Christmas in Genesis (Part 4 of 6)

We don't typically turn to the book of Genesis to look for the Christmas story.

There is no baby in a manger there. But if we consider why Christ was born, then maybe the story of Noah is the perfect place for us to discover the hope of Christmas. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explains how the provision of an ark points us to Jesus. We begin in Genesis 6. So we said by way of summary, number one, the ark was corrupt. Number two, God's judgment was just. The just judgment of God is what comes across here.

It is difficult to read, and we have to bow down underneath it. But it comes again and again. Verse 7 of chapter 6, I will blot out man. Verse 13, I have determined to make an end of all flesh.

Verse 17, I will bring a flood of waters. And what we actually discover now is that the rest that was enjoyed in the garden has now been taken over by a restlessness, if you like, a chaos that is pervasive and is growing daily. It is a restlessness that is producing all the things that we've even outlined in chapter 4, and they're just representative of that which will develop from this point. The restlessness of our contemporary culture is, again, not hard to find. It's fascinating, isn't it, as people roam to and fro, trying to make a living, trying to make sense of life, trying to find satisfaction, trying to find hope, trying to deal with suffering, trying to do everything because it's so messed up, it's so broken. And there's no one who wants to defend the fact that—no one who wants to attack the notion of the brokenness of our world.

The real question is, why is it so broken? And of course, that's not for me to engage in dialogue on as I stand before you, but it is interesting, isn't it, in the book of Job, at the beginning of Job, where God addresses the devil, and he says to him, Where have you been lately? And he says, I have been roaming to and forth throughout the earth.

Yeah, exactly. And so God says, I'm going to send torrential rains. This is not a mythology. This is a divine tsunami.

God controls the winds and the waves. But remember that in this, God takes no delight, no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God takes no pleasure in that, any more than a father takes pleasure in having to discipline his son.

A father who finds it pleasurable to discipline his son in that way is not a father, he's a sadist. There is no pleasure in this. So we ought not to think of God somehow or another looking, as it were, from heaven and saying, Oh, this is fantastic.

Now I get a chance to do this. He takes no pleasure in it, but neither is he indifferent to our rebellion. God is not indifferent to your defiance or mine. He's not indifferent to it when we reject his mercy. He's not indifferent when we say, I do not even believe for a moment in the very idea of judgment. What a crazy idea! What a strange notion!

That's funny. I think you do believe in judgment, actually. You make judgments all the time. You would be unable to get from here to downtown without making a significant number of judgments on the driving of the people around you—the expression of your judgment.

I don't like that look at all. Well, when Peter, much later on, says, Here's what's gonna happen, of course, or here's what is happening, because in the last days—remember he said the dual advent—between the coming of Jesus and the coming again of Jesus, which is the period of the last days. In the last days—so we're in them—scoffers will come, scoffing, following their own sinful desires, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? It's always been like this. People have been doing this stuff all the time. And here we are.

That's exactly what you hear said. And unless someone sounds out the message of the Bible, unless someone is brave enough to say, No, actually, the judgment of God is just, then the Christianity of our day will continue to diminish and eventually dwindle to nothing. Because, you see, there is no understanding of the mercy of God outside of the judgment of God, so that God's judgment and his mercy are, if you like, two wings on the fuselage—that both are present. And it is only in light of God's righteous judgment that we can understand his mercy.

What an amazing thing! When we refuse the notion of his judgment, which is justice expressed for our rebellion, then we find ourselves saying, Well, I can see why he would want me to be his follower. I'm actually quite a good person.

If I was putting a group together, I would definitely include me. So, an appeal, then, to our sense of self-esteem. It's very, very different, isn't it? When Paul preached in Athens, I mean, eventually they all left. And he was just at his closing point, you know. And God has set a day, he says, when he will judge the world. And he has given proof of it by the man he has sent, the resurrected Jesus. Now, loved ones, what is here in Genesis 6, 7, 8, 9, is in some measure a foretaste of what will happen at the end of the age—that God will execute his just judgment. And his judgment perfectly fits our crimes.

We could deviate from course on that. You take, for example, Romans chapter 1. And they received in their bodies the due penalty for their sin—in their bodies. And what the Bible is saying is this.

Go ahead and abuse your body, and your body will abuse you. And what do we discover? The suffering and the sorrow and the sickness of it all, and yet people, ourselves included, find it very, very difficult to settle with this notion. In fact, perhaps the clearest evidence of the fact of our enmity with God that we do not think correctly is in our absolute unwillingness to take on board that the judgment of God is just, deserved, and real. So the earth was corrupt, the judgment of God is just, but then finally his mercy is more.

His mercy is more. What you have here, of course, is an expression of the patience of God—the amazing patience of God. It must have taken Noah a fair while to build this ark, because it was a big craft. A big craft. It was approximately the length of one-and-a-half football fields.

So think Brown Stadium, and then think of half as much of the field again. In fact, on the roof you could get three space shuttles nose to tail on the roof of the ark. It was four stories high, and therefore there was plenty of room. And it had a captain, and his name was Noah. How did he get to be the captain? Verse 8 of chapter 6 tells you that Noah found favor, or he found grace, in the eyes of the Lord. He found favor in the eyes of the Lord. How did he find favor in the eyes of the Lord? It's a mystery, isn't it? The favor, the grace that he found, was undeserved, it was unmerited, and it was actually unexplained.

Well, of course, why would we be surprised at that? We sang already, didn't we? What grace is mine, that he who dwells in endless light called through the night to save my distant soul.

We all sang that. And what we were saying, if we actually know it and believe it, is that for me to know God is unmerited and it is ultimately unexplained. It is a mystery. It is the mystery of grace. God is not roaming the world, as it were, looking for a cracked-force troupe. He's not putting together all the brightest and all the best and all the most significant.

No, never. You could never deduce that from the Bible. Oh, it is a wonder. And Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And in verse 9, we find that he was righteous and blameless, and he walked with God. Oh, says somebody, there you are, that's how you find grace.

That's how you get favor. Verse 9 explains verse 8. No, verse 9 is not an explanation of verse 8.

Verse 9 is a consequence of verse 8. It is in light of God's favor and his grace. Praise him for his grace and favor to our fathers in distress. And it is with this same captain of the boat that he makes a covenant. Verse 18, I will establish my covenant with you, so that he and his family will know the saving grace to protect them, to preserve them, in and from the judgment of God.

He enjoys all of these benefits in a way that is tied to his own keeping of God's commands. You'll notice at the end of chapter 6, Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him—which reminds us that when God's grace sets us free, it sets us free to obey his commands. And so he built the ark in obedience, and he left it on the basis of God's word. Verse 15, then, of 8, then God said to Noah, Go out from the ark, you and your wife. It's hard to imagine the scene isn't a day after day, he and whatever small group he had working on this project, and the people would come by, going to pick up their groceries, as it were, and seeing him and calling out to him, Hey, Noah, what do you think you're doing? And he would tell them, because he's described elsewhere as a herald or a preacher of righteousness. So what would he tell them?

He'd say, Well, I'm building an ark. What's an ark for? Well, it says, For protection. Protection from what? Protection from the flood. But there's no flood. There will be. Don't be crazy.

It's not even raining. You're nuts. And then they would go on their way.

They come back. Are you still building that thing? Yes, I am. It'll never happen, they said. You're an idiot.

Well, my name is not Noah. But it's not uncommon for somebody to essentially say that to me. And you may be thinking it yourself right now. And the fact that you are is an indication of what Paul says in Romans chapter 8, that the natural mind is at enmity with God.

And one of the places that is most clearly obvious is in people saying, No, I'll prepare to buy some of it, but I am not buying the idea of a judgment. No, what would you rather do? Are you gonna spurn God's mercy and go with justice? I want what I want. I want to get what I deserve.

That's Porsche, isn't it? That great soliloquy in the merchant of Venice, when she pleads with Shylock, and in just that little tiny section, she says to him, Though justice be thy plea, consider this, that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation. We do then pray for mercy. For mercy.

Because you see, God's mercy is more. Well, why did the people perish? Because they wouldn't believe. They wouldn't believe the messenger. They wouldn't heed the warnings.

What did they have to do to perish? Nothing. Nothing. And if you are outside of the ark, if you are outside of Christ this morning, let me tell you what you have to do.

Nothing. Because we are by nature lost, wicked, accountable, without excuse, facing the prospect of judgment, and in this moment being reminded of God's mercy. People do what they want to do.

I do what I want to do. Most people will die with or without the faith with which we have lived. Let me say that to you again. Most people will die with or without the faith with which we have lived. So, if you are living in unbelief and you remain in unbelief, you will die in unbelief, so that the decision that you have made for yourself to say, It's crazy, it doesn't matter, it isn't gonna happen," will be the reason that you find yourself there in the end. And if you say to yourself, Well, what about Jesus in all of this?

Well, think about it. Not only did Jesus use Noah as an incentive in relationship to this very matter, when he says to them in chapter 24, concerning the day that, I'm going to come back, or our, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Interestingly, Jesus clearly believed in a literal Noah, didn't he? And a literal flood.

He didn't think for a moment it was a mythology. As in those days before the flood, they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were giving them marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and he shut the door of the ark. And there will be a day when the door shuts, when the door of opportunity closes, and you never know when that day is. But the point of it is, forget that day for the moment.

Today is today. And the mercy of God extends to you. It's a sign, isn't it?

It's a wonderful sign. The ark is a picture of refuge. Actually, it's the picture of the sole place of refuge. There was nowhere else to go.

There was only one place to go. And Jesus is the only one to whom we can go. Jesus is the place of refuge. The ark comes to rest. The door that had been closed now opens to a bright new future. The seasons will follow according to God's plan. Verse 22 of chapter 8, pointing us, as the Bible does, the spotlight moving, as it were, through the Bible all the time and keeping fastening on Jesus. And this will be a sign for you.

You will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. And the wise men set out, and they followed a star which would lead them. And the ark is a sign to us of the mercy of God in the midst of his rightful judgment, which is saying, Get in!

Get in! And by the way, he says, I have one further sign. I'm going to put my bow in the sky. I find it quite fascinating that the rainbow has been commandeered.

You would almost think that the devil, who is behind all the conflict, has at least something to do with the choice of the flag—the very sign of God's mercy in the midst of judgment—seized hold of in the midst of the conflict and turned into a story entirely different. It actually is not a rainbow first. It is a bow. It doesn't say a rainbow.

It is a rainbow. But the bow is a warbow. It is the picture of a bow and an arrow.

And the bow spans from place to place. And it is there as a reminder to God, it says, When I see that, I will remember my covenant. It's a reminder to him.

When we see it, it is then a reminder to us that God has established a covenant. But the question is, Where's the arrow? And in which direction does the arrow point? Points at God. Points at Jesus. He takes the arrow.

He goes under the sword. He endures the hell in order that we, on account of his mercy, might be able to walk straight into his arms. Well, I say to you, I plead with you, if you hear God's voice, do not harden your heart. Believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved from sin, from the judgment. And people say, Ah, I don't think so.

Until, of course, God works in your heart, and you find yourself saying, I do believe. Hey, the gospel train is coming. I hear it right at hand. And there's room for many more. Get on board.

Little children, get on board. Alistair Begg, reminding us of the life-changing message of Christmas. Believe.

This is Truth for Life. Alistair will return in just a minute to close with prayer, so please keep listening. We've been learning about Christ's birth in an unexpected book of the Bible with a message titled Christmas in Genesis.

Alistair is helping us make the important connections. There's another important connection we can draw from the book of Acts. It was as the believers in the early church prayed and supported the proclamation of the gospel financially that many came to believe in Jesus. Here we are all these centuries later.

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If you'd rather call, the number is 888-588-7884. Now tomorrow night is Christmas Eve and I want to invite you to join Alistair as he leads a special Christmas Eve worship service live from Parkside Church. You can watch it online at truthforlife.org slash live or on our YouTube page or through our streaming TV channels.

Learn more at truthforlife.org or on our mobile app. Now here's Alistair to close today with prayer. Father, thank you that we have your mercy displayed even in the midst of your just judgment. Thank you that at the cross of your dearly beloved Son, your justice, your punishment, was extended.

You weren't indifferent to man's rebellion. It was dealt with finally and savingly in Christ. Mercy there was great, and grace was free, and pardon there was multiplied to me. And there at the cross we find liberty. Help us today to hear your voice and in hearing it, to obey. For Jesus' sake, amen. I'm Bob Lapeen. Tomorrow Alistair continues our study of Christmas in the beginning by explaining God's promise to Abraham. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.