Higgins, Trefor: Genesis 6 - Noahs Ark

Okay. So I'm gonna try things a little differently this morning. Uh, the subject of our presentation or our talk this morning, I was given visiting a floating zoo. So if we could start the presentation. Okay, so the first slide. This is the title I was given. So the first slide, the next one. Oh, okay, so in the nineteen seventies, there was a very popular song called The Unicorn Song, and uh, it reads, a long time ago when the earth was green, there was more kinds of animals than you've ever seen. They'd run around free while the earth was being born, and the loveliest of all was the unicorn. And there's the chorus. Then it talks about the flood, and it says, the Lord seen some sinning, and it gave him pain. He says, stand back, I'm going to make it rain. He says, hey Noah, I'll tell you what to do, build me a floating zoo. So that's where George must have got the title from this morning. Uh, and take some of those green alligators and long-necked geese, some Humpty Back camels and some chimpanzees, some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born, don't you forget my unicorns. The song goes on, and the unicorns were playing around, enjoying a game. They were playing silly games, to quote the song, and when they realized that something was happening, the rain started, they found the door was shut. And it goes on to say that the reason there are no unicorns today is because they didn't make it onto the ark, because instead of looking to be saved on the ark, they were too busy playing silly games, and they're responsible for their own demise. Now, in the nineteen nineties, the song changed, and it was felt that unicorns couldn't, shouldn't take responsibility for their own demise. After all, it wasn't their fault that they didn't get onto the ark, and so the words changed to, to a different purpose. And the commentator I was reading, and this is a secular commentator, said, in the seventies was an era of responsibility. If you did something, you were responsible for your actions. In the nineteen- ninety s, there's been a change, and philosophy is that really humans are not responsible for their own actions. Whatever they do is fine. Somewhere along the line, someone will make it right. The government will make it right. Someone will do it right, but you don't have to be responsible for your actions. And the unicorn song is a reflection of our change in social. So let's have a look at the next slide. You can't see this very well, but this is a very famous painting by a man called Edward Hicks. It's done in a style called folk art, and if you notice at the top, well, you can't see it very well, it's a black cloud. And the black cloud is the impending disaster that is happening. But on the face of the animals, they're all serene. They know that they have been commanded by God to go into the ark and that they will be saved. So in the middle of this dark cloud coming of impending disaster, the animals have a look of serenity and of peace. So in folk art, the idea of serenity in the middle of impending disaster comes across. Now the next slide. So if you like knickknacks, here's a very expensive knickknack you can make or buy about art. It's a clay model of Noah's Ark. It's a several thousand dollars if you wish to buy it, and uh, as you can see, all the animals, which are all handmade, are going into the ark, and it's a, it's a very popular uh, clay model, but I warn you, it's several thousand dollars. The next slide. Now, if you have grandchildren, I noticed there are a lot of children here. This is a wonderful set of Noah's Ark animals. The only trouble is, for grandchildren, it's going to cost you several hundred dollars to buy. Every one of these is handcrafted, hand painted, handmade. So if you really want to indulge your grandchildren and teach them about Noah's Ark, you can do so by buying this children's set of children's toys. Uh, the next slide. Now, if you really want to go on a holiday, you can go to Holland, to a place called Veerstraan, and there you can actually get on an ark. This building is in a, in a used, is a canal, uh, exists on a canal in Holland, and a Dutchman built it according to the specifications in Genesis chapter six. Now, he doesn't have animals on it, uh, he has animals on it constantly, but the animals rotate in and out. So they will put one set of animals in for a week, and I understand they take them out, then put another set of animals in. And so it's become a tourist attraction, and people can go and visit the ark. It's built according to the specifications of Genesis chapter six. And so if you have, want to visit Holland and visit Veerstraam, then you can visit, actually visit a floating zoo, quite literally. This is where it is. And the next slide. So this is a cartoon that appeared in the Edmonton Journal two weeks ago. Now, it says, hey, how long are we going to be gone, dad? This is an awful lot of food, as the animals walk in. And I found this truly amazing, because in order for cartoons to work, you have to n- appreciate that the people who read it understand right away what the message is. And so when this cartoonist, who's, who's very famous, put this cartoon in or drew this cartoon, he would unders- he would assume that people knew about Noah's Ark. In twentieth century North America, we've moved very much away from a Christian faith. The knowledge, the general knowledge of Bible in the community is very low, and yet somehow this cartoonist thought that if he put an image of Noah and the ark and his son and animals going in two by two, instantly people would get the message. And maybe because of all the biblical stories, the idea of Noah and the floating zoo is one of the most enduring and popular of all the stories. It's come through us, through our culture, through, uh, through song media, through film media. The story of Noah and his ark is one that is enrooted in our culture. So this morning, we're going to take a look for the evidences of the flood, which are the next slide, and we can look at archaeology. In the nineteen twenties, a man called Woolley was digging in an area we call Iraq, and they dug this big shaft and went down and down and down and down, and they kept coming across light, sandy soil. All of a sudden, they hit a totally different type of soil. The soil was heavy. It was still damp, and no one could figure it out. So they called Woolley down, and remember he was a man in his sixties at this time, seventies, so they had to lower him down very carefully. He landed on the ground with this damp soil and told them to start digging again. And they dug, and they dug, and they dug this thick, heavy clay for three meters or ten feet, and then beneath it there was more sand. So Woolley wondered whether it was just part of a local lake, so he moved the dig several kilometers away or miles away and dug again. And exactly the same level they found ten feet, three meters of thick clay. And so he thought, how's this? So he went to a top of a small hill and started to dig. And sure enough, way down, at the same level that he had found all the other mud, he found ten meters, uh, ten feet, three meters of thick, heavy clay. And the news flashed around the world. Woolley has found the flood. There is evidence for the flood. Now, archaeologists have tried to move away from that, but it's indisputable. There is ten feet of thick, heavy clay that no one can explain, and one possible explanation is the flood. Now, in nineteen forty two, Russian, some Russian aircraft, uh, uh, crew were f- uh, based in South Russia, and they, uh, were given an assignment to try a new engine on a plane, and it was a more powerful engine than any of the planes that they had. So they took a, a trip around Mount Ararat, and when they were there, they saw an amazing sight. They saw what looked like a boat in a lake, and they circled the site many times and described it accurately, at least one of them did. So he came back to base, and he described his, to his commander what he had seen. Now, in nineteen forty two, the young men had already, uh, been through the communist system, so they knew nothing about Noah and his ark, except that the captain or the the leader was an older man who had been taught, uh, before the revolution, the Russian revolution, some truths from the Bible, and he recognized right away that it was the ark that they had found. So the trouble was the Ro- the Russian government, which was communist at the time, sent lots of people up to destroy the evidence, and so now it does not exist. So, if we look from archaeology, there are archaeological evidence that a flood happened. Anthropology is the study of societies, and if we look at societies, they all talk about a flood story. In North America, among our native Indians, there is a story about a flood, and there are remarkable sim- similarities about a man who went into a boat, and by going into a boat, he saved all the animals. When I was at university, a project was given to a group of people doing naval architecture, and they they were assigned to find a boat or a something that would float, that would give maximum stability, that wouldn't rock from side to side and wouldn't tip over. And so these young naval architects decided, uh, were given this project, and they came up with something interesting, that the dimensions that they all chose as being the perfect vessel for stability, not floating, not going like this, topsy turvy, not tipping, are exactly the same dimensions that God told Noah to build the ark. Exactly the same. Now you wonder how big this ark was. So the next time that a train stops and you're at a level crossing and the trains go by, I want you to count wagons, not just the container wagons, but the biggest wagons that CN and CP carry. And when you've counted a hundred, then you've counted on the capacity of the Ark. That's a huge capacity. That's almost the biggest train that CN and CP use in this area. A hundred wagons. That's the capacity of Noah's Ark on the three floors. So we should read the story. Let's look at Ro- uh, Genesis chapter six. I'll read, uh, from, uh, verse nine. This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, I'm going to put an end to all people. But the earth becau- but the earth is filled with violence because of them. I'm surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood. Make rooms in and coated with pitch inside and out. And this is how are you are to build it. The ark is to be five hundred and forty feet long, seventy five feet wide, and forty five feet high. That's one hundred and fifty meters by twenty five meters by fifteen meters. Make it a roof for it and finish the ark to within eighteen inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle, and upper decks. I'm going to build flood waters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird and every kind of animal, and every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and them. Noah did everything just that God commanded him. Okay, so let's take a look at the sermon outline of how we're going to approach this. First of all, we're going to take a look at God's grief. God was really upset, and it caused him pain. And there were three reasons for this. The first was violence. God intended people to live together in peace and harmony. The first murder of Cain and Abel, God is obviously upset. God never intended for people to strike each other. War is not something within God's vocabulary or God's intent for humankind. In Isaiah chapter forty, he talks about the perfect state again that man will be in, and in it there will be a perfect non-violence. There will be all peace. So violence that was found on the earth is contrary to what of God's intended mankind to be, and that caused him grief and pain. Corruption is the second thing that characterized the society in which Noah lived. In other words, a dollar is, you couldn't believe a person's word. A person's word was not true anymore. They said one thing and did another. In the New Testament, Christians are called on to say what they mean. Let your yes be yes and your nay be nay. Bible goes on to say that there were continually evil thoughts. In other words, they couldn't think of anything good. Their thoughts were evil. And so God, because of this three, had grief and pain. Now, Jesus comments on the time of Noah in Matthew chapter twenty four verse 27. Uh, and he writes like this: It will be in the days of the Son of Man, which is future judgment, like it was in the days of Noah. People were marrying, given in marriage, eating and drinking until the time that they went into the ark. In- in other words, they were going around their normal activity. They were eating, they were drinking, they were getting married, they were given in marriage. And so the question is, what's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong in eating. There's nothing wrong in drinking. There's nothing wrong in getting married or even being given in marriage. Why does Jesus point out that in the time of judgment in Noah, that's what people were doing? It's not what the text says, but what the text doesn't say. They did all of that without God. God was not in their thinking. God was not in their rationale. They did everything without God. They ate without thanking God. They drank without thanking God. They got married and were given in marriage without seeking God's blessing on it. And their lives were dedicated to living without God. Jesus says, as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man, the time of judgment. People eat, people drink, people marry, people are given in marriage, and they live life without God. In our society, people live life without God. When I was at university in Britain, a book was published called, uh, by by a man who was the Bishop of Woolwich, Honest to God, and in it he said God is dead. And and he went on to explain is that to modern culture, to modern man, we live our life without God. God is not part of every man's thinking. A- and we're doing exactly the same as in the days of Noah. We live our lives without God. And Jesus says, in the time of the Son of Man, of upcoming judgment, it will be exactly as in the days of Noah. People are going around their normal activity, legitimate activity, but they're doing it without God. And in the middle of that life without God, there comes destruction and disaster. The next slide. If there is one side of God's grief and God's pain, there is an equal and opposite side of God's mercy. And this is two completely opposite facets of God, and very hard to reconcile together. We think a lot of God's anger and God's justice, and how can God do that? How can God wipe out all of mankind and all animals? And on the other hand, we're told about God's mercy. The two go hand in hand. Both are equal facets of God. So the first evidence is the evidence of God's mercy, is the evidence of Methuselah. Methuselah was the oldest man that ever lived, Nine hundred and sixty nine years. His name means when he is dead, it will happen. When he is dead, it will happen. And if you do some mathamal- mathematical calculations from Genesis five and six, in the year that Methuselah died, the flood came. In the year Methuselah died, the flood came. God allowed Methuselah to live on and on and on and on in order that somehow people might change their mind and repent and enter the ark. The oldest man who ever lived, and there was a reason for it. It was because God does not want to bring about punishment. He is not willing that any should die, but all come to repentance. Methuselah was living proof of that. God wanted Methuselah to keep on living in order that people somehow would respond to the message. The consideration of Noah and his family. Among the disaster that was going on of people living lives without God, there was a group, Noah and his family, just eight people, who lived with God. And God showed his mercy in that rather than destroying everybody, he destroyed only those who had no room for God. And for those who put God within their lives, he saved them. He saved Noah and his family. There was probably plenty of room in the ark for many more, but like the unicorns, they were too busy playing silly games to take effect or to take notice of what was going on. There's a text in Romans that says, behold the kindness and sternness of God, and nowhere else do we see that two perfectly in superimposed together, but in the ark. In the ark there is the sternness of God, in those that ignored him, that those who lived their lives without him, there came judgment. Those that followed God, God showed his kindness. Okay, and the next slide. Okay, so now we come to the covenant. God made a covenant, an agreement with Noah. He said, this is what I'm going to do in the future. There will be a sense of continuity. Number one, there will be seed time. There will be fall, harvest. There will be winter. There will be summer. And as long as the earth remains, there will be this continuity. Summer, winter, seed time, harvest. And since that time, we expected every year. We expect, after that long dark winter, the joy of spring, the joy of summer, the difference of fall, and then back again to winter. That sign of continuity, of four seasons, is a sign of God loving us and caring for us. It's a sign of continuity. As long as the earth remains, those four seasons will, uh, exist. God will never curse the ground again. Now, when, uh, Adam sinned, God cursed the ground. He caused it to have weeds. He caused it to have thistles. He caused things to be more difficult to grow. And as I pull up dandelions, I say, Adam, why did you sin? Because, as far as I'm concerned, dandelions are a result of the fall, and we're reminded of the bright yellow flowers of how far we've fallen. But God says, you have cursed the ground already once, and I will not curse it again. I will leave it with its first curse. He promises that he will never destroy the earth again by water. Areas like in Sri Lanka with a tsunami have been destroyed, but God will never again destroy all the world with water. That was part of his covenant. That was part of his agreement. And to make a sign, there is always a sign of an agreement, always. It is like a signature at the end of a legal document. You put your sign, your signature at the end of the legal document to show it's yours, to show that you understand it, that you agree to it. Well, God's sign, his sign of the covenant, the sign, his signature, if you like it, is the rainbow. And that when you see the rainbow, it is God's intent that you remember that God is good, that God is kind, but that he is just, and that the things the the rema- rainbow should remind you of is God's continuity, that he continues summer, winter, seedtime, harvest. He's never cursed the ground again, and he will never again flood the earth with water. Let's move on. So let's take a look at Noah. Noah is an interesting man. He's mentioned a number of times in the New Testament, but Noah is commended among for three things. First of all, he was blameless among men. In a society in which people were described as violent and corrupt, even the people of his day said there's nothing wrong we can find with Noah. When Noah gets us to work on the ark, and I'm sure he and his eight, uh, rel- seven relatives did not build the ark on their own. They certainly had to employ people to build it. N- Noah said he was going to pay them ten bucks a day. He paid them ten bucks a day. He was a man who could be relied on. He was a man whose, whose word was his bond. And in the world in which he lived, he was blameless. A world in which was violent. A world in which dealt with corruption so that no didn't mean no, and yes didn't mean d- yes, and you did your best to cheat your neighbor. Noah stood out as the only man who was blameless. He was recognized as being straightforward and honest. Noah walked with God. It was always God's intention that people walk with him. In the Garden of Eden, you heard last week that it was a sign that God and E- and Adam walked together. They talked together. Um, Noah's grandfather, Enoch, was a man who walked with God, and God enjoyed his company so much walking with him that he said, Enoch, you're not going to die. You're going to come to heaven with me. And Enoch didn't die. God took him to heaven. His third characteristic was that he was, uh, a man who built an ark by his faith. His faith, he built an ark. He looked and said, God. God said to him, I want you to build an ark. Now recognize that this time there were no boats. God said it's going to rain, and Noah said, Lord, what's rain? We've never seen rain. And in faith he built a boat. In a s- in an area in which boats did not exist, at a time which rain did not exist, Noah built an ark. His faith was tremendous. God said, Noah, do this, and he did it. He's known as a preacher, a preacher of righteousness, not of a very successful preacher. The only people who were converted as the result of his preaching were his own family, seven of them. And sometimes people wonder what happens when you preach to people automatically respond? Is there great response? Noah just kept on preaching for one hundred and twenty years, and of his one hundred and twenty years, only his own family believed him and entered the ark. He was faithful for that one hundred and twenty years he preached. His obedience, and again, he was obedient. God said Noah built an ark. No one knew what an ark was like. No one knew what rain was, but he believed God. Do you know those are characteristics of a Christian? Blameless among men. That is, when people look at our lives, they look and say, when we deal with Trevor, we know that he puts in a full day's work for a full day's pay. When he says he's going to give us the money, he gives us the money. He's honest and straightforward, and that is the characteristic of a Christian. A Christian should be a person who is blameless among men, a person who, when non-Christians look, they say, here's a man who's honest, here's a lady who's honest, here's a person, as far as they're concerned, is blameless. They can find nothing wrong in him. His life is transparent and honest. Unfortunately, many Christians don't live that way. Uh, many Christians live their lives as if they were belonging to pa- there's very little difference between them and the pagan world in which they live. And their business dealings are such that there's very little difference in the way that they do their business than those that they surround them. But that's not the way it should be. A Christian should be known as a person like Noah, who was blameless before men. That people look at their lives and say, there's a life that's different. There's a person who is honest, straightforward, whose yes is yes and no is no, who, when he says it, does it. Blameless before men. Can we go back? All right. Okay, he walked with God. One of the characteristics of a Christian is that we talk about the Christian walk. We walk with God. Amos, one of the prophets, says, how can two walk together unless they be agreed? And when you and God get together and we talk, what do we talk about? Or is it our talks with God are minimalist? How long do we spend talking with God each day? And if it's talking with God, how is it a monologue? God, hi. It's Trevor. Here are my list of requests for today. I want this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. And our list, our walking with God, our dialogue with God, our prayer life is basically a monologue. And we tell God what we want. That's not the idea of conversation. That's not the idea of walking with God. The idea of walking with God is that you talk to him and he talks to you. And it's a two-way conversation. The trouble is, very often our ears are blocked that we don't want to hear God. And our lives are too busy that we don't have to take time out to walk with God. It's fundamental. We need to do it. It's a necessary part of the Christian life, this walking with God, to listen to him, to what he has to say to us, and he wants to hear what we have to say to him. Walking with God is a key fundamental of the Christian life, and very often in our busy twentieth century North American lives, we're too busy to walk with God. We're too busy to take that time out that says, God, you and I need to have a talk. You and I need to talk about certain things, and we have a dialogue. The last characteristic is that we should be preachers. We should be people who preach the word of God. By the way we live our lives, that when conversation comes up and people ask us things that lead right into our discussion of the Christian faith, we do so. God isn't worried, particularly that we may never see souls saved. That's not our job to save souls. Our job is to preach the world. Noah was commended for being a preacher of righteousness, but only seven ever listened to him, and they were his own family. So don't worry about success. The key is to be faithful. The last one is obedience. Building an ark in a time with no boat. Building it to deal with rain that never had never come before. Noah obeyed God. Obedience is a key factor in the Christian life. To obey, writes the writer to the Hebrews, is better than sacrifice. Obeying God is something that we can learn from Noah, despite the odds that said, this is ridiculous, building an ark. This is absurd. This is stupid. He still believed God and obeyed him. God calls us to do certain things. And on the surface of it, we look and question, God, you really want me to do that? Is that for sure? God calls us to be obedient people. Obey is better than sacrifice. Now, however, Noah had a downfall. Sometimes we go through life, and we have this idea that we have to be perfect all the time, and that when someone slips and falls, or someone gets into difficulty or troubles. We look and say, well, that's the end of them. It's not the way it was with God and Noah. Noah was a gardener, and uh, as soon as the flood ended and the earth was, was growing again, Noah planted a vineyard, and he got drunk on the wine. Probably hadn't had any of it on the ark for a long time, and I feel kind of sorry for Noah. He had his drink for a while, and he wanted to have a want some wine. After all, he was a gardener. We went too far. Be- all of us slip and fall. We're human. We're sinners saved by grace. We're saved, but not perfect. And when we slip and fall, God forgives, if we confess our sins. The difficulty is that very often when we slip and fall, fellow Christians around us judge us and say, poor, look at him, look at her, what's she done? That's not the way it should be. A Christian is a person who, when they slip and fall, and we all do, is a person who comes to God and asks for forgiveness, who asks once again to be in- enjoying that relationship with God. Falling is not the problem. The problem is that we don't go and confess and set things right that we did wrong. Noah, a great man, a man who obeyed God, a man who walked with God, a man who was blameless around the people, he fell. And if Noah fell, all of us are likely to fall. None of us are likely to be exempt. The important thing to remember is that when we fall, we have a God who's got his arms open and willing to receive us back again, as long as we confess and say, boy, we messed up. So what can we learn about lessons? For we can learn. Number one, God is willing that nobody perish. God wants everyone to enter into a relationship with himself. He sent his son to die upon a cross. He ra- raised him from the dead in order that you and I can enter into a relationship with himself, both here on earth, that we can walk with God, and in heaven, that we can be with him forever. And if, like the unicorn, we want to play silly games, we're too busy with what's going on, beware that there will come judgment, that there will come devastating consequences, but that's not God's choice. God is not willing, is willing that none should perish, but all come to a remembrance of him. The time is now. Paul talking in but a different, uh, in Corinthians chapter six verse twelve says, today, if you hear God's voice, respond. God doesn't guarantee tomorrow. He doesn't guarantee next week. He doesn't guarantee down the road. He says now. Today, if you hear God's voice, respond now. In Noah's day, people could look at that boat and say, well, you know, it's going to be a while. Never seen a boat before, but it's going to be a while before that's finished, and they kept going around their own way, and one day it was too late. The door was shut, and they couldn't get in. God's word today is, today, if you hear my voice, respond. Today I give you, tomorrow, no guarantees. Continuity is not forever. God has promised that he will not destroy the world by flood, by water, but Peter says he will destroy the world, this time by fire, and that continuity is not forever, and that from Noah, even great men fail. And I look at things like that and I say, yes, I have all kinds of faults, but God forgives me. So today, if you hear God's voice, take it. If you have fallen, then come to God. He's more than willing to forgive you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you this morning, this man Noah, that you asked to do an incredible thing, something that no one has ever done before, or done before at that stage. We thank you for his faith. He didn't blink, he just built it. Lord, give us faith, so that when you ask us to do things, we respond. May we be obedient people. Lord, if we've never come to know you, if we've never taken up your offer of kind of mercy, if we've never accepted the salvation that you have wrought for us through Jesus Christ, may we hear today your voice. Today, if you hear my voice, respond. We pray that we may turn our lives over to you. And so we pray that you may go with us this week. May you go before us, may you go behind us, may you be above us, may you be beneath us, may you be in us. May we enjoy walking with you, and may you enjoy walking with us. We commit ourselves to you. Amen.