EBG Preken

The man that survived the flood
Sermon 6: Genesis 6:10-8:22

We come to one of the most controversial stories in Scripture. But before we consider that, let’s consider who is telling the story. If you ask a Christian who tells this story, most would identify Noah, but the footnote in chapter 10 gives us a different clue. This is the story told by Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. Noah had these sons when he was 500 years old (5:23) and he entered the Ark when he was 600 years old (7:6). We don’t know how long it took Noah to build the Ark, but one thing is for certain: his sons watched him and helped him build it. And they tell us his story.
As such, this history isn’t so much about the Ark, but about the man that built the Ark and how He heard and believed God and acted in unrelenting obedience.

Judgment of God and Mercy toward Man
Chapter six gives us God’s perspective on the earth. One of the notably features of these chapters is what is repeated for emphasis. The earth is corrupted and man’s way is corrupt (6:11-12) and God is going to destroy all flesh (6:13, 17).
Noah’s Ark is often relegated to a children’s story and depicted in terms of a cute boat filled to the brim with animals. Nothing is farther from the truth and we do ourselves quite a disservice by trivializing such a significant piece of history. Chapters 6-9 teach us fear God like Noah did and appreciate His grace through obedience, like Noah.
The design of the Ark is left very open… the sheer size of the Ark, however, stagger the imagination… it is the size of a container ship and made of gopher wood. 135m. x 22.5m. X 13.5m.
Answers in Genesis makes a point that some kind of wind-obstruction would have pointed the Ark in the direction of the waves, which would have made the voyage much safer and more comfortable. The fixed rudder at the rear and fin for wind at the front are features that the oldest ship designs from Mesopotamia included.

The Man that walked with God
Noah learned a lesson from Enoch. He as the only one that found favor with God.
What did his sons tell us about their father? He was a righteous man, but alone in this pursuit. The text reveals an exclusivity. Why tell us that Noah alone remained (7:23), unless that is how he felt? Hebrews tells us that Noah preached to His countrymen… he preached for - we assume - he full 120 years. No one outside of his family ever responded and no one entered the Ark with him. Noah modeled faithfulness to his sons.

He also obeyed and persevered in his obedience. He finished what he started, he waited on God - even during long periods of not hearing from God. Even when things didn’t go smoothly. How do I know that? With a project of this magnitude things go wrong. How many buckets of pitch did he step in. How many times did he have to fix something vandals had broken. How many times did he hit his thumb with a hammer?
Noah’s job was to build a boat and keep the animals alive… he did just that.
Noah waited on God. In chapter 8:1 his sons write: God remembered Noah… why write that unless it felt like God had forgotten about them? They spent more than a year on that boat. Thankful for salvation, but when could they leave?

I would like to have the dad’s look at their sons this morning… what would your son write about you? Would it be that you walked with God? That you model faithful perseverence and patience in waiting on God?

Resurrection Sunday
5 april, AD 33
Luke 24

In Luke 24 we read the account of Jesus’ resurrection. It opens with a loving scene: a group of women that was to honor their Lord and friend. Luke is concise and simply provides the facts of what happened, which is why many of the details that the other gospel writers provide are not included here. There were women that went to the grave and they were the first to find the stone rolled away and the grave empty.

Surprise
The response of the women is surprise. In fact verse 4 explains that this empty tomb was raising a bit of doubt. And right at that moment of doubt, two angels appear with an unexpected question: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” I love this question.
The angels then simply declare that He is risen - just like he said that he would! “Don’t you remember?” And verse 8 tells us they did.
Unfortunately, the apostles don’t remember, because they chalk these ladies’ response up to wishful thinking. Luke does tell us that Peter ran to the grave to investigate, but he didn’t encounter any angels.

Appearance
Luke continues in this vein of doubt and unbelief and shifts gears to the longest story that he tells in his gospel account. And it is the story of two disciples that have decided there is no point in hanging around Jerusalem any longer. They start their trek home to Emmaus - about 11 km from Jerusalem. They are still talking about everything that has happened Jesus comes alongside them. The text emphasizes it is Jesus Himself. Luke informs the reader that their eyes were closed to his identity. They see him as a stranger, which is not uncommon in those days and would have been welcomed, since one preferred to travel in larger groups for safety.
And such a simple question: “Whatcha talkin’ about?” and “What’s up? You look sad.” Jesus meets them in the most common of ways. And they share their experiences of this past week. Their summary of events is interesting… He was a prophet, He was defeated, We had hoped, but He’s been dead three days… Some of our women say they saw him and something about angels, but none of the men have corroborated this.
And they’re done.
Jesus has listened to their whole story without interruption and when they’re done, He calls them foolish and slow of heart… and what does He do? He takes them to Scripture. Here’s the point… Jesus explains that they could have known… if they had known their Bibles. How did you all miss Isaiah 53?
Starting with Mozes - the law and the sacrifices and the picturing of a sacrifice to come. The Prophets, heralding destruction for breaking the law and the coming of One, who would be the anointed Savior.
And Jesus expounds the Scripture for them. Verse 32 explains that Jesus opened their eyes to the Scriptures. And when you do this, your heart will burn within you… that thrilling joy of understanding what God has revealed.
They arrive at their home and when they sit down to eat together and Jesus breaks the bread, their eyes are open to see that they’ve spent the entire afternoon and evening with Jesus! And they high-tail it back to Jerusalem. Faith restored.

Fulfillment
When Jesus appears to His disciples, he again takes them to Scripture, which I think it the point that Luke makes at the end of His gospel. The reader is encouraged to do the Berean thing… to go back to Scripture and seek to understand it. Start with Moses, walk through the Prophets and end up with Jesus.
Jesus had to live and He had to die. All of the Old Testament had prepared us for this. He was the perfect sacrifice - He had to die to satisfy sin’s penalty. But He didn’t have to stay dead and He wouldn’t, because he was the King and He will rule. And every knee will bow in heaven and earth and under the earth. Jesus rose again to prove that God accepted the sacrifice. His death was merely a bruised heel and Satan’s head is crushed.

From bad to worse
Genesis 5-6:9
In Genesis 6:9 we read that the preceding has been the history/genealogy of Noah. Again, this is not referencing a family tree per sé, but the stories/history told by… When Moses compiled his material to include in Genesis, he would have drawn from eye-witness accounts of the antediluvian world and perhaps stone tablets or even printed matter were brought along on the Arc. The first nine chapters of Genesis are the only record we have of life before the flood. Considering that Shem - Noah’s son - lived well into Abraham’s life and that Isaac could have even met him, these histories may have been passed on to Israel’s forefathers. This line - which appears in Genesis 11 times - gives us the footnote or origin of the histories. Adam gave us the first four chapters and Noah gives us our section this morning.

Ten Generations (chapter 5)
Adam tells us that Cain’s descendants build a city and develop a thriving culture, complete with the bling of music, fashion, jewelry and debauchery. It really doesn’t sound terribly different from a modern metropolis. Lamech is put forth as the product of this city and he sounds like any number of icons of the hip hop industry. Chapter four leaves us spiritually bankrupt - all that God has designed has been undone in two chapters.
Noah beings with a genealogy, which always lowers our interest level to almost zero. Most of us - though we may not say it - would equate reading such passages with reading the phonebook… there are some names that make you giggle, but other than that, there is very little spiritual value to these passages. Yet, Paul tells us in his letter to Timothy that all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable. This passage is no exception.
There is a pattern to these verses - a cadans - that you develop as you read it, which drives the careful reader to a few observations. First of all, where Adam describes a thriving culture full of life (full of evil too!), Noah paints a cemetary… they all live, have children and die. That’s the pattern through verse 21, when Enoch is introduced and he surprisingly breaks the pattern… he has a son, Methuselah, and in the 300 years that follow his son’s birth, he walked with God and God raptured him. He didn’t die! Hebrews 11 gives us just a little bit more information about Him: he walked by faith. He believed God and according to Jude he preached about God’s judgment over the unrighteous. But he didn’t die and that is astonishing and here is the difference that Adam mentions in 4:26… calling upon the name of the Lord.
Methuselah picks us the familiar cadans, but then his son, Lamech - haven’t we heard that name before? Yes we have in chapter four in the line of Cain! - is born and he gives us a reason for why he names his son Noah. Noah means rest and Lamech hopes that he will “deliver us from man’s toil on planet earth, which God cursed.” Here’s the reality of the situation: man builds a city, develops a culture and enjoys the good life… but it doesn’t satisfy, it remains hard (toil) and it ends in death. And Lamech dies.
This is what a boring chapter teaches us: life is hard and God’s curse is true and final: “dying you will die.” (Genesis 3:19)

Two Consequences (chapter 6:1-8)
The first four verses of chapter six are perhaps the most confusing of Scripture - mostly because it sounds all too fanciful and more like an episode of the X-files than the Bible. These verses are here for us to understand a very important fact, but we cannot make more of what happened than what the text permits us.
Two basic interpretations are offered with variations and they center on the identity of the “sons of God”. One interpretation is that these refer to angels; the other interprets these in reference to humans. The human would be rulers upon the earth or the godly line of Seth. Up until Augustine in the fourth century AD, there was one interpretation by Jewish historians, Jewish theologians and the early Church fathers: sons of God always refers to angels. The only other place in Scripture where this exact phrasing is found is in Job - the oldest book of the Bible - where it clearly refers to God angelic host. And Job references the angelic host three times.
If these sons of God were men and they married women willy-nilly and for their outward beauty, the harsh and immediate judgment of God seems out of place. God wipes out humanity because of their violence and the progeny of rulers that married women for their beauty? That doesn’t seem to fit the text.
Even though it is more fanciful and it is hard for us to imagine how, the text leads us to conclude that there was some kind of intermarriage between fallen angels and daughters of men. 2 Peter confirms this conclusion, as he references angels that were put in prison (literally: Tartarus) for their disobedience as an example of God’s swift judgment. When did these angels disobey? According to Peter this was in the days of Noah. Jude strengthens this when he writes in verse six - in a similar context of judgment over false teaching - these angels are being kept in darkness for their sin of “overstepping their design”. This is compared to Sodom and Gomorrah… theirs was a sexual sin of lusting after strange flesh (contrary to God’s design). And Sodom and Gomorrah even features two angels that visit and are lusted after by the men of the city.
So can angels procreate? No - Jesus told us that angels do not marry, which leads most theologians to believe that they cannot procreate. That means that there was a demonic invasion and that they took on human form or possessed men’s bodies and then had sexual relations with women. In some way the progeny was a cursed people and an abomination to God. And he had to destroy all mankind. This is why this is a human sin and God judges humanity for it. Today there are still mystery religions that teach that you can have sex with gods or celestial beings. It is wrong and scary stuff and the pre-flood world was stooped in it.

What was the point?
> Man was trying to undo the curse… create a super-race. Be more like God.
> Satan was trying to pollute the seed of woman, so that the Savior could not be born of a woman.

Man’s sin was terrible and violent and the entirety of humanity rebelled against God.
God’s heart breaks (literal meaning) and he pronounces judgment.
He still grants 120 years of mercy and grace.
And Noah finds grace in God’s eyes.

In the middle of this perverted society… Enoch walked with God and he was raptured. He passed on his faith to his children and children’s children. And that is the same job we are given today… and our hope is that Christ is coming back to reward our faith and rapture us!
And then... well Jesus said it would be like the days of Noah... Revelation gives us a frightening picture of the demonic invasion that will come and the rebellion against God that culminates in the battle of Armageddon.
Right now, however, our's is to walk just like Enoch walked: together with God and pass your faith on to your children en children's children.

Life without God
Genesis 4

I called chapter 3 the saddest chapter in the Bible, but this chapter gives us the natural development of chapter 2. Chapter 3 gives us the cause and chapter 4 its effect.

Hopeful Birth (3:16; 4:1-2)
Remember the promise in 3:16? “A promised seed would crush the serpent.” When Even gets pregnant she can’t help but get her hopes up. Imagine it… God had promised, right? And when she delivers a man-child, she is thrilled. Here he is… and honors God. She names him Cain, which means “spear” or perhaps “pierced”, maybe to indicate her hope that he would be the deliverer. Compare this to Abel’s name: “breath”or “vanity”, which might be an allusion to Eve’s growing understanding that man is going to have to toil before God’s salvation comes.
But Cain brought hope to Eve’s heart. God helped me to create a man - the seed - to deliver us.

Half-hearted Religion (4:3-5)
Why are they offering sacrifices? Clearly the have been taught by Adam what is necessary to maintain a relationship with God. Hebrews 9:22 teaches us that “without the shedding of blood there will be no forgiveness.” And man has learned that they are in need of God’s forgiveness - or at least Adam, Eve, and Abel do.
Cain’s sacrifice gives us a peek into his heart. And isn’t this true? The offerings we bring - the worship we offer - reveals our heart. And God does not accept Cain’s offering.
Some suggest there may be more going on here than meets the eye. Does Cain have a sinful preoccupation with his parents’ rebellion? He surely must have understood the reason for sacrifice. Adam would have taught him and modeled his faith. Cain’s sacrifice is all wrong, but that might be the point: perhaps he is saying: “I don’t need this… I choose fruit too.” And when God accepts his brother’s sacrifice and not his, something snaps.

Hopelessly Godless (4:6-24)
God speaks to Cain. God is personally evangelizing this man, warning against sin, offering forgiveness, pleading for him to repent. But Cain will have nothing of it. Sin is crouching at the door (like a predator approaches its prey) and Cain goes headlong into sin.
He connives to get his brother where he wants him and he brings a blood-sacrifice. Could that be the attitude of his heart? “You wanted a blood sacrifice? I’ll give you a blood sacrifice!”
Do you notice what’s missing in the next verses as God confronts Cain? A complete lack of contrition. There is no sorrow, no regret, no repentance. Cain’s heart is far from God and wants nothing to do with God.
God metes out judgment and a curse. And still no repentance. In fact Cain attitude seems to be: “You’re being a little harsh, God, don’t you think?”
And then Cain embraces his chosen path and wanders away from the face of God. And a godless society emerges from Cain. Who does he marry? Well, one of his sisters, obviously. Everything changes after Babel, but we’ll cover that when we get to chapter 11. My question is bigger than biology, though. What girl would marry her brother’s killer? A girl that has the same heart problem. And so in one afternoon Adam and Eve lose three kids.
God’s name is absent from verses 16-25. There is tremendous human, urban, and cultural development, but it is all apart from God and it is morally reprehensible.

Renewed Faith (4:25-26)
The last two verses that Adam testifies of is the birth of Seth, which means “appointed” or “substitute”. These verses indicate that man understands his lost estate and the effects of sin and they call upon the Name of the Lord. Adam ends with these words, but can you imagine the despair these first parents felt? Their oldest killed their second son; one of their daughters betrayed the family and left for the bad boy. But consider also, that this is the very first death - we lose sight of this, since death is so part of life for us… Adam and Eve had not yet tasted the sting of death. In that moment they were back in the garden, horrified, scared, and listening to the decree of God that man would now be subject to death. And death was worse than they could ever have imagined.
And they call upon the Name of the Lord… they need His salvation.

This is what life apart from God looks like… and we still see it today. And we still desperately need to call upon the Name of the Lord.