Searchlights from the Scriptures

Audio  In C. S. Lewis’ beloved story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we learn early on about the curse of the White Witch. She is said to have “all Narnia under her thumb. It’s she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas!” At the sound of these words, the young girl Lucy can only say, “How awful!” Imagine it! Christmas, we might say, makes winter all the more

Audio Essential 100.11The Story of a SonGenesis 37 In our study of the Essential 100 texts of the Bible, we have crossed the 10% mark. As we have made our way through Genesis, we have seen a continual narrowing of the plot line, from God’s dealings with humanity as a whole, to His dealings with the family of Noah, and narrower still to His dealings with Abraham and his descendants, then Isaac and his descendants, and then to Jacob and his descendants. With each narrowing, we are tracing the fulfillment of God’s promise to send a redeemer into the world, the seed of woman who was promised to Adam after his sin, the seed of Abraham who would bless all nations of the world. At various points along the way, we have seen how God has preserved His promise of redemption through, in the words of John Newton, “many dangers, toils, and snares.” And today we come again to a narrowing point in the story. I have pointed out in the past that the book of Genesis is divided into sections by the use of the Hebrew word toledoth. We find another use of that word – the final use of it in Genesis – here in verse 2 of our text. “These are the toledoth of Jacob.” The narrative shifts from Jacob himself to his sons, and in particular one son takes the focus of the final 14 chapters: Joseph. Nearly a quarter of the book of Genesis is devoted to Joseph. We might assume that Joseph is the next in line to receive the promise of the blessing of Abraham. Indeed, our text sets up that expectation in our minds as we read it. But we will find over the course of Genesis’ final chapters that Joseph is not the heir of promise. By God’s amazing grace, Judah will be the one through whom the promise comes to pass. This is proof of God’s sovereignty in choosing how His purposes will be fulfilled in the world, for if it were up to any of us, we would certainly choose Joseph. He is a heroic figure, in contrast to Judah, who leaves much to be desired in terms of his character. Joseph’s story is far more familiar to us than that of Judah. I suppose that most of our Bible story books and Sunday School lessons have focused on Joseph rather than Judah, and the story of Joseph has even made its way, albeit in a greatly modified form, to the Broadway stage and movie screen in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s famous Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Now, if Joseph is not the chosen seed through whom God’s global and eternal purposes will come to pass, why does his story occupy so much focus in Genesis, to the near exclusion of Judah? It is because apart from Joseph, God’s promises would have come to nothing. Though Joseph’s line does not bring forth the One who will save the world, Joseph actually turns out to be the one who saves the promise from ruin as God providentially orchestrates the circumstances of his life for the good of his family and ultimately for the world. His story is the story of a son who points the way forward for a greater Son who is to come into the world. As we begin to study his life, this story of a son, we find first of all that Joseph’s story is … I. The Story of a Beloved Son (vv1-3) Everyone loves to experience a “brush with greatness,” as we find ourselves in the same place at the same time with a celebrity. I’ve had a few of them, but one of my favorite ones was at a restaurant in Winston-Salem when I was a teenager as my family celebrated my birthday. At the table beside of us was none other than Tom Smothers. Now many of you will recognize him as one of the famous Smothers Brothers comedy duo. When I was growing up, I thought these guys were so funny. We had a record that we used to play called “Mom Always Liked You Best.” It was a hilarious bit in which the adult brothers reminisce about their childhood, and it comes to the surface that their mother’s favoritism for Richard was shown in every way imaginable. No matter how many times I heard that, it never got old. It was always hysterical. But if you grew up in a family where a parent showed

Audio  The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote of the porcupine’s dilemma. He said that when it is cold, a group of porcupines might huddle together for warmth. But, the closer they get to one another, they begin to prick one another with their quills, forcing them to separate from one another. Schopenhauer compared this to an experience in human relationships. He said, “the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature.”[1] Perhaps you have experienced this phenomenon. We desire to have intimate friendships and deeply meaningful personal relationships with others, but we often get hurt and we hurt others. We simultaneously push others away and are pushed away by them with our mutual prickliness. Christians are not immune to this. In fact, it may be suggested that we are especially prone to it because we have both an existential need and a biblical obligation to draw near to one another in Christian fellowship. And, on the plane of Christian fellowship, our emotions are raw and vulnerable, and we are all still “works in progress” at varying points on the journey of sanctification. Even in the church, we find ourselves mutually sticking each other with the pricks of our imperfections. So, whether in the church or in the world, if we are to ever have meaningful human relationships – if we are really going to obey the command of God to love our neighbors as ourselves – we must become experts at reconciliation. And thankfully the Word of God is not silent on this subject. In our last study, we observed the tension between Isaac’s sons, Esau and Jacob. They were born in a struggle, and grew up at odds with each other. Parental favoritism, spiritual blindness, dishonesty and deception ripped away at the fabric of family life. We left off with Esau vowing to kill Jacob, and Jacob fleeing the Promised Land to save his own life. As Jacob departed, God met with him, and assured him of His divine presence and protection, and promised that He would bring Jacob back to the Promised Land. In the intervening chapters, Jacob met and fell in love with Rachel, but was deceived by her father Laban – a taste of his own medicine. As a result of that deception, Jacob was duped into marrying the wrong girl – Rachel’s elder sister Leah. He ended up taking both of them as wives, and fathered 11 sons and a daughter. He became prosperous, and the Lord prompted him to return to the Promised Land. He and his family and entourage snuck away in the dark of night, and Laban chased after them all. When Laban finally caught Jacob, the two made an uneasy agreement before the Lord. They said, “May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from the other.” This was not so much a prayer of mutual blessing, but a warning, as though to say, “You better not cross me again, because God is watching you!” They set up boundaries that neither was to cross again in order to harm the other (Gen 31:44-55). Jacob had put his conflicts with Laban behind him and was prepared to go back to the Promised Land as the Lord had prompted him. As he entered into the boundaries of the Land, the angels of God met him, as a reminder that God had kept all of the promises He had made to Jacob. And this is where our text begins. You notice that immediately after Jacob was encountered by these angels his thoughts turned to Esau, his brother. The last time his feet had touched this soil, he was fleeing for his life from Esau’s murderous threats. Twenty years later, Jacob now finds himself between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Because of his agreement with Laban, he cannot turn back. If he is to obey the Lord, he must go forward. But going forward means crossing paths with the brother he deceived, who was intent on killing him. So Jacob has to discover the path of reconciliation with Esau if he is going to survive and fulfill God’s purposes for him and for the

Audio  Important words can get overused and misused, causing them to lose the thrust of their original meaning. A few days ago, I was talking with someone about the word “pious.” At one time, this was the highest compliment that one could hope to receive. A pious person lives a faithful, godly life in the fear of the Lord. But today, if someone said that you are pious, you would probably not receive it as a compliment because it has come to refer to self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and judgmentalism. This is most unfortunate when it happens to important biblical words. I find that one of the most overused and misunderstood words that is tossed about today is the word “blessing,” or its derivatives, like “blessed” (which is customarily prefixed with a hashtag these days, #blessed). When we speak of God’s blessings in our lives, we often apply the term very selectively. We refer to material, physical, and earthly prosperity as being “blessed,” but we tend to overlook the biblical categories of blessedness, found for example in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. There Jesus says things, “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness,” and “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you.” We see bumper stickers and vanity plates on luxury cars that speak of being blessed, but we do not see them on broken down jalopies barely making it down the road. There are 112 New Testament references to being “blessed,” and none of them have anything to do with material prosperity.[1] So this notion that being blessed means having nice things, or having a lot of things, or having the right things, is missing the point of the Bible, and that leads to going to great lengths in the wrong direction in order to obtain that status of “#blessed.” One of the central themes of the Bible is God’s intention and desire to bless humanity. When God blesses, He pronounces favor upon a person – not necessarily because they deserve it, but because He chooses to. In His blessing, He empowers the one He blesses to do whatever it is that the blessing entails. Among the 600 times that the Old Testament refers to blessing, there are cases in which one human “blesses” another, but in these cases, the “blessing” consists of a prayer or promise of God’s blessing being extended. When it comes to the family of Abraham, we have a very special case. Abraham was promised an unusual and unique blessing from God, and that blessing was promised to him and his descendants. So from one generation to the next, the blessing of Abraham would be passed down by a father to his son. That blessing bestowed upon each successive generation a privileged position, the protection of God, and participation in God’s purposes. As we examine how this blessing is transferred from one generation to the next, we come to understand something of how and why God blesses His people. Since we all long to experience the blessing of God, the subject is relevant and of interest to us today. Through the lengthy portion of Scripture we have read, we discover first of all, that … I. God’s blessing is not secured by worldly means. We live in a culture that ingrains in us the idea that if you want something, you just go out and get it by any means necessary. If you want it, you should have it, and have it now, no matter what it takes to get it. While that kind of determination and drive may accumulate much in this world, it will never bring about the blessing of God. We find this throughout the story of the sibling rivalry between Isaac’s sons, Esau and Jacob. Notice that God’s blessing is not granted on the basis of human standards. By most human  considerations, Esau is a far more commendable character in this story than Jacob. He is the firstborn son, and in that day and culture, this carried a lot of weight. One of the most fundamental threads in the fabric of society in the ancient world (and in many cultures still today) was what was known as primogeniture, or the

Audio  As we study our Bibles, sometimes we come across passages that strike us as, well, for lack of a better word, a little weird. We are so far removed from many of the manners and customs of the ancient world that we have a hard time relating to what we are reading. And the stranger the story, the more the critics of the Bible love to use it as a point of contention with Christians. Peter says that the “untaught and unstable” take the “hard to understand” portions of Scripture and “distort” them “to their own destruction” (2 Pet 3:14-16). On more than one occasion, I have found myself sharing my faith with an unbeliever, only have them throw something out about God ordering Abraham to kill his son. In addition to the moral strangeness of this passage of Scripture, it is a favorite among those who accuse the Bible of containing contradictions. They will say, “How can God condemn human sacrifice in one passage and command it in another?” Leviticus 18:21 condemns the sacrifice of infants, and Leviticus 20:2 makes it a capital offense for a parent to offer their infants as sacrifices to the pagan deity Molech. It is a fair question, and one that deserves an answer if we are to give a reason for the hope within us (1 Pet 3:15). Of course, if we are going to answer the question, then we must understand this passage for ourselves, and I suggest that this is something many believers have yet to do. The text before us is not one of problems, per se, but it is one of God’s promise, purpose, provision, and plan. Here we find God’s promises to Abraham coming into fruition, being challenged, and coming into sharper focus as he commits himself to walk with God by faith and obedience. As we see these things taking shape in his life, we come to understand something of God’s promise, purpose, provision and plan for us. And it all centers around the reality that God will provide a lamb. We begin by considering … I. God’s promises cannot be thwarted (21:1-7). In our last study (Genesis 15), we looked at how God established and secured His covenant with Abraham, assuring him that the promises that would come to pass in his life and in his descendants were sure and certain because they rested on God’s faithfulness, and that alone. It was not a bilateral agreement, in which the terms demanded that Abraham do his part and God would do His part. No, God demonstrated that He would do all the parts! While Abraham slept, God proved Himself to be the guarantor of all of His promises. This is of great encouragement to us. The hymnwriter surely described the human race accurately when he said that we are “frail children of dust, and feeble as frail.” If the security of God’s promises rested in our ability to bring them to pass, we would all be doomed! We do not have the ability to hold onto God, but we rest in His ability to hold onto us! And this is how we know that His promises cannot be thwarted. In Chapter 21, we read of God fulfilling His promise to bring forth a son to Abraham. Beginning in Chapter 12, God repeatedly made promises to Abraham about how He would bless him and his descendants, and all nations through Abraham’s seed. But Abraham had no children, and his wife was barren and unable to conceive (Gen 11:30). In Chapter 15, Abraham raised a protest to the Lord, suggesting that since God had not yet delivered on His promise, a foreign born servant named Eliezer of Damascus would be his heir (15:2-3). But God’s response was, “One who will come forth from your own body … shall be your heir” (15:4). Keep in mind that Abraham was 75 years old when we first met him in Chapter 12, and time was ticking. Neither he nor Sarah were getting any younger and both were already well past the age of bearing children. So, in Chapter 16, they devised a plan to force God’s promise to fruition. Since Abraham would father a child according to God’s promise, and Sarah was barren, the plan was concocted for him to father a child through Sarah’s handmaiden H

Audio  There are probably not three words that are more relevant to our present day than these: fear, faith, and future. Every evening on the news and every day in the papers and on social media, we read about people who are afraid. They are afraid of the conditions in the world and in our nation. They are afraid of economic and social realities that are, we must admit, quite frightening. And while it seems that Christian church and our message have become ignored at best, and vilified at worst, “spirituality” has probably never been more popular than it is today. Everyone it seems is willing to talk about faith. But what is faith? Does it have an objective anchor, or is it just some nebulous, emotional method of positive thinking? In other words, “in what do people place their faith?” For many, it is merely faith in faith itself. And of course all this affects how we view the future. Because of our many fears, we wonder what tomorrow will bring, what the next four years will bring, what the world will be like when our kids are our age, and of course, what will become of us and our loved ones when death comes our way. If our faith is not anchored securely in the only bedrock that will sustain it, then fear will overtake us and all the positive thinking in the world will only whitewash an ultimately pessimistic view of the future. It may surprise us to discover that all of these modern concerns are well addressed in an ancient book – the Bible. In fact, in our chapter today – an account of a man who lived 4,000 years ago, we find relevant truths to address our fears, our faith, and our future. As we begin to explore our text, we discover first of all … I. God is the Remedy for our Fears (v1). Well over 100 times in the Scriptures, the words “do not fear,” “do not be afraid,” “fear not” and the like are used. Now, there’s only one reason to ever tell someone to not be afraid. You only say that to people who are afraid! And so we find, on page after page of Scripture, terrified people who are confronted by the message of the Lord to fear not. We see it here with Abraham in the opening verses of our text. So what did he fear, and how did the Lord address his fears? The Chapter begins with the words, “After these things.” Those are important words. In our study of the Essential 100 texts, we have jumped over Genesis 13 and 14, but they are crucial to understand where we find Abram in this passage. In Chapter 13, Abram and his nephew Lot parted ways due to a strife between them, and Lot chose to settle in the wicked city of Sodom. In Chapter 14, the kings of the surrounding lands made war with Sodom and its allies. One of the casualties of this war was that Lot was taken captive. When word reached Abram, he assembled a force of 318 men and went out to successfully rescue Lot and defeat his captors. Afterward, he encountered Melchizedek, the king of Salem, who blessed him, and the king of Sodomwho offered to give Abram all the spoils of his victory over the oppressing kings. Abram wisely refused this offer, saying, “I have sworn to the Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread or a sandal thong or anything that is yours, for fear you would say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’” And our text unfolds “after these things,” with God appearing to Him in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram.” Now, what is it that could have caused Abram to fear? He may have feared retaliation from the kings he had defeated. He may have feared that in turning down Sodom’s offer to give him its treasures, he had offended them as well. Perhaps he feared as well that he had refused riches foolishly, and should have taken them to secure his future. If that is so, then the Lord’s words to him make perfect sense. “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you.” That is, the Lord will protect him from the retaliations of the neighboring kings. And the Lord said, “Your reward shall be very great.” The phrase can just as well be tran

Audio  The Bible is a book of books and a story of stories. It is the story of people who lived long ago and far away, and yet, at the same time, it is our story, here and now. The narrative flows in the shape of an hourglass. It begins broad and wide, with a focus on God’s dealings with the whole world in creation. Then it narrows to God’s dealings with the human race. It narrows further with a focus on the descendants of one of Adam’s sons, Seth. It narrows again to focus on one man, Noah, and his sons. From Noah’s sons, the narrative narrows once more to the family of one son, Shem. And from Shem, the story takes on an even narrower focus as it turns to one of Shem’s descendants, Abraham. As the story goes on, it will narrow further and further, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Judah, then eventually to David, then to Jesus Christ. It is here that the story finds it’s center. To this point, all preceding history raced toward. From this point, all subsequent history unfolded. As the story moves on from the center with Jesus Christ, it begins to broaden again. His twelve disciples begin to multiply, and the story begins to envelop Jew and Gentile alike until it ends with an innumerable multitude from every tribe and tongue, people and nation surrounding the throne of God for eternity in ceaseless worship. We come today to one of those crucial narrowing points – the beginning of the account of Abraham. He is called Abram here in Genesis 12, for God will later change his name to Abraham in accordance with His divine purpose for his life. He will do the same with Abram’s wife, Sarai, who will come to be known as Sarah. The writer of Hebrews provides us with this succinct summary of Abraham’s story: “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.” Those two words “by faith” summarize Abraham’s entire life from Genesis 12 forward. He is an example to us all of what it means to walk by faith in God. Yet, Abraham’s story has a far greater import than simply showing us what it means to walk by faith. It is through God’s covenant with Abraham that we see the unfolding of His promise-plan for the whole world, including ourselves. If we miss that en route to discovering the simple steps for walking by faith, then we have missed the most important thing about Abraham’s story. So we shall look at him under the heading of “Walking by Faith,” but with the understanding that it was through Abraham’s walk of faith that the purposes of God for the whole world were being carried out. I. The walk of faith begins with the call of God’s grace (v1) Different sports are governed by different rules. In football, the first possession of the game is determined by a coin toss. In baseball, however, the visiting team always bats first and the home team always bats last. But in the game of life, it is always God who makes the first move. All of our moves are in response to His initial moving. The walk of faith begins with the call of God’s grace. Abraham did not suddenly decide that he would begin to walk with God by faith. He did not make the first move. In Joshua 24:2, the Lord says to the Israelites, “From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River (that is, the Euphrates River), namely Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.” It isn’t like God was searching the earth for a faithful man, and said, “Ah, here is Abraham. Him I can use!” No, Abraham was a pagan from a pagan family living in a pagan land. But God, in sovereign grace, chose Abraham as the vessel through whom He would bless the world. Abraham’s walk of faith began with God’s initiative in the sovereign call of His grace. Inherent in this call of God’s grace is the call to leave the comforts of the familiar. God’s calling is always a call from and a call to. Before there can be movement to, there has to be movement from. So the call to

Audio Everyone, it seems, has an opinion these days of what is needed to make our world a better place. Perhaps what we need is a more perfect environment? Maybe changes in the educational system will help us? Perhaps a coming together of the nations under some new system of cooperation and alliance will rid the world of its troubles? However, as Donald Grey Barnhouse wrote in the middle of the last century, “God has tested man under every conceivable condition and found him wanting.”[1] We must remember that human history began in the perfect environment of Eden, and even there, man still rebelled against God. It is hard to imagine a more complete education than Adam had,  yet man’s state only spiraled in decline. And we come to this scene on the plains of Shinar where the whole of humanity coexisted together in a singular community with one government and one language, only to find that even under these conditions, humanity strived for greatness and sank into an even deeper level of rebellion. In these verses, we see a true picture of man at his best and worst. As a result of the divine image in which man was created, he is capable of extraordinary things! But because that image has been marred by human sinfulness, those capacities are extraordinarily corrupted. As man exercises these capacities in the world, God observes and intervenes in such a way that nothing thwarts His sovereign plan for the world and for the people who bear His image. It was true in the days of Genesis 11, and it is still true for individuals, for nations, and even for churches. Therefore, while this text explains how the planet came to be filled with such a diverse population of humanity, it does more than this. It speaks to us even now of mankind at our best and at our worst. As we dive into our text, we will observe first of all … I. The Industrious Resourcefulness of Man One of my earliest memories of childhood is sitting on my father’s lap as he read to me the story of the Little Engine That Could. You remember that story. The little train comes to a seemingly insurmountable hill and says to himself, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” And he did it! Parents and teachers often shower this kind of encouragement on young people. “You can be whatever you want to be.” “You can do whatever you put your mind to.” “If you can dream it, you can do it.” And we find that it is often true. Human beings have been created with amazing potential and capabilities to be, to do, and to make. We see this industrious resourcefulness of humanity on display with the people of our story in Genesis 11. By God’s design, they had all they needed to do great things. They had the gift of communication. Verse 1 says that “the whole earth used the same language and the same words.” You will recall from the creation account that of all that God made, only mankind was blessed with the ability to speak. Because God is a speaking God, those who were made in His image were blessed with the gift of speech that they might live in communion with Him and with one another. Because every person on the earth after the flood descended from the sons of Noah, it is not surprising that they were bound together by a common language. With that ability to communicate, there was no limit to the plans that could be conspired and carried out by men and women. We also observe that human beings had the gift of creativity. Just as we speak because God speaks, so also we create because God creates. Creativity is part of His image within us. We do not create in the same sense that God creates, for in His infinite and omnipotent nature He is able to create something from nothing. Yet, man has the unique ability to take of what God has created, and create something fresh and new with it as we carry out our God-given commission to exercise dominion in the world. Francis Schaeffer observed, “We never find an animal … making a work of art. On the other hand, we never find men anywhere in th

Audio They say the first thing to go is your sense of the hereafter. You walk into a room and wonder, “What did I come in here after?” Earlier this week, I claimed to be having a “senior moment,” but was told that I was not yet old enough to use that excuse. Whatever factor we chalk it up to, or excuse we make, the undeniable fact is that we are a forgetful lot. A great example of this is found in Scripture, when Joseph was imprisoned, and he asked Pharaoh’s cupbearer to “please do me a kindness by mentioning me to Pharaoh” (Gen 40:14). The Bible says simply, “Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.” Most of us can relate to that. That is why we are especially grateful that we have a God who never forgets. Sometimes we can feel as though God has forgotten us. We find ourselves in the midst of hardship or difficulty, worse yet, hit with wave upon wave of suffering. We may wonder, “Does God even know what I am going through? Does He even care? Has He forgotten about me?” Noah may have been tempted to feel that way. By the time our text begins, Noah had been holed up in the ark for about 5 months and a week. Think about where you were on August 30 of last year. That’s how long Noah had been on the ark when Chapter 8 begins. The incessant sound of torrential downpour had hammered on the roof of the ark for almost six weeks. The waves of the great flood had bombarded the sides or the ark, tossing it back and forth. His only human companions were his wife and three sons and three daughters-in-law. They were surrounded by animals, and by this time had either grown immune or weary of the odor. Food supplies may have begun to concern them. They may have wondered if they would die on board the ark, or if they would ever be able to emerge from it. It must have felt as though they had been forgotten. But Chapter 8 opens with these simple words, “But God remembered Noah.” Now when you and I “remember” something, it means that something comes to mind that we have previously forgotten. But we also use the term in a different way. Sometimes when we say we “remember” something, it is to say that we could never forget it. We remember our wedding day. We remember where we were on 9/11. We remember our loved ones’ birthdays. How could we forget? And it is this second sense in which the Bible speaks of God remembering. To say that God “remembers” is to say that God never forgets. And so Noah discovered, as must we all, that God never forgets His people or His promises. He remembers. I. God Remembers His People (8:1-20) When we look at the entire flood narrative from Chapter 6 to Chapter 9, we find that this statement, “God remembered Noah,” becomes the turning point of the story. Prior to this statement, the waters are rising. Afterward the waters are receding. Everything before this marks an end of creation as it was known; afterward, everything marks a new beginning. Noah, you will remember, was introduced to us as a unique person of his generation who had “found grace (or favor) in the eyes of the Lord.” God had chosen Noah to be the object of His saving grace. Noah had been invited into a personal relationship with God, which was received by Noah’s faith, and which was maintained by God’s faithfulness. In the security of this personal relationship, there is assurance that God never forgets, but always remembers His people. Because God remembers His people, He works on their behalf. In fact, the Hebrew word “remember” which occurs here in our text indicates far more than just mental recall. Some 73 times in the Old Testament, we read of God “remembering,” and in each case the indication is that God is taking action toward that person.[1] He acts upon His previous commitment to His people. And that is what He is doing here with Noah. Notice that because God remembered Noah, He did something. Verse 1 says that He caused  a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. Surely the natural hydrological cycles wer

Audio  As we were preparing for the birth of our first child, I remember the overwhelming assumption that many people made. Since we are Christians, we would certainly decorate our child’s room with the theme of Noah’s Ark. That seemed to be a popular option judging from the options presented in the local stores. It was a genuinely honest question that I asked to one person who made such an assumption, “Why would we do that?” And the person responded that it would be cute, what with all the animals and such, and after all, it was in the Bible. I replied, “Well, wouldn’t that be kind of like decorating with a theme of Sodom and Gomorrah, or Armageddon?” I think many people have in their mind’s eye this vision of the story of Noah’s ark being a cute little cartoony story. In fact, the story of Noah’s ark is a story of cataclysmic judgment. It is anything but cute. When we attempt to make it a cute story, we minimize the severity of this judgment and overlook the sinfulness of humanity that brought it about. If we were to envision it accurately, we would see it as a horror story. And yet, in the midst of the horror story there would be a sweet story line of divine love and redemption. That is how the Bible sets forth the account, and how we must understand it. As we make our way through this passage, we will discover the conditions which made the flood a necessary act of divine judgment. We will also discover the characteristics of a man who was shown gracious favor by the Lord. And we will also see how God acts to rescue and redeem the objects of His grace in the midst of His judgment. I. The Conditions of a Culture Destined for Judgment In our exploration of the essential texts of Scripture, we have looked at creation, and we have seen corruption as sin entered into the human experience. Because of sin, Adam and Eve immediately faced the consequences of shame, fear, guilt, pain, conflict, frustration, and death. One generation removed, the human race experienced its first murder as Cain slew Abel (4:8). It was not long before the family unit began to deteriorate with Lamech taking two wives (4:19).[1]Like his ancestor Cain, Lamech was a coldblooded murderer who boasted of his evil deeds (4:23-24). Genesis 5 records for us the wages of sin working itself out over successive generations of humanity with the repeated refrain “and he died … and he died … and he died.” The first four verses of Genesis 6 are notoriously difficult to interpret, and there has been no shortage of creative (and sometimes bizarre) attempts to explain them. I have dealt with those issues in depth in a document I wrote concerning the infamous “Spirits in Prison” passage from 1 Peter 3, and that document can be found on our church website. Suffice to say here that, whatever those verses mean, the conditions of human existence on the earth had been progressively degrading since Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord in the Garden of Eden. There was creation. There was corruption. And now comes catastrophe.   Genesis 6:5 begins, “Then the Lord saw ….” The last reference we have to God “seeing” something occurred in 1:31 where, “God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good.” But now, with successive generations of humanity having come and gone and with the sinfulness of man and the effects of sin having been compounded exponentially in the world, the Lord sees an entirely different state of affairs in the world. No longer is it “very good.” Now, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth.” The corruption of the human race had reached a tipping point, and divine judgment could no longer be withheld. Notice how the text describes the expression of this corruption. There is a repetition of words like “wickedness,” “evil,” and “violence.” The Hebrew word hamas underlies our English word “violence” here. The word is defined by one scholar as “the cold-blooded and unscrupulous infringement of the personal right of others, motivate