The Solid Ground Of God's Faithfulness

[0:00] The title of my message this morning. You guys will cue me. There it is. The solid ground of God's faithfulness.

[0:13] ! So that human beings can be on the planet again.

[0:33] So everything that we're going to be talking about, and it's very easy to skip over, has to do with this dry ground issue that God brings about after this cataclysm of water covering the entire globe.

[0:48] It is no small thing when we think about that. All the days of the water being on the earth and God dries it up so that Noah and his family can come out and walk around on dry ground, inhabit the earth, repopulate the earth.

[1:01] Animals, people. And so the solid ground of God's faithfulness has to do with what God is doing to make the world habitable again. In Genesis 8, verse 1, But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark.

[1:24] And God caused a wind to pass over the earth and the water subsided. Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained, and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of 150 days, the water decreased.

[1:47] In the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. the water decreased steadily until the tenth month.

[2:01] In the tenth month on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible. Then it came about at the end of 40 days, that Noah opened the window of the ark, which he had made, and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth.

[2:22] Then he sent out a dove from him to see if the water was abated from the face of the land. But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot. So she returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the surface of all the earth.

[2:38] Then he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark to himself. And so Noah waited yet another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark.

[2:50] The dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth.

[3:00] Then he waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove, but she did not return to him again. Now it came about in the 601st year, in the first month, and on the first of the month, the first day, the water was dried up from the earth.

[3:24] Then Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried up. In the second month, on the 27th day of the month, the earth was dry.

[3:41] Then God spoke to Noah, saying, Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives with you.

[3:52] bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.

[4:11] So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by their families from the ark.

[4:29] Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. The Lord smelled the soothing aroma, and the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.

[4:59] While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.

[5:15] That is the pledge and promise of Almighty God, isn't it? The planet, and I'll say this more next time I'm in the pulpit, the planet is not going to wear out. The planet is not going to become inhabitable.

[5:28] I appreciate Elon Musk and all that Doge is doing, but we're not going to need Mars. We don't need to be a space-faring people.

[5:40] This is God's world, and He's taking care of it, and He's made us a promise, and the rainbow continues to be in the sky, and reflect His promise, that as long as there is planet Earth, and a God in the heavens, planet Earth will be our home.

[5:55] And He's taking care of it. And we believe that here at Grace, and we praise God for it. Now, beloved, as we march toward God bringing Noah off of this great boat that he's been on for so long now, I want to reflect on some things that I want you to have in your hopper, as it were, to continue to help God become bigger and bigger in your mind as these stories reflect the truth of his character and his control over his world.

[6:30] And so there have been many, many studies, both secular and sacred, that have been done about the flood stories among ancient and modern cultures of the world, many hundreds of them.

[6:47] In fact, Dr. Duane Geish of Answers in Genesis did a study where he found that more than 270 cultures around the world have accounts of a devastating flood.

[7:03] Now, there are hundreds of more accounts of some type of flood event, but he found 270 that speak to the issue of a worldwide devastating deluge that destroyed the world.

[7:18] 270 plus. Here are just a few examples of those accounts, and I'll tell you why I'm doing all this in just a moment. Let's do this first little one because it's brief.

[7:31] One world-renowned expert on the languages of the Amazonian people said, every Amazonian society ever studied has a legend about a great flood.

[7:43] Now, think about that. In the Amazon. We're still finding people. And as we find them, we find that every single one of them has some type of story about a devastating flood that came over humanity at some point in the past.

[8:04] Another one, and I've tried to pick these from different areas of the world. How about the one from China? This is one of many Chinese versions.

[8:15] When God destroyed the world by the flood because of the wickedness of mankind, Nuwa, the righteous man and his wife, matriarch, and their three sons.

[8:27] Notice this. Lohan, Loshin, and Jehu survived by building an enormous boat and escaped in it with pairs of animals.

[8:40] That's one of the Chinese legends that they believe. And then how about this one going up into the upper parts of Canada and the upper northeastern U.S.?

[8:50] Look at this one. The Micmac Indians of Canada and the northeastern U.S. relate that the evil and wickedness of men caused people to kill each other.

[9:03] This, in turn, caused a great sorrow to the Creator, Sun God, whose tears drowned his world in a great deluge. People tried to escape in bark canoes, but only an old man and his wife survived to repopulate the earth.

[9:18] How about that one? You like that one? How about the Pawnee Indians of Nebraska? They have the following tradition. The Creator, Tirawa, destroyed the first humans who were giants.

[9:35] Could that be the Nephilim? With a great flood of water because he was mad about their extreme corruption. He then created a man and a woman to repopulate the earth and they became the Pawnee's ancestors.

[9:51] Sounds familiar, huh? Then finally, where's Mona? Mona, this is for you. I thought of you with this one, so I had to include it. Mona is from Hawaii.

[10:02] Look at this. Nuu. Doesn't that sound like Noah? Nuu built a huge boat to save his family from a great flood. And then after the flood, Nuu then made a sacrifice of what else?

[10:15] Coconuts and a pig to thank the moon, which he mistakenly believed had saved him. And then the Creator God descended on a rainbow to set the record straight and accepted Nuu's sacrifice.

[10:30] That's just a handful of hundreds and hundreds of stories that reflect different elements of the characteristics of what the Bible calls the great flood.

[10:41] The ark and Noah. Now, here's what Dr. Gish did. Dr. Gish took a cross-section of 20 of these 270 cultures and he compared their stories based on 12 areas of similarity with Noah's flood.

[11:02] That is, the ways that many of these stories and cultures included characteristics of the biblical flood account. Things like divine destruction.

[11:15] How much of this was perpetuated by some deity? Then the ark itself. How many of these cultures reflect the characteristics of what the Bible calls an ark or a giant boat?

[11:29] And then how many of these cultures had the characteristic of destruction by water? Now, he took 12 areas of similarity like that. That's just a few.

[11:42] And then he took these 20 cultures and he made this comparison. I want to share with you what he came up with and then I'll tell you why I'm doing this. The first one, of the 20 sample cultures, both ancient and modern, 13 had a full representation of the biblical idea of a favored family spared.

[12:06] So this was a divine favor on a select family that was chosen out of all the people to be spared by this God. 18 of 20 spoke of an ark of some kind.

[12:22] 12 of those 20 had a full biblical representation of the ark. Another six had a partial account of the ark. That's 18 out of 20.

[12:34] So only two of the 20 didn't mention an ark at all. 18 of the 20 recounted a full representation of the biblical idea of universal destruction.

[12:46] So this, they didn't say this was a localized flood event. They said it was a planet-wide catastrophic event. A universal, all people were taken in by this.

[12:58] One other of the 20 made a partial representation. And then finally, down at the bottom of the screen there, 19 of the 20 gave a full representation of the biblical idea of destruction by water.

[13:14] Specifically by water. The other one gave a partial account. Now when we think of all of those kinds of things and pull them together, here's what we're not doing.

[13:26] We're not saying that we're using this material to prove the Bible. Do you remember that from last week? That's not, we start with the scriptures. I'll say more about that in just a moment.

[13:37] What we're simply doing is expressed by Dr. Monty White of Answers in Genesis. Here's what he said. If only eight people, that is, Noah's family, survived the flood, we would expect there to be historical evidence of a worldwide flood.

[13:59] If you think about it, the evidence would be historical records in the nations of the world. And this is what we have. Stories of the flood. Distorted though they may be, exist in practically all nations from ancient Babylon onward.

[14:17] This evidence must not be lightly dismissed. If there never was a worldwide flood, then why are there so many stories about it? Makes sense.

[14:29] Again, not to offer this as proof that the Bible is true. The Bible stands on its own. What was it Spurgeon said? The Bible is like a lion. You don't have to protect him. You just let him out of the cage and he'll take care of himself.

[14:42] That's the scripture. Folks, look, scoffers, scoffers have always been with us. They have always mocked the Lord. They have always twisted these accounts into fanciful tales of make-believe and myth.

[15:01] We have even had people who say, I believe in God and I believe that the Bible is the Word of God. However, we have to take this all with a grain of salt.

[15:12] This isn't really a true account of what really happened. This is a fictitional story that is there to prove a point. We don't have to take this at face value that all these things really happened in exactly the way the Bible says.

[15:29] We just need to take away the main point and we're good. And we say, no way! We will not dishonor God's Word or the Lord of glory in those ways.

[15:40] We take this as it's written. And we believe that this is a true account from Almighty God of what He did. And this is no problem for Him.

[15:51] There are people who might scoff at the idea of God flooding the entire world, changing the topography, geography, and everything else about the planet, and then drying the earth up in a way that people could come out of a boat.

[16:05] Yeah, of course they have trouble with that. But those of us who live by faith and operate that this is the truth of the Lord, we understand this is exactly what God means by what He says. When are we going to start taking apart other places in the Bible?

[16:19] Are we going to go to the Gospels and say, well, Jesus didn't really calm the storm. He didn't really speak and make a great storm just in a millisecond. Let's just get the point that He's a powerful man.

[16:32] No. This is not a problem for God. And we don't want it to be a problem for us who serve Him. These mockers have always been with us from the very beginning.

[16:45] Noah had them in his day and Peter had them in his day and we have them in our day. The Apostle Peter tells us how scoffers in his own day mocked God and mocked these truths.

[16:58] Look at this verse from Peter. When they, that is the mockers and scoffers, when they maintain this, it escapes their notice. That is, they willfully choose to ignore the truth that by the Word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water through which the world at that time was destroyed being flooded with water.

[17:26] And the naysayers and the mockers and the scoffers say no way. They were with Peter. They were with Noah. Look at this passage from the Lord. And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man.

[17:43] They were eating. They were drinking. They were marrying and they were being given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.

[17:57] They were mocking Noah and they were mocking what Noah's message was in the days that Noah was building the ark. They were mocking Peter. Peter's message and they will mock this message as well.

[18:12] For those of us who know the Lord, we want to be inspired by the bigness of God doing a big thing in the lives of these people. And we don't want to water it down, no pun intended.

[18:24] Now, please remember this. Please remember that we have the truth of the Bible to help us rightly interpret the worldwide evidence of the global flood.

[18:37] when you think about it, beloved, when you have a Christian, a believer, looking at the rock strata and the geology of whatever it is they're studying and you have an unbeliever, another scientist, standing right beside him or her and they're looking at the same evidence and yet they come away with two completely different interpretations about how all of this came about, they will both agree that it was done by water.

[19:08] What they will not agree on is how it happened and when it happened and how long it took for it to happen. They won't agree on any of that. Why? One of them is coming from the perspective of the biblical flood and they know that they're looking at the evidence of that before them.

[19:26] The other one is coming at it from evolutionary theory and saying this took millions of years to lay down. Why the difference? Because one is believing in the Lord and taking the Bible as what it says and the other isn't.

[19:43] In other words, this is what we want to do. We begin with God's eyewitness accounts in Scripture to give us the baseline for how we understand the evidence of geology, paleontology and other aspects of science about our planet.

[20:01] But, when we distrust and mishandle God's Word so that we scale down these accounts of a big God doing big things, we diminish His sovereign power over His world and, here's the worst part, God gets smaller in our hearts.

[20:26] Here is the danger. This is why this is a big deal. this is why your pastor just took time to show you some of these things from history and other cultures.

[20:38] Not to prove the Bible, but to let you know what happens when we make God small and we don't take Him at His word. It is a ridiculous thing to think about this God crying so much that His tears flooded the earth.

[20:56] that's ridiculous. We don't have any problems saying that's ridiculous. This is what happens when you step away from the truth. This is what happens when man takes over and begins to make up his own way about what he sees and how he interprets what he sees apart from the truth of Almighty God.

[21:15] What does Romans tell us? We will always suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Our hearts being wicked and dark will always take God's truth and press it down, push it down, step on it, try to ignore it, be away from it.

[21:32] Why? Because it convicts us about a God who is in authority over His world. And if we have a God who is in authority over His world, what does that make us? Accountable. And we don't like that.

[21:44] I want to be my own God. This is what the Bible teaches us. Folks, it's not a small thing that we would make God small. Here's why. These are the subtle attacks Satan compounds and uses to patiently undermine our faith in a big God so that you and I will then live irreverently.

[22:09] That is the inevitable result of a small God. We will live irreverently as though God is, and you've heard this, the big guy in the sky.

[22:20] Well, that's irreverent. Where do we get that idea? We get that idea from the fact that we look at ourselves as being our own God and when I need you, I'll call on you. Okay? Until then, big guy, you do your thing, I'll do my thing.

[22:33] That's irreverent. Things like this. Jesus is our life coach. Jesus is our life coach.

[22:44] Very popular today. Our worship is optional and relative to our circumstances. In other words, it's what I do when it's convenient for me to do it.

[22:58] all of those are a result of a small God who can't manage big things in your life.

[23:11] And that's where you'll end up. if you start shrinking these stories, you shrink the God whose stories they belong to. And as you shrink God and He gets smaller and smaller in your heart, then this small God isn't able to show up and do big things in your life when you need Him.

[23:32] Why would He? If God can't manage the flood and can't dry up the ground and can't save Noah, then what hope do you have? What evidence do you have He can work in your life?

[23:46] When we monkey around with these stories, we monkey around with the truth and the God who says this is true. And where's that going to leave you when you need the Lord?

[23:59] I know where it left me and it wasn't fun. It was a very, very dark place. In contrast to what I've been saying, these true accounts of God's action should inspire, they should awe and they should draw our hearts to worship the Lord as our mighty, mighty God.

[24:27] A God who saves. A God of wrath, but also a God who saves. Amen. A God who saves. If God can't save Noah, then how can He save us?

[24:40] Genesis chapter 8 then, beloved, records the beginnings of what creation scientists call the Arphaxadian epic. Now I'm going to put that up here so you can see it.

[24:51] The Arphaxadian epic. This is what creation scientists call this particular time in our history. history. This is the time when everything is settling down as God re-prepares His earth for human habitation.

[25:10] The reason they call it this, this particular era is named after Arphaxad. There are different spellings of that. But this is Shem's son. We'll get to it, God willing.

[25:22] Arphaxad is Shem's son. Genesis 11 singles out Shem's line under Arphaxad in this new beginning of human relationships.

[25:33] We'll get there. We get to Genesis 11, you'll see God singles this guy out and talks about his line and what God's going to do through him. And so they call this the Arphaxadian epic.

[25:45] As all this pertains to Genesis chapter 8, we're reminded that Moses is using narrative. narrative. He's telling a true story of events about God's activities.

[25:59] So this is different from epistolary truth. Letters that Paul wrote to churches saying, hey, you need to believe these things and based on what you believe about these things that are sound doctrine, you need to live a life of duty in these ways.

[26:15] Doctrine leads to joyful, willing, wholehearted duty in the Lord. It's a glorious thing to live the truth. Here's the truth. Here's how you live it.

[26:25] These are stories. These are recounting the activities and actions of God and the way human beings are responding to God. And so we need to preach it as narrative, as story.

[26:38] It's not like taking line upon line principles and unpacking those and bringing them out to you. We have a story before us. Now as we follow the narrative, as we follow the story, it begins with God's actions always.

[26:54] It's the initiative of the Lord that he's taking. He speaks, he does, a combination of those things. As we follow this, we see God's actions toward Noah and then we see God acting toward his creation and then eventually we're going to see Noah begin to respond to what God himself is doing.

[27:13] God's actions. So it's a big God doing big things in the life of Noah. And we don't want to shrink that, do we? We want to take it for what it is and let it speak to us about this God.

[27:27] It's to draw our hearts up to the Lord in a bigness of what God does and who he is. I remember the time in my Christian life when I began to sit under expository preaching for the first time in my life.

[27:44] I didn't even know what it was. I didn't even know what that word meant. And I started sitting under expository ministry where preachers were taking it verse by verse by verse and just unpacking the bigness of God.

[27:56] And God got so big in our lives. I think we walked out of the service every Sunday crying, didn't we? For three solid months. They'd start singing the hymns.

[28:08] If you can imagine almost 5,000 people singing the hymns at the top of their lungs. And I couldn't sing. I was so choked up. It was glorious. And God got bigger and bigger and bigger as I sat under the word.

[28:20] And it's like I met God again. This is our God. And I don't want to jip you. I don't want to deprive you of this big God by making this story just some fairy tale.

[28:35] God help me. And so let's look at what's going on. God. It's very simple. It's very straightforward. And it won't take me a lot of time to move through it with you.

[28:46] We're not going to do some kind of a deep dive that keeps us here for five sermons. We're going to take chapter 8 and just see what's going on as God shows us. If you look at verses 1-5 and rehearse those with me again.

[28:59] But God remembered Noah. There it is. That's the storyline. But God remembered Noah. And he remembered all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark.

[29:12] And God caused a wind to pass over the earth and the water subsided. Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed. The rain from the sky was restrained and the water receded steadily from the earth.

[29:24] And at the end of 150 days the water decreased. In the seventh month on the seventeenth day of the month the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. The water decreased steadily until the tenth month.

[29:37] In the tenth month on the first day of the month the tops of the mountains became visible. And so what we have to start off with is this. God remembered Noah. This is simply a way of emphasizing God's care for Noah, his family, and all who's on the ark, all the animals.

[30:00] It's just a simple way of saying God is caring for these people. He didn't forget and then remember. That's not what this is saying. Oh, oh, the boat.

[30:10] I forgot about the boat. In all my stuff I was doing, I forgot about the boat. No. No. This is simply meaning that God, now listen to this, God was mindful to these people, mindful of or for attention and consideration.

[30:31] He was mindful of them in a way that set them apart for attention and careful consideration. So of all that God is doing, there's nothing more important that's garnering his attention right now than the ark and the people on it.

[30:49] That's the centerpiece and focus. Why? Because this is about salvation, not just judgment. The flood's a big deal, but the bigger deal is what God's doing in the midst of the flood to save these eight human beings and all the animals.

[31:04] That's the issue. And so, God has special attention and consideration for them. God took care of Noah. Now, if God is not big enough to handle all this and take care of Noah, folks, you're in trouble when you start having challenges in life.

[31:23] And that's what's at stake here. Now, think about for Noah's part. for Noah's part in this, he was on the ark, I'll go ahead and let you know, for 370 days.

[31:35] Now, that's a long time. Think. It's a long time to be tempted. Now, you think about it. You're on the ark with seven other human beings and all these stinky animals.

[31:49] And you got to take care of all the stuff for the animals all the time and that's your life. That's it. You can't. You can go from one end of the ark to the other. You can go to the top deck. You can go down to the bottom deck.

[31:59] That's your world. And you're on this thing for over a year. What kind of temptations are you going to face in an environment like that? Getting up every single day and it's the same stuff every day.

[32:15] What are you going to face? Well, I think that probably you're tempted to grumble. You know, you're tempted to doubt. You're probably tempted to fear.

[32:26] Some of you would fear more than others and worry. You know, don't you think that the walls might start closing in a bit? Don't you think you'd lay down at night and cover your ears and go, I wish that giraffe would stop making that noise?

[32:41] I don't know what giraffes sound like, but that's... Maybe you're worried about what's going to happen with all of you and what's the end game in this? You know, if I'm one of Noah's sons, I'm going to...

[32:53] Dad, Dad, has God told you the end game on this thing yet? Did you get a word? Every day I'm going to ask Pops, Pops, what's going on?

[33:04] Has God clued you in about how this thing's going to end? How long are we going to be on this boat? Son, just trust the Lord. Okay, if I come to you tomorrow and ask you that, you're going to tell me the same thing.

[33:15] Okay, I got it. Trust the Lord. But God didn't leave these people on the boat, did He? God didn't forget about these people. This is all about God caring for these people and God caring for them in a way that kept them faithful in what God had for them in this time.

[33:33] We have no idea or concept of what was going on outside that ark. Do not allow yourself to picture a calm sea.

[33:44] After all of this stopped and the rain stopped, a calm sea where we've got this giant boat that's just kind of bobbing along, you know, just at night it just kind of caresses you and you go to sleep.

[33:55] It's very stable, but the sea is anything but calm. I have read account after account after account of what was going on during this time and it is truly mind-blowing to think about some of the evidence the earth gives to us about what was happening during the flood.

[34:13] the currents, the undercurrents that were going on and taking place in the ocean and around the world were so fast and so rapid that I could not get my mind around the speed of the current underneath the water, much less on top.

[34:33] It is absolutely incredible what God was doing. And this is what Noah is facing here. God remembered Noah. But now look what God did.

[34:45] God caused a wind. So you see the activity of the Lord in all of this, don't you? God caused a wind in the latter part of verse 1 to pass over the earth and the water subsided.

[35:01] So this again is God re-preparing or we would say repairing his earth. the immediate effect of God's work that the scripture is laying down for us is this, the water subsided.

[35:19] That's what he wants us to see. God is doing something with this wind that is having a dramatic effect on the water. As it concerns the flood, God brings its purpose to a close.

[35:34] And God gets to decide that. Notice in verse 2, the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky. You may have a little bit of a different translation for some of that.

[35:45] Some of the translations might say the windows of the heavens. Nevertheless, the NAS here, fountains of the deep and floodgates of water.

[35:57] What about them? God closed them. And so we don't have any problem at all envisioning this in the way that we use water every single day of our lives, whether it's the faucet or the hose.

[36:11] What do we do? We turn something to turn it on and we turn it back the other way to turn it off. That is as simple as it is for your God to take care of what just flooded the entire globe.

[36:27] He turned it on and now he's turning it off. No problem. No problem. That's what it says. Doesn't it say that?

[36:38] He closed it up. What did it say in the last chapter? He opened it up and now he closes it up. Don't let that get past you. And then notice the rain was restrained as to its immense volume.

[36:57] It didn't just cut off. It's going to continue to rain off and on, but in a much more normal, normalized way. So God used these effects so that the water, according to the scripture, look, receded steadily.

[37:16] Verse 3, the water receded steadily from the earth, and what does it say? And it decreased. It decreased in verse 3.

[37:29] Also in verse 3, the end of 150 days, marks the waters decreasing in a very rapid way. So we have a rapid, rapid dispersal and decrease in the volume of water.

[37:47] This is one of many powerful forces reshaping the geography, topography of our planet. It wasn't just the water as it increased and came down and came up from the depths of the earth through magma fissures in the earth and that kind of thing.

[38:02] That was all incredible. But now as the water recedes, it recedes in a way that's so rapid that it is devastating everything that it comes in contact with.

[38:15] It is moving so rapidly. We have to take that in. And so what we're saying here is that the increase of water was catastrophic as well as its decrease.

[38:27] So we've got these operations going on both when it was flooding and now that it's decreasing. And God is in control of every bit of that. We take in verses 4 and 5 where God brought the ark to its final resting place just where he wanted it to be.

[38:46] So this is God's hand on the ark in its entire journey. And it was God's will designed and purpose that the ark rest exactly where it rested. And there it is.

[38:59] There's no randomness. God is controlling every aspect of this process. So that's what we're meant to see here. The ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat because that's where God wanted it to rest.

[39:13] And then, verse 5, the water continued to decrease steadily. And then it gives us time stamps throughout this until finally the mountains became visible. This is interesting because it seems like what happened was, the ark kind of grounded itself.

[39:30] God just, it seems like he just kind of beached the ark very carefully before any of the mountains could be seen. The ark just maybe hit something, you know, and stopped.

[39:43] And now, a little bit later, the water kept going down and now you can see the tops of the mountains. Now, we have to remember that the mountains before the flood weren't the mountains that we have today.

[39:55] All this upheaval is creating mountains, pushing up. So the world is changing. Even in the midst of the waters going down, the world is still being shaped and formed, reformed the way God wants it.

[40:11] This is just a, if you've ever read any of the books and articles like I have on any of this, I tell you, it sucks you in. It's captivating. Now, I realize that these creation scientists weren't there any more than the secular scientists weren't there when they say millions of years ago, this, doesn't that get you?

[40:30] Do you have a problem with that when you watch these programs and they act like they were there? Like, who was there? God? Well, that's not what God said happened. I'm going to believe God. It's simple for me.

[40:41] And they think I'm unscientific and that's okay. It really is. That's okay. I got over that a long time ago. Paul said that he was very glad to be played the fool for Jesus.

[40:53] Well, if that's good enough for Paul, it's good enough for me. In verses 6-14, that it came about at the end of 40 days, Noah opened the window of the ark which he'd made. So he opened a window.

[41:05] This seems to be a little bit different than what he's going to do later down in the passage when he takes off the roof. Now, he didn't take off the whole roof. He took off something that was covering an area where this is a window.

[41:19] He looks out the window and he's got a really limited view. All he can see is past the boat itself out into the horizon. But if he takes off the top and he pokes himself up and looks around, he can kind of look over the edge of the boat and see more of the ground.

[41:33] I think that might be what happened. It doesn't matter. It says what it says here. Notice what's happening in 6-14. Things are changing and Noah responds to the change.

[41:46] He's not trying to run out ahead of God, which is impossible to do. He's not trying to manipulate the situation or control events. Noah is simply responding to what is going on around him.

[41:59] He's doing it out of faith and he's doing it, now listen to this, with great patience. This is a patient, patient man. This is not a stir-crazy guy who's ready to get off this boat and get his feet on dry land.

[42:15] He is trusting God. And that's what we're meant to see here. Things are changing, Noah's responding. Now, you've seen through the passage as you look at that, you've seen now already as I read it earlier that we have several time stamps in this chapter.

[42:33] And I want to show you this chart even though it's a little bit busy because it helps mark the passage of the months and the days for us, putting it in chronological order and helping us to see the duration of time for each of the markers that this passage gives us.

[42:52] So here it is. I hope you can see it okay. I'll have to step out here with you. So you can see here that on the left side we have the years, the months, and the days as they're reflected in the Bible.

[43:06] This isn't conjecture. We're just talking about what the Bible says in the way of a time stamp. Then you have the event in the middle and the duration of days involved with that event and where it's referenced in the Scripture.

[43:21] And I thought that this might be helpful to you just to give you kind of an overview. So if you look at the chart and think about verses 12 and 13. Then Noah waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, but what happened then that was different?

[43:38] The dove didn't come back. Now it came about in the 601st year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water was dried up from the earth and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked and beheld that the surface of the ground was dried up.

[43:57] So from 12 to 13, Noah waited 29 more days after the dove didn't return. When the dove didn't return, he waited 29 more days.

[44:09] Between 13 and 14, once he had opened the roof and saw the ground, he waited another 56 days before disembarking.

[44:22] Now I asked myself, dude, what are you doing? The scripture keeps saying that you're looking out and seeing that the ground's dry. Well, Noah knows that the appearance of dryness, in other words, the absence of water doesn't mean that the earth is completely dry.

[44:37] I was raised on a farm at the edge of the Ichikani Creek in central Georgia, Indian name, literally right on the edge of a swamp. I learned very quickly hunting and fishing back in the swamp that there are places you don't walk whether it looks dry or not because you might not come back.

[44:57] So I learned about that. I think that's exactly what Noah is thinking and knowing about this situation. And so he waits and he waits. And I asked myself, Noah, what are you waiting for, man?

[45:08] Because see, I know Jeff. I think I would have been very tempted to push the envelope a bit and say, I'll tell you what we're going to do. Get one of them monkeys out of there. We're going to let this baboon go and we're going to watch him and see what happens.

[45:26] Nope, we ain't ready yet. Or something like that. He doesn't do that. What does Noah do? Noah waits patiently on the Lord. What is Noah waiting for?

[45:39] Well, we get our answer in verse 15. The answer is not in verse 14. In the second month on the 27th day of the month, the earth was dry and now Noah get off. Nope.

[45:49] Here's what he's waiting for. Then God spoke. That's what he's waiting for. He's waiting for his God to tell him what to do next. Is that hard for you to do in circumstances that are challenging?

[46:04] Where does God speak to us? There's only one place God speaks to us. Where is it? In Scripture. In His Word. And so we need to be about His Word.

[46:16] God spoke to Noah. Now this is very interesting. I want to let Dr. Kurt Wise, a creation scientist, author, and professor, let him describe the new world of Noah because he does it succinctly and he does it in a common sense way.

[46:36] So listen to what this guy says or read along with me. When the ark's inhabitants stepped off the ark, the world was radically different than it was when they entered the ark.

[46:50] The flood completely remodeled the antediluvian or pre-flood world. Land masses were, now listen to this, land masses were moved around like you would play with Plato.

[47:06] Thousands of feet of sediment, thousands of feet of sediment were apparently shaved off the top of continents and redeposited elsewhere, right?

[47:19] Mountain ranges existed where none did before. The ocean appears to have been about 68 degrees warmer and the earth's climate was warmer and wetter.

[47:31] It kind of created a global tropical paradise, if you will. I don't, the humidity is not that thing for me, but whatever. All humans and land animals except those on the ark were destroyed.

[47:47] Most of the land plants and sea creatures were probably destroyed as well. The world at the end of the flood was truly a new world.

[47:59] This is more than just a restart. This is a big God doing a big thing for humanity. And now I want to draw your attention to something that the text brings out.

[48:11] Notice now the work that God can do in our hearts as his people. Think about it with me. When we consider the turmoil and the hardship Noah has been through for many, many decades, now.

[48:26] Not just while he was on the ark, but even before that. All that he endured making that big old boat, putting up with all that scoffing and mocking and ridicule, watching all of the murder and the rape and the licentiousness going on all around him, kind of like Lot's soul being tormented.

[48:44] We think about all that he's gone through culminating in this great cataclysm that he's just survived. What we see now of Noah's walk with God is nothing short of inspiring to me.

[48:57] It inspires my heart to see how God is working in this man's character. To bring him through such a hard thing and to see this man being so faithful. It's otherworldly and that is exactly what you're meant to see.

[49:12] It is otherworldly because it's a work of God in the heart of a human soul and we cannot miss that. And it makes us want to honor the Lord and praise him.

[49:26] These verses detail Noah's obedience. That highlights for us not only that Noah's heart hasn't succumbed to being cold and hard and doubtful and fearful and irritable these many months in the ark.

[49:45] No, his heart has remained teachable. This is a man who has a humble heart, a submissive heart to God and to his ways, to his timing.

[49:55] Now let me ask you, just stay with me on this, just a few more minutes. How many of us have a hard time going through a trial and trusting God's timing? That's a tough one, isn't it?

[50:10] We're like, okay God, I think I see that this is from you. I want to know this is from you. I can't see all of the ins and the outs of it. I don't even know if I see the purpose yet, but could I ask you for one thing?

[50:21] Can you shorten it up just a little bit for me? Right? Noah's not doing that. At least we're not told that in Scripture that he's doing anything like that.

[50:33] We see a very patient man who's willing to let the time run out in the way that God wants it. It's as if Noah's saying, God, I know you've got a purpose in all this.

[50:46] Work your purpose in and just let me know what I need to do. That's pretty straightforward, isn't it? That's very uncomplicated. That's the Bible.

[50:58] Trust the Lord. Walk with God. Let God have His way in your heart. The worst thing that can happen to you is that you die and go to heaven and you're done with all this.

[51:10] That's the worst case scenario. Good grief. Pretty cool deal. verse 20.

[51:23] Then, after all this, when God said, go out of the ark, and everybody went out, then Noah built an altar to the Lord and he worshiped.

[51:38] And folks, when we look at all that he's doing in verse 20, that took a while. that was not a couple of hours of work. Noah built an altar and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings to the Lord.

[51:57] This is God preparing the scene for this man. You think about it this way. Noah's altar reflects his grateful worship of the Lord. There's no bitterness here, no resentment, no impatience, no irritability.

[52:10] No why, Lord? None. We don't even get a hint of that. God made provision. He made provision for Noah to worship like this when the ark finally came to its resting place and he had the command, get off the ark.

[52:28] God had all of this ready. He'd already prepared all of this. He had commanded Noah to bring more of the clean animals for his purpose. If you go back to chapter 7, verse 2, you see where he said, clean animals by how many?

[52:43] Their sevens. That's why. Clean animals by their sevens. God had taught Noah how to do this.

[52:55] So Noah knew how God wanted him to sacrifice to him. He taught Noah how to worship. He's prepared Noah. So from joy, gratitude, Noah bows in worship and the first thing he does is build an altar in the middle of all this.

[53:10] Wow. And then finally, look what happens here. God smelled and said. That's verse 21.

[53:20] The Lord smelled the soothing aroma and then what? And the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.

[53:38] And then he makes a pledge. Now, I'm only going to mention this here according to these two verses. Why? Because this is part of the covenant that God makes with Noah as he blesses Noah and we transition into chapter nine.

[53:55] So I'm going to save that for next time and talk more about how the last two verses of eight actually feed in to the covenant that God makes with Noah, the instructions God gives to Noah, and the rainbow that comes into place to seal the covenant with Noah and his people.

[54:14] He'll explain, God will explain the new relationship that people will now have with their environment on the earth. Things have changed. And so God's going to let Noah know what those changes are all about and how Noah is to respond to those changes.

[54:32] chapter nine will conclude with an example of what God says in 821. Look at 821 with me. I will never again curse the ground on account of man.

[54:45] And here it is. For the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth. We're going to see an example of that at the conclusion of chapter nine. Now if I could just draw your attention to what I want to say to you here as I conclude.

[55:00] What I appreciate about how chapter 8 concludes here in these last couple verses is that it displays God's character of faithfulness as the Lord works in the human heart.

[55:15] What we're seeing is God's faithfulness working in the heart of his people. God kept Noah's heart pure.

[55:26] God kept Noah's heart grateful and he kept Noah's heart worshipful even through such hard and frightful circumstances as the great flood.

[55:38] No telling the kind of sounds they heard outside that boat. And then everything went quiet for a long time. The ark was God's answer for salvation from devastation and death due to sin.

[55:55] Remember that's why this whole thing started. it. And the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is God's answer to the flood of our sin and to all that threatens to overwhelm you and overwhelm me in the way of sin.

[56:13] The cross is our ark. Noah ran into the ark. We run into a person, the Lord Jesus Christ.

[56:24] it. It is a spiritual transformation that happens by the power of almighty God. And listen to me please beloved. If it is nothing but a small thing for your God to turn on the flood gates of this world and flood it all the way perhaps miles deep in places and then turn it off just as easily and dry it all up and send these people out to live their lives then this same God it is nothing for him to grab a human soul and transfer it from darkness to light and give life where there was no life hope where there was no hope and an eternity in heaven with Jesus where there was no no promise except the promise of hell and sin and darkness and death this is our God we run to the cross because of who is hanging on it we don't put our faith in the ritual we put our faith in the man hanging on the cross who was buried and was raised again for our righteousness amen this is the gospel this is the good news that we have in Jesus

[57:37] Christ God made an ark for us his name is Jesus and by him and him alone we are saved from what would threaten to kill us and overwhelm us the Lord listen the Lord readied Noah to respond in faithfulness to God's faithfulness did you hear me the Lord readied Noah to respond in faithfulness to God's faithfulness God acted and initiated Noah responded and in responding in obedience to God he found salvation in his faith in the Lord now the question I want to leave you with is this beloved how might the Lord be working in your heart right now through your current circumstances to ready you to respond to his faithfulness in your life one of the first things

[58:38] God wants you to see is that he's being faithful to you if you're so wrapped up in your problem that you can't see the faithfulness of God you need to back up pray and take a different perspective on what's going on see the faithfulness of God and realize that he is readying you to respond in faithfulness to his faithfulness that's the way he works because he's a good and gracious king let's pray together almighty god and father this chapter is full of instruction for our hearts it is full of the wonderful and divine wisdom of a saving god who has visited your wrath on your world but spared eight people in a miraculous way and so all of us are from noah and his sons and their wives we all come from these people the entire world is populated by these eight people and that's astounding and so god we pray that even now as we begin to close out our service with singing and prayer that lord we would keep in our hearts that you are a big god and you have done a big thing in your son jesus and we would never want to minimize our life with you and our walk with you through the pettiness of this life and this world don't let us drown in our circumstances lord and don't let us forget help us to remember that you remembered noah and help us to be faithful as your people thank you for making grace for us the provision of your will in every need that we have and may you find us being faithful in response to your faithfulness to us in jesus name we pray amen