Listen, you got questions about God. Good questions. That's fine. Ask them. But at some point you got to choose whether you're going to get into the ark or not.
And staying outside is every bit as much a decision as getting on. You can get onto the ark of Jesus, so to speak, even with your questions. Thanks for joining us today for the Summit Life podcast with JD Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. Did you know that because Summit Life has both a radio program and a podcast, it reaches all corners of the country and even the world?
We are encouraged by the way God connects us with people everywhere, even behind prison walls. Here's a message we recently received from one of our listeners who is incarcerated. You have a contingent of men in this room who gather faithfully with their personal radios every weeknight at 1030 to listen to Summit Life and Pastor JD. It's basically the highlight of our days. Your ministry and your broadcasts are changing lives in this place, so thank you.
Isn't that powerful? Stories like this remind us what's really at stake. We'd love to hear your story too. How has God been working in your life through this program? Share your story with us by visiting the Share Your Story page at jdcreer.com.
The story of Noah in the Ark is one most of us know, but it's often misunderstood. not just a sweet children's tale. It's really about a holy God responding to the seriousness of sin and about one man's faith to trust God when no one else did. Today, Pastor JD shows us how Noah's example in Hebrews 11 challenges us to act on God's word out of reverence for him. It's Noah's Ark like you may have never heard it before, so let's open our Bibles and lean in for this important teaching.
Hebrews chapter 11, often called the Great Hall of Faith.
So if you Have your Bibles if you will open there again. The good news is this summer, once you have found this passage once, you can mark it and you will be locked in for the rest of this series. I told you in our first week of this series that I love visiting halls of fame when I am traveling on vacation or on business or whatever. And some of you approached me and told me that you were the same way. There is a whole list of halls of fame, however, that you have probably never heard of that you may or may not want to add to your vacation list.
We all know about the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown or Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton or the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. But has anybody in here ever visited the Robot Hall of Fame? The Robot Hall of Fame. It actually exists in Pennsylvania. I guess this is what one does for fun in Pennsylvania.
I cannot imagine that the acceptance speeches are all that great. Probably a little canned and stiff, but you know, I mean, what can you do, right? And then, of course, you've got the BBQ Hall of Fame in Kansas City, known as the Great Hall of Flavor. That's what they call it. When I discovered that one, I immediately planned our next vacation.
Closer here to home, North Carolina, is the proud host of the NASCAR Hall of Fame. If that's too intense for you, Wisconsin boasts the Paper Hall of Fame. The Paper Hall of Fame, which frankly, unless your name is Dwight Schroot, I could not imagine anything that would be more boring than that. Limitless paper for a paperless world. The only thing that might be more boring than that would be the Potato Hall of Fame.
The potato, you heard that correctly, potato hall of fame in where else, but. Idaho, Idaho. Not Irish.
Somebody said Ireland. I'm not going to Ireland for a Hall of Fame. The Potato Hall of Fame. Seriously, it exists. Go with your buds to see some spuds.
I have never visited this Hall of Fame, but I hope someday to be a spectator. There. Uh-huh. See what I did? Hey, I'm a dad, dad jokes run in my blood.
Hebrews 11 is the great hall of faith in Scripture.
Now, I told you last week, I said I say great hall of faith, but please do not think of Hebrews 11 as some kind of catalog of spiritual superheroes. If you think of them that way, you are going to be very disappointed. These are ordinary men and women, painfully ordinary with struggles and faults and spiritual warts.
Sometimes they stumble, sometimes they doubt. And sometimes they do downright embarrassing things. But each of them, each of them, you're going to see, held onto the conviction, no matter how faint or weak that conviction. That God was real. that he would keep his promises.
and that seeking him was worth the effort. Each of them is like an exhibit in a great hall of fame. Illustrating some dimension of faith like one side of a many-sided diamond. Our exhibit for today. Verse 7, Hebrews 11.
By faith, Noah. Being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen. in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world. and became an heir.
of the righteousness that comes by Faith. If you had to name three Bible stories that everybody in America knows, The story of Noah and the Ark would always make the list. Perhaps the great irony of this story is that we have turned it into a cute little bedtime story where in come the animals two by two, the hippopotamus and the kangaroo. And we paint this kind of this scene as a mural over our baby's crib like it's a soothing, cuddly bedtime image. I would suggest to you that it is far from a soothing bedtime story.
It recounts a global flood that God sent to kill every living thing on earth. be kind of like dangling the four horsemen of the apocalypse from your baby's mobile. Mommy, what are those? Those are locusts that God will one day send to ravage mankind and destroy the earth. Noah's Ark brings up a lot of questions for modern people.
Questions like: How could a good God do something like this? Where's God's love and forgiveness in all of this? Or maybe you ask a question like when it says the whole world was flooded. You want to know, does that mean literally the whole world, as in every continent, was underwater, or was it just the known world, like a regional flood that felt like a global flood? Or maybe you ask, have they found the actual ark?
Because you're like I saw some guy national geographic channel who said he found the art But he had those crazy eyes and looked like he probably had one of those, in case of rapture, this car will be a man bumper stickers on his car.
So I wasn't sure whether to take him seriously or not. Manager of that one, by the way, is probably not. Maybe your questions are more logistical. You're like, how could you even fed all those animals on the ark? I will answer that one for you real quick, by the way.
Based on the ark's dimensions, it seems like it could hold somewhere between 35,000 and 58,000 animals. But that raises even more questions, doesn't it? Like how much poop would 50,000 animals produce every day? And what do they do with it? I know you've thought about this.
You just figured, I don't think I'm allowed to ask that in church. Maybe you wonder how did they get all the animals on there in the first place? And how did Noah ensure that he got one from each gender? I mean, honestly, could you tell the difference? And a boy dove and a girl dove?
Honestly, could you? I can just picture God, you know, saying to Noah there at the end, okay, Noah, did you get them all? One of each gender? And no one's like. I got two turtles.
But I honestly don't know really which one's the boy turtle and which one's a girl turtle.
So I just put a pink bow on one, and we're calling that one the girl. Of course, the most difficult theological question of all. Why didn't Noah Screen out the two cats from getting out. Ryan? I mean, think of how much better history would have gone if he had done that.
And all of God's people said.
Some of God's people said amen. These are all great questions. Those are all great questions. And maybe I'll devote an Ask the Pastor podcast episode to answering some of them, but they're not the main focus of our message today. because they're not the main point of the passage.
We're going to ask the question that the writer of Hebrews asked. How is Noah an example of the faith that pleases God? The faith without which it is impossible to please God. And I'm going to give you four ways that Noah showed faith. All of them are alluded to right there in verse 7.
But first, let's get a little context for the Noah story so that we understand it better. For that, you can hold your place in Hebrews 11. And if you're quick with your fingers, turn back to Genesis 6. That's where the story of Noah begins.
So Hebrews 11, but then flip over to Genesis 6 if you can do it. Verse 5 of Genesis 6. The Lord saw That the wickedness of man was great in the earth. And that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord Regretted.
That he had made man on the earth. And it grieved him. to his heart.
So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am.
sorry that I have made them. Stories of judgment like this in the Bible. tend to bother us. These verses, especially the words that I've highlighted here. Show you that they bother God too.
In fact, probably much more than they bother us. I say that because the word for grieved to the heart. That is used there in verse 6. That word in Hebrew is a very specific Hebrew word. That is used to describe the grief of someone that has been betrayed by somebody that they depended on.
A spouse, a trusted friend, a child, a parent, The prophet Isaiah uses this exact same word in Isaiah 54:6. Same word that's used here. When he said that God, after rejection by his people, was like a wife who married young, only to be deserted, and her spirit was filled with grieving. Grieving. That's the same word they're used in Genesis 6:6.
Imagine a young bride filled with anticipation on her wedding day. Only to find out that her husband to be has run off with her best friend with whom he has been carrying on for over a year. She's not just sad. She's heartbroken. She's left with this sick, hollow feeling.
That's How God feels. about our sin. Frankly, some theologians say this is an odd word to use to describe God because it makes God sound almost. Vulnerable. The Hebrew word means literally unfulfilled longing or a despairing.
frustration. Sin, like a disease, has consumed the human race. Verse 12 says they were violent. The strong oppressed the weak, and then there was all kinds of sexual perversion that's alluded to in Genesis 6. Verse 5 says their thoughts were only evil continually.
And it was only getting worse. God wanted to stop that, like you would arrest a disease. And so he decided to do so by sending a flood to literally cleanse the earth. You say, well, that doesn't sound very loving. Imagine somebody you love is being eaten up with cancer.
You take radical measures to cleanse them from that cancer. You literally radiate their body with poison to get rid of it. Because you love them. You want to destroy what's destroying them. That's what God.
is doing with humanity. In fact, there's an interesting word play in Hebrew in Genesis 6 that illustrates this. The word used to describe human violence in verse 12. is my sheet. My sheet, the word literally means the human race were a bunch of destroyers.
That's the same word used to describe what God will do to the human race in the flood. He's going to mashit the mashiters. He's going to destroy the destroyers. Maybe you're the kind of person who feels like a loving God would never punish anybody. Miroslav Wolf, who survived the genocides of Croatia.
Said that the only way anybody would ever say that Is if they've lived comfortably in the suburbs of America all their lives and never experienced real injustice. He said, but when you watch. Family and friends get murdered in cold blood. as he hath. He said, the only way you can keep from going insane with rage.
is by knowing that there is a God who will one day give perfect justice. Miroslav Wolf said that upon coming to America, he discovered a deeply held myth, held most firmly, he said, on Ivy League campuses. That is that a belief in the God of judgment will lead you to become judgmental and violent. You see this myth, by the way, in all kinds of Netflix-type documentaries on religion. The idea is, if you believe in a God of judgment, these documentaries say, then you're going to become harsh and judgmental yourself.
And we have to acknowledge, of course. Their religious abuse is real. But in some ways the truth is exactly the opposite. If you believe in a God who will not one day exact justice, then when you really get wronged, And you feel like the person who wronged you is getting away with it, you will seethe with rage. And you will end up taking matters into your own hands.
That's what makes Quentin Tarantino movies popular. It's only when you believe that God will one day execute perfect justice that you will be able to lay down your own sword and be free of the hatred and bitterness that comes from the desire for revenge. Permission to speak freely here for a moment. Many of you have a lopsided view of God. Our view of God is more influenced by Oprah and the media than it is the Bible.
You don't recognize the importance of concepts like the wrath of God, and that distorts how you see the universe. You're like a guy who only works out his chest and biceps, but always skips leg day. When that guy takes off his shirt, he looks impressive. But then you look at his lower half and you think, man, last time I saw legs like that, they were hanging out of a nest. And any fitness coach will tell you a guy like that is not really that strong.
He may look strong, but you will never be strong if only one half of your body is strong. If you've got a lopsided view of God, you will not have a strong enough worldview to make sense of the Bible, much less your own life. God loves his creation too much to let it persist in wickedness, and he loves his glory and justice too much to let the wicked go unpunished. The Bible says, Psalm 89:14, that justice literally undergirds the throne of God. It's the very foundation of his throne, it's what his throne sits on.
A God without justice is not a good God. God was grieved by the violence and corruption of man.
So he decided to do something about it. You say, What about the kids? Weren't they innocent?
Well, in one sense, we understand the whole human race is guilty of sin, but at the same time, We understand that the kids were not guilty of sin to the same extent that the adults were. And yet they died in the same way. The thing to hold on to here is that God is just, and God never holds somebody ultimately guilty of sins that they haven't personally. actually committed themselves. Scripture urges us to think about situations like this in light of eternity.
The joys of heaven, the Bible teaches us, vastly outweigh any temporary suffering that we go through on earth. And so, in a situation like this, where the innocent get caught up collaterally in an act of God's justice, we should think of it as basically God collecting them early. All of us eventually die. God collects them early, and the happiness they experience in eternity more than makes up for any temporary suffering that they go through on earth. And I know there's more to say there.
But we're going to have to leave it there for now. Genesis 6, verse 8, but Noah found favor. Or you could read that word grace, scholars say. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Why?
What was special about Noah? Was Noah a sinless man? No, in fact, you're gonna see toward the end of this story. That Noah's got plenty of evil in his heart. Noah's story is going to end fairly poorly, and you're going to see that Noah is part of the same depraved human race that's being wiped out by the flood.
No, Hebrews 11, 7. Says that Noah was righteous because he responded to God's offer of salvation by faith. In fact, Noah's name actually means rest. Noah was righteous because he rested in God's grace. There are other ancient accounts of a worldview flood, a worldwide flood, excuse me.
Uh it's like Epic of Gilgamesh. But in each of those other accounts of a flood, The hero has to work hard to overcome the God's anger. Noah was the opposite. Noah rested in God's grace and trusted in him to save him, and that's what made Noah righteous. Four special ways that Noah showed this faith.
This is no aside of the faith diamond. Number one. Noah believed God. Instead of his eyes or his feelings. By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen.
Noah chose to believe God instead of what he saw with his eyes or felt with his heart. Nothing around Noah looked like a flood was coming. For 120 years, Noah got up every day under clear blue skies in the middle of a desert. Miles and miles away from the nearest body of water to go to work on. An art.
It'd be like building an ocean liner in the middle of Kansas. Everything in Noah's heart said, this is crazy. But Noah believed God instead of his Feelings are his eyes, faith. It's basing your perception of reality on what God says rather than on what you see or feel. It is not that you turn your mind off.
It's just that there are different ways to know certain things. And often your eyes and your feelings are not the best way to discern reality. Pilots, for example. Say that when you're flying through a storm, you should follow the instrument panel of the plane to know what direction you're going or how high you are, and never just your eyes or some innate sense of where you think you are in the sky. I read a book that explained that the most dangerous time in a pilot's career.
is when he or she has between 50 and 300 hours of experience. That's what they call the killing zone for a pilot. Because it's when pilots are experienced enough to feel confident in their command of the plane, but still inexperienced enough that they rely on their feelings and their instincts rather than on things like their instrument panel and their flight plans. And that's by far, they say, when the majority of pilots die in that little window right there. Because in that situation, your instrument panel is much more reliable than your innate sense of where you are or how high you are.
Many of you trust your eyes and your feelings entirely too much in discerning spiritual reality. But see, this world is in a storm worse than anything an airline pilot experiences up there.
Sometimes everything is upside down and you aren't able to tell which way is up. When it comes to questions like what your purpose is, or where you came from, or how God feels about you, or what you're missing in life. and how to fix it, you need something more reliable than your feelings. The Bible utterly rejects what I always call the gospel of Disney. The gospel of Disney always follow your heart.
The Bible would say, never follow your heart. Because your feelings are usually not a reliable guide to what is right or wrong. In fact, Proverbs warns: this is a verse every teenager should have memorized. There is a way that seems right, feels right. Unto man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.
Certain things feel right. Certain things seem true. But they actually lead to death. God's word is an instrument panel more reliable than your eyes or your feelings. Even your reasoning will lead you astray.
See, a lot of people are like, well, I just have to figure it all out for myself. If I can understand it, I'll believe it. But that's not reliable either. Let me explain why. There's an ancient problem that philosophers call the problem of evil.
It dates back. at least we know to the third century BC. A philosopher named Epicurus was the first one that we know that wrote it down, but it goes something like this. If God is loving. He would want to stop suffering.
If God is powerful.
Well, he could stop suffering.
So the fact that suffering exists proves proves That there's not a God who is all-loving and all-powerful. For years. 2,300 years now. People have All educational levels have let that reasoning cause them to doubt whether or not there's a God. And it seems reasonable.
If God had to love me, He'd want to stop suffering. He's powerful. He could stop suffering. Why does suffering still exist? Must mean God's not there.
But see, I've told you there's a missing premise. in that argument, and the missing premise is this. If God is all-powerful. If God is all-loving. Doesn't it stand to reason that he's also all Why is it?
Just enter in with me here for a moment, okay? Here's the question. If God's wisdom is as high above mine. as his power is above mine. Then shouldn't I expect that there might be a lot of things that don't make immediate sense to me yet.
Think with me for a moment, just a mental experiment, okay? Whether you believe in God or not, just come in with me here for a moment. Think about how much higher, if God exists, how much higher his power would be than yours. God created everything in the universe with just a word. Astronomers estimate the number of stars at more than 3,000 billion trillion.
Each one puts out roughly the same amount of energy as a trillion atom bombs every single second. Recently, by the way, these images have been coming back from the Webb telescope.
Some of you My nerd friends of the Robot Museum share them with me. Here we've got a picture, it just came back, it's like a week old, of the cosmic cliffs. of the Carina Nebula. What you're looking at there is 7,600 light gears away. It's the early process of a star being formed.
The walls of this nebula, basically a space cloud of dust and gas, is being pushed down by the incredibly hot UV radiation of the stars above it. You can even see just above the ridge. that there's almost like a kind of steam radiating off the nebula. Yo, God created all that with just... A word?
Now That's his power. Let's compare that to my power. I can't lift my mattress over my head. Veronica and I tried to do it the other day, and I almost didn't make it this morning because of that attempt. God created the Carina Nebula with just a word.
I can't even lift my above my head the thing I sleep on every night. Here's the point. Just think with me. If God's wisdom is as high above mine as his power is above mine. Then it makes sense that there are some things beyond my immediate ability to understand.
And it's entirely possible, is it not, that God has beautiful purposes, He's working out. But I just can't see yet. And so, see, I base my understanding of who God is. And the purpose and what he's doing in the world, not on what I see with my eyes, perceive by my feelings, or even understand with my head, but I base them on his word. Namely, what he reveals about himself on the cross and resurrection, because there at the cross, that's where I see the measure of his love, and there at the empty tomb is where I see the measure of his power.
That's the word of God. And it's more reliable than what I see with my eyes or feel with my heart. Hebrews 11, 1 calls faith a conviction of things not seen. That means becoming convinced for good and logical reasons that things you can't see with your eyes still exist, and then using that knowledge to help you interpret the things you can't understand yet. For example, I always tell you: if Jesus rose from the dead, it stands to reason that he's telling me the truth about whatever he's talking about.
Even if I can't quite grasp the how or the why of it yet. When I'm having trouble believing something This book teaches, what the Bible teaches. And by the way, this happens to me fairly regularly. I asked myself, I just, I'm like, if I were standing inside the empty tomb. And the resurrected Jesus asked me to believe it, would I be willing to suspend my unbelief because his resurrected body was standing in front of me?
My answer would be yes. You say, ah, JD, that's just the question. How do we know that Jesus rose from the dead? How do we know that this book is God's word?
Well, the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is so strong, y'all, that it's basically. Undeniable. I know that's a big statement, but go check it out. Jesus said that this book was his word and that it was reliable. There are so many things in it that attest to its divine origins.
Cohesion is fulfilled prophecy. It's unique and counterintuitive insights. When you become convinced that this is God's word, you accept its version of reality, even if it's not consistent with what you see and feel yet.
Sometimes we like to say, faith is when the unexplainable meets the undeniable. For years, physicists could not figure out the physics behind How a bumblebee could fly They drew out several models and could prove, based on the known principles of aerodynamics, that the bumblebee could not fly. The Bumblebee, however, oblivious to their research. Totally ignorant of their white papers. Kept right on flying it flying anyway.
And so physicists Using the ir irrefutable evidence. That a bumblebee could indeed fly. And this is key. Re-examine their calculations and assumptions. And sure enough, eventually they figured out new aerodynamic insights that had been missing.
And I'm sure the bumblebee felt vindicated. The point was there was something unexplainable. How the bumblebee could fly. Meeting something undeniable, mainly the thing buzzing around in the air. And that led to greater scientific wisdom, not less.
Hear me, I'm not trash in science. I believe in science. I'm just saying that for some truths, for ultimate truths, for spiritual truths, life-defining truths, science is unable to answer them. It's not equipped to. We know those things through the Word of God, and believing God's Word pushes us deeper into the problems to see how this thing we don't think can be true actually is true.
You follow that? Faith doesn't mean turning your mind off. It means using God's revelation as the starting point in your interpretation of reality and letting that tether your investigation as you go. That gives you certainty in the midst of confusion. God's word is your instrument panel.
Noah believed God instead of his eyes or his feelings, and he interpreted reality through the lens of God's word. Number two. Noah. Fear God. more than he did his community.
Again, verse 7, by faith Noah in reverent fear. Constructed an ark for the saving of his household. Noah not only believed what God said. He made that the guiding reality of his life. Again, you got to remember how bizarre Noah's behavior would have seemed.
Right, people were concerned about Noah. He starts construction on a gigantic ark in the middle of a desert, miles away from the nearest body of water. All the while the sun shone, the birds chirped, and people around him sinned with impunity. Townsfolk were like, Noah, how you even gonna get that thing to the water? Is God going to give you plans for a F-350 Super Duty?
that you can use to tow that thing to the beach? And yet Noah persisted. For 120 years. Why? Because he was moved by a reverent fear.
Fear means a deep, weighty respect. Doesn't always mean you're terrified of something. It can mean you simply recognize how important and weighty that thing is. I've compared it to my air tank when I go scuba diving. Recently I've gotten into scuba a little bit.
A couple of my kids and I got certified together recently. I'm still very much an amateur. One of the things you learn, even as an amateur. is to always mind your air tank. One time I actually burned through my air supply below the surface.
It was terrifying. I thought I will never ever let that happen again. And now I obsessively check my levels every few seconds. Noah feared being on the wrong side of God, like I fear running out of air below the surface. I don't quake with fear when I look at my air tank.
But I know that thing is life or death for me, and I would never want to be separated from it. What do you fear the most? Whose opinion do you worry about most? I know we probably all say that we care what God thinks, but think about a time when you were silent, when you should have spoken up. You kept your mouth shut because you were worried about what others would say about you.
Some of us even change what we believe because we don't want to be out of rhythm with our community. Noah lifted his eyes above everybody else and their mockery, and he fixed them on one person and thought: if he's happy with me, that's all that matters. And I'm going to go ahead and tell you right now, that preach is easy, but it's hard to practice. Because here's the thing: God is invisible right now, and He will be invisible for the duration of our lives. That's why it requires faith.
Y'all, I think about this a lot because I like to be liked. I'd like to be approved of. And it's so easy for me to make you the ones whose approval I seek. Why? Because I can see you.
I can see you right now. But see, I know the day is coming when I'm going to look into the face of the one who made the stars. And I know that in that moment, I'm not going to be thinking about. what you thought about me. But see, he's invisible right now.
So I have to hold on to that vision by faith and that's hard. Faith is the conviction that the things not seen are more important than the ones that are. Eventually everybody feared God like Noah did in the story? Eventually everybody did. It's just that their fear came too late.
I love how the Puritan Thomas Manton said it. The people of the world did not tremble with fear until the water reached the rooftops. Noah had trembled in fear when God did but speak. Eventually everybody got there. It was just too late.
Write this down. Faith is living in a way today. That you believe one day you'll be glad you did. Faith is living in a way today that you're going to be Glad one day that you did. Right now.
Right now, I want you to picture yourself just five. seconds after you die. What's important to you? in that moment. What matters?
In that moment. Figure that out now? And then live that way now. Number three, Noah acted rather than argued. Again, verse 7, by faith Noah being warned.
By God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed. An ark and then Then the day came. Where God said, okay, Noah, today's the day. Take the animals and go in. And I know you say, well, that brings up the question I had at the beginning: how could Noah even have pulled that off?
Look, honestly, I don't know. I'm sure there was something supernatural involved. But see, y'all, I figure if I believe that God created all that we see with our eyes with just a word from his mouth. Getting a bunch of animals to walk up a boat ramp is not a big deal to him.
However, it happened the last pair got on, and then Noah and his household got on, Genesis 6:16. And then the Lord shut him in. The book of Genesis then says that the fountains above and below the earth were opened up, which means torrential rains from above and some kind of underground flooding. From below, could have been a tsunami, could have been a continental shift.
Something that flooded the world with water. By the time it was over, Flood water surpassed the highest known mountain by more than 45 feet. And they remained that way for five months. And every living thing. Every man, woman, Boy.
girl and all the animals who were left outside of the ark, Drowned. Did you put that in the mural beside your baby's crib? Eventually, the floodwaters receded and the ark came to rest on Mount Ararad, and Noah emerged with his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japeth. and their wives And his wife Joan. Of art.
Right, just kidding. That's not really her. And in this point, Noah acted rather than argued. Because it highlights the fact that there came a time when Noah had to suspend any questions. or confusion that he had and just obey.
Y'all, I'm sure Noah had some of the same questions that you've been asking. God, how you gonna pull all this off? And why are you doing it this way anyway? Isn't there a better way? And listen, y'all, listen, God invites those questions.
You want to know how I know that?
So much of our Bibles is people asking questions of God like that and God answering them. The point is is that there comes a time to obey. No was either gonna Build that arc or he wasn't. He was either going to get onto that ark when the time came or he was going to stay outside. You got to come to that same point of decision with Jesus.
You already are at that same point of decision with Jesus. Listen, you got questions about God. Good questions. That's fine. Ask them.
But at some point, you got to choose whether you're going to get into the ark or not. And staying outside is every bit as much a decision as getting on. You can get onto the ark of Jesus, so to speak, even with your questions. I've often illustrated that like this. I've said, say you had an MIT aeronautical physicist and an uneducated tribesperson both standing beside an airplane.
The MIT engineer could explain how the plane flies. He could probably build the plane himself. The tribesperson can't. He's never seen anything like this, and he is filled with all kinds of trepidation and doubt and fear. How does a big metal object like that fly?
He's never even seen electricity. It makes no sense. But when it comes time to get on the tribesperson gets on and the MIT engineer stays on the ground. Who gets to the destination? The one with all the understanding?
No. The one who chose to get on. The one who, with all of his doubts and fears, and uncertainties, still chose to get onto the plane. You see, at some point, you got to make a decision about Jesus. Either to submit to him or to stay outside of him.
Some of you say, well, I'm just not 100% sure of all this Christianity stuff. Fine. Are you 60% sure? If so, get inside the ark and be unsure in there. Rather than standing outside of it, mostly sure.
You see, the choice to get on and the choice to stay outside are both decisions. It's fine to come to Jesus with doubts. Yo, it's fine to be like the man in Matthew 9 who says to Jesus, I believe, help my unbelief. Come to Jesus with all your doubts and let him answer those doubts as you walk with him. In fact, I will tell you from experience: listen, there's a certain level of confidence you can only attain from the inside.
As you walk with Jesus. Certain things only make sense from the inside.
So, if you think there's truth to all of this, but you're just not totally sure yet, come on into Jesus. And let him convince you from the inside. See, there comes a time to stop arguing and start acting. Today is that day for many of you. Number four, Noah condemned the world rather than sought its approval.
Let's look now at the final part of verse 7. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. Saying he condemned the world there doesn't mean that Noah went around scolding everybody all the time, preaching. Preaching at him like some kind of campus pit preacher. It means that the way he lived condemned the world.
The way a person of faith lives condemns the world without our even saying a word because our behavior declares that somebody else is in charge and that invisible things are more important than visible ones. Imagine, if you will. You're sitting in a football stadium. Watching a gigantic marching band. Down on the field doing its thing.
Everybody is in perfect sync. Lockstep. Moving is one. But as you stare through your binoculars. You see one guy, one guy.
Information there, just doing his own thing. When everybody goes left, he goes right. When they duck, he jumps. When they stand still, he moves. You say, man, that guy is out of sync.
But then Through your binoculars you see that he has his noise canceling AirPods in? Turns out he is listening to the latest pop hit by Kendrick Lamar being broadcast from a local radio station. Truth is, he's actually perfectly on beat. He's just tuned in to a different frequency than everybody else. He's marching to the orders of a different conductor.
Everything about our behavior should scream to the world. you're following the wrong conductor. What we do with our money, our time, our integrity, how we form our opinions on controversial issues, all of it should just scream to everybody, there's something more important than what you see.
Something even more real than what you see. I don't care what the majority says. I don't care what the majority thinks. There's only one conductor that matters, and he's the one that you can't see with your eyes. He's in charge.
So let me ask you. Let me ask you, teenager. Teenager, why are you so controlled by what your friends think? You professors, why are you so controlled by the opinions of other people in the academic community? You moms.
Why do you care what other moms in your school community think? Business professionals, why care so much? What everybody in your workplace thinks, only one opinion matters: the opinion of the one who controls the rain. And the rainbows. And orchestrates the entire universe.
Only one life to live will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. Y'all, Noah, for all of his flaws, was a person of great faith because Noah Believe God could Instead of his eyes and his feelings, Number two, he feared God more than his community. Number three, he acted rather than argued. And number four, he condemned the world. Rather than sought its approval.
And the writer of Hebrews wants us to imitate that faith because you see, listen, in our day, in our city right now, we're all in the exact same position as Noah. You see, the story of Noah's Ark was never supposed to be an end in itself. It was always supposed to point beyond it. I mean think about it.
Okay. In terms of purging the earth of wickedness. Remember, that was the goal. purging the earth of wickedness, it didn't really work. Look around!
The same things God condemned the world for in Noah's day are still greatly in abundance today. Even the writer of Genesis recognized that. The first thing he recorded God saying after the moment Noah stepped out of the ark was this: Genesis 8:21. I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Does that sentence make sense?
It doesn't, does it? You would expect God to say, I'm not going to destroy the earth again. Because I know this time man's gonna do a lot better. He's learned his lesson, hasn't he? No, it's not what he says.
I know man is still evil.
So I won't destroy the earth again. I'm going to have to pursue a different solution. And to prove the art didn't really work. The writer shows us the end of Noah's personal story. The last scene we have of Noah is him getting.
stone cold drunk and wandering around the village naked. Pretty confident that part didn't make it into your nursery wall mural either. Mom, who's the crunk naked guy over there in the corner? That's Noah after he got out of the ark. It's not in your precious moments, Bible.
Don't look. Why does God include that detail about Noah's in? Is it to embarrass him? No. It's to show us that attempting to purge out evil by destroying all the really bad people will never work.
I know that's the theme of a lot of your favorite movies. But it's just not true. The same evil is in all of us. We need a more complete kind of salvation, and God gives us a clue to what that's going to look like in Genesis 9:13. I've set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
Rainbow, right? Rainbow? Sure. But the word that right there for bow Is not the usual Hebrew word for rainbow. It's the word gesed in Hebrew.
And it means warbow or battle bow. Like a bow and arrow. A rainbow, of course, is shaped like a warbo.
So we know what he's talking about. But he's saying that the rainbow in the sky is a sign that God has laid down his warbow. God will not accomplish salvation. by shooting the arrows of his wrath into men. In fact, if you look at the rainbow like a war bow.
Which way is it pointed? Which way would the arrow shoot? Back up toward heaven. Charles Spurgeon said, The rainbow promises us that God will one day wipe out evil from the earth by taking the arrows of his wrath. into himself.
And that's where you start to see hints about Jesus all through this story, don't you? Jesus is one day going to come like Noah. Only he's gonna be better. Like Noah, Jesus We'll obey God. Even though most people are going to think he's crazy, and like Noah, though.
Though they thought he was crazy through his obedience, he's going to provide an ark of salvation that anybody could enter and be saved. Unlike Noah, however, Jesus is going to succeed all the way to the end. Jesus' life is not going to end in a drunken stupor. It's going to end in resurrection. Like the ark that Noah built, Jesus is going to shield us from the storm of God's wrath and he's going to lift us up above the waters of judgment.
But unlike Noah, the ark that Jesus provides is not going to be made out of gopher wood, it's going to be made out of his torn flesh. We're going to be lifted up above the waters of judgment only because Jesus is going to be voluntarily submerged into them. Like Noah, Jesus is going to emerge from the storms of God's judgment and he's going to begin a new creation. But see, unlike Noah, this new race that Jesus creates will not have hearts whose thoughts are only evil continually. No, if any man is in Christ, he's going to be a new creation.
Old things are going to pass away and all things are going to become new. God's going to write his law on our hearts, Jeremiah 31. He's literally going to recreate us in his image, fashioning us for good works that we should go and walk in them, Ephesians 2. For right now, we're left here on earth to proclaim the same kind of salvation that no one proclaimed to a world that is not that interested. They said the salvation we offer is far greater.
Just like the judgment God threatens is also greater. The question for us is this, are we going to believe like Noah believed. Are we going to believe God instead of our eyes and our feelings? Are we gonna fear God? More than we do our community, we're going to act rather than argue and we're going to condemn the world rather than seek its approval.
Someone are we going to show the faith that Noah showed. There is an ark. for us to enter. His name is Jesus. He's the one door of salvation.
And we should get not only ourselves into it, but our households. And anybody and everybody who will listen to us. Come, Jesus says. You who have no money. Come.
There's bread and there's water representing salvation. There's an ark. I know you feel unworthy. You are unworthy. He paid the price for you.
You just got to come in. He offers grace. And then we got to tell people that there's a storm of God's wrath that's coming. It's coming because God said it would come, and God always keeps his promises. But for right now, for right now.
right now for however long we have we don't know how long that is but right now there is a window of opportunity open. and whosoever will may enter into this ark of salvation. A lot of those people you're going to tell about this, your community, maybe your parents or your kids, they're going to think you're crazy. But that's because they only see with their eyes. But by faith, we know that invisible realities are ultimate ones, and the day is coming when God Himself will shut the door of salvation and there will be no more chance to enter.
So we got to tell him today. Today, today you see today is the day of salvation. The storm may come tomorrow. But this day, today, this is the day of salvation. It's like Martin Luther, the great reformer, always said, we ought to live like Jesus died yesterday, rose this morning, and is coming back tomorrow.
That's the kind of hope we want you to know and share through Summit Life with JD Greer. If you're listening to this episode on the day it was released before September ends, I want to make sure that you know about our premium resource for the month. The Whole Disciple Journey Map is a six-week digital study that helps you align your heart, beliefs, practices and habits with God's plan for your life. This study will help you identify where God is shaping you and where He's calling you to grow. Every single person who gives to Summit Life automatically receives our monthly resource, whatever it may be, and whether you support us every month or just once or twice.
If you'd like to give to this ministry today, you can do so online at jdgreer.com. See you next time. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries. Yeah.
