Imagine a world filled with violence.
You do not have to think very hard, do you? On a global scale there have been wars (this nation against that nation, this racial group against that racial group). We see famine, genocide, the sex trade and the persecution of Christians. On a smaller scale we see armed robbery, rape, murder, gang warfare, and abuse. Internally, we experience hate, jealousy, a lust for power, and envy.
Now imagine a world where these things go unchecked. In the midst of daily life there is an undercurrent of violence that rears its ugly head and says, ‘I want what I want and I want it now, and if you get in my way, you had better look out!’
This is the world that is described in the Old Testament:
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.
Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, sin had established absolute reign in the human heart. Adam and Eve’s son, Cain, murdered his brother but submitted to the judgment of God. However, his descendant Lamech boasted about his murder of one who had committed an offence against him. In the sixth chapter of Genesis things have degenerated until the whole world is a world of violence.
So we ask: if everyone has a heart that is only evil all the time, what will that culture look like? What kinds of things will people do to one another? What would nations do to each other? In a male dominated culture, what happens to women and children?
There is one exception to the rule of evil. It is Noah: Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. Noah did not just walk with God privately. He was a herald of righteousness. In the black world of violence, Noah alone is a beacon of light. He alone is devoted to God. He alone demonstrates a life of love, worship, and integrity. He alone loved his family, loved his neighbor, and loved his God.
God looks at the world and says, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh; his days shall be 120 years.’ There will be 120 years of grace with a preacher of righteousness pleading with them to return to the LORD. Then the door of grace will shut, and judgement will fall.Matthew Henry says of this verse, ‘A reprieve is granted… But the time of God’s patience and forbearance toward provoking sinners is sometimes long, but always limited… reprieves are not pardons.’
When 120 years are passed, there has been no repentance, no movement God-ward, and the time of reprieve has ended. So God says to Noah,
I have determined to make an end to all flesh for the earth is filled with violence through them. I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark… For I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on earth shall die.
Noah is to build an ark for himself, his family, and a pair – male and female – of each animal. God himself designed the ark and gave the dimensions: 450 feet long, 75 feet broad, and 45 feet high. Noah is to put some kind of cover on the ark to protect the roof, for water will come from above and below.
God brings the animals and Noah takes them onto the ark. Seven days before the rain comes, Noah and his family come onto the ark, then the LORD shut him in. The LORD himself closes the door and the time of reprieve, the door of mercy, is also closed. 120 years, during which the people could have repented and thrown themselves on God’s abundant mercy, has passed. Now judgement falls on the people.
The earth erupts with water and the clouds fall with a deluge.
How did Noah feel in that moment when the rising water was heard from inside the ark? Perhaps he could faintly hear the cries of the people, desperately but uselessly fighting to stay alive. Maybe now it really struck him, for the first time, that mankind would perish, and he and his own family would be the only ones to survive. His brothers and sisters, if he had any, died in the Flood with their families. His friends, if he had any, perished. Out of thousands, or several hundreds of thousands, even one or more millions, only eight people are saved. Only Noah, his wife, his sons and his sons’ wives are saved of all the people of the world.
The fountains of the great deep were opened. The source of the springs that had come up from the earth to water it at creation, burst and water began to flow across the land. The rains pour down as though the windows of heaven were opened. The deluge continues for almost seven weeks until even the mountains are covered by 25 feet of water. Above it all, like a fishing bobber, floats the ark until at last the deluge stops and the floodwaters grew calm.
After the forty days, Noah remains on the ark for more than a year. In the seventh month the ark is grounded on Mount Ararat. In the tenth month the tops of mountains are seen. Seven weeks after that Noah sends out a raven but it does not return. Then Noah sends out a dove which soon returns because it cannot find a place to land and rest. Seven days later the dove is sent out again and returns with a branch and Noah knows that somewhere trees are growing. Seven days later, again the dove is sent out only this time it does not return.
Noah removes the covering from the ark and discovers that the surface of the ground is dry. But it is not until two more months have passed and the water has sunk to its water table that God finally says ‘Go out from the ark’ and, after a whole year on the ark, they do.
The earth had, many months ago, spilled its water and flooded the earth. Now it produced grass, trees, and flowers. Noah and his family had never appreciated the colors like they do now, colors of an earth in bloom: yellow, red, purple, blue and the countless shades of green. For the first time, the ground beneath their feet is solid.
There is a strange silence, too. There is nobody there but them. None of the sounds of a nearby town, none of the calls and shouts that characterized an outside market, no noise from the bustle of a building project. Neither were there voices raised in anger, laughter at some ribald joke, or the sounds of pagan worship. Nothing.
Noah offers sacrifices and God makes a promise within his own heart:
I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from its youth. Never will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.
God, in language that he had previously used with Adam, says to Noah, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’. And a new start is made.
The story of Noah is, first of all, a story of judgement. Before we celebrate the protection of Noah, we are confronted with the deaths of countless people, people who had grieved God, corporately and individually. God loves people, profoundly so, but when people prove themselves unwilling or unable to repent, a grieving God finally judges. We do not hear of God’s judgement very much in our day. We think judgement is not worthy of God (“God is love”, says the Apostle John), but without judgement there is no gospel. Judgement is part of the Gospel. The good news is good precisely because it is the answer to the bad news. There is no good news where there is no corresponding bad news. A cure is only good news to one who is sick. Only those who have gone hungry understand the privilege of being given three square meals every day. ‘Jesus saves,’ we say. But from what? He saves us from God’s judgement and in the account of Noah, we see how severe his judgement is.
God’s judgement is inevitable. A God who is infinitely holy must judge sin. In our court system, if a judge let the offenders, whether for parking tickets or murder, go free and continue to reoffend, we would say they are unjust. They are not fit for their job. Is this not more true of God, who is absolutely holy and is committed to a new heaven and new earth established in righteousness?
The Word of God says we have all sinned. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, writes the Apostle Paul and we know it to be true. We have all done something we knew was wrong.
We tend to arrange sins in order of seriousness. Sins have greater or lesser degrees of consequences, to be sure. To protect society we incarcerate murderers but not those who commit a traffic violation. But all sins totally violate the distinction between right and wrong. All sins violate God’s holiness. If you break the stick one or a hundred times the stick is still broken. Whether a balloon is blown up by dynamite or touched with pin, it is destroyed.
So consider: Have we ever hated? Have we ever wished the worst for someone? Jesus said:
You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever commits murder will be liable to judgement.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement.
We are like Cain and Lamech. We have not acted it out, true, but the sin is there.
Most have not committed adultery, but if we have ever thought to ourselves, ‘I’d like to be their spouse for just one night’, the sinful desire is there. ‘Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart’, Jesus said. Sin is merely the outworking of the sin that is already in the heart. All have sinned and all, then, stand in the way of judgement.
If people say that God’s judgement is over-the-top, that he was unreasonably harsh in the days of Noah for obliterating mankind, maybe it is not that God is too harsh but that sin is a far greater offence than we realize. Maybe it is not so surprising that mankind was destroyed as that Noah and his family were not.
We are all, in the words of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, children of wrath. Judgement is coming. There is right now a period of grace, a reprieve, but the door will someday be closed. The story of Noah reveals that God is a judge.
But God is also a God of mercy. God will never judge without first providing a way to escape that judgement.
Before God’s judgement fell, he first told Noah to build an ark. Noah had also sinned. He was in the path of judgement just like everyone else. But Noah also walked closely enough with God to be able to hear God’s voice tell him to build the ark by which he and his family might be saved.
God’s Word says of Abraham that he believed the LORD and he counted it to him as righteousness. Noah believed the LORD, and because he trusted God to do all that he said, the author of Genesis testifies, Noah did this. He did all that God had commanded him.
That’s essentially what the New Testament means by ‘faith’.
Hebrews 11 says that faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen… By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that is by faith.
As Noah preached righteousness, anyone who repented of their sin would have had a place on the ark. But no one did and when the door closed, they were on the wrong side. The ark is a picture of the one way God has made to escape the judgement.
The New Testament writers and even Jesus himself linked Jesus to the story of Noah. Jesus is the only way to escape God’s judgement. God will never judge without first giving a provision to be freed from that judgement. Jesus is God’s provision.
And what a provision! The very Son of God came down from heaven at the will of his Father. Jesus did everything that God commanded. He gave his life of infinite worth so we would not have to bear the punishment for our infinite guilt. Jesus was drowned for us in order to preserve for us a seat on the ark. So we have a choice to make: to be freed from God’s judgment or be destroyed by it.
Jesus is coming to claim those who are his own. We do not know when.
But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark. They were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be standing in the field. One will be taken and the other left. Two women will grinding at the mill. One will be taken and the other left. Therefore, stay awake for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
Which man will we be? Which woman?
Now is the time of grace, for God is not willing that any should perish. He even sent his Son that whoever believes – whoever has faith – shall not perish. Some day the period of grace will end. There is reprieve for now, but no pardons. Someday the door will close.
People can be on the ark or not. You can be in Christ or not. There is no middle way.
In the original Star Wars series, Luke Skywalker is being mentored by Yoda in the use of the Force. His training is interrupted with news that his friends are in trouble. Luke says to Yoda, ‘I’ve got to go and try to help my friends.’
Yoda’s response is, ‘There is yes or no. There is no try.’
People’s response to Jesus as the only means of escaping judgement is ‘yes’ or ‘no’. When the door is shut, they are on one side of it, not both. Not in the middle. Yes or no. Inside or out. There is only one way to be freed from God’s holy judgement against the unholy crime of sin: the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is very simple. People trust that he carried the wrath for your sins, or they do not. There is no try. They cannot trust in anything else. They cannot trust that their good works will outweigh the bad. They will not. The balloon is exploded beyond repair.
You can trust in Jesus or nothing. That is it.
For those who already trust in Jesus, there is no greater reason for joy. Instead of drowning in their sin, which they all deserve, they are safe inside the ark of God’s grace. That is a gift that cannot be imagined. Because they do not really know the gravity of their sin, they do not really know how much grace God has poured out for them.
But they taste it.
And it is marvellous!
Amen.