I'll wrap up now um and then I'll invite the worship team up. Dear Father, we just, we know Lord that a judgment day approaches. We know that as a church, that as Christians, that as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, you have called us to a common mission, to fight against the evil of this world, but better yet to know. that the way that this world will be redeemed, that the way that we will enjoy a new society that is cleansed from evil will be to hop on the boat that shall deliver us through the judgment day which I purged this place of all evil. Help us to put our faith in Christ, in Him alone, and let His message be the song of our lives. We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.