God Means What He Says - Genesis Part 13

You know, I'm sure many of us here in Washington will remember that when President George H.W. Bush was our president, he popularized a three-word saying here in this town.

I'm sure many of you remember what it was. He would say, read my lips. And what he meant by this is, you can take what I say to the bank.

I don't bluff. I mean what I say. Well, this is what we're going to talk about today because we're in a series on the book of Genesis and we're looking at Noah's flood. And I can't think of anything in the Bible that proves that God means what he says any more than the flood. So we're going to go back umpteen thousands of years and we're going to see what happened back then. And then we're going to bring all of that forward and we're going to talk about, okay, so what difference does this make for you and me?

So a little bit of review before we dig in. Remember that when Noah was 500 years old, God told him he was going to wipe out all life on earth with a flood. But God also told him to build an ark to save his family and to save every species of animal here on the earth.

So for the next 100 years, Noah worked on the ark. And while he did, 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 5 says, he was also a preacher of righteousness, meaning that while he was building the ark, he preached to everyone around him, to his friends, to his neighbors, to his relatives, to the people who came by making fun of him and laughing at him. He preached to all of them about the fact that the flood was coming. He preached to them that they needed to repent and turn to God. And he preached to them that they should not dismiss what he was saying because God meant what he said.

Well, for 100 years, everybody ignored him. And now we pick up the story, Genesis chapter 7 verse 1. Then the Lord said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and your whole family, and take with you seven of every clean animal, a mate, a male and its mate, and two of every unclean animal, a male and its mate, to keep their various species alive throughout the earth. You say, well, hold them right there. What is this seven stuff?

I mean, you go to any toy store in America. There are two giraffes, two pigs, two lions, two dogs. What's this seven stuff?

Well, let's talk about that for a second. In the Old Testament, the Bible distinguished between clean animals and unclean animals. Clean animals were animals that the Jewish people were allowed to eat and that they were allowed to sacrifice and worship to God. Examples of this are sheep and cows and chickens. And then there were the unclean animals, which obviously were animals that they were not allowed to eat and they were not allowed to sacrifice.

Some examples are snakes, crocodiles, pigs. And so the reason that Noah took seven of the clean animals is because Genesis 8 20 says, Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and taking some of the clean animals and birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings to the Lord. In other words, my friends, if he'd only taken two of all the clean animals and then he sacrificed them on this altar after the flood, they would have gone extinct. That's why he took seven.

So there were extras. You say, well, that makes sense. Yeah, well, the Bible always makes sense, friends.

It does. All right. Now, verse four. Seven days from now, God said, I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature that I have made. And Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his son's wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood.

And in the 600th year of Noah's life, all the springs of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened and rain fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. Please notice here that the Bible tells us where all the water came from for the flood. Well, there were two sources. Source number one, the Bible says, was the floodgates of the heavens rained for 40 days and 40 nights.

But there was a second source. The Bible also said the springs of the great deep burst open. This was subterranean water, water that came from under the earth's crust. In actuality, this was the primary source of water for the flood, not the rain.

You can't rain enough water in 40 days to make as much water as it needed to do the flood. Verse 13, and on that very day, Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together with their wives, entered the ark. And then the Lord shut them in. Some translations will say, and then the Lord locked the door, or shut the door.

It's a very interesting statement, isn't it? That Noah did not lock the door, shut the door. God shut the door in such a way that Noah nor anyone else could open it from the inside or from the outside. Now, why did God do that? Well, friends, the Bible doesn't say for sure. But my suspicion is it's because he knew that as the flood waters were going to rise, people were going to come outside the ark and try to get in.

They were going to beat on the side and scratch on the side. And Noah, being this godly, compassionate man that he was, if he could have opened the door, he would have opened the door for him. God didn't want the door open.

They had a hundred years. If they wanted to get right with God, they had a hundred years to do it. Once the flood came, it was too late, and God wanted to make sure it remained too late. Now, there's a very important lesson here that the Bible teaches us about who our God is. Friends, this teaches us that our God is a God of patience, and our God is a God of mercy. For a hundred years, he was patient and merciful with the people of Noah's day. But this also teaches us that when God's mercy runs out, and folks, God's mercy always runs out sooner or later when people spurn him. This teaches us that our God is a God who means what he says about judgment.

Well, what happened next? Verse 17, So for forty days and nights the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased, they lifted the ark high above the earth. And the waters rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered to a depth of more than twenty feet. Every living thing that moved on the earth perished. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.

Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark, and the waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. Now if you remember last week, we mentioned that there are some theologians and there are some scientists who believe that the flood was not the way the Bible describes it. They don't believe that the flood was a universal flood. They believe it was only a local flood in Mesopotamia. You know the Tigris, the Euphrates.

You guys went to elementary school. You got that, right? Yes, okay, that it was just there.

So let's answer that question. Let's stop for a moment and answer the question, was the flood really a universal, worldwide event the way the Bible describes? Well, I believe it was, and I have six reasons why, and I'll tell you what they are right now. Reason number one why I believe the flood was universal is because of the Bible's vocabulary regarding the flood. The Hebrew word that's used for Noah's flood means a horrendous disaster, a cataclysm. There is another Hebrew word for a normal flood. It is never used of Noah's flood. And then when we go in the New Testament, because the New Testament mentions the flood too, what we find is the very same thing is true. There is a normal Greek word for a flood. It's never used of Noah's flood.

The word that is used in the New Testament, the Greek word for Noah's flood, is the very same Greek word that we get our English word cataclysm from. My point is that the vocabulary of the Bible certainly doesn't understand what happened here just to be some local flood. Number two, reason number two why I believe the flood was universal is because, as we said last week, if this was just some local flood, Noah didn't need to build an ark. He didn't need to build a big ark. He didn't need to build a little ark.

He didn't need to build any ark. All God had to do was appear to him and say, hey, Noah, get out of Dodge. There's a flood coming. Go west, young man. Go to America.

Just get out of town so you're not here. But this isn't what God told Noah, was it? He said, you need to build this huge ark and get two of every animal.

Why? Because, friends, what God was planning to send was not some local flash flood. What he was planning to send was a worldwide global cataclysmic event. Number three, reason number three why I believe the flood was universal, the way the Bible says, is because of the depth of the flood. Genesis 7 19 says all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered to a depth of over 20 feet. Mount Ararat, where Genesis 8 says the flood came to rest, is over 17,000 feet above sea level.

It was covered by more than 20 feet. Do you realize that means the water there was three miles deep? Hey, that doesn't sound like a local flood to me, does it to you? The fourth reason that I believe the flood was universal was because of the duration of the flood. Genesis 7 verse 24 says the flood waters lasted on the earth for 150 days.

What local flood have you ever seen that lasted for 150 days? Reason number five I believe the flood was universal is because of the universal terminology the Bible uses about the flood. Genesis 7 19, all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered, even Mount Everest. Verse 21, every living thing that moved on the earth perished. Verse 23, only Noah was left.

That doesn't sound like a limited event to me. And finally, the reason I believe it was a universal flood the way the Bible says is because of the confirmation of the New Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus said, Matthew 24 39, the flood came and took them all away. And 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 6 says by water, the world, the world, not Mesopotamia, the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.

So let's summarize. Because of all these reasons, the Bible clearly tells us that Noah's flood was not a local flood that just happened in Mesopotamia. Rather, it was a cataclysmic earth shattering event that inundated the entire globe.

In fact, the flood probably qualifies as the single most awesome physical event to ever happen to planet Earth up to this moment in time. So may I ask you, when God said he was going to send the flood, did he mean it? Did he mean it?

He sure did. Now, that's as far as we're going to go in our passage because it's time for us to ask our most important question. And you know what this is. So are you ready?

All right. Now, I need to I need to tell you something. Today's the first year anniversary, the one year anniversary of our Bethesda campus. They're not watching right now, but they were in the earlier two services. And so I ask everybody to give them a special anniversary present by giving them an incredibly loud so what. You say, Lon, you are shameless. I am. But the result was they did really, really good today. So you guys got come on now. You guys got to rise up. This is it.

You got to reach deep. Okay. This is one of these where your throat hurts after you're done. Okay. Are you ready? All right. Now, come on. You've never, ever lost. I will tell you that. Steve, am I right?

They've never lost ever. So don't make today the first. Here we go.

One, two, three. You guys are unbelievable. Give yourselves a hand.

You guys are unbelievable. Hey, Steve, we got to get one of those meters to do this thing. You got a meter? You did. How'd they do? 93? Wow.

I didn't even make those grades in school. That's awesome. Okay. All right.

So where are we? We were saying the flood. Lon, I know there was a flood. Everybody knows there was a flood.

I'm willing to admit the flood was universal. What difference does any of this make to my life? Clean animals, unclean animals?

I wouldn't eat a snake anyway. What difference does this make to me? Well, let's talk about it. You know, when I was 12 years old or thereabouts, I went up to a little league field that was near our house with a friend, and we got involved in a pickup game of baseball. And during the game, I got into this verbal altercation with one of these kids on the other team.

I didn't know who this kid was. And so back in those days, I had a bad habit of settling things with my fists. And so I was arguing with this guy, and my friend who knew me knew what was coming. And he said to me, Lonnie, that's what they called me. That's cute, isn't it? He said, Lonnie, I know this kid.

Don't do it. Well, this kid looked at me because he could see I was getting ready to hit him. And he said to me, he had this look of cold steel in his eyes. And he said to me, if you start this, I will finish it.

I promise you. You know, folks, over the years, I've discovered that when somebody looks at you with a look like that and says, I will finish it, I've learned to be leery of those people. But back then, I was too stupid to know that. And so I hauled off and hit him in the mouth with everything I had. And I got to tell you, it was a really good punch. I mean, I really hit him. The problem is, that was the only punch I landed in the whole fight. This kid destroyed me. He decimated me. He wiped home plate with me.

I mean, I have never been thumped so bad in my whole life, this kid. And I learned another lesson. I learned that when you're dealing with people, it's really important to figure out early on who means business when they say something and who doesn't.

As our good friend Kenny Rogers says, you got to know when to hold them and you got to know when to fold them, friends. Well, let me just say to you that God is one of those people who means business when they say something. Numbers 23 19. God is not a man, the Bible says, that he should lie, nor a human being that he should change his mind. Does God speak and then not act?

That's a rhetorical question. The answer is, of course, he acts if he says it. Does he promise and then not fulfill? Jeremiah 4 28. When I have spoken, God says, I will not relent. And when I have decided, I will not turn back. This is why Titus chapter one, verse two says, Our God cannot lie.

Now, listen to me. There is a difference between saying God does not lie and God cannot lie. To say God does not lie is wonderful, but it means there's always the possibility he could. But the Bible says God cannot lie because of his nature, because of his character, because of his personhood, because of his holiness.

He is incapable of lying. When God says something, he means what he says. Now, knowing this has some massive implications for us as human beings. And we could maybe talk for the rest of the week about these implications.

But I just want to talk about two today. The first one is, I want to say that this has some massive implications for people who have never received and trusted and believed in Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. Listen to what God says. John 3 36. Whoever believes in the Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, has eternal life. But whoever rejects the Son will not see eternal life. But God's wrath hovers on that person. Mark 16 15.

Go and tell the good news to every person. Whoever believes will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be damned. 1 John 5 11.

And this is the record that God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has eternal life. And he who does not have the Son of God does not have eternal life. How simple can you say it but that?

But just in case we missed it. 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 8. The Bible says God will punish those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

They will be punished with everlasting destruction and excluded from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power. Peter said, 2 Peter 3 9. God is not slack when it comes to keeping his promise as some people think. You say, What does that mean? It means that, hey, lots of people hear these warnings from God. But they look around and they're still alive and they're still breathing and everything seems to be fine and their health is still good. And so they think, Well, God, God's really not serious about this.

He's slack, as Peter said about his promise. Hey, folks, does that sound familiar? Well, it should. This is exactly the mistake that the people of Noah's day made. Noah said, The flood's coming. It's going to wipe everybody away.

You need to repent so you can get on the ark. And people looked around and said, Flood? I don't see any flood. I don't even see a cloud in the sky.

Everything looks great. What flood are you talking about? Ah, big mistake. And God doesn't want people to make that mistake today. Listen, 2 Peter goes on to say, God is not slack in regard to his promise to judge people who reject Christ and spurn Christ.

Watch. Rather, God is being patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but wanting everyone to come to salvation. He was patient for 100 years with the people of Noah's day. And friend, if you're alive today and have never believed in Christ, he's being patient with you. But the day of the Lord will come.

Sooner or later, friends, for every one of us, the clock's going to hit triple zeros. And when it does, God is going to do what he promised. He did what he promised with the people of Noah's day. And he's going to do what he promised to every person who spurns Christ. Now, we can fix that problem if you're here today and you're in that condition. And we're going to give you a chance to fix it in just a moment.

We'll be back. But first, remember I said there are two massive implications that come out of knowing that God means what he says about judging unbelievers. And that is, the second one is that this means that all of our friends and all of our relatives and all of our co-workers and all of our neighbors and all of our acquaintances, we who do know Christ, it means that the UPS man and the FedEx woman and the clerk at the grocery store and the salesperson at the mall and our doctor and our dentist and our lawyer and our accountant, every one of them who doesn't know Christ is facing a catastrophe in eternity that makes the flood look like a walk in the park.

And it also means that Jesus meant what he said when he said to us as followers of Christ, Mark 16, 15, go and tell the good news to say the next two words with me, every person. Uh-huh, every person. You know, recently I was at Dulles Airport and this gentleman who works for the airport came up to me. You know, you could tell.

I mean, you know, the way he was dressed. And he said to me, he said, you don't remember me, do you? What kind of question is that? I'm like, sir, I really apologize. I'm so sorry. No, I don't remember you, sir. I said, I'm sorry. He said, about a year ago, he said, you gave me a CD of your life story, how you came to believe in Jesus. I said, well, did you listen to it? Because if you didn't, I got another one with me right here.

I can give you another one. He goes, no, no, no. I listen. He said, in fact, I've listened to it over and over and over again. He said, and three months ago, I gave my life to Jesus. I said, wait a minute.

You gave your life to Jesus because you listened to my CD? And he said, well, yeah, why else do you give them out? Good point. Right? Yeah. You say, Lon, you're my hero. You give out your CDs everywhere you go. You get it right.

You're my hero. No, sorry, friends. That's not true.

That's not true. I need to be honest with you and tell you that I don't always get this right. Sometimes I hesitate.

Sometimes I shrink back. I was on a plane this week, actually going, in this case, to San Francisco for a Jews for Jesus board meeting. And I sat the whole time. Right next to me was another Jewish man. You say, how do you know he was Jewish?

He was Jewish. Trust me. And so he never said a word to me the whole flight. I never said a word to him the whole flight. I was working on this message, the whole flight, the one I'm giving to you today. We get we land.

We're coming in for a landing. And I was closing everything up and the Lord said, you should give this guy a CD. And I said, Lord, I don't think so. He hadn't talked to me the whole time.

He's Jewish, Lord. He's not going to be interested in this. We have no basis for me to offer it to him.

We haven't had a word of conversation. And besides all that, the only time I'm going to be able to give it to him is when we stand up to get off the plane and we're all bunched together. And then a whole bunch of other people are going to hear me offer it to him. And it's going to be a moment. You know what I'm saying, Lord?

It's just going to be a moment standing right there. So I don't think so. And the Lord and I argued about this for probably 10 minutes. Finally, he said, you know the message you're working on, right? I said, yeah, you can tell everybody they need to share their faith, right? Yeah. And the Lord said to me, you are such a hypocrite.

I said, that's true, Lord, but I still do not want to give this guy a CD. So we get there. We land.

We stand up. I'm looking right in the guy's eyeballs. And I start thinking, you know what? This guy's going to hell if he doesn't know Jesus. God's serious about that.

It's not a game. This guy's facing a disaster in eternity. God means what he says. And if he ends up missing heaven, he's going to remember and so am I that there was a moment that I stood six inches from him and didn't even give him a fighting chance. So I reached down in my bag and I got a CD out and I said, sir, I said, I'm a Jewish person who believes in Jesus. And I said, I have a CD of my life story about how I came to believe in Jesus and I'd like to share it with you.

And I'd be honored if you would accept it. And then I braced myself and he reached out and took it and said, wow. He said, thank you very much. He said, I would love to hear this.

I listen to it today in my car. And then the lady standing in front of him said, could I have one, too? I said, sure. And then I turned to the two guys right behind us and I said, would you guys like one, too? And the first guy said, not on your life.

True. But the other guy took one. So I was three for four.

Three for four. But wait a minute, folks, please. I don't deserve those applause.

No. I argued with God for 10 minutes. I didn't want to give that CD out. I don't deserve those applause.

Don't do that. But listen, friends, I had cotton balls in my mouth and my armpits were wet and my blood pressure was up. Just like yours is when you're thinking about whether you should share Christ. I'm a human being like you are. You know, I knew everybody within hearing distance was going to be watching to see me. And I knew what was going to happen. You do, too.

But I could not shake the fact that this guy standing six inches from me, that he needed a fighting chance. And maybe I'd be the only person he ever met who could give him one. Folks, I want to challenge you, when you go out of your house every day to remember, God means what he says about your friends, your relatives, your co-workers, your neighbors, people you meet, run into, the person at Starbucks, God means what he says. When they leave this world spurning Christ, they're going to hell.

They're going to be damned and separated from Jesus for all of eternity. And we may not see it now because God's a God of mercy, but it is going to happen. We need to be missionaries every day. We need to take what Jesus said seriously. He said, well, don't you believe the Holy Spirit needs to open the opportunity? Of course I do.

Of course I do. But I don't believe in using that as an excuse to keep our mouth shut. If the last time the Holy Spirit opened the opportunity for you was eight and a half years ago, something's wrong. Let me just say in closing, friends, that the way the early church tore Jerusalem up with the gospel, you know how they did it? It wasn't because they had a bunch of new programs that nobody had ever seen before. It was because they had a bunch of people who were excited and exhilarated about going out and being a missionary every day in Jerusalem.

That's how they did it. And, folks, if we're going to accomplish our mission and tear Washington, D.C. up for the Lord Jesus, it's not going to be because we have new programs or because we're on the radio with not a sermon, just a thought. It's going to be because we become an army of missionaries excited about sharing our faith with the people of Washington, D.C. That's my dream for us as a church, an army of missionaries.

That's how you infect a town for Christ. And I hope you'll take up the challenge. Hey, who, question number one, does Jesus want you to be sharing him with? And question number two is, with his help, are we willing to do it? I hope the answer is yes. Now, for those of you who've never trusted Christ, remember I told you we were going to give you a chance to do this.

I didn't forget. We're going to bow our heads and do that right now. Let's pray. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed and nobody looking around, if you're here today and you've been spurning Christ, projecting Christ, and you understand today the perilous position that you're in and you want to switch that, here's what we're going to do. We're going to pray a short little prayer. I'm going to pray one phrase at a time out loud. You're going to pray silently the same phrase. And all we're basically going to do is tell God it's time to switch sides from spurning Christ to believing in him.

So here we go. You pray silently. I'll pray out loud. Lord Jesus, I come to you today because I want to switch sides. I want to stop being a person who spurns your offer of mercy in Jesus. And I want to be a person who embraces Jesus and your offer of mercy through him. And so today I give up every other remedy that I've ever trusted to pay for my sins and to get me into heaven. And today I embrace the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross to pay for my sin. I invite you into my life today to be my personal Lord and Savior from this point on and for all eternity.

In Jesus' name I pray. And Father, I want to pray for the folks that prayed that prayer that you would confirm in their hearts as they sit here that a great transaction has taken place in the heavenly places. That they have passed in your sight from a spurner of Christ to a believer in Christ. And that they have escaped all the things you said you were going to do to spurners of Christ. And now they have inherited all the wonderful things that you said you do for believers in Christ.

You mean what you say for believers just like you do spurners. And Lord, for those of us here who have already done this, I pray that you would grip our hearts. Grip our hearts, Lord, with the spiritual future of people who leave this world without Jesus. And may that grip us so deeply that we are willing to bust through the membrane of embarrassment and wet armpits and cotton balls in the mouth and hesitancy and willing to speak up for you and give them a fighting chance, Lord. Make us an army of missionaries in Washington, D.C. and everywhere we go for your glory. And we pray this in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen. Amen.