Dale Partridge - March 24, 2026


Genesis 7_1-10 ~ A Greater Ark Than Noah’s


Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

157.54233

Word count

5,741

Sentence count

455

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

10

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we begin our study of Genesis 7 and learn about the role of Noah in the creation of the world and the covenant that God has with him in establishing the ark of the covenant with the world.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Amen. Well, today we start Genesis 7, and we will pause our study of Genesis next week for Palm
00:00:12.620 Sunday. We'll be doing a sermon on Palm Sunday, and then also the following Sunday, which will
00:00:16.760 be Resurrection Sunday. And so we'll get back to Genesis chapter 7 after that. Now, just to give
00:00:22.860 you some context to remind you of what's happening, right? We know Genesis, God created the world,
00:00:26.840 and it was good. We know that he created Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve sinned against God.
00:00:33.200 They chose to disobey the provisions that God had provided in the Garden of Eden.
00:00:39.760 And as a result, everything that came, once Adam and Eve were corrupted, they were like a seed.
00:00:45.020 They were like a seed that was corrupted by sin. And everything that came from that seed was just
00:00:50.380 like that which it came from. Meaning that if you had a seed of a tree and it was corrupted
00:00:55.300 and you planted that corrupted seed, then every branch, every leaf, every twig, every piece of
00:01:01.540 bark is just as corrupt as that corrupted seed. And that is exactly what happened. We saw the
00:01:07.100 birth of Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel. We know that from there we have a replacement of Abel
00:01:14.500 in Seth. We know that Cain goes off and creates a city and a civilization apart from God. Abel
00:01:21.300 and his people worship God. They live long periods of time, 500 years, 600 years, 700 years,
00:01:27.700 800 years, but the world is getting more and more corrupt. We see this beautiful
00:01:32.140 faithfulness in these people of God, but they are few. And then we watch this idea of the
00:01:40.440 Nephilim or these demonic figures that come down and have relations with the women or the daughters
00:01:46.880 of men. They pervert the biology of humankind with an intention to pervert this promised 0.85
00:01:53.160 seed that was going to be the Messiah that was going to come down and crush the head
00:01:56.880 of the serpent. And then we see all of these lines and generations ending in this man named
00:02:04.100 Noah. And he says that everything in the world right now is corrupt. Everything is evil
00:02:08.740 continuously. People are broken. The world is nasty. Everything is dark except for this
00:02:14.620 one man named Noah. And Noah is this man of righteousness, this preacher of righteousness
00:02:20.900 that we see. And he is asked to prepare for judgment and to build an ark. And remember,
00:02:30.060 everything is all about preserving this seed. Because when Adam and Eve fell, the judgment was
00:02:36.700 that there would be a war between two seeds, the war of the seed of the serpent and the seed of
00:02:42.280 the woman. And that seed of the woman would eventually turn into Jesus Christ way down the
00:02:48.100 line of the genealogical record. And so this constant war for the seed and to kill off the
00:02:54.820 seed was happening in Satan's world. And then God is preserving the seed. So Noah is essentially
00:03:01.160 a preservation of the seed. The ark is holding that seed and making sure that seed doesn't go
00:03:08.280 away. And that is what we're seeing is that it is a covenant of preservation. So Noah must live in
00:03:15.240 order for God to be faithful in his promise that he would send a Messiah to crush the seed of the 0.92
00:03:21.700 serpent. That's where we are. That's the setup of where we're at this morning. And so Noah is a
00:03:30.800 righteous man. And by righteous, I mean that he's a faithful man. He's not a sinner. He is a sinner.
00:03:36.080 but he's a righteous man because he's been made righteous by faith. And he's living again in this
00:03:43.900 corrupt, biologically perverted, violent world. And he's a preacher of righteousness over and 0.94
00:03:50.760 over for decades and centuries, and no one comes and repents. If you think your ministry's hard
00:03:57.800 because people aren't converting to Christ, think about Noah, where he's a preacher of righteousness
00:04:04.060 and there's really just is no fruit that's coming from it.
00:04:08.500 It doesn't mean that he's not a righteous man.
00:04:10.520 It means that the world is corrupt.
00:04:13.880 Now, God determined to establish his covenant with Noah.
00:04:17.000 And we saw last week that for the very first time
00:04:19.440 in the scriptures in verse 18 of chapter six,
00:04:22.580 that we saw the word covenant.
00:04:25.620 And covenant is this tangible,
00:04:29.560 structured, relational means
00:04:32.000 by which God saves his people and reveals his faithfulness.
00:04:37.100 It's like when you think about marriage, what does marriage do?
00:04:39.780 Well, when you look at it, it reveals faithfulness.
00:04:42.900 If you can keep covenant with your bride, you are a faithful man.
00:04:48.140 Now, covenant really is like the package.
00:04:51.480 It's the vehicle.
00:04:52.420 It's the structure.
00:04:53.400 It's the framework of how salvation comes to be.
00:04:58.000 It's the thing that you can kind of, it's the substance.
00:05:00.500 It's the legal structure of how God saves people.
00:05:05.660 You must come into the covenant.
00:05:07.320 We know that baptism is covenant entrance.
00:05:10.380 We know that the Lord's Supper is covenant maintenance.
00:05:14.760 So if you're not in the covenant, you will not be saved.
00:05:18.240 You don't get blessed outside of the covenant.
00:05:20.440 You must be baptized.
00:05:22.500 You also must take the Lord's Supper in the sense that it is a means of grace to you.
00:05:30.500 But covenant faithfulness is not something that we just receive.
00:05:33.480 It's also something we're called to reflect.
00:05:37.320 Whether in marriage, whether in church, whether our national commitments,
00:05:41.400 we are to be a covenant-keeping people.
00:05:43.600 You don't want to be known as a man who breaks covenant.
00:05:46.860 You do not want to be known as a woman who breaks covenant.
00:05:49.520 You should be a reliable, steady, faithful, sturdy man or woman of God.
00:05:56.880 That is what it means to be covenant faithful.
00:05:58.940 to be faithful in your covenant, to be long-suffering.
00:06:04.800 When we are unfaithful in our covenants,
00:06:06.960 we don't just fail one another.
00:06:09.360 We actually take this thing that God uses
00:06:12.440 to demonstrate his own faithfulness
00:06:14.100 and we actually tarnish it.
00:06:16.380 We actually make it, we stain it with our own sin.
00:06:19.360 We go, yeah, you know that thing?
00:06:20.520 I entered into that marriage, that covenant marriage.
00:06:24.200 You know that thing that God saves his people with?
00:06:26.860 Well, we did that with me and my wife,
00:06:28.360 but we backed out. We stained that beautiful structure that God created to demonstrate
00:06:34.060 faithfulness. We stained it with our unfaithfulness. It's why God hates divorce.
00:06:40.300 It's why God hates these things. Now, again, God forgives also, and we could repent for those
00:06:46.500 realities. And the truth is that Noah was faithful. He was steadfast.
00:06:53.600 he wasn't a fickle man he wasn't erratic he wasn't unstable he was consistent long-term
00:07:03.420 consistency it's extremely difficult by the way there's not many men that i know who can be long
00:07:10.220 term faithful the average church membership these days is 2.6 years
00:07:16.400 because we can't remain faithful.
00:07:19.760 We're a transient people.
00:07:23.080 Psalm.
00:07:27.160 Well, let me say one last thing.
00:07:30.400 No circumstance that we go into
00:07:33.080 is as extreme as Noah's.
00:07:37.600 I mean, literally,
00:07:38.500 he's got millions upon millions of people
00:07:40.960 that are violent and against him.
00:07:43.000 And yet he remains faithful.
00:07:46.400 what has caused your unfaithfulness?
00:07:49.780 What circumstances are greater than Noah's?
00:07:54.780 Now, the reality is that by God's grace,
00:07:56.500 God kept Noah faithful.
00:07:58.280 But at the same time, there's also the reality of
00:08:00.840 he's a virtuous man and he remained and endured.
00:08:05.260 We know Psalm 127, seven through eight says of the godly,
00:08:08.400 it says, his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.
00:08:11.380 His heart is steady, he will not be afraid.
00:08:14.380 Are you firm and are you steady?
00:08:18.000 Are you a firm and steady person?
00:08:20.840 Well, if you are, it should be because the Lord is firm and steady.
00:08:23.820 And through you, we see that character of God in your own life.
00:08:29.380 So today, we're going to get a glimpse of the gospel
00:08:32.420 that God's judgment is just as certain and reliable as his mercy and grace.
00:08:39.020 We often talk about, oh, God's love is so good.
00:08:41.980 but God's judgment is also so good. God's judgment is just as reliable as his mercy and his love.
00:08:51.480 And so in a culture that treats everything lightly and everything flippantly, I think this
00:08:56.540 text is going to remind us that God is not speaking casually when he promises wrath,
00:09:03.200 when he promises judgment. My seminary professor used to say in the Old Testament,
00:09:10.500 the gospel was concealed, and in the New Testament, the gospel is revealed, right? And so what we're
00:09:17.400 going to see here is how the gospel is, we're going to see a glimpse of the gospel in the Old
00:09:22.560 Testament. It's concealed. It's slightly different. It's like the pre-shadow or the shadow of the
00:09:27.880 substance, right? We're looking at the shadows. We know Christ is the substance, but right now
00:09:32.440 we're looking at the shadow, the thing that's pointing to the substance and preparing us for
00:09:36.860 the substance, but we're seeing that same model here in Noah's ark. Ultimately, this passage,
00:09:43.060 again, it's a pre-pattern of redemption. It's judgment and salvation. It's judgment upon
00:09:48.520 sin and wrath or through wrath and it's salvation in the ark. And so we're seeing again a little
00:09:55.660 bit of that pre-pattern of the gospel. So look to verse one and chapter seven with me. It says,
00:10:02.080 then the Lord said to Noah come into the ark you and all of your household for I have seen that
00:10:11.760 you are righteous before me in this generation if you're reading the ESV it might say go into
00:10:23.200 the ark it's because it uses a different group of manuscripts to provide the translation compared to
00:10:31.380 the New King James Version or the King James Version. I actually prefer the New King James,
00:10:37.200 which says, come into the ark, come into the ark. And I prefer the latter because I think it echoes
00:10:44.440 the language of Christ where he says, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
00:10:50.480 give you rest. It's come who are blessed by my father. This kind of language of come to me,
00:10:58.180 The word come matters because it reminds us that God does not merely direct his people
00:11:02.640 to salvation.
00:11:03.580 He's inviting people, come, come to me, come to me where rest, where safety, where refuge
00:11:11.360 can be found.
00:11:13.000 You know, he calls them near.
00:11:14.160 We see Christ is that he draws people near.
00:11:16.880 The ark is not just a place of safety.
00:11:19.780 It's a place where God is gathering his people, which only happens to be eight people at this
00:11:24.060 point, to himself.
00:11:25.840 Come into the ark.
00:11:27.580 And it's really, truly a mirror to the message of come to Christ.
00:11:31.620 Come, come into Christ.
00:11:33.200 Be saved from the wrath of God that is to come.
00:11:39.660 And then God offers these further instructions
00:11:42.640 regarding the types and the quantities of animals that come into the ark.
00:11:47.020 If you look to verse 2 through 3, it says,
00:11:49.220 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, 0.77
00:11:54.300 the male and his mate,
00:11:55.520 and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate and seven pairs of the birds of
00:12:04.140 the heavens also male and female to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.
00:12:12.740 Now, if you remember in chapter six, God gave instructions regarding kinds of animals,
00:12:17.440 but here we have a different distinction. It's clean and unclean. So it's a different structure.
00:12:21.880 It's another distinction that we're being led into here.
00:12:25.560 So clean animals were those animals
00:12:27.740 that were set apart for sacrifice and for fellowship.
00:12:31.400 Meaning you can actually have relationships,
00:12:33.780 pet relationships, working relationships
00:12:36.560 with these other animals, the clean animals.
00:12:40.300 And so the Lord is anticipating that after the flood,
00:12:43.360 there would be a need for sacrifice.
00:12:46.040 And so God is telling Noah to bring more animals
00:12:49.840 that were clean for those to be sacrificed so that they would still be able to remain
00:12:54.980 and preserve the species of those particular animals and not sacrifice them into elimination.
00:13:02.580 Now, if you're wondering how Noah knew which animals were clean and which weren't clean,
00:13:10.520 because the distinction had not been formally addressed in scripture at this point,
00:13:15.060 God has not yet written the book of Leviticus that tells us all about which animals are clean
00:13:21.120 and which animals are not clean. And so this is an indication that God already revealed this to
00:13:27.140 his people directly, but was not recorded in scripture. And so we see evidence of this,
00:13:32.700 even if you go back to Cain and Abel, where they're making sacrifices. And we know that Abel
00:13:37.040 is bringing a sacrifice of the firstborn of his flock. And so it already shows that there is a
00:13:46.260 standard of sacrificial systems that has been established even before Leviticus. What Leviticus
00:13:52.680 does is that it codifies and expands and clarifies an already existing sacrificial system that's been
00:13:59.940 put in place, which is really awesome because what's happening here is that God is already
00:14:05.280 making it clear that for your sin, something must die. For your sin, something must die.
00:14:12.940 You'll either die or something else must die. It's the idea of substitutionary atonement.
00:14:19.660 It's that something must be a substitute. When you sin, the wages of sin is death.
00:14:25.740 That's what the scriptures say. The wages of sin is death. And not just physical death,
00:14:29.620 but spiritual death, the second death. And we know that death is separation. We know that
00:14:34.540 physical death is the separation of the body and the soul and physical death or a spiritual death
00:14:38.820 is the death of the soul, which means that it is the separation of the soul from God. It is hell.
00:14:45.360 It is hell. And something must die, whether it's you because you're a sinner or a substitute must 1.00
00:14:53.920 die on behalf. But you have to remember a substitute has to be sinless because if they're 0.96
00:15:00.180 not sin, if they're sinners, they have to be dying for their own sin. And this is again, all pointing
00:15:05.320 to Jesus that we need a sinless substitute, someone who doesn't have his own sin. So he's not
00:15:11.500 dying and paying the price with his own blood because he's a sinner, but he can actually act
00:15:16.900 as a substitute dying for you and me because he has no sin of his own. That is what we're seeing
00:15:24.220 in the scriptures, all of it is pushing and pointing and preparing for the relationship
00:15:30.260 of the gospel that is to be revealed in the New Testament. And it says in verse four, it says,
00:15:36.560 for in seven days, I will send rain on the earth, 40 days and 40 nights. And every living thing
00:15:43.760 that I have made, I will blot out from the face of the ground. And Noah did all that the Lord had
00:15:51.780 commanded. So first I want you to notice just the calm matter of fact nature of, it's like a severe
00:16:00.440 statement, by the way, we kind of just read over it. In seven days, I will send rain on the earth
00:16:05.720 for 40 days and 40 nights. And every living thing that I have made, I will blot out from the face
00:16:09.120 of the ground. It's just like a matter of fact statement. Basically what's really being said,
00:16:16.480 it's going to be a bloodbath. It's going to be a bloodbath of human corpses, millions of them
00:16:22.440 floating everywhere. But God just declares it as it's just something he's going to do.
00:16:30.440 And this shows us that his judgment, it's not impulsive. It's not reactive. It's not emotional.
00:16:37.060 It's deliberate. It's measured. It's certain. And it's going to be the same on judgment day.
00:16:43.460 We know Revelation says that the blood is going to be up to the horse's reins.
00:16:47.840 We know that there's references, obviously, to 70 AD about this, but
00:16:51.100 I think this demonstrates the absolute power and authority of God. We actually see in Psalm 29,
00:16:58.140 10, it says, the Lord sat as king at the flood. Yes, the Lord sits as king forever.
00:17:06.460 We often think that the flood was chaos, but the flood was controlled power.
00:17:13.920 God is sitting there watching the flood literally just take out millions of people.
00:17:19.500 It's not chaotic.
00:17:20.720 It's deliberate, controlled judgment, wrath that's being delivered.
00:17:26.780 Next, I want you to notice the scope in verse 4 and 5.
00:17:31.760 the scope. It says on earth, every living thing that I have made will die.
00:17:40.860 And again, this is comprehensive language. You have people that say, oh, it was just a regional
00:17:45.200 flood. It was just a flood in just this one local area. No, none of the language supports that. We
00:17:51.980 saw last week that we have birds that could fly 3,000 to 8,000 miles. Why are you taking birds
00:17:58.520 in the ark if you can have a bird that can fly 8,000 miles away if it's a local or regional
00:18:02.920 flood. No, it's ridiculous. But again, we see that here. We see that all of this global judgment 0.95
00:18:10.160 is global and it's covering all creation under heaven, everything that is on the ground.
00:18:16.960 Now, we also see this pattern of 7 and 40, 7 and 40. And if you're into biblical numerology,
00:18:23.140 you can go through and study all the kind of fascinating realities. I think it's actually
00:18:27.400 somewhat helpful because I do believe that God even takes us through our own trials
00:18:32.280 in those similar number structures. So you might not have noticed how many days or months or years
00:18:41.340 you've gone through trials, but if you look back, you might actually see somewhat of a pattern.
00:18:46.460 And we know that the word seven or the number seven is a state of completion or fulfillment
00:18:51.420 or a fullness. And we know 40 is a number of trial. We see this, the 40 years wandering in
00:18:59.040 Israel. We see Jesus is 40 days of temptation. It is some form of judgment or trial or difficulty
00:19:05.160 that comes through these numbers. And so together, when he says that there's seven days will be the
00:19:11.260 fullness and then 40 days will be the judgment, it lines up perfectly consistently with exactly
00:19:16.540 what Jesus says, what God consistently does in the Old Testament. Seven days, it's coming. The
00:19:22.040 fullness will be here. And then 40 days of judgment. And again, it's very consistent.
00:19:27.040 You start to see the character of God throughout the scriptures. Now, there's something else
00:19:34.300 that I think is clear. This is a cleansing. The flood is a cleansing. There's so many dimensions
00:19:41.580 of the flood. You can talk about it from wrath and gospel and the ark is Christ. But I want to
00:19:46.840 talk just for a second about its relationship to baptism. The flood is not only destruction,
00:19:56.800 it's purification. It's purification. God is washing the earth of its corruption and of its
00:20:04.680 sin. Now the imagery points forward to baptism where judgment and cleansing meet. Judgment and
00:20:13.560 cleansing meet. So death to the old and the promise of new life through God's provision
00:20:18.200 of Christ. It's a different ark, but it's still an ark. And our new ark is not a wooden boat.
00:20:24.340 Our new ark is Christ. But baptism, in baptism, God is not merely giving a symbol,
00:20:33.780 but a sign and a seal of his covenant promises.
00:20:37.000 And I want you to pay attention here.
00:20:38.780 In the flood, God judged the world and destroyed sin,
00:20:44.860 but he also saved Noah and his family through the ark.
00:20:47.480 So that's the pattern, right?
00:20:49.180 He judged it through water and he saved it through the ark.
00:20:54.520 And that's very important.
00:20:56.400 In the same way, baptism is not just a symbol.
00:20:59.300 God uses water of baptism to judge and put away kind of the death of our sinful nature.
00:21:05.280 It's an image of washing away the corruption or washing away the sin.
00:21:09.900 We're cleansing, we're being purified, while at the same time, bringing us into Christ
00:21:13.980 to be saved, have salvation through it.
00:21:17.660 So again, you're seeing an image of baptism and salvation.
00:21:21.400 Now, if you're thinking, oh, that's kind of a stretch, Dale.
00:21:23.820 Where do you see the connection between Noah and baptism?
00:21:26.660 Well, let me tell you. 1 Peter 3, verses 20 through 21, it says,
00:21:31.640 in the days of Noah, eight persons were brought safely through water.
00:21:35.280 And then it says in the very next verse, baptism, which corresponds to this,
00:21:40.600 now saves you. Not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as of a good conscience before God
00:21:46.520 through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So there we go. Boom. The connection of Noah
00:21:50.460 and the washing of water and baptism, connection to our own baptism.
00:21:57.760 Symbolically, certainly. Connected, certainly.
00:22:01.320 Typologically, yes.
00:22:04.240 And so in other words, just as the floodwaters were both judgment and salvation,
00:22:08.680 now baptism is in some sense judgment upon sin or washing away sin
00:22:14.380 and also brings about salvation in Christ.
00:22:19.600 And so it's not merely about an outward washing, but God does an inward washing.
00:22:25.720 We know that if you've had the baptism of the outward, but you have not been baptized of the heart, washed of the soul.
00:22:33.020 It's the same way. It's the same language.
00:22:34.820 People in the Old Testament, they were circumcised physically, but they were not circumcised at the heart.
00:22:41.280 And so the key is we want the thing which is signified in baptism, we want it to actually be real.
00:22:47.960 We want the baptism of the Holy Spirit
00:22:50.980 in the sense that we're truly regenerate.
00:22:53.300 We're truly purified.
00:22:55.060 It's not just a symbol.
00:22:56.980 It's real.
00:22:58.320 Now, we trust that the symbol by faith
00:23:01.080 will result in the real.
00:23:03.040 We do that by faith.
00:23:04.220 We trust that that baptism will serve
00:23:06.660 as a beautiful promise
00:23:09.500 and sign of the fruit to come.
00:23:14.040 But your baptism in a sense
00:23:15.240 is really like a miniature flood.
00:23:17.120 It's this miniature flood where God puts your sin to death and saves you by uniting you to Christ,
00:23:23.600 which is the true ark through faith. And so there's some beautiful theological symbolism
00:23:30.180 that's happening here. And it's why Luther would often tell people who were struggling with
00:23:35.120 assurance to go, look back to your baptism, Saint. Look back to the moment where the ministers of God
00:23:42.280 put God's mark upon you, where God said through the ministers, this one is mine.
00:23:49.440 So if you've been baptized, it's not you making your individual decision.
00:23:55.800 The idea that it's all about me, I have made a decision for Jesus.
00:24:01.620 No, there's some of that.
00:24:03.920 The reality is, is that baptism is God through his administers saying, this one's mine.
00:24:14.120 This one, I'm going to put my mark of the covenant upon this person.
00:24:18.100 And the waters are sacramentally Christ coming upon your body and bringing you into salvation.
00:24:27.140 Verse six, stay with me here.
00:24:29.840 verse six. It says, Noah was 600 years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth.
00:24:37.940 And Noah and his son and his wife and his sons with him went into the ark to escape the waters
00:24:44.340 of the flood. All right. So Genesis chapter five, verses 32, Noah was 500 years old. It says,
00:24:51.800 this is actually the text. It says, Noah was 500 years old and Noah became the father of Shem,
00:24:56.040 Ham, and Japheth. Okay. So that was the age of Noah in Genesis chapter five. He was 500 years
00:25:01.060 old, essentially when he had those three boys. Then in Genesis six, chapter three, it says,
00:25:07.860 my spirit shall not strive with man forever because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days
00:25:13.620 shall be 120 years. And we know that was talking about God was saying in 120 years, I'm done with
00:25:22.180 these violent people. Okay. The world was filled with violence. And God says to Noah, hey, in 120
00:25:29.200 years, I'm not going to be patient forever. All of this violence and this corruption and this
00:25:34.280 sinful and this fallen world, 120 years, I'm coming to flood this place. I'm coming to flood
00:25:40.440 this place. And so we know that this is probably about 20 years before Noah has Ham, Shem, and
00:25:47.600 Japheth. And so we also know that you're not really quite that helpful to help build an ark
00:25:54.140 until you're a man. So for probably about 40 years, Noah is building this without his sons.
00:26:00.420 And we know as a result, he's probably hiring pagans to help him build this ark, which my
00:26:07.540 assumption is that he could do. And the reason is because this would be a very expensive project,
00:26:13.600 which also makes me assume that Noah was a very wealthy man. I just believe that he was wealthy.
00:26:20.220 I believe that he hired people to help him for the first 40 years. And I do believe after that,
00:26:24.760 his sons certainly were engaged in the work that very likely took 120 years to build this boat.
00:26:31.240 Now we go again, when we think about, we saw back in Cain's world, Tubal Cain,
00:26:35.980 and we saw that they were building bronze and works of iron. And we know that there was,
00:26:41.200 as a result, there were straps and there was nails and there was tools. And so again, this is not some
00:26:45.980 sort of, you know, caveman-like reality. No, this is not an inferior time. The reality is we actually
00:26:53.680 might even have people that have higher intelligence than we do now. But they had tools and they had
00:26:59.640 the ability, they had cities, they had some degree of organization. And so again, the development of
00:27:05.740 the ark took about 100 to 120 years. And verse 8 through 10, it says, of clean animals and of
00:27:13.100 animals that are not clean and of birds and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two,
00:27:17.600 male and female, went into the ark with Noah as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days,
00:27:23.460 the waters of the flood came upon the earth. All right. The greater theme of this passage is
00:27:35.740 the faithfulness of God in both judgment and mercy and the obedience of Noah for long periods
00:27:44.080 of time. Again, when it says, Noah obeyed everything he commanded. Well, how long was
00:27:48.480 that? Well, that was about 120 years. So we're not talking about short-term faithfulness. We're
00:27:52.680 talking about long-term obedience. We have guys in this church. We have women in this church.
00:28:00.260 You have a sin and you stumble. Okay. You have another sin, you stumble. 1.00
00:28:04.980 You come and you repent and you stumble.
00:28:07.140 Okay, we're looking for long-term faithfulness.
00:28:11.040 Can you be faithful for decades?
00:28:15.480 Decades.
00:28:15.960 Well, you can look back at a sin and you go,
00:28:17.560 I haven't struggled with that sin for decades.
00:28:20.800 I don't struggle with that sin anymore.
00:28:23.540 It's been overcome.
00:28:24.860 It's been conquered.
00:28:27.220 Let me just offer you a few points of application, okay?
00:28:29.320 First, there were only seven days
00:28:33.580 between the warning and the waters. Think about this. You're Noah and you've been building this
00:28:40.900 thing for like a hundred to 120 years. You've become very like, you're not like the anticipatory
00:28:47.380 side is like totally dead at this point. You don't know when this is going to happen. You don't even
00:28:52.860 know if this is going to happen. You're probably thinking, was I dreaming all of this? Am I
00:28:57.880 building this boat for no reason. You're not at this point thinking, oh, it could be any day.
00:29:05.680 It could be any day. No, you're kind of relaxed as it says that in the days of Noah, people were
00:29:11.800 eating and drinking and being merry and then boom. And he doesn't give you like, hey, I'm going to
00:29:17.100 give you like 30 days notice. He gives you seven days, seven days after 120 years, seven days
00:29:26.260 between the warning and the waters. So God's patience is real, but it's not endless. And when
00:29:32.240 God calls you to obedience, you got to move. You got to move quickly. It's like, okay, now it's
00:29:37.220 time to get in. Which again, it just sets us up with this mentality that you go, be ready. Just
00:29:44.640 be ready all the time to be obedient. Be ready to be obedient all the time. Second, trust God's
00:29:52.660 means of salvation, not your understanding. Noah did not understand how the ark would save,
00:29:59.060 and you might not understand how faith saves. You might be going like, hey, I'm not a theologian.
00:30:06.760 It's really difficult for me to understand these deep doctrinal systematic theology
00:30:09.720 issues of the faith. You don't need to understand them. Did you know that the vast majority of
00:30:16.380 history didn't even have their own Bible? You memorized things like the Apostles' Creed or
00:30:21.140 the Nicene Creed. You don't need to know. It's great. It's a glory. It's a wonderful thing
00:30:25.240 to understand the scriptures. It's a great thing. But what I'm saying is you don't need
00:30:28.900 to understand all of these things. What you need to have is faith. You know, like my son,
00:30:35.040 Deacon, was on the counter at my house. And he just jumps from the counter sometimes into my
00:30:45.820 arms. He has no concern that I might drop him. He has no concern that he might just fall. He
00:30:52.140 doesn't understand the idea of maybe being distracted and that he would jump and just
00:30:56.480 land on the floor. He has complete faith that when he jumps, I catch. And that's not really
00:31:05.080 an intellectual understanding. It really is just a blind faith that if I'm jumping off this thing,
00:31:10.860 my dad's going to catch me. And that is the type of faith you need. You don't need to have
00:31:17.840 this deep intellectual reality. Noah didn't understand what was happening. Wait a second.
00:31:22.820 We've never seen rain before, but you're saying that I'm going to build this boat
00:31:26.160 in this place that's never rained, that waters are going to come out at such a degree that it's
00:31:30.400 going to lift this thing that is the size of two football fields and that water's going to fall
00:31:37.560 from the sky. There's no possible way you could comprehend that had you not seen rain or a flood
00:31:44.820 ever before. It's not understanding that saves you. In fact, it's the lack of understanding.
00:31:53.360 I'll read the gospel. I studied this gospel. I went to seminary. And all the time I get to places
00:31:59.080 where I go, I don't get that. I don't understand. And I still trust the Lord. I still trust that
00:32:07.560 Christ is capable that I could jump somehow
00:32:11.520 into his arms and I'll be saved.
00:32:15.820 I don't know.
00:32:16.800 I don't know how it works.
00:32:18.280 But somehow, I believe that it works.
00:32:23.220 Third, be steady in your obedience over time.
00:32:29.620 Noah did not again obey for a moment.
00:32:31.460 He obeyed for decades.
00:32:33.540 And faithfulness is not proven in bursts of zeal.
00:32:37.560 I've seen this as a pastor.
00:32:42.300 Oh, you're faithful for a few months.
00:32:44.160 That's great.
00:32:46.200 I need you to be faithful for decades.
00:32:51.080 Decades.
00:32:52.560 I don't want to see you stumbling back into pornography. 1.00
00:32:55.620 I don't want to see you stumbling back into lust. 0.85
00:32:57.800 I don't want to see you stumbling back into gossip.
00:33:00.080 I don't want to see you stumbling back into lies.
00:33:02.480 I don't want to see that.
00:33:03.500 We want long-term faithfulness. 1.00
00:33:07.560 Kill that sin. 1.00
00:33:10.260 Kill it. 1.00
00:33:15.480 Quiet endurance 1.00
00:33:17.760 is a wonderful thing.
00:33:22.720 You know the guy,
00:33:23.500 like the best guy at the church
00:33:25.460 is the guy who kind of just shows up,
00:33:31.360 disciples his family,
00:33:33.040 and he does that for years.
00:33:36.660 He doesn't actually demand so much of the needs of the church.
00:33:39.920 I've had guys who are years, they don't need counseling.
00:33:44.480 And sometimes you go, is everything good?
00:33:46.580 Yeah, they're just faithful men.
00:33:48.140 They're just faithful, longstanding.
00:33:49.800 Again, we know that the church ministry of counseling is a good thing.
00:33:53.040 It's a good thing.
00:33:54.060 And when men and women fall, you should come to the church.
00:33:56.600 You should come to your pastors.
00:33:57.560 You should confess your sin and you should receive counseling.
00:34:00.580 I've done it.
00:34:02.620 I know Pastor Corbin's done it.
00:34:03.740 but the goal, the mission, the hope is long-term faithfulness, long-term faithfulness.
00:34:16.400 And finally, I want you to take comfort in this. The same God who warned Noah
00:34:21.240 is the God who preserved Noah. God's commands are not a burden to us, right? I think we often
00:34:30.540 think that obedience, like that God's the beneficiary of obedience? No, you fool. You are. 1.00
00:34:37.520 Think about this for a second. God doesn't benefit when you obey. No, you benefit when you obey.
00:34:46.280 No, it is, it is the, what do you, which life do you think is harder? A life of disobedience or a
00:34:52.240 life of obedience? No, people go, oh, obedience is hard. I'm like, oh, obedience is hard. Try
00:34:57.680 disobedience. Try disobedience. Try, you think order and following God's design is hard? Try
00:35:03.440 disorder. Try chaos. I promise you it's way harder. You want to go do your own thing your own way?
00:35:10.680 Like you want to go try and like do the LGBT thing and you want to go try to do the tranny 1.00
00:35:15.260 thing? Try it. I guarantee it ends in chaos and suffering and sorrow and difficulty. You want to 1.00
00:35:22.340 go try and do things with like I'm right and I'm moral and I'm going to do what I think is right?
00:35:26.920 Oh, I guarantee your life is going to be terrible in 10 years.
00:35:31.240 Obedience is hard.
00:35:32.040 I get it.
00:35:32.880 But disobedience is way harder.
00:35:35.440 Way harder.
00:35:37.460 Learn to obey.
00:35:39.220 Learn to be like Noah, where it could say, and Noah obeyed all that God commanded.
00:35:46.660 Put your name in there.
00:35:49.300 And you obeyed all that God commanded.
00:35:53.020 That is a wonderful life to live.
00:35:56.400 And in fact, I would say it is the easiest life to live.
00:36:00.280 Amen?
00:36:01.160 Amen.
00:36:01.660 Let's pray.
00:36:02.720 Father, we thank you, Lord, for your word, for your vision, for your understanding, for
00:36:07.960 all the wisdom that comes to the scriptures that we might be blessed.
00:36:12.900 Lord, we ask, though, that you would strengthen not just our intellectual understanding, but
00:36:16.600 our faith.
00:36:17.860 Lord, that we might be obedient, that we might be holy and righteous.
00:36:22.480 Father, we ask all of these things in the name of Christ.
00:36:25.420 Amen.