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I want to welcome you back to week two of our look together through the book of
Genesis, day seven of this look, Genesis chapter seven today. And in Genesis
chapter seven, Noah enters the ark. Today we talked about the motivational power
of obedience, Noah obeying to build the ark.

Here we have the motivational power of trust, Noah deciding with his family to
get on the ark that he had built. Listen to what happens in verses one to seven.
The Lord then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because
I have found you righteous in this generation.

Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two
of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate. And also seven of every
kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the
earth. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and
forty nights.

And I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made. "
And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old
when the flood waters came on the earth.

And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape
the waters of the flood. And then in verses 23 to 24, "Every living thing on the
face of the earth was wiped out. Men and animals and the creatures that move
along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth.

Only Noah was left and those with him in the ark. The waters flooded the earth
for a hundred and fifty days. " Now as you and I look at these verses, they tell
us that the flood was real, the flood was universal.

They also let us know that the animals all fit. People have questions about what
happened in this flood. Well, the flood was real.

There are fourteen references to Noah's flood in the New Testament. Matthew 24,
37, Jesus says, "As it was in the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son
of Man. " The flood was a real event.

Jesus obviously believed in the flood of Noah, which is enough for me. It's
interesting to me that in Noah's day, men scoffed at the idea of a coming flood.
In our day, men scoff at the idea of an historical flood.

People say, "I can't figure out in my mind how this could have happened, so
surely it couldn't have happened. " Well, God says it happened and that's enough
for me. I understand there are some things scientifically I can't figure out
yet, but I trust God in what he says here.

The flood was real and the flood was universal. There are eleven universal terms
in the 35 verses that talk about this flood. There's no localized flood where it
just happened in one little valley or set of valleys here.

This is all mankind. This is all animals. This is all.

Now, I have no doubt that this happened under a completely different set of
climate conditions than you and I face today. These verses talk about a canopy
that was over the earth at that time, so it seems like there were always clouds.
There was somehow more moisture in the air.

It talks also about subterranean waters that came up from the deep, so there was
some waters that were released from under the ground that we don't experience
today. There were some different climate conditions, some different conditions
on the earth that caused this, but the flood was universal. The flood was real,
and the animals all fit.

People think, "Well, how did they all fit? " Well, the capacity of this ark was
approximately 522 livestock railroad cars. Just sit and watch that many cars go
by having to stop for a train, it's a lot of cars, and think of how many animals
could fit, and people have done calculations to figure out how they could be
crammed in, how they could fit for this amount of time.

But these details that we think about, and we should, we should walk through
this, these details can too easily cover the main point. The flood illustrates
the principles of divine judgment. This is God's judgment, because everyone was
sinful all the time, and their violence was getting worse and worse and hurting
more and more, and it had gotten to a point where there was no one going to be
righteous, there was no one even going to live for God.

After Noah was gone, I'm sure God could see the future, he knew where things
were headed, so he changed things, he brought a judgment. What are the
principles of divine judgment here? There are four of them.

Number one, God's judgment is never arbitrary. He doesn't just judge because he
wants to, or he's having a bad day. God watched the earth getting worse and
worse and worse for generations and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years
with a grieving heart, and once he saw it get to the point where it had to be
judged, he judged, it wasn't arbitrary, it was in the right time.

Number two, the second principle is God always warns of his judgment. He warned
that this was coming, and the people scoffed at it, they laughed at it. Now
there are other instances in the Bible, for instance, the people of Nineveh, God
warned them of the judgment through a prophet by the name of Jonah, and when
they heard the warning and turned their hearts back to God, God stopped the
judgment.

That would have happened here if they'd only turned their hearts to God, but
they didn't. God always warns of his judgment, and then the third thing that he
does is God always always grants time for repentance, and it's always more time
than you and I would grant. You and I think sometimes we're forgiving.

We have no idea how forgiving God truly is, how long he will really wait. Think
of how long you're willing to wait for a child to repent, a child to change. God
is willing to wait even longer.

He always grants time for repentance, but then the fourth thing is also true,
God always keeps his word. If he has said he will judge, if we will not change,
and we don't change, then he will judge. One of the pictures in Genesis chapter
seven of God's judgment is God slamming the door shut when Noah and his family
get in.

God shut the door, the Bible tells us. It's not Noah that shut the door, God
shut it. He shut it, by the way, seven days before the first raindrop fell.

The opportunity was over. The door is shut. There's no more opportunity at that
point.

While the sun was still shining, everything looked great, the sky was still
blue, while people were still convinced that nothing was going to happen, God
shut the door. I wonder what Noah was thinking during that week. Is there no
flood that's going to come?

God said there was going to come a flood. He waits seven days. Think of the
endurance, the faith that he had to have during that week.

But I also think of the people who thought about Noah in that ark and laughed at
him as they walked by. Oh, he shut up in there one day, two days, five days,
seven days. It's easy to laugh at those who take sin seriously.

Because sin is fun and everybody seems to be doing it. And the person who seems
to be so serious about it, it's very easy to make a joke of that person. It was
easy to make jokes about Noah that week.

But the truth is, God's judgment is coming. It's easy to make jokes about Jesus'
second coming. It's easy to make jokes about the judgment of God upon all
mankind.

It's easy to draw cartoons of this or to make funny little pictures of this.
It's easy to joke about hell even for some people. But the truth is, God is a
God of love who takes sin seriously.

The flood says sin is serious. The ark says God is merciful. I don't want to
miss either of those truths.

I don't want you to miss either of those truths. And I don't want the people
that we know and love to miss either of those truths. The flood says sin is
serious.

Look at what it did to a world and look at what it can do to your world when you
let it flood your life. Sin is serious. The ark says God is merciful.

He will provide a way out. He has provided a way out in Jesus Christ. Maybe you
need to take his way out right now.

Maybe you need to pray right now for someone you know that's caught up in sin to
take God's way out. Let's talk to Jesus together. Jesus, thank you, first of
all, for providing a way out.

It's not an ark, it's a cross. Thank you for giving your life for us. We know
that sin seriously damages lives and relationships and hope and futures.

Lord, I pray, first of all, we pray for ourselves at places where we're not
taking sin seriously. God help us to throw ourselves on your mercy. And I pray
that your mercy would invade our lives in such a way that we begin to live in
new ways.

And Lord, we also pray for friends, for people that we love who are caught up in
sin. God, you have provided them a way out. God, you are merciful.

I pray for my friend that you'd help my friend to see your mercy, help my friend
to see your way out, and help my friend to get on that ark, to get to a place in
their life where they can accept your love, Jesus Christ. See it clearly. Accept
it.

If you're going to use me to help them to see that, I pray you'd help me to have
the wisdom, to have the right word at the right time, to do the right thing at
the right time. And I ask this, Jesus, in your name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going
to be talking together in Genesis 8 on what it was like to live on an ark.