God Shut the DoorGenesis 6:5–8:17

Welcome back 26:20

It is great to be back home. I did not expect to be up here the first Sunday I was home, but it is good to be home and to be with you all again.

We had an amazing summer, and we had a focus for it. One of those focuses happened less than two weeks ago. Two weeks ago tomorrow, we were in Williamstown, Kentucky, visiting a place called the Ark Encounter. Anybody know where that is? Anything in Kentucky is supposed to be good, right? The Ark Encounter is a replica of Noah’s ark, built to scale.

When I got the call last night, I thought, “All right, I will go into my sermon file and reheat one of my old sermons.” I did that for about five minutes, and then God said, “Whoop! Stop. That is not what you need to talk about.” So I want to share a little about Noah, the man, and his mission.

Tim already prayed for us, but let me pray again, if you do not mind. Father, we want to submit these next few moments to you. We want you to be heard and blessed, and we want you to be glorified in everything we say. In Jesus’ name, amen.

The days of Noah 28:25

I want to start with a quote, not from Genesis, where the story of Noah is found, but from the New Testament. This is Matthew 24. This little green Bible (green is my favorite color) is one I got forty years ago and have preached many sermons from. It is the old NIV, which is not in our computer files, so what is on the screen is the New King James. I am sure you can make the connection.

[Reads Matthew 24:37–39.]

Think about what it would be like to be a person living in the time of Noah. Scripture tells us the days of Noah are one of the signs of the coming of the end of the age. So at the end of the age, we will see people doing the same things they were doing in Noah’s day.

Over the years, when I look at the crime and violence in our world, I have thought, “It is going to be like the days of Noah.” But as I read this, I realized that what Matthew says they were doing in the days of Noah was just going about their daily lives, totally in disregard for God. They were marrying, they were giving in marriage, they were keeping to their schedules. Gentlemen, some people, and my wife would point her finger at me, have a schedule and do not even think about changing it. It is a major phone call if you try to change my schedule, and bad things happen.

But in the days of Noah, people were just going about their daily lives, doing what they do. They were not necessarily being evil, although that is the natural consequence of not following God. That is what it will look like when Christ comes again: people going about their daily lives, doing what they do, in total disregard for God.

Is that happening today? I think people do not have a lot of respect for God. They do not fear him, in the sense of respecting and honoring him. They forget about God. He has no part in their life. They are too busy to think about anything godlike. That is how it will be when Christ comes again, and it is how it was when God saw the evil that was on the earth and said, “This is a bad thing.”

The wickedness of the earth, and one man 33:24

Most of what we read the rest of the day is from Genesis, starting with chapter 6. In the days of Noah, people had only been on the earth for about a thousand years. If you add up the ages of Methuselah and the others who lived 900 years, you come to about a thousand years. I think I got that right. That was not a lot of time, though a thousand years is a long time to us. I cannot remember a thousand years ago. Maybe you can.

I want us to start by reading Genesis 6:5.

[Reads Genesis 6:5.]

We do not know how bad it really was in those days. But what we did not read is that it was so bad God was sorry he had made man. God was sad that the creature he had created had gone so far away from him that the creature did not even recognize him anymore. But there was one man, a preacher by the way, who found favor in the eyes of God: Noah.

We do not even know the name of Noah’s wife in the Bible. We can find it in literature outside the Bible, but not in Scripture. We know the names of his three sons, but not the names of their wives. What we do know is that Noah was leading his family to believe in God, while the rest of the world had totally rejected him. They had no place in their lives for him at all.

If you imagine our world today, with its immorality, its crime, and its total rejection of the things of God, how close we must be getting to the time when Noah was on the earth and found favor with God.

Noah the preacher 36:46

I said I would quote most of it from Genesis, but I have one more quote, from Hebrews. I do not like to preach passages here and there, because they only point something out. I much prefer to do a book study, but I only have one Sunday, and you do not want to be here all day, right? You can find my book studies on Sunday mornings when Sunday school starts in two weeks. Here is what the writer of Hebrews said about Noah.

[Reads Hebrews 11:7.]

Noah was the only righteous person on the earth at that time, and God knew the heart of every man. If anyone else had been as righteous as Noah, God would have known it, but the text says there was no one else. Noah had been preaching to people all through his life. He was 500 years old when God came to him and told him to build the ark. We will get to the building in a minute. During the time he was building, approximately 100 to 120 years, that entire time he was preaching to his neighbors, telling them to fear God, to respect God, and to turn from their evil ways.

As pastors, we like to see someone come to faith in Christ every so often. If we do not, we begin to wonder if we are on the right track. Noah preached for 120 years, and how many converts did he get? Zippo. Not a single convert in 120 years of preaching. Talk about discouragement. That would get you pretty low to the ground.

But Noah knew what God had told him to do, and he was determined to finish the job. He had faith in God. And God had a plan, and God’s plan involved Noah building a rescue vessel that would save the righteous of mankind, which, as we know, was only eight people, the only righteous ones on the earth.

God’s plan for the ark 40:10

Now we will be in Genesis for the rest of our time. Chapter 6, starting with verse 13.

[Reads Genesis 6:13–22.]

Here is a picture so you can see what this ark looked like. It was 450 feet long, so that is one and a half football fields. I know we have at least one football fan here. It was 75 feet wide, half the width of a football field, and 45 feet high. That is exactly the dimensions of the ark you see on the screen, built exactly to the specifications Noah had. Noah’s ark was covered on the outside with pitch. This one is not covered with pitch. You do not need pitch when you are on dry ground, but it was needed in Noah’s day.

What is an ark? 43:16

Let me talk about what an ark is. The Hebrew word for ark is basically a container designed as a flotation device. It is used twice in Scripture: once for Noah’s ark, and once for Moses, when his mother placed him in an ark on the Nile River. So an ark simply means a vessel of some kind that keeps the one who needs saving out of the water. In Moses’ case it was very small, a reed basket. In Noah’s case it had to keep eight people alive for over a year, about 370 days, and it also had to hold two of every kind of animal. That is a lot of animals. It was a big vessel.

When we walked through it, we went through all three floors. I am pretty good at walking, and I was worn out when we were done. We walked down one floor, then back to the next, and back to the third. It was enough. It was big. I hope you can imagine how vast this vessel was.

A boat where there is no water 44:53

The area where he was building is what we now know as modern-day Iraq. If you remember western civilization from high school, you remember the Fertile Crescent, which runs from about Babylon over to the Mediterranean coast in the shape of an arc, a crescent. This was part of the basis of civilization. But there was no water.

So Noah is being asked to build a large vessel to save two of every animal and his family, with all the food they would need, and, remember, everything the animals produce after they eat. There was room for all of that in the ark for over a year. And the area had no water, and the earth had not heard of rain. Until this point the earth was watered by mist from the ground. God had placed a firmament, which we read about in the first chapters of Genesis, between the heavens and the earth. This firmament was full of water, and it kept the earth warm. There were no rain clouds, no thunderstorms, no rain. It was not needed. The ground was watered from below.

Think about how the people around Noah must have felt when they watched him build this huge vessel. “How are you going to float it, Noah? If you have not noticed, there is no water around here. You are not going to drag it to the Mediterranean. You are crazy.” Sometimes the things we do may look crazy, but if God asked us to do them, we had better do them. God asked Noah to build an ark in that place at that time, and he did it.

The animals come 47:14

When the ark was completed, Noah invited the animals to come in. God’s involvement is seen at every step. Noah has the ark built. “God, how do we get the animals? Do you want me to go out and lasso them and bring them in?” No. God created the animals, and God can tell them whatever he wants them to do. God told the animals to go to the coordinates he gave them, and they went, by instinct, two of every kind and seven of every clean animal.

Do you believe that? Yes, I do. In fact, I believe every word that is in this little green Bible. Not a word can be taken out, and not a word can be added. It is entirely God’s Word.

The Lord shut the door 48:56

Back to Genesis 7.

[Reads Genesis 7:1 and 7:10–16.]

Noah had done everything God asked over this period of 100 years. God tells Noah to take his family and go into the ark, and Noah is in there for seven days. The door the Lord shut is massive. Think how big a door you would need to get two elephants in side by side, or two giraffes. We saw this door. It was huge. How is Noah going to close it? It is too big for him. God closed the door.

Noah had also put pitch all around the outside to seal it. Are there going to be leaks around the door? Absolutely not. When God seals something, he seals it. He put them inside the ark, and they were safe.

What this shows me is this. We might think, “How is God cruel? What is he doing? All these evil people who reject God are going to die.” He shuts Noah in the ark, and they are safe, and everyone else is not. To me, this shows God’s kind action toward those he cares for and who care for him. If you love God, you cannot overdo it. You cannot out-love God. He loves you more than you will ever love him. He wanted Noah to be protected. He loves Noah. Noah was the one righteous man on earth, and God wanted him protected.

The flood 52:09

[Reads Genesis 7:17.]

Here in Arizona we know rain differently. We traveled this summer from Colorado, where our daughter is, all the way to New York, through Kentucky and parts of Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. It rained almost every day, and every time we wanted to camp for the night, it was raining. We did get some camping days in. But we know rain in Arizona in a different way. We know rain that comes down in buckets, and our storms are often associated with wind, and wind is destructive. Almost every summer when we come home, one of our neighbors has lost a carport. This year it was our next-door neighbor. So we know the destructive power of these storms, with thunder and lightning all connected to the rain.

Now imagine how people felt if they had never seen rain. The earth had been watered from below. There was no rain, no wind, and no storm clouds until after the flood. When the people saw thunder and lightning and storm clouds, they must have wondered what was going on. Where is this water coming from? And it was not only falling from the sky, because there would not have been enough water up there to drown the earth. It was bursting out of the earth. You have all seen the power of a volcano spewing fire and lava. This is what was happening, except this time the springs of the earth were spewing water. Water was coming from above and from below. People were up to their knees in water so fast they could not imagine it.

Karen and I have a favorite show we like to watch on the Discovery Channel, called In the Eye of the Storm. It tells about storms in our country and the destructive power of a hurricane or a tornado, almost always with vast amounts of water. When you see someone’s whole house floating down the river, you realize the destructive power of water. That is what these people were seeing, from below and from above, coming at them from everywhere.

[Reads Genesis 7:22.]

You might think, “Well, that is kind of cruel.” But remember who put the breath of life into the creatures: God. And who could take it out? God. But God provided a plan so that people would not have to die unnecessarily. Any one of the hundreds of thousands of people who lived on the earth at the time of Noah could have believed and been saved. Any one of them. But they chose not to.

The water goes down 56:57

[Reads Genesis 8:2–5.]

So there was water over the entire earth, 20 feet above the highest mountain. That is hard to conceive, but that is what it says, and like I said earlier, if it says it, I believe it.

Then Noah sent out some animals, his own version of drones. He sent out a raven, which flew around on the earth and did not come back. Then he sent out a dove, which flew around and came back. Seven days later he sent out another dove, and this dove came back with a freshly picked olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew that the time had come to leave the ark.

Leaving the ark 58:33

[Reads Genesis 8:13–17.]

You kind of wonder: God closed the door to put Noah in the ark, so how did Noah get out? The same way. God opened the door. The text does not say that, but we can assume it. God provided a way for him to get out of the ark.

So, as Tim would say, what is the point? God always provides a way of salvation. For the first people we have spoken about today, it was the ark. For the Hebrew nation, whom he called out of Egypt to live in the Holy Land, it was following the law God had set down for them. For the Jews up to the time of Christ, it was believing that a Messiah would come. Jews still believe a Messiah is going to come. For the most part they do not see that the Messiah already came, though some do. The plan for you and me is faith in the life and work of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is our ark 60:56

He died for a reason, and the reason was his love for you and me. I really cannot deal with much pain. If I am like Tim, just count me out. When I had my knee surgery, Karen will tell you I am not good with pain. And if you can imagine, we have all seen the pictures, and I do not need to repaint them for you, the pain that Jesus Christ suffered on the cross for you and me. He went through all of that so we might have a way of salvation. He died for a reason. He is our ark. He is our way of salvation. Amen.

What this story teaches 62:32

What this story teaches me is faith. You might hear people say today that it is impossible for God to get two of every kind of animal into that ark, that it was not big enough. For every person who has a reason why the ark would not work, I will give you two reasons why it does. The ark did not miss a single point. God planned the ark exactly to the specifications needed to hold two of every kind of animal on the earth.

The ark shows faith. Noah had faith that when he got in that ark, he would be saved. I have faith that when I accept what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross at Calvary, I will be saved. That is what my Bible tells me, and I believe it.

God carefully chose everything he did with the ark so that every t was crossed and every i was dotted, and there was no way the ark could fail to save them. It is the same with our ark today. Jesus Christ has crossed every t and dotted every i. If you believe in Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death on the cross, you will be saved. There is no question about it. The Bible says that, and I believe it. To me, that settles it.

Go out and be fruitful 64:13

I could go on and read more, but I just want to ask you this. This fantastical story about an ark holding eight people and all those animals: do you believe it? It is in his Word. Do you believe that the death of Jesus on the cross saves you from your sin?

You know what he wants us to do today? The same thing he had Noah do. Go out of the ark, be fruitful, multiply, and live your life praising God. That is exactly what he wants everyone in this room to do: leave this building and go out and be fruitful. “By their fruit you will know them.” Your fruit as a Christian is other Christians. As you develop relationships with people and see them come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, that is your fruit. You are being fruitful. That is what he asked you to do. As we close today, believe in your heart in Jesus Christ.

Closing prayer 65:54

Father, we thank you so much for your Word. We thank you that you brought it to us and preserved it over these thousands of years. Father, it is in the form you planned it to be in, exactly as you wanted it, so that we could know all we need to know to have faith in you. We do not need anything else. We do not need any other books. We only need to know your Word, and to know that you died for us, as you told us you did, and that you live today at the right hand of God. Thank you for who you are. In Jesus’ name, amen.