Dale Partridge - Genesis 6_18-22 ~ The Foundation Beneath Noah’s Ark

00:00:00.000 amen well bear with me today i'm getting over a bit of a sickness but by god's grace we will

00:00:10.560 finish genesis 6 today and we will move into genesis 7 until we take a break to uh talk about

00:00:19.040 the resurrection on easter sunday that's coming up here soon now if you remember from my last sermon

00:00:23.920 And we began our study of the flood narrative by viewing Noah's Ark as God's way to preserve the promised seed that was given to Eve, that was presumed in Abel, that was found in Seth, and now it was going to be preserved in Noah.

00:00:45.060 And although the earth had become completely corrupt, I mean, violence was everywhere.

00:00:49.280 Sin was everywhere. 0.75

00:00:51.020 Not only there was moral decay, but there was even biological corruption through the fallen angels that were sleeping with the daughters of men, creating the Nephilim. 0.59

00:01:03.520 And we went through all of this and God still preserved one righteous man, Noah, and his family, who was the cradle of the messianic seed that was to fulfill the promise of the gospel. 0.55

00:01:16.560 Now, we also saw how the ark stood as a type of Christ in that it was a vessel that would preserve life from the threat of death through the judgment of God's wrath.

00:01:33.480 And ultimately, we learned that the flood and God's judgment was not about water.

00:01:38.020 It was about wrath.

00:01:40.320 Now, just as Noah and his family were saved by entering the ark, so today, every person

00:01:46.900 who enters the ark of Christ will also escape the judgment of God's wrath.

00:01:53.080 Now, today, the text introduces to us what I would call the foundation beneath the entire

00:02:00.840 ark narrative.

00:02:02.640 Uh, if the ark itself is, you know, God's saving work, the body of it, then today we

00:02:10.820 are going to be looking at the skeleton of it.

00:02:13.440 And so if we're looking at the ark narrative of Noah's involvement in redemption, and that

00:02:18.360 is the body today, we're going to be looking at the skeleton below that, which I believe

00:02:23.480 is the foundation, which is in its relationship to covenant today.

00:02:29.120 we see for the very first time in Scripture one of the most important

00:02:33.880 words that we see in the Bible and that word is covenant it is a very Christian

00:02:39.140 word it is a very biblical word it is a very reformed word and it is a word that

00:02:44.540 you must understand in order to carry out the Christian life now in verse 18

00:02:51.920 it says but I will establish my covenant with you and you shall come into the ark 0.85

00:02:57.440 you and your sons, your wife and your son's wives with you. Now, the previous verse, if you go back 0.71

00:03:06.780 to verse 17, it gives the force of verse 18 because it said, for behold, I will bring a flood

00:03:14.440 waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which the breath of life is under heaven. Everything

00:03:19.720 that is on earth shall die. And so you end this section of verse 17 with this very intense,

00:03:27.020 dark statement of universal death. But then you hear, but, but I will establish my covenant with

00:03:35.400 you. It's intended to have this contrast here. While the judgment is coming upon the whole world,

00:03:41.260 God says to Noah, everything will perish, but you, because I'm making a covenant with you.

00:03:49.200 And so he connects his redemption with this term of covenant.

00:03:54.940 And so covenant is the means by which God saves.

00:04:00.380 Okay, and very important.

00:04:01.840 Covenant is the means by which God saves.

00:04:04.740 I expect every single person to understand this, to remember it.

00:04:08.460 I don't want you to go and say, oh, I can't explain covenant.

00:04:12.080 Covenant is the means by which God saves.

00:04:14.860 It is the way you are saved.

00:04:16.700 it is the way that you are saved it is the method God uses to demonstrate his faithfulness

00:04:24.120 to us in a tangible structured relationship that is what it is it is a method

00:04:32.500 it is the tactical is the practical reality of redemption in a structured relationship and you

00:04:41.060 want to go how do I put my finger on the thing that actually the means in which it saves me

00:04:46.200 obviously we know it's Christ. Obviously we know that it's through the power of God. But if you

00:04:50.320 want to know the system or the structure, the architecture, the skeleton, it is covenant. That

00:04:56.180 is how you are saved. Jerry Bridges, the great reformed author once said, quote, the promises

00:05:03.080 of the Bible are nothing more than God's covenant to be faithful to his people. It is his character

00:05:11.040 that makes these promises valid, end quote.

00:05:15.280 Now, we cannot understand the weight of this passage,

00:05:19.460 I think, if we don't understand

00:05:21.160 the definition of covenant itself.

00:05:23.840 So I wanna give you just a definition.

00:05:25.460 A covenant is a solemn bond before God

00:05:29.140 established between two parties,

00:05:32.440 two or more parties, I should say,

00:05:34.620 carrying blessings for faithfulness

00:05:36.600 and curses for disobedience

00:05:38.680 or curses for unfaithfulness.

00:05:41.040 It is a solemn bond.

00:05:43.580 It could be instituted by God.

00:05:45.380 It could also be instituted by men with God as a witness as part of this covenantal inclusion.

00:05:52.500 Now, the covenant with Noah is an expansion of the covenant made with Adam or the covenant of grace.

00:06:01.300 It's the preservation of God's covenant of grace.

00:06:05.260 And what I mean by that is that God establishes his covenant with Noah to preserve the world

00:06:11.140 and to preserve human history, because if God had not preserved Noah, preserved the

00:06:17.040 seed that was in him, then it would have been proven that God was not faithful.

00:06:23.460 And so it's often called a covenant of preservation.

00:06:27.540 That is what the Noahic covenant is often referred to in theological terms.

00:06:33.700 And so this covenant demonstrates God's faithfulness that even when it seems like the promises of God are not going to come through,

00:06:43.240 the entire world is falling apart.

00:06:46.320 And God made this promise 10 to 15 generations before.

00:06:52.280 And you're going, is God faithful to his promise?

00:06:57.880 And yes, yes, he is.

00:07:01.180 he always fulfills his promises but again as I mentioned before Genesis

00:07:06.420 proves to us that God is a cliffhanger God he takes us to the very end to where

00:07:12.640 we wouldn't expect that God would come through and yet he does he tests our

00:07:18.400 faith with turns and ups and downs and we're always waiting and we're hoping

00:07:24.280 and where are you going to be faithful and yes God is going to be faithful and

00:07:31.180 Now, all of our human covenants, all of our human covenants, marriage, church membership,

00:07:38.400 even what I would say is our national covenants like citizenship vows in America that we actually

00:07:43.200 do before the Lord, they find their model in God's covenant structure.

00:07:50.620 They all find their model in God's covenant structure.

00:07:54.620 I once heard a man say, God's spirit used the truth of covenant to save my marriage.

00:08:01.180 Think about that for a second.

00:08:03.380 A man is revealed the definition of covenant

00:08:08.020 and all of a sudden his marriage is saved.

00:08:13.220 To understand covenant is to understand commitment.

00:08:19.300 It's to understand faithfulness.

00:08:22.380 In fact, it is when you do not understand covenant

00:08:25.240 that you lack these attributes.

00:08:27.820 When we understand covenant, we enter into our covenants with the same seriousness that God shows in his covenant with us.

00:08:39.000 When we keep covenant faithfully, we reflect that faithfulness of God back to himself and to others.

00:08:47.680 but when we break covenant

00:08:52.020 without valid grounds

00:08:54.120 we show that we don't understand covenant

00:08:58.180 that we don't understand the way that God

00:09:00.560 understands covenant

00:09:02.060 we take the very instrument

00:09:04.140 this is very important

00:09:05.000 this might be one of the most important sentences

00:09:07.020 of this entire sermon

00:09:07.960 we take the very instrument of God

00:09:10.520 that he has chosen to display his faithfulness

00:09:13.300 to the world

00:09:13.780 and we stain it

00:09:15.380 with our own unfaithfulness

00:09:17.980 When we break covenant,

00:09:20.220 we take the very thing that God said,

00:09:24.240 I'm going to use this thing

00:09:25.780 to demonstrate my character of faithfulness to you.

00:09:30.760 And we go, you know what?

00:09:31.880 Hey, we're going to enter covenants as well,

00:09:33.500 whether it's marriage,

00:09:34.640 whether it's with nations,

00:09:36.240 whether it's with one another.

00:09:37.480 And when we take that

00:09:38.880 and we deal with that covenant definition,

00:09:42.020 that substance unfaithfully,

00:09:44.300 we tarnish and we stain

00:09:45.920 the very thing that God used

00:09:48.080 to demonstrate his faithfulness to us

00:09:50.220 and to the world

00:09:50.880 you will never find stability in your faith

00:09:57.780 or your family or your church or your nation

00:09:59.720 until you understand covenant

00:10:00.880 now we also see that God

00:10:05.500 establishes his covenant

00:10:08.080 with individuals but although

00:10:09.920 he establishes it with individuals

00:10:12.320 it is not limited to individuals

00:10:14.160 he also includes all of those that are under that man's headship.

00:10:18.260 We see this here with Noah,

00:10:19.720 but we also see this through what is called covenant theology.

00:10:23.580 Later in Genesis chapter 9, God says to Noah, he says,

00:10:26.900 I myself establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you.

00:10:35.380 I mean, even in this verse that we have up here that we're talking about,

00:10:40.500 I will establish my covenant with you and you shall come into the ark

00:10:43.980 you and your sons and your wife and your son's wives with you. It shows the extension 1.00

00:10:49.820 of covenant and the power that it has there. In other words, God's covenants are not merely

00:10:57.940 individual. They're not merely terminal. They don't end with that particular individual.

00:11:03.000 They are familial. They are generational. We live in a very individualistic, a very

00:11:11.020 Baptist structure of society. In fact, I've not been a Baptist for many years now, and I still 0.99

00:11:16.680 find myself thinking like a Baptist, thinking like an individualist, thinking independently,

00:11:23.220 because I have been living in independent, individualized, self-actualized reality for so

00:11:31.280 long that it's difficult for me to think in groups. It's difficult for me to think

00:11:35.900 covenantally in my relationships and i understand that many of you share that same trial

00:11:44.780 and this is why when you enter covenant by faith and baptism

00:11:49.100 your children are included as well this is why we baptize babies it's why when you marry your

00:11:55.100 children belong to that covenant family god does not look at you as independent individuals but he

00:12:00.060 also looks at you as a covenant group, a covenant unit. It's very strange to say that, oh, we're in

00:12:06.640 the church, but my children are not in the church. It's very strange to say, well, we're a family,

00:12:12.160 but I know you came from us, but you're not in our family. That'd be very strange to think that

00:12:17.220 way. It's very inconsistent. It's also why when you covenant with a local church, that we also

00:12:25.700 have your children as members. Your children are members of this church because we view them as

00:12:32.220 under the headship of the federal representation of the father or the head of household in the

00:12:39.600 local covenant. Now, when God makes covenant with a man, it always extends beyond him. Now,

00:12:49.200 I do want to make one thing clear, is this doesn't mean that God keeps covenant with people

00:12:56.120 who are unfaithful simply because they are in the covenant community. That is the sin of

00:13:02.300 presumption. All covenant keeping is done by faith or faithfulness, however you want to define that.

00:13:11.120 You must remain faithful in order to keep covenant. Again, there are valid grounds to

00:13:17.120 break covenant. We know that there is adultery becomes a valid ground to break covenant in 0.95

00:13:23.820 marriage. We know it is still not the desire of God to see covenants broken, even in that,

00:13:28.700 because it would be even a greater thing to offer forgiveness and to have reconciliation.

00:13:36.680 But we know that faithfulness is the very metric and means in which we see covenant fulfilled.

00:13:44.540 and we live in a world that is commitment phobic.

00:13:47.920 We live in a world that doesn't understand faithfulness.

00:13:51.040 We live in a world that can't remain consistent.

00:13:53.620 We're very transient.

00:13:54.800 We move from one place to another.

00:13:56.680 We can't stay put.

00:13:58.600 We're very envious.

00:14:00.280 We're very covetous.

00:14:01.900 We're not very stable.

00:14:03.380 We need to unlearn and relearn the scriptures,

00:14:06.900 culture and narrative so that we might remain stable.

00:14:10.040 reverse this cultural drift that we kind of move on

00:14:15.140 and we're reactive and emotionally impulsive.

00:14:18.260 We have to stop those things

00:14:20.200 and find the stability and peace

00:14:23.240 that comes through covenant faithfulness.

00:14:30.080 Now, the integrity or reliability of all covenants

00:14:33.300 is demonstrated by faithfulness.

00:14:35.380 When someone breaks covenant,

00:14:37.200 It's simply a demonstration of unfaithfulness.

00:14:41.680 Now, God offers the first commands of his covenant within this covenant structure.

00:14:47.500 In verse 19, it says,

00:14:49.860 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you.

00:14:57.720 They shall be male and female.

00:15:00.040 So first, I just want you to notice the purpose of bringing animals onto the ark was to preserve

00:15:06.060 life. Again, just, what are you doing? Well, it says right there, you shall bring them onto the

00:15:11.240 ark to keep them alive with you. Again, it's a preservation of life. And we can all picture

00:15:19.760 this kind of familiar children's book scene that we see, right? The animals lining up two by two,

00:15:24.860 you know, just kind of just this beautiful display. One thing I wanted to point out is that

00:15:28.780 When you're actually seeing those images, you're seeing not only God's sovereignty and the fact

00:15:34.060 that there is some sort of relationship that God is allowing Noah to bring these animals onto the

00:15:41.820 ark, but you're also seeing man's responsibility and Noah being faithful and bringing all these

00:15:48.420 animals onto the ark. We know that God commanded Noah to gather these animals, which I think would

00:15:55.080 be just an incredible task. Even prior to Genesis 9, Genesis 9 talks about that God puts the fear

00:16:02.660 of man into the beasts of the world. And so it implies that before that, that animals had less

00:16:10.420 of a fear of man or maybe no fear of man. And so it would have made it significantly easier for

00:16:15.380 Noah to gather these animals and to bring them onto the ark. But I still think that it would

00:16:21.020 be difficult to get elephants or whatever else you want to talk about, different kinds of animals

00:16:27.020 onto the ark. And so again, I think it's a very beautiful image of God's sovereignty helping out

00:16:32.840 this reality and man's responsibility that's being displayed here. Now, you might also notice the

00:16:40.780 binary reality of male and female, no matter how perverted the world may be. And this is very 0.53

00:16:46.400 important for you children. When God says to put onto the ark all different kinds of animals, male

00:16:52.440 and female, and when you grow up and somebody tells you that there's more than male and female,

00:16:58.360 that there's all types of different genders and sexes and different things, you get to remember,

00:17:02.540 no, no, there's not. There is male and there is female. There are two sexes, and that is what God

00:17:08.420 has created, and this is a good and holy thing. In verse 20, it says, of the birds according to

00:17:15.140 their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, and of every creeping thing of the

00:17:19.320 ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you and to keep them alive.

00:17:30.720 All right, I want to just address one of these myths and one of these arguments that say,

00:17:35.880 oh, this was a regional flood. Okay, this is a regional flood. This is a very common

00:17:39.960 argument against a global flood if you get into the creation narrative around apologetics on this

00:17:46.300 particular point. Now, if the flood were merely local or maybe regional, there would have been

00:17:52.900 no need to bring birds on the ark at all. Let me just be very clear with this. Birds can easily

00:17:59.320 escape a regional disaster by flying to dry land. There are migratory birds that will fly

00:18:07.280 up to 8,000 miles without a break. Most birds can go between 1,000 and 3,000 miles without a break.

00:18:16.520 Ducks can go almost 3,000 miles without a break. Think about that. You're talking about going

00:18:23.920 across almost the entire United States. So again, if we're having a regional flood,

00:18:28.180 it would be very strange to have the birds come onto the ark because again, the birds

00:18:33.020 could easily have flown away to a region that was not flooded and survived that way.

00:18:38.540 The animals that are on the ark are described not by what we would call like modern biological

00:18:44.660 species, but they're using a term, biblical kinds. It's the Hebrew word mean. And it's a type of kind.

00:18:54.840 It refers to a basic created category, which is capable of producing a range of variations within

00:19:02.680 itself over time. This will be the difference between macro and micro evolution. Now, modern

00:19:07.400 taxonomy divides animals into species and subspecies, but those distinctions often represent

00:19:15.960 kind of a diversification within one of these single biblical kinds rather than these massive

00:19:25.380 groups of species that we have today. Now, let me give you an example. Like the entire dog family,

00:19:31.860 The entire dog family, the canine family, you have wolves and you have coyotes, you have jackals and

00:19:37.320 you have dingoes and you have all type, the hundreds of modern dog breeds that have came

00:19:42.320 from the canine kind. They can all interbreed from one another, but they all came from the same

00:19:50.240 kind. Likewise, you have members of the cat family or the feline family. You have lions and tigers

00:19:58.680 and leopards and cougars and even domestic cats, they can, again, likely be traced back to an

00:20:05.380 original feline or at least a small variety of felines that appeared to be preserved onto the

00:20:13.320 ark. The same pattern, you know, is with, you know, the horse and the donkey and the zebra or

00:20:18.340 the cattle family and the bison and the yaks. And you start to see some of this taxonomy of the

00:20:23.620 kinds. And there's lots of science and there's lots of people that have spent significant amount

00:20:27.600 of time studying and breaking this down. And I think it's a great thing to look into if you

00:20:32.840 wanted to understand it more. Now, because of this distinction, the number of animals that Noah

00:20:37.840 needed to bring on the ark is probably not tens of thousands. It's probably a few thousand.

00:20:43.560 There's a range from modern reformed commentators that anywhere between maybe two and seven thousand

00:20:49.700 different kinds. And that would include also reptiles and amphibians. And you're having also

00:20:55.240 insects and you're having birds and you're different land animals, anything that is not

00:20:59.120 of marine nature that could survive through the flood. And after the flood, these original kinds,

00:21:10.920 what they did is they dispersed and they went into different environments and into different

00:21:15.160 climates and they reproduced and they created the many more species that we have today that came

00:21:20.780 from these several kinds. Now, in this view, the ark was kind of preserving the genetic stock

00:21:26.520 of the original purity of creation. There's also a variety of species that have now been

00:21:32.980 extinct. And so there are things that were living at that time that we do not see today.

00:21:38.000 We are seeing different animals go extinct, even as we have in the modern era. And so there was,

00:21:43.920 again, this multiplication and diversity that was happening, what is called microevolution,

00:21:49.180 which is different than macroevolution, that we're seeing different kinds or different species

00:21:53.440 or subspecies come from these different groups of animals. And while we're talking about biblical

00:21:59.920 biology, what is fascinating to me is that we readily acknowledge that how many, say,

00:22:09.580 different dog breeds have developed from a single ancestral pair, right? Maybe there's a few

00:22:14.940 ancestral pairs, but we've seen so many different breeds, so many different expressions, so many

00:22:20.880 different species, maybe not species, different expressions of the canine nature. And those

00:22:32.200 breeds have real differences, right? Real differences. You're going to have some breeds

00:22:36.980 are stronger and some are intelligent or some more aggressive and some more protective.

00:22:40.860 Some are more gentle and some are more loyal.

00:22:43.400 Some are more dangerous.

00:22:44.680 Some are huge.

00:22:45.480 Some are small.

00:22:46.220 You're going to see that throughout a variety of microevolution that we see within these animals.

00:22:55.340 And we see there's a difference between pit bulls.

00:22:57.060 And we see there's a difference between spaniels and chihuahuas.

00:22:59.840 We see this.

00:23:00.400 We know this.

00:23:01.820 And yet many people hesitate to apply the same biological principle to humanity.

00:23:08.320 even though all people are descended from the same original family in other words our egalitarian

00:23:14.340 framework fears acknowledging differences because it demonstrates maybe that there was

00:23:18.820 superiority or inferiority in particular categories right but if we're consistent

00:23:24.100 with what we observe in the created world we should recognize that god has filled the world

00:23:28.200 with creation that has real variety that has a real variety different peoples like different

00:23:34.500 different breeds within a kind display different strengths and different weaknesses and different

00:23:40.800 tendencies, different characteristics based on what? Two things. Based on nature and based on

00:23:46.760 culture. Based on nature and based on culture. This doesn't undermine the biblical truth that

00:23:51.380 all man and all creation are good and righteous and holy. And the fact that God made these things

00:23:57.300 or that humanity was made in the Imago Dei and that we all have dignity as the image of God before

00:24:04.080 the Lord. But it shows instead that God delights in a world that is marked by what I would call

00:24:10.760 unequal variation. There are unequal variation in the world. There are beautiful things like

00:24:17.360 the lion, and there are also the house cat. And one is more glorious than the other.

00:24:22.200 And we want to have an egalitarian world where everybody is the same because we can't handle

00:24:26.260 the fact that there might be some differences with one another. We can't handle the fact between

00:24:31.040 men and women. Women today in the feminist culture want to be like men. We also see 1.00

00:24:37.300 feminism being so powerful that you have men becoming women through transgender

00:24:41.760 ideologies. It is a very strange time to not recognize the differences, the glorious reality 0.71

00:24:49.680 of the differences between us. And I think this is one of those texts that allows us to speak on

00:24:55.780 that. It says in verse 21, it says, also, take with you every sort of food that is eaten and

00:25:01.260 stored up. It shall serve as food for you and for them. Noah did this. He did all that God

00:25:08.660 commanded them or commanded him. Sorry. Now at this time, animals and man share the same diet,

00:25:15.260 at least from what we understand. And that would be my take from the little study that I have done

00:25:19.620 on that particular section of this narrative,

00:25:23.440 they're going to have a similar diet.

00:25:26.820 And so taking the food on to the animals

00:25:29.780 would be taking food on for themselves

00:25:32.960 in a variety of ways.

00:25:35.460 Now, based on estimations that I found,

00:25:38.000 there would be enough food on the ark

00:25:41.940 for about a year,

00:25:43.080 not just for them, but for all the animals.

00:25:45.120 um it would likely contain what what i calculated about 400 tons of dry matter that would take up

00:25:53.500 about 10 of the ark's storage so it's it's just imagine having thousands of animals like we have

00:26:01.080 a few we have dogs and my kids are like oh we got to feed the dogs this morning man that's hard

00:26:07.480 You know, like imagine having all of the, you know, the animals, like hundreds of animals that you have to take care of on a rotation, not just with feeding, but also with watering and caring for a year on the ark.

00:26:26.260 It would be an incredible amount of work.

00:26:29.700 I want to shift focus to this last verse.

00:26:32.060 it says, Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him. He did all that God commanded

00:26:40.860 him. Okay. So obedience is the best evidence of faith. All right. Obedience is the best evidence

00:26:46.740 of faith. Hey kids, you want to know what the best evidence of faith is? It's fruitfulness

00:26:50.480 or obedience. Obedience is the best evidence of faith. And I'm going to give you a passage of

00:26:54.020 scripture that proves what I'm saying. It's James 2.18. It says, but some will say,

00:26:59.420 you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works. And it says here,

00:27:07.480 and I will show you my faith by my works. I will show you my faith by my works.

00:27:14.560 Obedience is a great expression of faithfulness. If you tell me that you have faith, but you don't

00:27:21.640 have works, I'm going to say you're a liar. But if you have works and you tell me you have faith,

00:27:27.820 I'm going to go, yes, I believe you because you have fruit.

00:27:31.780 You have fruit.

00:27:35.720 But this obedience is actually much more than you realize.

00:27:39.900 When you see this in this verse,

00:27:43.580 Noah obeyed everything that God commanded.

00:27:47.420 Okay, in that verse is wrapped up 100 years.

00:27:51.680 100 years of Noah's life.

00:27:54.400 He just says, everything that God commanded, Noah obeyed.

00:27:59.040 And that's basically a summation of a hundred year process of building an ark,

00:28:05.520 of loading the ark, of being faithful in the ark,

00:28:10.240 and everything that God commanded, Noah obeyed him.

00:28:15.920 Think about that for a second.

00:28:17.640 He built an ark without intellectual comprehension of what that would mean.

00:28:20.640 he believed God would be a flood, there would be a flood without ever seeing rain or the possibility

00:28:25.520 of a flood. He loaded animals and food before watching, mocking, and a condemning world.

00:28:34.220 The only way you could do that is have faith. Incredible amounts of faith

00:28:38.700 to do a very counterintuitive, countercultural, counterworldly act in the midst of all types of

00:28:48.740 opposition. And here, Noah is being faithful. I promise you, your life is not harder than Noah's

00:28:57.120 was. It's a very difficult task. We look at it again through kind of kids' gloves, and we look

00:29:03.020 at the stories of Noah's Ark, and you realize how incredibly difficult this would have been.

00:29:07.560 this past week i posted a reminder to men that their forefathers were far more intense

00:29:18.780 and courageous than the men of today

00:29:21.300 i'm not talking just about like your parents i'm talking about your forefathers i believe that they

00:29:31.180 were far more intense than we are today i believe that we are moderate we are domesticated men

00:29:37.520 compared to the men of previous generations.

00:29:41.640 I pointed to the way that our ancestors 0.94

00:29:43.780 dealt with Muslim invaders. 1.00

00:29:46.380 They would kill them, cut their heads off, 1.00

00:29:48.220 and stick them on spikes, 1.00

00:29:49.700 and set them outside the city 1.00

00:29:51.160 to make sure that no more Muslims would come in. 1.00

00:29:55.600 Their willingness, they would cross oceans 1.00

00:29:57.720 that they have never crossed before.

00:29:59.600 Think about the amount of courage it took for Columbus

00:30:02.280 to say, you know what?

00:30:03.500 I know we've never been there,

00:30:05.600 but I'm going to get in a boat

00:30:06.700 and I'm going to keep going.

00:30:09.740 We might die

00:30:11.060 and he's going specifically

00:30:13.900 to bring fulfillment to the Great Commission.

00:30:18.280 If we find land,

00:30:20.860 we are going to bring Christ to it. 1.00

00:30:24.300 And he shows up among pagan witch doctors 0.92

00:30:28.120 and human sacrifice 0.93

00:30:29.380 and he colonizes this pagan land.

00:30:33.420 think about the readiness that our forefathers in america were to fight the british empire

00:30:41.900 the largest and strongest empire on earth a bunch of small colonies that really inaugurated

00:30:48.900 for a variety of things but a three percent increase on attacks on tea

00:30:53.320 our forefathers were far more intense than we are

00:30:59.360 and i did this i said all these things to contrast it with the state of the modern

00:31:07.100 christian men in america who are hesitant to push back against the obvious evil because

00:31:13.240 they might be insulted or mocked or called a bad name on the internet

00:31:17.740 think about this think about what noah went through think about the mockery

00:31:25.620 the in-person mockery

00:31:29.500 and I think the same could be said

00:31:33.780 about when we look at the biblical record

00:31:35.360 many of our Christian forefathers

00:31:38.200 our fathers of the faith

00:31:39.320 the hall of faith

00:31:40.560 the foremothers of our faith

00:31:45.460 were far more faithful

00:31:47.760 than we are today

00:31:48.860 they were far more faithful

00:31:50.760 they were covenant keeping people

00:31:52.640 not to say that they were perfect

00:31:54.520 we know they were not. But we saw here they built arks for disasters they could scarcely

00:32:00.120 comprehend. They stood against kings and rulers condemning their evil. They fought against

00:32:04.880 ungodliness and conquered nations for God. They trusted God to fulfill promises they would never

00:32:09.340 see in their own lifetime. They were like David who were facing different giants, whether they

00:32:14.140 were Goliath or other things. They were like John the Baptist who rebuked wicked rulers.

00:32:19.240 He brought God's law into a wicked ruler's life.

00:32:23.540 Peter told the authorities, I must obey God and not man.

00:32:28.520 Paul, who endured stoning and shipwreck and ultimately death for the sake of Christ.

00:32:34.340 Part of the reason the church in the West is weak today

00:32:38.700 is because we desperately need

00:32:41.960 covenant-keeping, faithful, obedient men like Noah.

00:32:50.700 Noah is a covenant-keeping, faithful, prayerful, godly man.

00:32:57.160 He's not just some character that's in your children's story.

00:33:02.480 He is far more faithful

00:33:04.680 than probably anything that we've seen in our generation.

00:33:08.700 I don't know the hearts of man, but I feel like I see very few Noahs out there.

00:33:19.900 I don't see many Noahs in our time. 1.00

00:33:25.720 And we also need godly women. 1.00

00:33:29.760 I just imagine Noah's wife. 0.96

00:33:32.600 What are we doing?

00:33:34.700 What's happening here? 1.00

00:33:35.940 um just imagine the degree of submission that noah's wife and his son's wives are walking 0.96

00:33:46.600 through what do you need help with um where where are we where are we going why are these animals

00:33:54.320 coming on here how long are we going to be on this boat just the emotional submission

00:34:01.420 it. And again, it's quite incredible to see Noah and to see his family is just, wow. This is a

00:34:09.000 very faithful family before the Lord. And so my encouragement to you today is to pray for faith

00:34:20.660 like Noah, to pray for covenant-keeping, long covenant-keeping faithfulness like Noah.

00:34:30.960 Pray for courage like Noah.

00:34:37.700 Ask God to make you like a man like Noah or a wife like Noah's wife. 0.97

00:34:44.800 even when the whole world calls you a fool you shouldn't be talking about these things 0.97

00:34:54.060 you shouldn't be thinking these thoughts i can't believe you believe that 0.98

00:34:59.080 how stable are you i just think of noah as just this incredibly stable man like the entire world

00:35:11.600 literally millions of people imagine like a rock and a rushing river and everything is pushing past

00:35:18.800 him and noah's just standing there stiff stable resting in the covenant promises of god hebrews 10

00:35:31.360 38 through 39 and i'll close with this says but my righteous ones shall live by faith and if he

00:35:40.240 shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. Think about that. If you shrink back in the time

00:35:51.040 of adversity, it says, but we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those

00:36:03.000 who have faith and preserve their souls, end quote.

00:36:07.260 Let's pray.

00:36:08.860 Father, we thank you, Lord.

00:36:12.260 We know that all preservation,

00:36:14.500 all glory of steadfastness,

00:36:17.400 all patience, all goodness, all righteousness,

00:36:19.980 all comes from you, Lord.

00:36:23.660 We know that we are fallen and we are corrupt

00:36:25.540 and we are in need.

00:36:28.060 Oh, that you have made us strong by faith.

00:36:31.280 And Father, we ask that you would help us

00:36:32.880 to be like Noah

00:36:34.480 or in a world that is

00:36:38.780 not nearly as corrupt

00:36:40.480 as it was

00:36:41.680 in Noah's age

00:36:43.980 Lord help us to

00:36:47.200 apply

00:36:48.000 that to our own lives

00:36:50.200 help us to be faithful

00:36:53.060 help us to be covenant keeping

00:36:55.120 help us to be steady

00:36:56.640 when everything else is chaotic

00:36:58.100 Lord because we are trying to mimic

00:37:00.920 we are trying to represent

00:37:03.320 we are trying to present

00:37:05.340 the very means

00:37:08.340 the very method of covenant

00:37:10.600 that you have used to demonstrate your own faithfulness to us

00:37:13.920 Lord we ask that you would help us

00:37:16.920 in Jesus name

00:37:18.380 Amen

Dale Partridge - March 16, 2026

Genesis 6_18-22 ~ The Foundation Beneath Noah’s Ark

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