Safety in the Flood of Mercy (Genesis 7:1-8:19)

Here’s my sermon from this past Sunday, August 30th, the second look at Noah and his ark. You can listen to the audio by clicking here.

Thanks for joining us for what’ll be our second of three sermons looking at Noah and his ark. Last week, I read this quote from Rachel Denhollander. The woman who exposed Larry Nassar, a physician that abused hundreds of young gymnasts just like her. As she bravely faced him in court, she lovingly proclaimed this truth, where God’s story…

“…carries a final judgment where all of God’s wrath and eternal terror is poured out on men like you. Should you ever reach the point of truly facing what you have done, the guilt will be crushing. And that is what makes the gospel of Christ so sweet. Because it extends grace and hope and mercy where none should be found. And it will be there for you.” (Rachel Denhollander)

Now what was she saying? It’s quite shocking, actually. Something like this: “If you, my abuser, turn from your sin, and embrace my Savior, you can be forgiven. You can become my brother.” Now I want you to just sit with that for a moment. Does that make you uncomfortable? To the man who abused her - and was accused by 265 women and girls - who would spend the rest of his life in prison for his crimes, she said, “The gospel is here, even for you.”

Last week, I made the argument that, as uncomfortable as we are with the justice of God, it’s something we each, deep down, really want. But today, here’s what I want you to hear. As much as you and I say we really want mercy - deep down, it makes us really uncomfortable. We might even resist it more than God’s judgment. It’s maybe mercy that seems more scandalous to us. Perhaps you’re skeptical. Hold your judgment, please. Let’s ponder that today, as we look here at Genesis 7 and most of 8. Mercy is falling. The wise spin and are safe.

Looking Back: Building the Boat

Last week, we walked through most of Genesis 6. Where we start another section of this fascinating book. The story of Noah and his descendants. We hear the Lord say that He sees too much evil. And He grieves what has happened with those He has made. And He resolves to wipe all living things out. And start almost completely afresh. This is not the cute story we’ve often made it out to be.

But the Lord speaks to His servant Noah and tells him to make this big boat. A big flood was coming. God’s justice upon His creation. And Noah obeys. Grace finds Noah. He responds in faith. And his faith leads to obedience. As verse 22 puts it, “Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.”

Noah Spins Around

He is moving one direction. God’s grace breaks in. Everything changes. And Noah spins around. This morning, we see the Lord tell him to enter the ark. Take your family. Verse 1, “Then the LORD said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.” Take those animals, the Lord tells him in verses 2-3. And He warns him in verse 4 — a flood is coming in just seven days. In seven days, the Lord made all things. Seven days from now, it’ll begin to break apart. And then it’ll rain for forty more. Until it’s all swept away.

And, it says, for the third time in this narrative, Noah does what God says. Verse 5: “And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.” We see that played out in verses 6 through 9. The family jumps in, together with the beasts. They all get in the ark. Verses 13 through 16 provide a bit more detail. His sons bring in their wives. They lead all these animals into the ark. They hear God’s words and obey.   

Last week, I focused on exactly that. Noah and his faith. And where that leads - to obeying the Lord. But today I want us to think about what he gives up. Noah’s moving in one direction. No doubt has his life planned out. And then he meets the LORD. He receives this command. And he spins around.    

This is not just a picture of faith. But of repentance. What’s that word mean? It’s a change of heart that leads to a change in action. As J.I. Packer put it, it’s not “moaning and remorse, but turning and change.” One minute you’re going one way. Then God gets ahold of you. And you spin around. And start going the other way. Both faith and repentance are two aspects of what we often talk of conversion. Two sides of the same coin. Or as Thomas Boston put it, two wings by which we fly up into heaven. Turning toward God - yes. Faith. Turning away from sin. That’s repentance. Both happen when we give our lives to Christ. And both keep on going after.

Martin Luther nailed those 95 Theses on the Wittenburg door way back in 1517, leading to what would become the Protestant Reformation. The first thesis was this: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent,’ he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.” The entire life. From the time we’re born anew. Until we go meet Jesus. Turning from our sin. Turning to Jesus. In the power of the Spirit. Battling against sin.

And trying to put it to death. What Paul tells us in Romans 8:13 - that is, if we want to live. We have to “put to death the deeds of the body.” Imagine standing on the deck of that boat. As those waters begin to rise. Slowly submerging your home. Turning and going in that ark. Considering it all dead. Letting it all die. That’s what we’re meant to do with our sin. It’s what the old theologians called mortification. Killing our sin. And fighting to keep it under the ground. Noah spun around. And watched it all drown.

That word for “ark” likely comes from Egyptian and also was a term used for a coffin. And some have pointed out the irony of the shape of this ship. Noah and his family here, float away in this big box. Dying to to their former way of life. Putting their lives solely in God’s hands. Leaving everything they know behind. Floating to a place they can’t even imagine. And to do that, they have to die to their pride. They they know best. The battle we still fight.   

Today, everyone says that freedom is the goal. But going against God’s ways isn’t really free. It’s slavery, in fact. It used to be people told you to go be yourself. Then everyone said you had to go express yourself. Now it’s said that we have to define ourselves. And there’s all this pressure now to market ourselves. But do you know what the Lord says? Die to yourself. Noah spins around. And we sure should, also. Mercy is falling. Will we run into it?

Justice Rains Down

Now after those seven days, the rain pours down as promised. The world reverts back to chaos. As Ian Duguid explains it, humanity had been trying to erase all the lines the Lord had drawn. Now He removes the lines of separation that were keeping them alive. Water and land get all mixed up again. Justice rains down.

Verse 11 says that on that day, Noah’s 600th birthday, in fact, “all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.” Maybe your home has flooded - as ours did back in the day - and it felt like water was rushing from every direction. From the skies, it pours downward. From the springs, it gushes upward. And the home as Noah knows it is quickly washed away.

You might have heard of this massive flooding - that’s recently hit Nepal. So many killed and missing. So much devastation. But this here, of course, is at a much larger scale. But I’m not going to get into the debates of exactly how big. Was this truly a flood of global scale? As it seems to sound? Or was it something smaller, in fact? That took out wherever people were concentrated back then? Aaron mentioned this conversation a couple of times already. We find Bible-believing Christians who take both sides - even on our elder team here. I’m going to focus on what I think is the bigger picture. But all this talk of years and months and days - seen right there in verse 11. It’s no doubt that Moses wanted us to see this as real. As history. The true story of when justice rains down.

Now I won’t belabor the point today. As that’s where I focused our time last week. But this is the culmination of what started back in Genesis 3. When Adam and Eve looked at the garden God had gifted. At the calling He’d given to them. And decided it wasn’t enough. And wanted to rule things their way. To be gods unto themselves.

The Lord had warned them, back in Genesis 2:17—eat of all the vegetation you see, including from that tree of life over there. But that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, just don’t. “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” the Lord tells them. But the serpent makes them doubt what God had said. And question if their Creator was even truly good. And that first woman and man. They did what they wanted. And they eat from the tree. And everything starts sliding off the cliff from there. As Romans 6:23 puts it, “The wages of sin is death.” And humanity’s collecting the paycheck right here. As the flood waters rise. And suffocate every breath.

That’s what’s described in the rest of Genesis chapter 7. The flood continues for 40 days. And it says “all flesh died” in verse 21. Verse 22 says “everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.” And verse 23 describes every living thing as “blotted out from the earth.” And only Noah - and his family - are left.

This is where sin leads. To death. Physical death, yes. But spiritual death, as well. Separated from God forever. And experiencing His wrath. This judgment points ahead to the punishment that’s to come. As I said last week - even if we don’t think we do. This may make us really uncomfortable. But deep down, God’s judgment is what we desperately want. Otherwise, evil will win. And there’s really no hope.

But our tendency today is to think that’s something just for them. For really bad people. Not for me, or for mine. We’re like Noah - right? No. Because of our sin, we all deserve death. Justice rains down. We see it in this flood. And it one day will again. The question is: will we be safe when it does? Mercy is falling, friends. Will it fall on us?

Noah Finds Shelter

The family of Noah, if you add up the math, shelters in place, in that ark, for just over 370 days. Most of us got pretty stir crazy back in 2020, for sure. But imagine trapped in a ship like this for all that time. For over a year. With your kids and their spouses. Or yeah, with your in-laws. With all these smelly - maybe scary - animals? We’re not sure how it all worked. But it had to be tough. But either way you slice it, this family got to live. Noah finds shelter.

Now there are two striking statements, as we read this story here. Before the waters come, after they all jump into that ark, it reads at the end of verse 16, “And the LORD shut him in.”

There Moses the author uses the covenant name for God. Yahweh. A name later revealed to Him. The God who just is. Full of steadfast love. He carefully closes the door. And seals His beloved son in. There in safety. Picture a father, gently tucking his kid in. Checking for monsters under the bed. Singing the little child to sleep. This is an act of lovingkindness.

And it’s a work of sovereign grace. The Lord has carried Noah up to this point. And now, he and his family are sealed up safe in that ship. There is danger and destruction all around outside. But there in that boat, there’s safety and security. All because of the Lord’s sovereign love. They have shelter. They’re being saved by God.

But first and foremost, this is shelter from God himself. That’s because He’s the one throwing all the water here around. Those waters that are rising are the waters of judgment. And you and I and everyone, we deserve that judgment, too. But the Lord keeps him safe. Protects Noah from his own wrath.

Now the term for this vessel here, the ark. It’s only used one other time in God’s word. And where might surprise you. If you remember the story of Moses. Who actually authored this book. Later, in the book of Exodus, the Egyptians are getting insecure amidst all the Jews. And they command the Jewish moms to drown all their boys at birth.

But the mother of Moses defies that order from the Pharaoh. And she puts her baby in a little basket in Exodus 2:3. Later found by the daughter of the king. Now that term for that little boat. That takes Moses for a ride. That’s the same term used here for this ark.

You might remember the Lord’s promise, we talked about in Genesis 3:15. That one day, the seed, the offspring of Eve, would crush the descendant of that serpent, Serpent. And it reaches ahead to the triumph of Christ on the cross. And the day when He’ll return and squash Satan once and for all. But throughout the Old Testament we see those two ancestries fight. The Lord, through that basket, protects His people from death. And He’s doing the same thing back here at the start with this ark. Preserving a people for Himself. That would be the ancestors of His son. A people for His glory. And for their own joy. Noah here, along with His family, is being saved by God, from God, and for God. And hear me: that’s the same salvation the Lord is working for us.

Now Noah is a descendent of a man named Enoch. And both he and his great-grandfather are said to have walked with God.. Genesis 5:24 says that “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” Sounds nice, huh. Noah is maybe thinking, “I sure wish I could have gotten beamed up, too.” As he’s slaving to build that boat. And the waters are carrying it away. But Noah, who’s said to have walked with God, also, in Genesis 6:9, he’s not removed from his trials. He’s kept by God there. Safe in His strong arms.

That flood lasts 40 days. That’s a significant number for sure. Moses up on the mountain. Jesus out in that desert. Nobody said things will be easy. But the Lord will keep us. Not only will the Lord save us from judgment. Through the work of His Son.

He’ll also preserve us during trials. As we struggle to walk with Him. We have that assurance. In Christ, He’ll keep us safe.   

Now we’re taught today our safety’s up to us. Keep away the toxic people. Hover all around your children. You want to be secure? Have this much in your IRA. Have that pistol beside your bed. And we wonder why we’re all filled with worry all the time!

But how safe do we really feel? Doesn’t that just lead to fear? And lots of anxiety? Do you remember what the name Noah means? It’s rest. Relief. That’s what the Lord wants us to experience in Jesus. Noah finds shelter. And we can, too. And as the Stones once sang, it’s just a shout away. Mercy is falling. Will we call out for it?

Sunshine Breaks Through

Well, they’re in that ark for a really long time. In fact, there’s a second striking statement there in Genesis 8:1. “But God remembered Noah.” Now it’s not like Noah about slipped from God’s mind. As Derek Kidner puts it, this term combines God’s faithful love with His timely intervention. He moves toward his dear son to give him relief and rest. This is a turning point in our story. Where God moves from wreaking destruction to working restoration.

That word there for “wind” is the same used for “Spirit” back in Genesis 1:2. There, He’s involved in creation. Here in restoring what God had made. In verse 2 of chapter 8, those springs are stopped up. The clouds are quieted down. And we see, from verse 3 following, the earth begins to dry. Until the ark rests on a mountain. Time fails me to walk through this verse by verse. But the waters continue to recede until Noah releases a dove, down in verse 12, for the third time, and the bird doesn’t return. Verses 13 and 14 tell us Noah opens the ark, and the earth is finally dry. And God says in verse 16 that it’s time to disembark.

The sun has dawned on a new creation. As I said last week, this isn’t just a story about God meting out justice. This shows God’s commitment to everything He’s made. We move from creation to de-creation to re-creation here. We have all these animals. And Noah, his sons, and their families. So they can make a new start.

And now the Lord tells them to go out. To be fruitful and multiply again. To exercise dominion over the earth. We see that in verses 15 through 17. And in verses 18 and 19, they all get out. Hope is reborn as they get down off that ark.

But that hope fades fast. As we’ll see Noah and his family sin. And their ancestors build the Tower of Babel. That monument gets smashed. All those people get scattered. And we’re back to where we started. But that new world - that we see there - that emerges from this flood - it points ahead to a new creation. That the Lord will recreate when the Lord Jesus returns. As the Lord speaks of in 2 Peter 3:13. “We are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” But for now, we have to wait and pray. For His kingdom to come here on earth. And waiting’s not easy. Like it surely wasn’t on that ark. But what will be our hope?

We believe in a God who can make us new. And will do the same for everything we see. That same Spirit who hovered over the waters. Pours His mercy into the likes of you and me. And will one day cleanse this broken down world. What will be our hope? The perfect partner or therapist? The right candidates in office? More education or money? And an end to all the wars?

In this fallen world, we’ll still have struggles. But He remembers us, too. He has not forgotten us. Mercy is falling, friends. Sunshine breaks through. It has. It will.

Mercy Flowing from Jesus

And that will only come through Jesus. Noah points ahead to a greater hero. The head of a family - where if we get with Him - if we get in His boat, in union with Him, we’re in a place of safety and security. He is what the old theologians called our federal head.

But He’s also like this ark. Hide ourselves in Him, and we’re saved from God’s judgment. He is our refuge and our strength. Our shelter in the storm. We go into that coffin with Him. We die to our old life. We rise to experience resurrection.

And in Jesus, we find mercy. Some have said grace is getting what we don’t deserve. And mercy is not getting what we really do deserve. In other words, not getting justice. It also carries this idea of the Lord showing us compassion, pity. Giving us help when we don’t deserve it at all. But do we like that? Do we want that?

Imagine a judge trying a case. Where the defendant is guilty of a really significant crime. We’ll say murder. And the judge says, “Whatever.” And he just lets the man go free. There would be outrage. What a scandal that would be. But what’s even harder is that we’re the criminal before the judge!

But this is not what the Lord does at all. He offers His Son to pay the punishment for that crime. And mercy flows from the cross to you and me. That way the Lord remains just. But also shows mercy. In the words of Romans 3:26, God shows His righteousness through the cross, that “He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Here’s why mercy can be so hard for us to stomach. For one, it’s because it means we’re not enough. We have to lay down our pride. And acknowledge we need His shelter, His help. But when we do, it leads to rest and relief. But it also means that we’re no better than others. And need to extend to them the mercy we’ve found.

Buried Through Baptism

Last week, I mentioned the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. But Noah and the ark provide us a picture of baptism. 1 Peter chapter 3 teaches us that. Going down into the waters of death. But surviving in union with Jesus. And rising with Him in resurrection. That’s what we celebrate when we go down into those waters. We are saved from death. His justice doesn’t fall down on us. But on Jesus instead. Instead, you and I experience His mercy. And therefore, we get to walk in newness of life.

Walking In Resurrection

Like last week, I want to wrap up with four points of further application.

First, pivot to glory and goodness. What sin is He calling you out of, my friend? Turn from it. Pivot away from it. And remember, when you do, that Jesus is better. His glory, His goodness. It’s what you want. And it’s not just that you have to do this - repent and turn to Him. You get to do this. It’s so worth it, friends!

Second, surrender to help and hope. Yes, you and I deserve His justice. We have a need for His mercy. All of us. Why would we keep fighting against that? And not just wave the white flag and get in the boat?

Third, risk to feel and forgive. To whom do you need to show mercy? Don’t let cancel culture move you to just write people off. Christ’s mercy is for everyone. But it also doesn’t mean our forgiveness is cheap. We may need boundaries. Protections put in place. But we have to risk. And not harden our hearts.

Fourth, dare to share and show. Who do you need to tell about what Christ can do? How He can make us new creations? How He’ll make everything new? And how can we show that reality here and now? Through our service. Through our love.

Looking Ahead: Here Comes the Sun

Soon we’ll get back to our friend Noah. We’ll see the covenant the Lord establishes with him. But before that, we’ll have a short, special vision series. We have a new mission statement in Karis. We’ll take time to walk through that.

Another, Better Way

I want to return to the way I started. The scandal of mercy. Why would we resist something so beautiful? Something that’s such good news? Well, it’s because in order to embrace it, we have to let go of our pride. We have to acknowledge that we, too, need mercy. The flood should be coming after us. And we have to lay down our own efforts to keep ourselves safe. To say that we’re righteous. That we’re enough - just by ourselves.

And we have to stop comparing ourselves to others - and looking down on them - whether it’s the annoying person in the next cubicle, or the villains exposed on network news. No one is beyond the reach of the mercy of God. And no one is past the need for it, either. And that includes you and me. And I want you to consider: what might happen if we really believed all of this?

Maybe we’d experience that rest? We could stop trying to prove and defend ourselves. We can stop trying to protect and provide for ourselves. What a relief that would be. To just relax in His mercy. There in the middle of that big boat. This massive storm all around. Safe and secure in God’s arms?

I’ve been playing on repeat - and I mean repeat - the song “Another Way” by Donovan Woods over the past year. He wrote the song, he says, while looking out the window of a cheap hotel where he was staying, watching some women try to set up for a wedding in the pouring down rain. It made him sad. He regretted his own failed marriage. Doubted that he could ever do it again. And imagined himself driving home from the ceremony. Wanting to be the type of guy that could look over that scene and find it romantic and hopeful. The song repeats, “Another way, another way, someday I wanna be another way.”

Karis, I want you to hear this morning. Yes, someday, Jesus will return. The sun will break through the clouds. Everything will be another way. And it’ll be glorious. But right now, things can be different. We can experience His love. The safety and security found in Him. And we can actually love and forgive others. And that will give us the deep soul rest we desire. Because Jesus took the judgment of God - He jumped into that storm, we can experience His mercy - the security of that ark. Yes, in Jesus, we can experience - we can be - another way.

And there’s so much joy in that. I started out last week, talking about how dark of a scene this is. No Noah play sets. Or baby room themes. Pump up the death metal. And get out the black paint. This is a story about judgment. But there’s also something hopeful here. Mercy is falling. Jesus makes all things new. So maybe cue the happy music. Let your hair down and dance awhile. Mercy is falling. The wise spin and are safe. Let’s pray.