Judgment Is Coming...but God - Part B

Though in Genesis 1 through 8 you have creation, fall, flood. From Genesis chapter 8 to Revelation chapter 22, it's about life after the flood.

It's what happens after this. It's the new beginning and the story of that. So God is not saying to the world, forget you, as much as He's saying to Abraham, I remember you. God remembers him.

God remembered Noah because God is a part of the plan for Noah. And what is that plan? Fill the earth. Multiply. Start over. This is a redo.

This is a do-over, a second chance, a new opportunity. Because God is just, He has to judge the world, but He will remember your faithfulness if you follow Him. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip examines the plan God had for Noah and talks about the plan God has for you. But first, we want to share about an exciting resource that answers your questions about God as you explore who He treats. Does God exist?

And if He does, is it possible to know Him? Your answer to those two questions shapes how you see the world. Skip Heitzig once wrestled with those very questions himself. In biography of God, the brand new book by Skip Heitzig, you'll learn to remove the limits you may have placed on your idea of who God is. Everything changes when you acknowledge and believe that God is who He says He is. Biography of God is our way to thank you when you give $35 or more today to help expand this Bible teaching outreach to more people.

Request your copy when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Now, we're in Genesis Chapter 6 as we dive into our study with Skip Heitzig. 70% of television programming, 70% of television shows show sexual conduct. It's almost as if we are obsessed with sexuality. We've just got to stick it in there somewhere. 70%.

2-3% is about sexuality between people who just met and only half the couples portrayed are in any kind of established relationship. Third thing I'd like you to notice, there was an increase in wickedness. Verse 5, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.

Now watch what He does here. He takes us into the very thoughts of humanity at the time and that every intent of the thoughts of His heart was only evil continually. Every single thought was only evil continually.

The Berkeley version renders it. Human wickedness was growing out of bounds on the earth. Only evil continually. Very descriptive phrase. In the world of criminal prosecution, a person can have a track record of committing crimes over and over and over again. When that happens, even if it happens a couple times, the litigator tries to prosecute the criminal as a habitual offender. Because a habitual offender means, according to the law, that they get more jail time. Because crime has become, according to them, a way of life. It's now a way of life.

It's a life choice. God looks at the earth and says, they're habitual offenders. Every single thought of the intents of their heart is evil continually. So an increase in population, increase in sexual depravity, increase in wickedness, and also there was an increase in violence. Verse 11, the earth was also corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. What's the first violent crime committed? What was the first murder? Cain kills Abel. A few chapters later, a guy named Lamech kills someone based upon the fact that Cain killed someone.

That was his role model. But by now, wickedness and violence has become epidemic. It filled the earth, God noticed.

It filled the earth. As if to say, once people turn from God, they will turn on one another. Now I don't have to go very deeply or very far back, but it seems like every other week there's some violent expression in our culture. School shootings, shootings like the Las Vegas incident, concert halls abroad and at home, vans plowing into hordes of people.

Violence is on the rise. Now, God is patient, but He judges. God waits, but there's a time when it's done. So the question is, what does God expect of humanity while we wait for Him to judge? During that time of patience, what are we to do with it? What are we to do with God's patience?

Here's the short answer. Change it up. Repent is the Bible word. It doesn't mean you put sackcloth and ashes necessarily on yourself. It means you change directions. You go a different direction because a refusal to repent is what attracts God's judgment.

It attracts it. Paul in Romans 2 said, do you despise the riches of His goodness, His forbearance and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. So God is patient, but He judges. The second attribute of God's justice is that God judges, but He differentiates.

He makes a difference. In chapter 6, verse 7, the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. But watch this, verse 8, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Whew, glad I read that. There are some negative words like but, words of contrast, and when they're there, it's like ah, right? These little connective words, but. So it's like you're reading God is really mad at everyone, but Noah found grace. The word means favor in the eyes of God. The living Bible says Noah was a pleasure to the Lord. And because it's preceded by but, but Noah was a pleasure to the Lord, that suggests that everyone else was not a pleasure to the Lord. So God makes a difference. God differentiates.

Now there's a phrase I don't want you just to pass over. But Noah found grace in what? The eyes of the Lord. Now that's a biblical phrase you're going to read and I just want you to know quickly what it is.

We call that an anthropomorphism. Which is a fancy way of saying when we write about God, we describe him in human language. God doesn't have a lens or a cornea or a vitreous humor. He didn't have an eyeball. It's a way of saying God sees deeper because he knows more.

He knows all of the facts. He notices people's hearts, right? Didn't Samuel say, for God does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. God sees it all. I was reading about eagles and the article said that the eye of an eagle has eight times more visual cells per cubic centimeter than human beings, which enables an eagle at 600 feet above the earth to spot an object the size of a dime in six inches of grass. Those are good eyes.

And it can see a three inch fish jump in a lake five miles away. Those are good eyes. What must the eyes of the Lord be like? They're like this, Hebrews 4, there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him, of whom we must give an account. Solomon said, the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord and he ponders all of his paths. So God sees it all.

And because he sees it all, he differentiates. Notice this, verse 11. The earth was also corrupt before God. The earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and outside with pitch. Now mark the contrast. God is sending judgment while he is saving Noah.

Both of those saying simultaneously. So God doesn't judge indiscriminately, God judges individually. It's not like I'm just tired of you all, I'm going to just wipe you all out. Unless you're like Noah. He found favor, pleasure, grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now Peter in the New Testament uses this as an example for the example I'm saying, that he makes a difference in judgment. Peter brings this up and he goes, listen, God judged at one time in the past with the flood, but he made a difference. This is what he says, this is 2 Peter 5. He did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people. And then he says in verse 9, a couple of verses after, then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment. So when God judges, he knows the difference because he knows the human heart and he knows the responses. Now, this is something else I can't resist.

Something just to notice, a perhaps. Before God sends judgment upon the earth, he lifts Noah off the earth. Simultaneously to the judgment going on the earth, they, one of eight, Noah and his family are lifted up from the earth.

Could it be that the ark is sort of a shadow, a foreshadow, a type of something else? Is there anyone else in the Bible that has promised to be lifted off the earth before a time of judgment? Yeah, believers at that last judgment, that tribulation period.

First Thessalonians chapter 4. We who are alive and remain will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep, those who have died before us. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the air to meet the Lord in the clouds. Or in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, so shall we ever be with the Lord. The word is harpazo, caught up. It's where we get our word rapture from.

It means literally to be taken up by force, to be pulled, to be snatched away. So the Bible promises that like Noah, God will pluck up a selected group of people from humanity and take them instantly to heaven at some point. So God judges, but he differentiates. Let me take you to a third aspect of God's justice. God differentiates, but he doesn't exempt. So here's God's patient, but he's going to judge. God judges, but he makes the difference. God makes the difference, differentiates, but he doesn't exempt.

What do I mean by that? Well notice in chapter 7 verse 1, the Lord said to Noah, Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Verse 20, the waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, the mountains were covered, and all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps, all the creeps were there, and every man, some of them were creepy, and in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the land, dry land died, so he destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground, both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air, they were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive, and the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days. Noah was not directly affected by this judgment, he was saved, but he was indirectly affected. Do you think Noah was the whole time just like having a party up there on that boat? I mean just think of the toll this judgment took upon Noah. First of all he's in an ark, he's with eight people, but a lot of animals with a lot of shtank.

For thirteen months he can't go out and take a walk, so he is very isolated, very put away, sequestered. And then think of the emotion, everyone you've known, all your neighbors, friends if he had any, were all in a watery grave, and think of the stench of that death on those waters. So he was not directly affected, but he certainly was indirectly, so God differentiates, but he's not exempt from feeling the brunt of that judgment, albeit in a much better way. And here's the point I want to make, God's judgment of unbelievers should never make any of us happy.

It is not a cause of rejoicing, it should affect believers, it should cause us discomfort to fully realize what may happen to a person without Christ should cause us discomfort. 2 Peter 3, God is not willing that any should perish, one of the famous verses in the New Testament. God doesn't want anybody to perish. Because God is not willing that any should perish, we shouldn't be willing that any should perish.

We should never go, they're going to get theirs. It should grieve us. We should be indirectly affected by their judgment. Leon Morris, a theologian said, God's wrath is not an uncontrollable outburst of passion. It is the reverse of a holy love, a flame which sears but purifies, always exercised with a certain tenderness. For even when he is angry with man's sin, God loves man and is concerned for his well-being in the fullest sense.

That moved me when I read that. God isn't judging with a smile on his face but as it were with tears in his eyes. So God is patient but he judges. God judges but he differentiates. God differentiates but he doesn't exempt.

And the fourth characteristic or aspect of this is God doesn't exempt but he does remember. Chapter 8 verse 1, But God remembered Noah. Now my translation, the New King James, that's what I'm reading from, it says, Then God remembered Noah. The Old King James says, And God remembered Noah. But the New Living Translation, the NIV, the New American Standard Bible, the ESV, and a host of others have it right when they translate it, But God.

It's a contrast. He's now pivoting in chapter 8. But God remembered Noah and every living thing and all the animals that were with him in the ark and God made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters subsided. To say that God remembered Noah doesn't imply that God ever forgot Noah. It's not like God up there going, Oh, oh right, Noah's down there. It's simply a way of saying God turned his attention fully onto Noah.

God was concerned and kept his mind on Noah. Now let's step back from this for a moment. Let's see the big picture. If you look at this picture that we have in front of us, an earth in a deluge of water being destroyed, we look at that and go, it's over. Curtains, lights out, curtains close, it's over. It's the end. It seems like the end. But for this family and for the rest of the world, it's a new beginning.

It's just the beginning. This story, though it is about judgment, is not primarily about death. It's primarily about life. But God remembered Noah.

It's not primarily about judgment. It's primarily about establishment of a new order. Because though in Genesis 1 through 8 you have creation, fall, flood, from Genesis chapter 8 to Revelation chapter 22, it's about life after the flood.

It's what happens after this. It's the new beginning and the story of that. So God is not saying to the world, forget you, as much as he's saying to Abraham, I remember you. God remembers him.

God remembered Noah because God has a plan for Noah. And what is that plan? Fill the earth. Multiply. Start over. This is a redo.

This is a do-over, a second chance, a new opportunity. Now I'm going to assume for a moment that you all are familiar with the early part of Genesis. And after the fall, God makes a promise to Satan and says, there's going to be born one day, Genesis chapter 3, somebody who's going to be born into this world, who's going to crush your head, crush your kingdom, a prediction of Jesus Christ. And ever since that moment, Satan tried to figure out every conceivable plan to avoid that crushing of his head, his dominion.

And one of the ways he did it is here. Getting the world so corrupted because Satan, of all creatures, knew the attributes of God and knew that God would be absolutely just. And if that sin reached a certain limit, God would have to judge the world. So he corrupted the world so badly that it was inevitable that God would judge.

He is patient, but he judges. So that when the flood hit the earth, I'm sure all the demons in hell, I'm just supposing this, were like raising their hands going, yes. Yes. It's over. It's done. It's gone. Game over. But God remembered Noah.

There's this little box bouncing up on that water with a lot of animals and a few people in it. That's the future. That's the hope. I just want you to take this to heart. Because God remembers you. God knows the plans he has for you. That's the future. A hope.

They might seem very narrow chances. Like, really? The whole future of the world is in that little box, bobbing up and down. Whee. Uh-huh. When Israel was in captivity by Babylon years later, they sinned. God booted them out of the land. They're in captivity. They're prisoners.

They're slaves. They all thought, we're done. We're never going back. The future in the land of Israel, it's hopeless. Until God sent a prophet named Jeremiah who told them, Thus says the Lord, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, not of evil, to bring you a future and a hope. God said in Philippians through Paul, He who has begun a good work in you will complete it till the day of Christ. So this flood, as bad as it is, is a redo, a reset, a do-over, a second chance, another opportunity. Life. Not just death, life. Not just judgment. Salvation. Judgment is coming again to this world, Peter said. What happened in the past is going to happen again in the future.

Guaranteed. He describes it in the last chapter of 2 Peter. He said the medium is going to be different, but the results will essentially be the same. But the message of the New Testament is, But God sent His Son to take all of the judgment that you deserve on Himself. So that if you just believe in Him, trust in Him, you'll escape the judgment that is coming.

Good deal. Jesus put it this way, I tell you the truth, Whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life and is not judged or is condemned. He crosses over from death into life. Man, you can escape that flood. You have an ark provided by believing in Jesus Christ. That is your ark. You can say no to that ark. You can say no to Jesus Christ. And then, if so, it is appointed to every man once to die and after this, the judgment. You will face the judgment of God or you let Jesus face it for you and you trust in Him.

Great deal. That wraps up Skip Heitzig's message from the series, But God. Right now, here's Skip to tell you how your support helps keep these messages coming your way and connects more people to the good news of Jesus. We've all experienced pain and hardship in this world, but when we have Jesus Christ, we can look beyond those hardships to our future glory and home with Him in heaven. And we want others to experience eternity with Christ.

That's why we're always working to share the gospel with as many people as possible. We would love for you to consider partnering in that work today so that you and many others can live in the light of Jesus' love. Here's how you can give a gift today. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give your gift today. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate or call 800-922-1888.

Again, that's 800-922-1888. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitzig explains that while failure is a part of life, it isn't the end of your story and you can have a brighter future in God's grace. We've been infected with this in nature. Jeremiah said the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it. So our problem is failure. This prayer brings that grand truth to the surface. Here's the second lesson and that is that may be true, failure is our problem, but forgiveness is our provision. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.