A New Beginning - Genesis 8

Sermon Nuggets Mon April 23  

Verses Gen 8

A New Beginning

            Since Sermon Nuggets are recycled old sermons I preached from Chapter 8 of Genesis as a communion service and tied in a brief way thanksgiving of Noah and the sacrifice of thanksgiving with sharing our thanks to God for our new beginning due to the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

            As we look at chapter 8 Noah and his family emerge from the ark and are standing on solid ground. There is a a new world and a new beginning. We have already seen in this series from Genesis these stories in the Old Testament are actual history – that is, they are not myth but actual historic occurrences. From these stories in our lives we can relate to the spiritual principles. We learn about God about faith, about the way the men and women of old practiced their life lived in the grace and glory of God. We learn about obedience and blessing.

            If you add it all up all the days Noah was on the ark we conclude he and his family spent one year and 17 days in the ark. That’s a long time in a cramped space with lots and lots of animals. This was no luxury cruise in the Caribbean. The Bible does not tell us anything about Noah’s thoughts or challenges while on the ark. We can only imagine his personal emotions during the long time they spent in the ark. We know that he was a man of faith who took God at his Word.

            But he was human, too. The sea is a lonely place. It could not have been easy to be shut up inside the ark with his family and all those animals. Did he wonder if God had forgotten him? I could not blame him if he had his doubts. How long must he be in this situation.

            The thought that comes to me is that we have a promise from God that He would overcome this world. We know the Jesus will return and there will be a new world. But for now we wait and work. Our world today is far different from Noah’s ark and life confined in the ship, but the wait sometimes feels long for us to see Gods promises come about. We would do well to remind ourselves of Noah who was saved from distruction.

He had done what God had said. He had preached to the unbelieving world. He cannot see the sun because of the cloud cover. There is no course to follow, just drifting on the surface of the endless, endless ocean.

            The message of Genesis 8 is in the first verse, “But God remembered Noah…”

Maybe you feel like you are in a waiting period in your life. You are waiting for the next step or promise of God. It seems long. It is easy to doubt. But don’t’ forgot. God knows. He has not forgotten.

Pastor Dale 

Sermon Nuggets Tues April 24-

Verses- Gen 8:1-5  ¹ But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. ² Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. ³ The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, ⁴ and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵ The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

God Remembers

            We begin with passage with the words, “And God remembered Noah.” Now we realize that God does not forget. He didn’t look down upon the earth with the horrible flood and all of the sudden say, “Oh, where is everyone? Oh I remember now, Noah is down there in the ark. I better do something about it.?

            The emphasis on God remembrance is simply that God keeps his promises. He is doing what He said He would do. He said he would do three things. First He would destroy the world. Secondly, He would save Noah and his family and a couple of each animal and seven pairs of other animals. And thirdly, He would start over with Noah’s clan.

            The Bible also speaks of God remembering in other places. God remembered Abraham, God remembered Rachel, God remembered Hannah. There was a personal relationship with people. But based on promises God is holding true to his word. God is saying that he will honor his word. When it says Noah found favor with God, He gave Noah instructions to build an ark, and Noah obeyed and did everything the Lord told him to do. God gave him a promise that from him would come the new people. He saved Noah from the flood and is now going to start over again in the world.

            As chaplain in the hospital in Cambridge I volunteer a week just like some other pastor’s do. I’ve been involved with some serious car accidents and talking with folks in the emergency room.  Although some folks were quite seriously injured others escaped with minor injuries. Repeatedly, there was great thankfulness by those who were spared serious injury or death. When you face the fact that you could have died or been permanently disabled the response is almost always a deep sense of gratitude. One is thankful for life and for faculties of the body happens. They were not thankful for what happened, but grateful for what didn’t happen.

Notice the comments made by those who have gone through hurricanes, tornados, and other tragic storms. People who have been spared realize what could have happened and are filled with thanksgiving. Sometimes those who have experience no hardships, difficulties and trails are thankful, but not to the same degree or depth of those for whom those situations have been real and close.

            When God remembered Noah, the ordeal for the family was coming to an end. They lost everything but God was starting over through them.  Noah was more aware of the grace of God and he was spared punishment.

            There has been a play produced, Hell’s gates and Heaven’s portals. Many have seen the video of it. This play portrays people dying and being at the gates of Hell or the portals of Heaven depending on whether they repented of sin and turned by faith to Jesus Christ. It was a dramatic and sobering portrayal of eternity without Christ or with Christ. The sense of thankfulness was enhanced when one realizes what we have been spared Hell by the grace of God.

            God remembered you and me. God knows us by name. As God’s children there are so many problems that we will not have to face. There but for the grace of God go I.

            He remembers you!

Pastor Dale

 

Weds April 25

Verses Gen 8:6-17 ⁶ After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark ⁷ and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. ⁸ Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. ⁹ But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. ¹⁰ He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. ¹¹ When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. ¹² He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

 ¹³ By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. ¹⁴ By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

 ¹⁵ Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. ¹⁷ Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”

Signs of Hope

            Noah was looking for signs that the flood was coming to an end. I’m sure he was tired of being around those animals day and night. In the play, Noah the Musical, they depict how difficult it was to stay in the ark with the animals. We see patience is needed to be cramped up with the hard work of taking care of the animals plus their own needs. They couldn’t exactly dump the fertilizer in the fields. I can’t imagine living conditions for a year without “getting out of the house”.

            So he sent out a raven. Since ravens feast on rotting flesh, it no doubt found plenty to eat  on the surface of the ocean. It flew back and forth but did not return to the ark. The first time Noah sent out a dove, it came back because the water wasn’t low enough. The second time the dove returned with an olive leaf, indicating that plants were beginning to grow. The third time he sent out a dove, it didn’t come back at all. Noah  knew then that the end of the flood must be very near.

            But why did he send the birds in the first place? God had told him when the flood would start but not when it would end. He needed to know the approximate date it would begin so he could build the ark in time. But God never told him how long the flood would last because he didn’t need to know. One of the first questions people ask often even before they have surgery is “How long will it take?” or “How long do I have to be in the hospital?” We want to know when it is going to end or we can get back to normal. It is a good thing to have hope when our troubles will end.

            Often, it is the not knowing that wears us down. “When will this end?” And the answer is always: “In God’s time, not one day sooner, not one day later.” God can make the dry ground appear anytime he chooses. We may feel forgotten and abandoned in the flood, but the dry land will appear in due time.

            Notice also that Noah didn’t get out of the ark for a long time even after the first land appeared. I think after a year on the ark, I would have jumped over the side and started swimming for shore as soon as the first peak poked through the surface of the water. But Noah still had lots of waiting to do.

            In our impatience or in our frustration or desperation we may try to hurry up God. We might try to leave the ark too soon. But we miss out on faith, hope and trust that are part of our listening lessons that comes with patience. That is much easier for me to say than to practice. I am not a good patient. I am not a good waiter.

             And just as God gave Noah a sign, he still gives signs and tokens of his grace today. Often it is a Scripture or a song repeated at just the right moment. Or a phone call or a letter that came when we felt like giving up. God does not always spare us the pain of life, but he gives us tokens, roses that bloom in the snow, to remind us that even in our sadness and even in our despair, we are never alone, never forgotten.

            But there are signs that give us hope that God is at work. Little things that are notes from God He has not forgotten us. Thy raven could eat on dead fish and dead things all around, but the dove needed vegetation. There were signs things were ready when Noah saw the fig leaf. Then when the dove did not return it was a sign of hope.

            In verses 16-17 the Lord instructed Noah to leave the ark with his family and the animals. As far as we can tell, this is the first time God had spoken to Noah since he told him to enter the ark. As Noah watched and waited, he went about his duties, wondering when the Lord would speak to him again. His family stayed faithful to what they knew to be true. It did not matter if he “felt” like it or not. He knew that God had led him this far, and he believed that God had his best interests at heart.

            It is hard to wait. But the best thing is to remain faithful for what you know God wants from you. It is a obedience and trust.  Someone put the truth this way:” Do not doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the light.” When the time comes, God will speak to you again. He has given us His promise to never leave us and never forsake us. He will speak to you again even after a quiet time. He always does but not always on our timetable.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Thurs April 26 – 

Gen 8:18-22 18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

  20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

 22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest,  cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

Noah Remembered

           Now they were leaving the known for the unknown. The world they had known was gone forever. Cities gone, roads gone, homes gone, people gone. Geography changed, landmarks all different. Nothing looked the same. Everything was new.

           The thought occurred to me that it must have been hard to leave the boat even though they looked forward to the day they could get out. This was their life and security for over a year and now that step into the unknown is a step of faith. I think this might be light our knowledge of the new world we experience after death. But this life on earth is what we know. It is hope of heaven that gives us security, but who wants to “leave this boat”? We love this life we know and can be anxious when we have to go through the shadow of death.

           The first thing mentioned after Noah and his family left the ark was to build an altar unto God to offer thanksgiving. Noah was filled with thanksgiving. God did not only remember Noah, Noah remembered God. 

             Noah recognized that he owed everything to the Lord. It was God who warned him, God who told him to build the ark, God who designed the ark, God who called the animals to the ark two by two, God who shut the door, God who preserved the ark through the flood, God who brought the ark to a safe place, and it was God who told Noah when it was safe to leave the ark. God did it all! Noah was just along for the ride!

             The word tells us that the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done." As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."

              When we offer up "the sacrifice of praise...God is well pleased" Heb. 13:15-16 "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-- the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”

               Noah sacrificed to God. It was an expression from his heart and his actions. That pleases God. Actions without attitude don’t mean anything. Attitude without actions don’t mean much. It is the combination of thanksgiving from attitude that motivates action. Thanksgiving is shown in our actions for what God provides.    If we are thankful in our hearts, we will be thankful in our daily living. "Thanksgiving is thanks-living!" That is, a thankful spirit is translated into our actions. Every good gift and every perfect gifts is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom is not changing, neither shadow of turning. Jms 1:17

             Each generation would repeat the problems of the previous generation. In the context of the sacrifice, the Lord made a promise: "I won't destroy them again." But he didn't say how he would answer the problem. What could God do for a race like this?

              This counsel of God with himself is instructive. The problem of a righteous God and a sinful population and his refusal to destroy them completely leaves him ultimately with only one choice. It's not outlined here, but it's the greatest story of all, the story of how God would take their punishment on himself. God’s promise was to himself. It did not rest on man’s actions, but God’s actions. That is where the cross comes in. Man is worth saving, but I will do so for those who demonstrate faith in me.

             Bible instructs us to come before God, not only with "prayer and supplication," but also "with thanksgiving" (Phil. 4:6). Prayer and thanksgiving are seldom seen one without the other in the Scriptures.

          "Enter into his gates with Thanksgiving and into his courts with praise: Be Thankful unto him and bless his name. (Psalm 100:4)

             John Piper said, “Suppose you give someone a gift at a party and he opens it and loves it. He fondles it and shows it off and speaks of it the whole evening. But never once does he even look at you or speak to you the giver. He is totally enthralled with the gift. What do we say of such a person? We say he is an ingrate. Why? Because his emotion of joy over the gift has no reference to the goodwill of the giver.”

Pastor Dale

           

Sermon Nuggets Fri April 27 

Verses- Gen 8:  20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.

How We Remember

             The altar was a way provided by God for mankind to give to the Lord from his flocks or heard a sacrifice for sin, for worship, for thanksgiving. This story is repeated as a means of how God saved the world from destruction. The ark becomes a picture of the door of salvation. It is available by the grace of  God to come through the door who is Jesus Christ. John 10:9  “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

             We have another sacrifice who is Jesus Christ our access to the Father. The communion observance is a means also of remembrance. It is a time to think of  the destruction to come and know by the promise of God we have the promise of eternal life and not eternal damnation. The communion meal pictures for us a thanksgiving meal. The provider is God. It is remembering God because he first remembered us. 

            At the time of communion we are also celebrating our new beginning with a new life in Jesus. We are a new creation. Old things are passed away and all things become new.

When Jesus died he said “remember me.”. Because we have sinned there is consequence for our sin, but Jesus took our place. His suffering saved us. To all who accept Jesus as their savior they are freely forgiven of all the past, all the present, all the future. We are made new in God’s eyes.  We have lots to be thankful for.

We have been purchased with the blood of Jesus to begin again. We are starting over. Jesus died that we can have a new start. We have the same animals. We go to school and the kids are the same. The family is the same, our job or work is the same, but we are different in Jesus. We have a new kingdom.

           Today is a new day. It is a gift from God. We not only have been spared from destruction, we embrace newness in Jesus and this is a reminder that we have been bought with a price. We belong to God.

Pastor Dale

           

.

Destruction by Flood- Genesis 7

Sermon Nuggets, Mon April 16 Gen 7  Destruction by Flood

Verses Genesis 7

When God Asks the Impossible                                  

Some of you may have heard the following story of Noah:

“The Lord spoke to Noah and said: "In six months I'm going to make it rain until the whole earth is covered with water and all the evil people are destroyed. But I want to save a people, and two of every kind of living thing on the planet. I am ordering you to build Me an Ark." And in a flash of lightning he delivered the specifications for an Ark..

"OK," said Noah, trembling in fear and fumbling with the blueprints."Six months, and it starts to rain," thundered the Lord. "You'd better have my Ark completed, or learn how to swim for a very long time."

Six months passed. The skies began to cloud up and rain began to fall. The Lord saw that Noah was sitting in his front yard, weeping.. And there was no Ark..

"Noah," shouted the Lord, "where is my Ark?  “Lord, please forgive me!" begged Noah. "I did my best. But there were big problems. First I had to get a building permit for the Ark construction project, and your plans didn't meet code. So I had to hire an engineer to redraw the plans. Then I got into a big fight over whether or not the Ark needed a fire sprinkler system.

Then, my neighbors objected, claiming I was violating zoning by building the Ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning commission. Then I had a big problem getting enough wood for the Ark because there was a ban on cutting trees in order to save the Spotted Owl. I had to convince Fish and Wildlife people that I needed the wood to save the owls. But they wouldn't let me catch any owls. So no owls.

   Then the carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board before anyone would pick up a saw or a hammer. Then when I started gathering up animals, I got sued by an animal rights group. Just when I got the suit dismissed, the EPA notified me that I couldn't complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood. Let me tell you, they didn't take kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of a Supreme Being. Then the Army Corps of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed new flood plain. So, I sent them a globe. They weren't amused.

Now I'm trying to resolve a complaint from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over how many minorities I'm supposed to hire. And on top of all that the IRS seized all my assets claiming I'm trying to avoid paying taxes by leaving the country. I really don't think I can finish for at least another five years," Noah wailed.

The sky began to clear. The sun began to shine. A rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled. "You mean you're not going to destroy the earth?" Noah asked, hopefully.. "No," said the Lord sadly, "The Government already has."

           

Many people refuse to take the biblical account of the flood as literal history, preferring to regard it as some kind of mythology which conveys to us certain important truths about ourselves and about the world. They point to the survival of various flood stories in different traditions in the East, and tell us that the account in Genesis 7 is one of these mythologies. However, the New Testament is under no illusion about the truthfulness and the trustworthiness of the Genesis account. Jesus tells us that no word of the scripture can be broken, and Peter, in 2 Peter 3, takes the account of the flood as the foundation for his emphasis upon the doctrine of the second coming, and the need for us to be prepared for final judgement, which, he argues, will come as surely and as certainly as this particular judgment came at this particular time.

Taking on the momentous task of saving the world, Noah is asked to do the impossible. The story of the flood is not so much a record of Noah’s job as it is God’s work in saving the world.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Tues April 17 

Verses- Genesis 7:1-10  “The LORD then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. ² Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, ³ and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. ⁴ 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.”

 ⁵ And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.

          ⁶ Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. ⁷ And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸ Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, ⁹ male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.¹⁰ And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth

We Recognize God Gives Provision

            Noah is called righteous again in contrast to nearly everyone else in the world. His righteousness led him to obey God so also God would single him and his family out for salvation because the Lord had found him righteous.

            Ki Gulbranson has been teaching our SS class on Mathew 6:33 :Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”  The prime job description for mankind is seeking God’s kingdom. We saw that means submit yourself to the King of King and Lord of Lords, and seek to do what is right. That is not possible without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is to live like Jesus and reflect the character of God in our world.

            So God provides for Noah his grace and Noah responds in faith and in righteousness, doing the right things. Noah did exactly as God had commanded him to do because  Noah had faith in what God was going to do, even though he didn’t have the slightest clue how God was going to pull this off. Someone said, “Faith is responding to God’s word without regard to outside circumstances or feelings.”  So God was going to give to Noah exactly what he needed. God gives his provisions.

            It made no difference that Noah was 600 years old. He built the ark and got the food. He gathered his family. Notice v. 8 “Pairs of clean and unclean animals of birds and all of creatures that move along the ground, male and female came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.”

            There were some things Noah could do and some things Noah could not do. God saw to it there was wood, but Noah had to cut it down gather it and follow God’s blueprints. Noah knew what he was to get with the animals, but unlike popular stories he didn’t spend his time roaming about the land looking for these beasts and furry things, God brought them to him. It says, “They came to Noah and entered the ark.” There is no stubborn donkey, or uncooperative hog refusing to go where Noah wanted him to go, God saw they were cooperative and provided the animals for Noah to carry out his own job.

Some have suggested this may have involved the origin of animal migratory instincts or, at least, an intensification of it. We also know that most animals possess the ability to sense danger and to move to a place of safety. Perhaps this instinct started with a couple of animals of each kind here. And seven pairs of other kind of animals.

            This raises another popular question, How many animals needed to be on the ark and isn’t it really a myth to think they all could be accommodated with only 8 people taking care of them for such a long time?

John Woodmorappe in his well documented book, Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study”, demonstrates that as few as 2,000 animals may have been required on the ark. He continues his study by showing that the ark could easily accommodate 16,000 animals.

But, let's also be realistic. It is very doubtful that if you are going to have animals on for year that you will pick full grown giraffes and elephants, and hippos. But these were probably newborns, small babies to begin with, needing less food and water.

Woodmorappe noted that assuming the average animal to be about the size of a sheep and using a railroad car for comparison, we note that the average double-deck stock car can accommodate 240 sheep. Thus, three trains hauling 69 cars each would have ample space to carry the 50,000 animals, filling only 37% of the ark. This would leave an additional 361 cars or enough to make 5 trains of 72 cars each to carry all of the food and baggage plus Noah's family of eight people. The Ark had plenty of space.

           

God does not put us into situations and ask us to do something without giving us the resources needed to do his will. That is a given. Now those resources are not always put into our laps, but sometimes they are. We are to be faithful by doing the right thing and God will take care of the rest. We need patience, and that is hard especially in our society, but God will provide.      

           

He provided for Noah the plans, the workers, the time he needed, the animals and provided for him salvation from the storm that was brewing.

           

What is God calling you to do? Can you believe he will provide the resources, the time, the strength, the wisdom, the lessons, you need to carry out his plan? Obedience is our part, God’s provision for carrying out his will is His part.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Weds April 18 

Verses Gen 7: ¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. ¹² And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

           ¹³ On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. ¹⁴ They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. ¹⁵Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. ¹⁶ The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.

            ¹⁷ For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. ¹⁸The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 

We Recognize God Gives Protection

God’s word is pretty specific here also giving us a date and time of the rain. Time is kept often by generations of people, just like it is today. The generations after Jesus is how we calculate our years. In the days of the Kings they used to keep time by the calendars based on the years of the reign of so and so. Hence, months, dates and years are mans’ calendar in relationship to peoples lives.

On this day recorded in history the rains fell 40 days and 40 nights. And all his sons, three of them were saved with their wives, and all the animals wild and tame, of the ground and of the air. Every kind that needed breath had either seven pairs if they were clean animals and two if they were unclean animals.

We always hear the story that they went in two by two. I like the artist portrayal of the ark downstairs donated by the Frietags it gives a marvelous thought of reality, not marching like a band, but throughout some scattered. It is fun to look for the mate in each of these pictures. Verse 2 tells us there were seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of the rest. Perhaps these clean animals were needed for sacrifice and that is also a provision of God.

But this is a story of judgment tempered with grace, for Noah and his family were preserved alive by God. In the midst of darkness there is light, and in the midst of hopelessness, despair and threatening, there is the power of God displayed in the rescuing of Noah.

Alan Cambell a Presbyterian minister reminds us of three things that God did for Noah: God took him in. The time came when the ark was ready; Noah had built it according to God's design and provision. It was Noah's ark, but ultimately it was God's ark, and God's provision alone was what gave salvation to Noah, his wife, his sons and his daughters-in-law. God said to him "Come into the ark" (7:1). This was a word of grace indeed. When the flood of judgement was to fall, a place of safety was provided. God protected his creation. Rather than starting over in creation he sought to redeem mankind and animals by special protection in the midst of the flood.

And the Gospel today is the same. In a world ripe for God's judgement and under God's threatening; in a world of sin, hopelessness and despair, God says - "Come into the ark". He tells us that there is a place of safety for us all. The predominant Gospel word is "Come" - it is on the lips of the Saviour again and again. There is no salvation without it. The Gospel invitation reverses sin's curse and sin's despair. When Adam and Eve sinned, God sent them out. Now he takes Noah in. Sin drives us away from God; the Gospel calls us to God. The message of grace is the message of a free, unfettered offer of pardon to lost sinners. God says to us "Come into the ark".

           

            Cambell also noted, God not only called Noah in; we read in verse 16 - "God shut him in". God closed the door, and made the ship finally watertight. For Noah, there was no condemnation any more. So it is with the rescue ship of the Gospel. There is finality about God's salvation in Christ that gives to sinners a complete and ultimate guarantee of salvation and of hope. There is no more condemnation for those who are shut in and closed in with Jesus Christ. To be sure, there may be difficulties in the way, trials to meet with, problems to overcome. But God has shut the door behind his people, "and no man opens it" (Revelation 3:7). With the key of David - with all the promises of God's eternal covenant of grace - God opens a door of hope for his people, and closes them in with Christ, where they are safe for all time.

The third thing is God kept him in. As the world drowned into a lost eternity, "Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive" (7:23). Outside there was chaos, judgment and death. Inside there was the presence of the living God, preserving life and keeping them through divine power. The Gospel not only promises us salvation; it promises that we will be kept by the power of God. It promises that the God who took us in, and who shut us in, will keep us in the hollow of his hand, where none can perish. To be in Christ is to be safe forever.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Thurs April 19 

Verses- Gen 7:  ¹⁷ For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. ¹⁸The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. ¹⁹ They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. ²⁰ The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. ²¹ Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. ²² Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.²³ Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

 ²⁴ The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

We Recognize God Gives Punishment.

God’s plan was to wipe out all living beings on the face of the earth. He was so fed up with sin and evil all the time in the hearts and lives of people.

            Some people wonder if the flood was global or only covered the area where Noah lived. The Bible says it covered mountains to the depth of more than 20 feet. Would not a flood covering the highest mountains of the Middle East not affect the rest of the world?

The Bible confirms that man had multiplied upon the face of the earth. Violence and corruption filled the earth  Man could not have existed only in the Mesopotamian region - a region too small to support such a large population, especially considering the natural dispersion affect of a violent society.

            Likewise if only those animals in a specific geographic location died, it would seem unnecessary for God to protect pairs in the ark for the express purpose of preventing their extinction. Surely there would be representatives of their kinds in other areas. If, on the other hand, there were some unique kinds of animals in the local flood's path, then it would seem more logical for God to send representative pairs out of the area, rather than to the ark, as He did. The Bible is clear that all the air-breathing, land animals perished during the flood, except those preserved with Noah - from which all modern animals are descended.

Peter delivered a clear global warning, confirming that God created the earth, devastated it by the flood, and will one day destroy it again by fire (2 Peter 3:5-7). Peter certainly did not mean that just a local area on earth would be burned. Just as the flood was global, so will be the final judgment.

There are also many evidences of fossils and geological discoveries showing this world wide catastrophe. Even the glacier ages made be some explanations of large bodies of water that after the atmospheric changes froze and we still have the effects of what is called the ice ages. The differing theories of the time can be accounted for the adjustments of temperatures and the location of oceans where only 1/7 of the earth now is not water.

            Although we rejoice in the provisions of God and the protection of God I can’t get away from the awfulness of the punishment of God. We see the horrible consequences of sin. When God offers freely salvation and people are so caught up in sin that they turn against God and do not respond to his grace the effects of sin are devastating. So many people say “How could I have been so blind?” I never realized that sin hurt so much.  People can be warned continually of the dangers of illicit sex but when AIDS or STD hits kids think only of the pleasure of the moment not the option that sex can kill. God’s plan is still best. When violence takes our land and children are being tried as adults popping off someone you don’t like is as easy a video game annihilation, no problems, no guilt. 

            How many people can be warned of drunk driving, yet 1000s are killed every year do to the influence of the damage of alcohol. Only now are some listening the dangers of gambling after notable affluent people have lost family house, jobs and even their freedoms when borrowing a little money for little time to pay off debts soon enslaves people to addictive habits. The lists go on, but dear people there comes a time when we have lived our lives for ourselves and rejected God’s offer of grace when there is punishment and many are hurt by it.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Fri April 20 –

Verses- Gen 7

We Recognize God’s Patience.

           

Last week we talked about grace. You cannot do what is right without accepting the gift of God first. That gift was offered to Noah and it is offered to you. Noah preached God’s coming judgment and importance of responding to God’s gift for 120 years. No one responded. I admit when no one responds to God’s salvation after I preach for a few months I get awfully discouraged. If I don’t see some people come to Christ I want to quit the pastorate and get someone else in here that can do the job. But I realize that salvation by my efforts is not salvation. Only if God’s spirit chooses to use words or lives do people get converted. And he uses many (including you) to plant, water, weed and harvest.

       So I look at Noah and think here is a guy who was in God’s will and had God’s Spirit and still everyone hardened their hearts to God’s message. He never led anyone to the Lord unless it was his own family.

God says it is going to rain. It really doesn’t make any difference that the people have never experienced rain before; it is enough for God to provide the rain. They may have scoffed at the idea of a flood. They could give great scientific arguments that say, “It has never happened before so we can logically conclude it will not happen.” That is a sound scientific theory. “All our observation has shown rain does not happen, so Noah you are wrong in living your life putting a boat together.”

I wonder what it was like for Noah and his family aboard the ship after God shut them in. He had no way to open the door when neighbors were crying to be saved, but it was too late. Can you see them calling from outside the Ark, "Let us in!"? As the waters rose the number of people outside the Ark rose as well. I wonder if Noah and his family could hear the whimpers slowly dying out as one by one the last people died.

Imagine how eerie it would have been to know that you were the only ones left on the earth. Everyone neighbors, enemies, friends, co-workers, all destroyed. The world as you knew it was gone. What would the future be like?

This is no movie. This was real life. These were the horrible consequences of sin. This is one of the things we must learn from this record. We need to see and feel the horrible consequences of sin in the record of Noah. Why? Because day after day you and I trifle with sin. We rationalize it, we excuse it, we seek to make it seem noble. And as we do, we lose sight of the horrible nature of rebellion against God and the subsequent judgment.

Matt 24:  ³⁷ As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸ For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; ³⁹ and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

How long has it been since the witness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? In America people scorn the gospel. Throughout the world believers in the Word of God are marginalized and persecuted. Look at the patience of God!

If you are have not accepted Jesus as you savior and don’t know for sure you are saved I have good news for you. This door is open right now. Rev.3:20. There are two ways this door can be closed by God- by death or by the rapture at the second coming of Jesus Christ. Are you prepared?

Don’t miss the way in which God chose to save the world. By making a provision, by giving protection, but God also gives punishment and the warning of the flood is a prophecy of something worse. For when the door of the ark was closed it was not opened again. Now is the day of salvation. Now is your day of witness and prayer for your friends and neighbors. God always warns of judgment and gives time for people to repent. Judgment is always against sin and he always follows through on his judgments and punishments for those who do not turn to God.

Only because of God’s patience that He hasn’t sent more floods. He promised the next destruction will be by fire.

“… him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” John 6:37b

Pastor Dale

Noah Found Grace- Genesis 6

Sermon Nuggets Mon April 9 

Verses  Gen 6

Noah Found Grace                                     

            Around this last Easter time I saw there was to be a TV special for two nights entitled Noah. It was supposed to be the presentation of the Biblical story of Noah and the Ark. I had to turn it off during the first hour or so because it was so fictional that any resemblance to the original story was purely coincidental. It was full of action, intrigue, sex, sin, judgment, but missed many of the main points of Scripture.

            The story of the ark is perhaps one of the best known stories in the Bible. There is more to it than a children’s exciting Sunday School lesson. Controversy among scientists have tried often to attack the validity of the Bible through theories that contradict the story, but over again through geology and archeology more and more evidence points to the validity of the Biblical account.

            I remember John Warwick Montgomery’s exhibitions and even photographs into the mountains of Turkey discovering under ice the original ark. Avalanches and changes of politics and weather conditions have keep people from exploring that area in recent years. I had read a most interesting document describing how the ark was to have been made and how the particular design was so crafted as to withstand not travel, but buoyancy in the most troubled of waters, and still maintain balance as well as stability.          

There has now been a tremendous undertaking by some producers of a musical drama called Noah which was playing in Branson and in Pennsylvania to over 100,000s of people. Sight and Sound Theatre build a huge stage with hundreds of characters and animals depicts the outside of the ark during the first half, and the inside of the ark that is four stories during the second half.  

            There are four chapters in Genesis given to the story which for the rest of April will serve as our scriptural studies. After the world continued in great sin the Lord was grieved that he ever made man. But this story of Noah is also the story of the grace of God in saving the world He created. I want to look at the lessons of love and righteousness of God that are demonstrated in the story of Noah as we reflect on this chapter from Genesis this week.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Tues April 10 

Verses Gen 6: ¹ When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, ² the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. ³ Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

 ⁴ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

Wrong Attractions.

            God is intimately involved with his creation. Just as disobedience and rebellion grieves the heart of a parent, so more does it grieve the heart of God when his most favorite part of creation, willingly and purposely turn their backs on God’s goodness.

One question that continually is raised is, “who were the Sons of God and Daughters of Men?” (1-3)

            Two interpretations have been given: The phrase “sons of God” frequently refers to angels in the Bible. I won’t take the time to look them up, but some translations that use the term “angels” in literal Hebrew words are “sons of God”.  An intriguing interpretation is that somehow angels started having marital relationships with women.

Since it resulted in horrible sin there are some who teach that these were demons taking human form and marrying women and having offspring that depict the most evil of humanity.

            Romans mythology includes gods marrying other humans. The gods would fight and steal and lie and use their powers for selfish purposes. Of course, the Bible teaches there is only one God who has no family or rivals. In fact, the Hebrew language did not even have a female word for goddess.

            Some who hold this interpretation point to 1 Pet 3:19,20 which speaks about the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.”

            And objection to this would be Luke 20:34-36 when question is raised whose wife would the widow be in the hereafter if she had 7 husbands who died. Jesus answers “Those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They can no longer die; for they are like the angels.” Angels do not marry. Each creature was a unique design of God and created to serve him, but apparently also had the will to disobey and rebel.

            A second interpretation  would refer to certain kind of men are marrying certain kind of women.  One objection to this interpretation is Old Testament never uses the phrase ‘sons of God’ to refer to humans. They are called children of the Lord. Hosea 1:10 says the people of Israel are called the sons of the living God.” In the NT this is more common, Adam is called the son of God in Luke 3:38 Christians are referred to as children of God And in Luke 20 after the resurrection they are Gods’ children, literally sons of God. 

           

So if that is the case the sons of God in this passage mean, more specifically, godly men. Since they chose to marry daughters of men rather than the daughters of God, or godly women.

            There may be more another interpretation. Chp 4 gives us the lineage of Cain, chp 5 the lineage of Seth. One is considered Godly the other evil. Although there are people within Seth’s line like Enoch and Noah who are walking with God, no one in Cain’s line is depicted as godly, only those mentioned are evil. I think this is showing one line of Seth is marrying the ungodly line represented by Cain. Often the Bible warns against the Israelites, God’s chosen people, from marrying foreign women. Not because of the racial issue, but the spiritual issue. Foreign women implied other gods and false religions.

            The new Testament also teaches against Christians marrying non Christian spouses. Marriage is the most intimate of all human relationships and in some sense has more to do with the spirit of man than any other relationship. I have been criticized more than once for declining to do weddings where one is a professing believer in Jesus and their fiancée is not. I have seen many marriages break up because of this and other marriages have a lot of undo strife, especially after children are born. .

            I will also add a word regarding the Nephilim.  According to Num 13, They were people of great size and strength and some called them giants. They were heroes of old and men of renown. But the context shares they were wicked sinners in the eyes of a holy God. The depths of evil into which they had fallen, starkly portrayed in the next few verses of Genesis, had made them ripe for judgment.

            Who we marry has a great effect on our spiritual lives and how we live. Scripture often warns us to not marry pagans as they will lead us from the worship of the true God. This is true today. How important it is to find mates that encourage faith and devotion with one another and children to come. But according to 1 Corinthians 7 we are not to separate from spouses if one becomes a Christian unless the unsaved spouse wishes to no longer be married because of one’s new found faith.

             

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Weds April 11 

Verses Gen 6:  ⁵ The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. ⁶ The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. ⁷ So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” ⁸But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

God’s Grief

            The thing that grieved God was the growing disregard for God and righteousness and the increasing love for evil. Sin was pervasive and all encompassing. No one was ever free of its influence. Man’s wickedness had become so great that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. It was not merely that he harbored a sinful thought every so often, but all the time.

            The Lord was grieved that He had made man in the first place. Our God is a loving Father and his heart breaks when we disobey Him. That is why Paul says to us, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Eph 4:30.  When God is grieved by man’s sin His heart is filled with pain because He loves us.

The Bible says that God must judge sin, but his delight is to respond in forgiveness to anyone who repents of their sin and desires to change their ways. But there is a warning. God had a deadline for repentance, just as he does for you and me.

            People tend to ignore the reality of judgment. Jesus is speaking in Matthew 24:37-39 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” Sin is a reality both in our day and in Noah's.

The moral decay in our society is obvious. Sexual immorality has become so common that many folks no longer think it is a big deal. Honesty, simply telling the truth, is becoming a lost virtue. I listened to one of the news commentators this week wondering what is the world is happening with all the increased violence in our land. Every week there is more news about mass shootings, rapes, child molestation, Thirty years ago a student might put a tack on a teacher's chair, but now there are students who attack their teachers with knives or guns. They break every one of God's commands, but do not even consider the possibility that the Lord would punish them for their disobedience. Even as the culmination of history approaches, when Jesus Christ will return to earth, people will still go on living in rebellion against God, giving no thought to the consequences of their sin.

This week as you watch television notice how many times the Ten Commandments are scorned in a typical half-hour comedy or hour drama. Look at the innuendo regarding illicit sexual relationship, look at the deception, the violence and the utter disregard for human life that is brought into our homes. Listen to the radio (talk or music, ipods) and notice the values of the people involved. Notice that the standard for right and wrong appealed to is personal preference, not God's eternal standards. Pay attention when people talk about God in our world. Their description of God is nothing like the God of scripture. Lot's of famous people talk about their belief in God. Notice what this God they describe is like. Generally God is concerned that we feel good. His only goal is to help us have a fulfilling life. There is no talk of holiness, sin, or judgment. The God of the world is a caricature created in the image of man. Watch a recent movie. Pay attention to the language, the morality, the ethics, the behavior and also notice the way Gods people are often portrayed as lunatics.

Chuck Swindoll wrote, “Because of sin, man has taken the deity out of religion,

the supernatural out of Christianity, the authority from the Bible God out of education,

morality and virtue out of literature, beauty and truth out of art, ethics out of business,

fidelity out of marriage.”

God was grieved. But don’t think that He is not grieved over sin today. What about in your life?

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Thurs April 12 Grace

Verses: Gen 6: But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

 ⁹ This is the account of Noah and his family.

   Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. ¹⁰ Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Gods Grace 

Notice the bright spot in the line of sin, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Or as the NIV says Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah did not find favor because he was a righteous man, but rather he became righteous because he found favor from the Lord. Like everyone else in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, Noah is a righteous person because of God's grace alone, and he experienced that righteousness through faith alone.

            When the gift of grace is offered to mankind, some accept it and most do not. Those who accept his grace by faith receive favor and blessing. Those who reject or ignore God’s offer experience the consequences. Noah responded to the Grace of God and his life was changed. He was a sinner just like us all, only he went a different path.

            None of us can ever earn God's favor. If God were looking for men and women who on their own live righteous lives, He would come up empty. All are sinners, no one is righteous. Yet, in His grace, God chooses to show favor to many. He enables people to stop trusting in themselves and put their trust in Jesus Christ. That is how someone becomes a Christian, a child of God. We can only experience God's salvation by turning to Jesus Christ.

Noah’s faith allowed him to respond to God’s grace. Ephesians tells us “it is by grace that we are saved through faith. It is a gift of God lest anyone should boast.” Noah shows that one of the marks of genuine faith is that it leads to action. Hebrews says that because Noah had faith, he obeyed God as Genesis 6:22 says: Noah did everything just as God commanded him. If Noah said, "Sure, I believe You, God," but then never got around to building the ark, he would have gotten wet, and he would have demonstrated that his faith was not real.

One of my great fears as a pastor is that perhaps there are people who like listening to the sermons, who think they are fine Christians, but who have never really trusted Jesus Christ to follow Him. They know the facts that Jesus existed. He was the son of God, He died on the cross, and even that He rose from the dead. But have not committed ones life to Christ and relied on him to save.

Noah was a man who did what God wanted him to do. He did what was right (thus the term righteous). He allowed God's standards to effect and direct his life. Noah was unafraid to live differently from the others. Hebrews tells us that Noah, by faith, was warned of God of things not yet seen, and he believed God, constructed an ark, thus condemned the world, and became the heir of that righteousness which comes by faith. It is a righteousness which is not a result of our working, not a result of our best efforts put forth to try to please God, but a righteousness which comes by believing God. That is the kind that Noah had.

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Without grace Noah could not have been saved from the destruction that came upon the world. There was no inherent merit in Noah greater than in other men of his time. The only difference was that Noah believed and obeyed God.  Likewise grace has come unto us through Christ

Many of us who were baseball fans in the 50s and 60s were impressed with the New York Yankees of old. Roger Marris, Yoga Berra, Mickey Mantle, were boyhood heroes. I watched a couple of stories on Mickey Mantle when  he died and talked about his life and party days. He revealed how he and Billy Martin drove the head coach nuts with their practical jokes and breaking curfew.

Bobby Richardson another teammate and outspoken Christian reported in the Los Angeles Times that just a few days before his death, Mantle told him that he had accepted Christ as his personal savior.  Richardson commend that he had received more than 300 letters form Christians who had been praying for Mickey in the last months of his life.

This hard drinking, fast living, millionaire was not living for God, but self and the pleasures of this world. But faced the effects of his sin in destroying his liver, he needed the gift from God. He realized he had no place else to turn. God was good to him. He didn’t have to give him another chance. Some don’t have another chance. He didn’t have to bring Bobby Richardson into his life, but he did. He didn’t have to lay it upon the hearts of 300 people to pray for his salvation, but he did. Think of the fact that God, who had been ignored and offended for a lifetime stood without rage at the edge of eternity offering mercy and grace to Mantle’s repentant heart.

Bobby Richardson’s wife knelt by Mickey chair a few days before he went home to be with the Lord asking him how he knew for sure that he had been born again. Mantle recited, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

            Grace was also revealed in the fact that revealed his intentions to Noah. He gave him commands to follow and obey to save himself and his family. None of those things did God have to do. He did it out of his grace and love. He gave him careful direction how to save the whole world through a different way- the ark, but it took trust and obedience by faith.

God gave the people of Noah’s day 120 years to repent and hear the warning of judgment. The Bible says God was longsuffering. He is patient, but there was a time when grace was no longer extended. A warning now for this is the day of salvation and the time to respond to the grace of God. Tomorrow may be too late.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Fri April 13 

Verses- Gen 6: 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubithigh all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 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. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”

 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

God’s Guidance

God comes up with a plan to start over. God is going to bring a worldwide flood that will destroy every living thing. His plan is to preserve humanity through Noah and his family.

The enormous ship was the vehicle that God chose to use to save the righteous few.  It had 3 decks which in turn were divided into rooms.        The ark’s dimension was truly remarkable for its time and even today. It was 450 feet long-that is 1 ½ football field lengths. It was 75 feet wide and 45 feet high, that is 4 ½ stories. Modern ocean liners rarely exceed twice the length of Noah’s ark. Someone has done the math and figured that the ark had a carrying capacity of 522 standard railroad stock cars. Or the equivalent of eight freight trains of 65 cars each! This was no little ship.

To make matters worse, Noah and his family lived 500 miles or more away from the closest body of water! And there is no record that it had ever rained before! Can you imagine explaining a need for a boat and the concept of a flood under these conditions? So, not only did God ask Noah to build this great vessel for which there was no precedent, he had to do so in the midst of public ridicule. Certainly he was known by others as "crazy Noah". I wouldn't be surprised if families traveling on vacation would make it a point to drive by and see the man who was building something "God told him to build". He was a freak.

Whatever the shape of the ark, its declared purpose was to provide sanctuary for 8 people and all the main species of animals through the flood. The devastating power of the floodwaters would totally destroy all other life under the heavens and every creatures that had the breath of life in it would die. But the Lord would keep alive Noah his 3 sons and wives.

The story of salvation from the Flood used in the Bible typifies Gods deliverance of all who trust Him. Some say this provides a symbol of baptism as well.

            God announced in advance that He would establish his covenant with Noah, a covenant that Noah would fully understand only after the Flood was over. God's people will be protected, even when the Lord is executing judgment on the ungodly. Nowhere in the Bible does God promise His people freedom from adversity. Whether we like it or not, Christians sometimes have trouble paying their bills, Christians some-times get fired from jobs, Christians sometimes get F's on their report cards, Christians sometimes play for teams that don't win a game all season, Christians sometimes have terrible conflicts in their marriage, Christians sometimes get sick, Christians sometimes die. But, like Noah, our afflictions, our troubles, are all temporary. God will be with us and will protect us in the midst of our trials. That is a testimony I have heard over and over again from those Christians in other countries who have suffered persecution for their faith in Jesus.             

Friends, if you are a genuine Christian, the good news is that no matter what you are going through, no matter how hard it is, God is with you.  It was not fun in the ark, but it was a lot better inside the ark than outside. It is much better to be going through a tough time with God beside you, than to be going through an easy time without the Lord.

And all this time Noah is preaching to the people!

 How frustrating it would have been to have such an urgent message and get nothing but scorn and ridicule in response. He preached but no one responded. But Noah continued doing what God called him to do. He trusted God's Word and God's promise. And that's what made him a man of faith and saw the salvation of the Lord.

            Where in your life is faith tested? When is it you have the hardest time trusting God? Remember Noah.

Pastor Dale