Word of Salvation – Vol. 33 No. 31 – August 1988

 

Noah’s Blessing For The World

 

Sermon: by Rev. M.C. De Graaf on Gen. 8:20-9:1

Reading: Gen. 6:9-22

Singing: 217; BoW.H.828; 169; 140; H.102.

 

Brothers and Sisters in Our Lord Jesus Christ,

One of the striking things about the last few federal elections is the emergence of the whole Nuclear issue in politics.  The Nuclear Disarmament Party may not have won many seats but it did win enough support to show that many people consider this whole question to be an important one – a pressing one.

The Australian band Midnight Oil released a record called ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’ which featured on its cover a picture of what they imagined Sydney would look like after a Nuclear attack, with an empty harbour and a red glow.  Other bands have brought forward similar messages.  The fear of nuclear war and its aftermath prevails in much of society.  Never before has fallen man, lost in his depravity, had so much power at his fingertips.  And it can be frightening!!

A recent survey in Sydney’s Western Suburbs, found that more than 60% of high school students did not believe they would make it to their 25th birthday!!

People are afraid – and for good reason!!  Mankind has stockpiled enough weapons to destroy all life on this planet.  All it needs is a few moments of anger, or panic, or insanity, and all would be over!!

But how do we as Christians react to this problem and the anxiety it causes?

 – Some of us just refuse to admit anything is wrong and try to ignore it wishing the whole thing would go away.

 – Others argue that as God is a LOVING God we have nothing to fear.  So they too try and ignore the problem.

 – Other say, God is a JUST God and if a nuclear war did break out it would simply be his judgement on a sinful world!!

 – Still others feel that nuclear weapons are a misuse of God’s gifts, just as any form of hatred is a twisting of God’s plan.  So they actively work against Nuclear abuse!

This list goes on…!  These are all reactions by Christians.  All are striving to live as God wants them to.

BUT WHAT IS THE CORRECT REACTION?

I’m sorry, I can’t come to you this morning with any easy to swallow, simple answers.  BUT I do believe that this story which we have before us this morning does guide us in our efforts to come up with a God-honouring response to this anxiety filled world!!

In Genesis 6:5 we read that: “the Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of his heart was evil all the time!”  …Because of this … THE LORD WAS GRIEVED THAT HE HAD MADE MAN ON EARTH and his heart was filled with pain.”

MAN, who was to have been the crown of God’s magnificent creation, had become the CLOWN of creation!!  A BLACK SMUDGE ON THE EARTH!  The fall had ruined what was to have been such a beautiful thing!!  And God was PAINED by what had happened, saddened by the twisting of what he had made GOOD.

AND NOT ONLY WAS HE SAD but we also see that he was ANGRY.  The WRATH of GOD could not allow sin to just continue on.  So He decided to destroy all mankind; to wipe the slate clean – and start again!  All men were to be destroyed EXCEPT FOR ONE, NOAH!  Vs.8 tells us, “He found favour in the eyes of the Lord”.

Looking through the O.T. we see that this phrase isn’t telling us that he was perfect!  He too was child of Adam, conceived in sin!  BUT THIS SIN WAS NOT THE CENTRAL FORCE IN HIS LIFE.  He owed his allegiance to His God!  He trusted in Him.  Hebrews 11 tells us that “he feared God” and that word “fear” talks about respecting, loving, taking God seriously because of who He is!  God found a man like this and He saved him with his family!  Hebrews goes on and tells us, “Noah built the ark in HOLY FEAR”.

He was saved!  But for the rest of the WORLD, God’s righteous anger poured out and all were devoured!  Noah had warned those around about him – but all they did was ridicule him.  It was this rejection of this final warning which in the end condemned them once and for all!!

The story of the FLOOD shows us clearly that God IS an angry God.  Wilful sinning against Him cannot be allowed to continue.  His WRATH and His JUSTICE demand satisfaction.  He doesn’t just shrug His shoulders at sin and say, “well too bad but they can’t help it.”  His anger BURNS.

Noah knew this, perhaps more than any man, since Noah knew what God’s attitude to sin is!  And because of this we see in Genesis 8 that the first thing that Noah did when he left the ark was to build an altar.  He didn’t go off and first build his house or perhaps plant a few crops.  No, the first thing he did was build an altar and sacrifice to the Lord in celebration of God’s gracious love for him!  On behalf of mankind Noah offers a sacrifice seeking God’s fellowship and favour!  In faith offering also himself to the Lord.  And as happened with Abraham – God accepted this offering of Faith.  Our text says the sacrifice had a pleasing aroma!  And because of this, God promised never to interrupt man’s history in such a terrible way again.  Rather, He would continue to preserve mankind, as Jesus says in Matt.5, “He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good.”  Letting History run to its appointed end, filling this earth with His blessings!  Later, of course, we see him give the rainbow as a sign of this: a sign of his love.  He also renewed with Noah the commands and promises which we find in the Garden and in Ps.8.  Noah was once again – as the new representative of mankind – crowned as head of all creation.  Gen.9 seems to reflect Gen.1 in so many ways.  God tells them to be fruitful and multiply, the creation is subjected to them.

A NEW BEGINNING, A NEW COVENANT, A GREAT NEW RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOD AND MAN.  What great hope!  But when we look on in Genesis it doesn’t take long before we see that the seed of sin had stayed with man.  In chapter 9:21 we see Noah lying drunk and naked, and his son Ham laughing at him.  In chapter 11 we see man declaring himself to be as great as God, building that tower near Babel.  Despite the cleansing of the FLOOD, the stain of sin remained well and truly ingrained on this earth.  But we shouldn’t take this to mean that God had SOME HOW failed; that there was now no other solution.  The very next chapter after the tower of Babel story tells us that God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees.  And God tells him that he will be a “blessing to the nations” – his great, great, great grandson was to be Jesus Christ.  Through Him at last man’s debt could be paid and God’s wrath could be averted from a sinful mankind.  God’s promise to Eve concerning the serpent’s head could be fulfilled.  As Galatians 3 tells us, all who share, by faith, in His righteousness, can have salvation!

It is interesting how, in his first epistle, Peter draws that parallel between the flood and Jesus’ work as symbolized by baptism.  Through the flood a cleansing took place.  So too, through Jesus, we stand clean and white before God the water of baptism symbolizes this.  The ark averted God’s wrath from Noah, SO too our new relationship with Christ averts God’s wrath from us.

Brothers and Sisters, in the introduction we saw that we live in an anxious world!  The prospect of a nuclear war IS frightening.  BUT EVEN MORE FRIGHTENING than anything that man can dream up is GOD’S WRATH, against this sinful world!  The flood story shows us clearly that he cannot let sin go on forever!  Man’s rebellion must be punished.  People don’t want to believe this.  Like Noah’s neighbours and friends, men ridicule the prospect of God’s judgement.  Perhaps, God will use Nuclear War in his judgement on man, who knows?  What we DO know is that man’s days on this earth are numbered!  It may be tomorrow or it may be a thousand years.  BUT HE WILL RETURN!  And if we don’t meet Jesus as Saviour now, then, when he returns, we will meet Him as Judge of our lives!

Brothers and Sisters how does this affect you?  How do you stand before your God?  How does it affect your neighbours, friends, relatives?  Do you care about their destiny?  Noah preached to his friends and neighbours for 120 years.  Would you bother?  Or do you think that perhaps they could sneak in at the last minute?  Let it never be said of us that we were like the foolish virgins – asleep when he returned, with misplaced confidence, thinking we have all the time in the world.  Brothers and sisters, that Rainbow was a sign of God’s love and faithfulness just as Jesus Christ is a sign of God’s love and faithfulness.  Let us not see it as an excuse to sit back and relax, but rather as a call to action.

AMEN.