Genesis 032 – A New Beginning

Genesis 032 –

“A New Beginning”

Dr. Andrew Woods

April 18, 2021

 

Good morning everybody.  Let’s take our Bibles this morning and open them to the book of Genesis 8…

The title of our message is “A New Beginning.”  I was thinking about that message title—that this is really what the Bible is about.  It’s about new beginnings, and we’re going to start to look at one here in Genesis 8.

As you know, we have been moving verse-by-verse through the book of Genesis.

Chapters 1-11 are part one of the book, “The Beginning of the Human Race, featuring four things (see slide of GENESIS STRUCTURE):

Creation. (Gen 1-2). If you want to know what the world was like according to God’s design before sin marred it, those chapters are a great place to study.

Then, the Fall of man (Gen 3-5).  The world that we’re living in today is very different than the world that God designed.  Yet there’s hope because very early on, a coming Messiah is announced to make all things right in Genesis 3:15.

The Flood  (Gen 6-9) is the fourth major event.  Genesis 6 present events before the Flood, and last time I was with you, we finished Genesis 7, the Flood itself.

Genesis 7 Outline (see slide)

1. We have traced God’s instructions to Noah to enter the ark; (Gen 7:1-4)
2. His actual entrance into the ark (Gen 7:5-12);
3. God sealing the ark door (Gen 7:13-16);
4. The breaking forth of the floodwaters described at the end of the chapter (Gen 7:17-24)

And now we move into Genesis 8, where we see the abating of the waters.

Genesis 8 has four parts: (see Genesis 8-9 Outline)

1. Abating of the waters (8:1-5)
2. Tests for dry land (8:6-14)
3. [Noah’s] exit from the ark (8:15-19)
4. Post-flood events (8:20-9:29).

That’s the direction we’re moving in, so let’s begin here with the abating of the waters per 8:1-5.  Notice Genesis 8:1, But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.  Notice in 8:1, “God remembered.” Noah and company are adrift on this ark, and God remembered them. A lot of people read that and say, ‘Well, did God have a faulty memory?  Uh gee oh, yeah. There was this guy named Noah, and there was this flood.  Let me see what I can do to help him.’  That’s not the meaning.

Arnold Frunchtenbaum in his very good commentary on the book of Genesis writes this concerning ‘remembered.’

He says, “The turning point begins with the remembrance of God in verse 1a: And God remembered Noah, and all the beasts, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. The word remember does not mean remember in the sense that God temporarily forgot about the ark and its inhabitants; rather, it means remembering in the sense of movement toward the object.  For example, in Genesis 19:29, God remembered Abraham with a view to saving Lot; in Exodus 2:24, God remembered His covenant with the Patriarchs with a view to rescuing Israel; in Jeremiah 2:2, God remembered Israel with a view toward her restoration; in Jeremiah 31:20, God remembered Ephraim with a view toward extending mercy to him; and in Luke 1:54-55, God remembered Israel with a view toward sending the Messiah to Israel.  Furthermore, the sense was that of God remembering a covenant, although in this case the covenant itself had not yet been made. He [God] said earlier in [Genesis] chapter 6, that He would establish His covenant with Noah.  Furthermore, in 7:4 God remembered that the rain would only last 40 days.  All these usages fit into the word, ‘remember.’”

It’s not that God suddenly had a memory block.  It’s just that now, with His covenant in mind, He makes an action towards fulfilling His promise.  He never forgot His initial promise of a covenant.  But now He’s moving towards fulfilling that covenant.

When I was in seminary, one of my professors was J. Dwight Pentecost, and he asked us what the most important chapter in the Bible was, and of course, I thought maybe it was John 3, since in John 3 there is John 3:16, the famous passage about Jesus and the love of salvation. And he said, ‘That’s not the answer.’ The most important chapter in the Bible, he said, is Genesis 15 because it’s here where God makes a covenant with Abraham.  Genesis 15:18 says that, On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying to your descendants, I have given this land from the river of Egypt as far as the great river Euphrates. Not only is Genesis 15 the most important chapter in the Bible, he said, but verse 18, which we just read, is the most important verse in the most important chapter in the entire Bible.  Why is that?  He began to develop the explanation that because it’s there that God obligates Himself to act in covenant form.  God enters into what might be called today a legal contract with somebody. The contract is unconditional; it comes exclusively from God to Abraham. As we will study, Abraham Himself was asleep when this contract was made. And it’s in that chapter [Genesis 15] that God vows Himself to act.  In fact, God says, ’If I don’t act, let Me be torn asunder as animals are torn asunder’ in various contracts that were made like this in the ancient Near East.  Dr.  Pentecost said, ‘If you can understand that, you can understand the Bible.’  Because all God is doing in the rest of the Bible is making good on His promise that He established in contractual form very early on in the Bible, and that’s why this language of covenant is such a big deal.

When God obligates Himself in covenant form, as He does here with Noah, He has to operate; He has to work; He has to move heaven and earth to fulfill what He’s promised to do, or else God is a liar at the end of the day.

The reason that God remembered His covenant with Noah, or remembered Noah, is not that He forgot it, but He’s now working in action toward it is because Noah also has something that Abraham would later have—a covenant with God.

It’s interesting that in the book of Exodus 2:24, the nation of Israel had been in Egyptian captivity for 400 years. That’s a long time.  And God finally decided that it was time to release Israel from Egyptian captivity.  I mean, why did God remember His people in captivity?  Why did He ultimately bring them out of captivity?  It has to do with the reality of covenant.  Exodus 2:24 says, “So God heard the groaning and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”  That’s what Dr. Pentecost was saying.  If you understand Genesis 15:18, you’ll understand the Exodus.  If you understand Genesis 15:18, you’ll understand the whole Bible because God is simply making good on what He initially contracted or covenanted Himself to do.

The language of Abraham’s covenant, as we will study, has never been fully exhausted.  There has to be a future for Israel, because God has to make good on what He has promised in covenantal form.  In fact, in the Book of Ezekiel, which is a description of Israel’s great end time regathering, it says this in  Ezekiel 36:22, “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the LORD God, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went.”

All of those centuries and millennia of Israel in disobedience, God could not and cannot and will not ever forget Israel because they have a covenant from God.  And God says that ‘In the end times when I regather Israel, I’m not doing it for you, Israel.  I’m doing it for My holy name’s sake because of what I covenanted to Abraham in Genesis 15.’  If you understand Genesis 15, you will understand Ezekiel 36.  To reiterate, if you understand Genesis 15, you will understand the Exodus.  It’s God simply moving His hand in history to fulfill what He has promised to do.

Why is it that God now remembers Noah, not in the sense that He forgot Noah, but in the sense that He is making an action towards Noah.  It relates to this covenant that Noah is going to have with God that God had already announced.  God announced this covenant, you might recall in Genesis 6:18, where God says, “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—-you and your sons and your wife, your sons’ wives with you.”  Noah had something from God called a covenant, and God could not ever eradicate, ameliorate, forget, or neglect that covenant.  God remembers Noah in Genesis 8 because of what He’s promised in Genesis 6.

You say, ‘Well, gee, Pastor, this is real interesting theology that you’re serving up today. How does this relate to my life?’  It has everything to do with your life because Noah is not the only one who had a covenant with God coming from God to Noah. Abraham was not the only one who had a covenant with God coming from God to Abraham, but you as a member of the body of Christ, as a New Testament Christian, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, also have a covenant with God.  It’s called salvation. We spoke a little of it last time where Jesus said in John 10:27-29, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

Last time we were together, I said that you’re not just in the Son’s hand; you’re in the Father’s hand.  You’re in the double grip of grace.  You’re in the hand of two members of the eternally existent Trinity.  And when you study this in Greek, and it says, ‘they will never perish,’ it says, “they will never perish forever.” Aiōnios, and we made a reference to the fact that ‘they will never perish’ is a dual negation in Greek, which is the strongest negation you could possibly have.  Dan Wallace in his Greek Grammar, writes this concerning that double negation: “This is the strongest way to negate something in Greek…”  [This construction] “rules out even the idea as being a possibility: [this negation] is the most decisive way of negating someth. in the future.’”

God cannot forget you even if He wanted to, which He doesn’t. You could not and cannot wiggle your way out of this covenant because the covenant was made coming from God to you—kind of like the covenant that Abraham had. It was coming from God to Abraham. Abraham couldn’t wiggle his way out of the covenant even if He wanted to.

And this is why God is remembering Noah, remembering Abraham very, very deep into biblical history. And that’s why God remembers you. I don’t know what problems you’re facing, what struggles you’re going through, what valleys you’re in, but I do know this much:  if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are in the very palm of Jesus Christ and the Father.  Even if you don’t want to be, you’re there.  God cannot set you adrift and forget you because if He was to do that, He would be forgetting His covenant, which is something that is impossible for God to do.

I don’t know if you remember the movement Promise Keepers.  The reality is that there is really only one Promise Keeper when you think about it—the Lord Jesus Christ.  If the Bible reveals anything about God, it’s the fact that He is a promise-keeping, covenant-keeping God. His promises to you do not depend upon your ability to make your promises to Him or keep them.  Most of us can’t even keep our New Year’s resolutions, let alone all of the things that we think we’re doing for God.  Your arrival in glory is a foregone conclusion because of a covenant that you have with God, which is unconditional; coming one way.  God will always work in history to fulfill His covenant.  It’s impossible for Him to do anything else.

Isaiah 48:3 says of God, “I declared the former things long ago, and they went out of My mouth, and I proclaimed them.  Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.” 

What’s happening here in Genesis 8 is that God is remembering what He said in Genesis 6, and He is suddenly acting.  He’s remembering or moving towards, in fulfillment.  What is God doing with the nation of Israel in the Exodus event, after Israel has been in Egyptian bondage for 400 years?  He is remembering not in the sense that He forgot something, but now He is moving towards a person in fulfillment of His promise.

Why is it that you can’t cut Israel out of the equation?  Why is it that the Jews are back in their land after 2000 years?  It’s the same principle.  God remembered them, not in the sense that He would ever forget, but now He is acting and moving towards them.  If He doesn’t, then God Himself is a liar, something that’s impossible.  Hebrews 6:18, and other passages say, ‘it’s impossible for God to lie.’

I hope you leave here today feeling so comforted and so secure by this because you’re living in a world of insecurity where things could be taken away—just like that with the drop of a hat, and how important it is for the Christian to face this life in our fallen world, understanding who the true Promise Keeper really is—the Lord Jesus Christ, a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God.  Your covenant with God is just as real as Abraham’s was, just as real as Noah’s was, just as real as any character or figure early on in the Bible. You have one as well.

So, God remembers His promises to Noah, and He does three things:

1. He causes the wind to displace the floodwaters in the second half of Genesis 8:1b. It says, …and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. Suddenly, we have wind in the Bible.  We’ve been studying this pretty carefully, and I don’t recall reading much about wind earlier in Scripture, but now there’s wind.  In the post-flood world, we have wind. Why is that? Because the atmospheric conditions have changed. The canopy, as I’ve tried to argue, which we’ll refer to in a minute, was released.  The greenhouse effect was over.  The great ages that people lived to in the antediluvian world have now passed because the atmosphere is different. So now we have this reality of wind. And it’s hard to read this without understanding that God is beginning again. He’s beginning something new because wind, water—haven’t we read about that before?  Your mind should go back to Genesis 1:2, “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God… [Now that’s the Hebrew word ‘ruah,’ which is the same word used here]. “The Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”  How does the whole Bible begin? With wind and water.  What are we seeing here? The same two things: wind and water.  In fact, you might recall Genesis 1:9 where God brought the dry land out of the water.  Genesis 1:9 says, Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear” and it was so.   That was very early on in the Creation week. And now the same reality is happening here. Wind, water, and dry land are coming up out of the flood- waters.  It’s a deliberate parallel with what we studied earlier in the series in Genesis 1.  As I mentioned before, this word for wind is the ‘ruah,‘ which sometimes refers not only to physical wind, but also to the work of the Holy Spirit. This is what Ezekiel saw—remember the valley of the dry bones?  Ezekiel 37:7-11. So, I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone.  And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them.” [This is the nation coming back into existence during the end times, but without the Spirit of God in it.  Yet I would argue that this is what we’re seeing today, it is happening before our eyes]. Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.”’” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ’Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished.  We are completely cut off.’”

This is the same Hebrew word ‘ruah’ that’s used in Genesis 8.  So, the new beginning is not just a physical beginning of water and wind, something you see in both Genesis 8 and in Genesis 1.  You can take this a step further and see that the new beginning is water and the wind of the Holy Spirit.  Did not Jesus in John 3:5 make this explicitly clear?  Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” My goodness, we have seen this, haven’t we?  Water; spirit in Genesis 1; water, spirit in Genesis 8.  Now Jesus is using that as an analogy for the new birth of the child of God.

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, He cannot enter the kingdom of God.”  That’s why I entitled this message, “A New Beginning.”  Genesis 8 is a new beginning.  Parallel Genesis 8 with Genesis 1 and understand that God is in the business of new beginnings because the same metaphor and imagery that He uses to describe original creation and the new creation of the post-flood world is the identical imagery that’s used to describe the brand new, newly born child of God.

Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”  What is the Bible about?  It’s about something new—a new creation.  It’s not just the physical world that God wants to bring newness to.  He also wants to bring newness to the dead soul and sinner in Adam. People say, ‘I wish God would do miracles today.’  Let me tell you something.  The greatest miracle that God is doing is right now, and He’s been doing it for the last 2000 years—a person can actually hear the gospel of grace, understand it, and trust in it.  And the moment that happens, they’re regenerated from the inside. The dead comes to life, and you may be a person listening to this saying, ‘You know, I’m just out of options, and I’m fatigued. And I’m tired. And the run of the mill monotony of life with all of its challenges has really gotten me down.’  Well, let me tell you something; I have good news for you.  God wants to start you with a new beginning; a fresh beginning where you can receive Christ by way of faith as your Savior.  And God does a miracle in your heart that’s just as real as any miracle that you see in the Bible.  And God calls you a brand-new child of God.  What an opportunity for those of us who have been dragged down in Adam’s fallen race, laboring under the consequences of sin. God wants to start something brand new, thus, you can become a Christian as I am speaking by trusting in what Jesus has done, and we’ll have more to say about that at the conclusion of this message.

But it is magnificent imagery that we are seeing here.  So, what did God do in remembrance of His covenant towards Noah?  He used the wind to cause the water to subside.  And then God did something else:  He closed the fountains of the deep.  You see that in Genesis 8:2 where it says, “Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained; …”  Now there are many people who will say, ‘Well, you know, this was really not a global flood.  It’s just a description of what Noah saw as He was looking out of the ark.’ And they have fancy names for this. This is human-centered language, phenomenological language.  ‘We all know that the Earth never really was under water.  It only looked that way from Noah’s perspective.’  What a bunch of nonsense.

Noah, as Moses is describing this event, has access to knowledge that’s outside of his purview because he’s describing something that came up from the ground, deep in the ground that caused this flood.  God, as He now moves towards Noah in remembrance of His covenant, not only uses the wind to subside the flood waters, but He also caused the fountains of the deep which had been flooding for upwards of 40 days and 40 nights to suddenly stop.  Why is God doing that?  Because He remembered His covenant with Noah.

God does a third thing here. Notice in the second half of Genesis 8:2b, “…also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed and the rain from the sky was restrained.” There’s a lot of discussion on the waters above the sky.  Genesis 1:6-7 is a description of the waters above the sky; Psalm 148:4 is also a description of the waters above the sky.  I happen to believe that at one time our earth was surrounded by a giant ball of water, filtering the sun’s harmful rays, which explains why they lived so long in pre-flood days, and why the lifespan of man was gradually curtailed.  God simply released this canopy which had a kind of greenhouse effect over the Earth.  That’s where the 40 days and 40 nights of floodwaters came from, not only coming from the sky, but also coming up from under the Earth.

And as we have moved into some of this teaching, we’ve said that when God created this world, He created it to be detonated.  When God would move His hand, the waters would come up and the flood waters would be released.  Man, before the flood who hated God and lived his life as if God didn’t exist, was living in fact, in a very world that was designed to be destroyed.  After God’s patience had been exhausted, God moved in that direction.  I think we need to remind people of this because people living without God have a tendency to think that somehow their lives are insulated from judgment. The reality is that they’re living in the very world that could be detonated at will.  We’re told in 2 Peter 3:10 that God will one day destroy this world again, not by flood, but by fire.  That fire will be just as real as the flood waters were.

God, in remembrance of His covenant with Noah, stopped the floodwaters from coming down after 40 days and 40 nights.  Perhaps the the canopy had been exhausted at that point, and God stopped the process of the floodwaters coming up from the bottom of the earth as well, because God is moving in history consistent with what He has promised He will do.  Coming to Genesis 8:3, and we have a description for the first time of the receding floodwaters. Genesis 8:3 says “…and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased.”

Here is a calendar with the chronology of the flood. [See slides on Chronology of the Flood at 34:03] Every time a month or a number of days is noted, this chronology will call that to your attention.  You say, ‘Well, I’m glad there’s just one slide [of this Chronology] here.’  Well, don’t celebrate yet.  There’s a second one.  And two slides are enough, right?  No, a third one as well.  I found this chronology in Arnold Fruchtenbaum’s book, The Book of Genesis commentary.  It is a nice way of helping you realize time-wise when these things happened. Why would the Holy Spirit put all of this chronology into Genesis 6,7 and 8? Because these things happened. These events were just as real as any calendar event that you can think of. Your birthday, anniversary, the birth of your children and grandchildren.  These things are just as real as anything that shows up on a calendar.

We are not dealing with Jack and the Beanstalk here, or with Veggie Tales or a bunch of myths. These things happened. They happened to real people in real time. The calendar continues there, and I’ll draw your attention to when the rain began and when the ark settled on the mountains of Ararat.  In Genesis 8:4, notice the precision: “In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, [that’s pretty precise] the Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.”

We found the same thing in Genesis 7:11 where it says, In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, [what we’re going to learn shortly is that we’re now in the 601st year of Noah’s life—see the precision] “…in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.  In other words, it started and stopped on the seventeenth day of the month.  It began in the second month, and it ended on the exact same day on the seventeenth day of the month.  God is a God of precision.

In fact, there’s something very interesting in Jewish tradition.  I had a chance to quote this in my dissertation.  It’s not in the Bible, but it is floating around in Jewish tradition, in extra-biblical literature that the temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC.  And on the exact same day of the exact same month, the temple was destroyed by Titus of Rome in AD 70.  ‘You mean to tell me that the pillaging of the temple in the sixth century happened on the exact same day?’  In fact, Israel has a day in which they commemorate this on their calendar. The destruction of the Solomonic temple was destroyed on the exact same day of the month by the Romans.  That’s what Israel believes.  If that ended up being true, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least because this is how God works.  God is very precise.  He doesn’t leave things to chance.  He knows exactly what He is doing.  And by way of application, if He knows what He is doing, then why are we so fretful about the circumstances in our own lives as though God doesn’t have them under control either?  It’s just a question of learning His character.  And trusting Him.  And walking by way of faith.

You learn something very interesting in Genesis 8:4 in the second part of the verse.  It says, “…the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.”  Now, this is only the second time in the book of Genesis that we have seen this particular Hebrew word translated as rested.  Arnold Fruchtenbaum writes this: “In Genesis 8:4, the ark came to a stop:  And the ark rested.  This is the second time ‘rest‘ is mentioned after Genesis 2:2-3.” [Remember Genesis 2:2-3, “On the seventh day, God rested.” Genesis 2:2-3 says, “By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”  We get to day seven in the creation week, God ceases from work and rests. That word doesn’t even show up again until the ark rests on Mount Ararat.  It’s a picture whereby God says, ‘When I’m finished working, it’s done.  There’s nothing to add.  It’s complete.’  It’s not a situation where God has to race back as I do when I’m trying to write something, and I have to race back and fix all my grammatical and spelling errors. That doesn’t happen with God.  When God finishes, Creation is done.  He rested.  The ark, following this 5-month period, rested.  This time of judgment is over.  And this is an interesting parallel, because what was the last thing Jesus said on the cross prior to His death in John 19:30?  It says, Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

His work of paying for the sin debts of the world is over.  Sin has been judged, it has been atoned for and taken care of.  There is no sense in which it’s [still] being taken care of any more than there’s a sense in which God is still creating today.  He’s not creating today.  He’s designed creation in such a way that it could procreate.  And He’s given us the genetic information that is already within us to be fruitful and multiply.  But the work of creation is over; the work of judgment in the Flood is over.  The ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. And this is exactly what Jesus said when He died on the cross, “It is finished!”  It’s the Greek word, ‘tetelestai,’ which is an accounting term found all over the Greco-Roman world by way of archeological remains of the time period.  And what it literally means is “paid in full.”  In fact, it’s in the perfect tense:  rested, or it is finished per John 19:30.  Perfect tense means that it is a one-time action with reverberating results.  A one-time action with ongoing results.  You ask, ‘Well, this is all interesting theology, Pastor, but how does this relate to our lives?’ Here’s how it relates to you.  Hebrews 4:10, So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.  For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

If you are caught in a situation as a Christian where you think God bought lunch, but you need to leave the tip to make yourself right with Him, you don’t understand ’rested.’ You don’t understand ‘tetelestai.‘  You don’t understand ‘paid in full.’  What I am saying here may sound basic, but it makes a world of difference because it’s a difference between the grace of God and the world of religion. [See slide on Religion Says] The world of religion, as you can see at the top of the screen, is basically the idea that Jesus did about 90%, and that you better kick in at least ten percent.  Well, what do you have to do?  Three things:  Pay, pray and obey.  I can’t tell you how many people today are laboring under the concept of religion as at the top of the screen, thinking that somehow, they are justified by God as in some sort of merger between what Jesus did and their own good works.  I labored under this for 16 years of my life before I understood the gospel of grace. The truth of the matter is that is a treadmill (right there at the top of the screen).  And if you’re on that treadmill, it’s designed so that you never get off.  Because if I have to pay, pray and obey, how come no one tells me how much I have to pay?  How much I have to pray?  How much I have to obey?  And so, you spend your whole life wondering if you have done enough.   I mean, ten percent is ten percent.  The tip is the tip.  ‘Have I done enough?’  How many people around the world today think that way?  You ask someone, ‘Are you going to heaven?’  ‘Well, I don’t know.  We’re going to have to see some kind of balancing act between my good deeds and bad deeds, and I won’t know that till the end.’ So, they’re robbed of the assurance of salvation. All of that ends when you understand, ’rested,’ when you understand ‘complete.’  When you understand ‘paid in full.’

The truth of the matter is we are not at the top of the screen; we’re at the bottom of the screen where God says something completely different from the world of religion, which by the way, seeks to control the masses.  That’s why religion is promulgated—because it’s a way to keep people on the up and up.  I mean, they don’t do what we’re doing here—teach them the assurance of salvation. They teach them that they’ve got to keep moving and exercising energy, otherwise, how are you going to get them to serve in your church if you don’t do that?  The fact of the matter is, we are not at the top of the screen; we’re at the bottom of the screen.

We’re not religious.  It’s interesting how people will describe me as well. ‘Andy is religious. Well, what do you do?  I’m a pastor.  Oh, you must be a religious.’  The truth of the matter is, I am probably the least religious person you could run into—because I read the Bible.  The Bible is not a religious book.  It is not a book about what must man do to get to God—the top of the screen [above slide] is all about that.  That’s not what the Bible is about.  It’s about what God does for man.  It’s not about us reaching up.  It’s about Jesus reaching down.  God reaches down in the person of Jesus Christ.  Grace says Jesus didn’t do 90%; He did 100%!

Creation stopped.  The ark rested.  It is finished; tetelestai.  There remains a Sabbath rest for God’s people.  You enter into it when you’ve received it by faith. And all of the benefits of that transaction are imputed or transferred to you the moment you receive that gift. You don’t go through your life saying, ‘Maybe I’ll make it, maybe I won’t.’  Kind of like, picking the petals off the flower, ‘she loves me; she loves me not.’

So many of the people who you ask if they‘re going to heaven—they don’t know. This is not a ‘I hope so’ thing.  This is an ‘I know so’ thing.  Because Jesus did it all.  ‘Well, Pastor, you preach that, and people will never come to church next Sunday.’  Well, I preached this last Sunday, and you guys are still here this Sunday, so something must be working.  I have never felt that you have to terrorize people week after week to get them to live for God.  What I believe is that when the mind understands this, then people can’t help but serve God because they can’t believe what they have in terms of absolute assurance of salvation.  You can look death right in the eye as did the Apostle Paul who was fearless.  He had no fear of death at all.  He said, “absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.’  He doesn’t say, ‘Maybe, I hope I get there.  I’m not sure.’  He understood the concept of rested and tetelestai, and ‘paid in full.‘

Notice also in Genesis 8:4 that the Ark settled not on Mount Ararat as is commonly misinterpreted, but on the mountains of Ararat, meaning we don’t know exactly which mountain it was.  Arnold Fruchtenbaum says: “The date was in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, and the place was: upon the mountains, [plural] of Ararat.
The ark rested on an unspecified mountain in the mountain range of Ararat, where the highest mountain peak is 17,000 feet high;” … [I mean, maybe that’s where the ark rested. But then Fruchtenbaum says] … “but there is no need to assume that it rested on the highest peak.  The mountain range stretches between Southern Russia, Turkey, and Armenia, and it is not possible to know exactly from the text where in the mountain range of Ararat the ark actually rested.”

So, you don’t have to sit there glued to cable television like Geraldo who brings out things in Al Capone’s tomb and stuff like that. You don’t have to sit there wondering every time someone says they’ve discovered Noah’s Ark that, ‘Oh My gosh, this is it.’ The fact of the matter is, we don’t know exactly where it is.  Probably the closest person in terms of finding it would be someone that’s spoken here, Dr. Randall Price, whose information can be found on World of the Bible Ministries, but there’s a lot of sensationalism and a lot of shenanigans and a lot of con jobs.  In fact, Randall Price was telling me that one of the actresses from the hit series, not that I’m a big watcher of this, as I mention this, Baywatch, was over there looking for Noah’s Ark.  ‘Well, of course, so and so is in Baywatch. She’s qualified.’  We don’t know exactly where Noah’s Ark was. And the reality is, I mentioned this last time, it may be that God designed it that way because “to whom much is given, much is required.”

Could you imagine the accountability on the day of judgment for the human race if we could validate exactly where Noah’s Ark was, and if we found it the way it’s described in the Bible? It may be as a token of grace that God is not allowing it to be found, because He knows what the human heart will do with it.  They’ll just explain it away. They’ve already explained away the obvious through creation. There’s no design in this universe, we’re told, or no Designer. We obviously went from the goo to you by way of the zoo over billions of years.  If they’re going to use that to explain away creation, what could they do with Noah’s Ark?  Maybe God doesn’t want it found for that reason; we we just don’t know.

Move to Genesis 8:5 says, “The water decreased steadily until the tenth month;” … [look at the date] … in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.”

We have three statements here:

The water decreased continually.  We have a date. [See slide/chart on Chronology of the Flood at 52:46]—the tenth month on the first day.  Now, in the right-hand column are the total [number of] days that Noah has been in the Ark thus far: 231 days.  The tops of the mountains are now visible for the first time.  So now Noah is in a position to send out the tests for dry land.

Look at Genesis 8:6, it says, Then it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made; …  No more torrential rain, no more forty days and forty nights of a straight deluge. The canopy, I would think, was most likely exhausted at that point.  And now Noah is in a position to look outside the door.  Apparently, there was like a trap door, I guess.  Was it on the roof or the side?  I don’t know, but he now felt secure enough where He could look outside for the purpose of sending out the birds.  One raven, three doves.  Kind of a debate on if it is the same dove.  I have a tendency to think it’s the exact same dove, but it’s not something worth starting a church over.  Why is he doing this? He’s trying to ascertain when is it proper; appropriate to disembark?  He walks this through four stages:.

1. He sent out the raven (8:7). Notice what it says: …and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth. Now ravens are very interesting.  They are black, and in the Mosaic Law they are called unclean.  You’ll see that in Leviticus 11:15, which means it could feed on carcasses. So, it was just kind of a scruffy, less than noble animal, certainly a lot less noble than a dove.  But isn’t it great that God uses the less noble animals?  In fact, Luke 12:24 says, “Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds!”  God takes care of the ravens, even though they’re a little bit less noble.  In fact, it was Elijah who was fed miraculously in 1 Kings 17:6 by ravens: And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook.  ‘Well, gee, Pastor, I’m really worried I’m going to lose my job because if I lose my job, then the provision of God stops.’  Are you sure about that?  God did a pretty good job here with Elijah using ravens.  Your provider is not your job.  God can use your job to provide, but God is not hemmed in by that.  He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.  He never promises you’ll keep your job. What He promises is, ‘I will supply all of your needs according to My riches in Christ Jesus.’  Start learning that, and suddenly, you don’t have to worry about everything you’re worried about anymore.  You don’t have to worry about layoffs, inflation, Social Security drying up because God never told me that He was going to provide for me through those things.  He could, but His arms or hands are not somehow handcuffed to the point where He says, ‘Oh no, you lost your job.  I don’t know how I’m going to provide for you. Or, Oh, no.  Look at the look at the inflation rate in the United States. I don’t know what I’m going to do.  Look at the price of gas.  Have you seen the price of gas?  Look how terrible it is since the next administration took over.’  I won’t go into that.  God says that He is going to provide for you until your dying day because you’re more valuable than the ravens, and God takes care of them.  So, won’t He also take care of you?  If God can use a raven for a noble purpose, then maybe he could use little ole me and little ole you as well.

I don’t know if God is really looking for our ability. I think what He’s looking for is our availability.  Are we available to be used by God?  Because let Me tell you something.  God’s going to get His work done.  No doubt that He’s going to get done what needs to be done.  The question is:  do you and I get the privilege of being used by Him or not, because He’s going to use somebody.

It reminds me of the book of Esther where she was told. ‘Look, (Esther 4:14), deliverance is going to come.  The only issue is if God is going to use you in the deliverance.’  Because God can even use these ravens.  So, the raven leaves, and because ravens feed on carcasses, that may be why the raven didn’t come back into the ark.  Ravens generally like mountain peaks and wet surfaces, and the surfaces on the tops of the mountains were not yet dry, so maybe the raven found somewhere to rest.  So that was clue number one—Noah sent the raven out of the ark.

2. And then he sends out a dove. Genesis 8:8-9, Then he sent out a dove from him, to see if the water was abated from the face of the land; but the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, so she returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the surface of all of the earth. Then He put out his hand and took her, and brought her into the ark himself. Something very interesting is going on here—God is not speaking.  Remember Genesis 7:1, Then God said. To my count, that’s not going to occur again until Genesis 8:15. Then God spoke... There’s no speaking here.  Noah has to ascertain his circumstances by balancing divine revelation with natural means.  God gave Noah an intellect, and He expected him to use that intellect. Arnold Fruchtenbaum writes this,” “Until now, Noah received direct revelation from God, but now he must use natural means [raven, doves] to find out the condition of the earth, since God is not speaking to him at this moment. This shows the balance between learning things by divine revelation and learning things by natural means.  Both are seen as being valid options everywhere in the Scriptures.  Therefore, he first used the raven, and now he uses the dove to find out the actual conditions of the earth.”

By the way, this is how the Jerusalem Council was solved in Acts 15. There were all these saved Gentiles because of Paul’s first missionary journey, and the Jewish leadership of the church is asking themselves, ‘Do we make them submit to the Law of Moses to join the church?’  And they had a big powwow about it in Acts 15.  It’s called the Council at Jerusalem. And in the book of Acts where God is consistently speaking, He didn’t speak in Acts 15.  So they had to use their reasoning process from the Scriptures they already had, basing their decision on Amos 9 where they reasoned that, ‘If God is going to allow Gentiles to be full fledged citizens in the Millennial Kingdom, then let’s let them into the church now, these Gentiles, without submitting to the Law of Moses.’  They gained that decision or moved in the direction of that decision, not through an audible voice but through the process of using the mind God gave them.

That’s what Noah is experiencing here. You say, ‘Well, how does this apply to us?’  Folks, there are so many people out there that will not make a move in their life unless they receive some kind of dream, some kind of vision, some kind of audible voice. ‘Unless I put out the fleece, as in the book of Judges, I have to see something to decide if I’m going to take this job or that job. Or marry this person or that person, or not get married at all?  Or should I retire or not?  Give Me a word from the Lord.’  And God is saying, ‘I gave you a brain.’  Jesus died for our sins.  He didn’t die for our intellects, and He expects those intellects to be used.  He gave you something incredibly powerful in the way of the reasoning process. ‘Well, should I apply for this job over here?’  Well, are you qualified for the job?  Where are you going to live?  How much does it pay?  Can you support your family?  Why do you have to sit around waiting for an audible voice?  Use the mind God gave you. ‘Well, gee, what if I start moving in the wrong direction?  Then what’s going to happen?’  You know what’s going to happen?  God will come get you, and He’ll move you in the right direction because He loves you, and He paid a penalty for your sins.  If He did all that, wouldn’t He help you with a job?  Isn’t that the argument from the greater to the lesser?  If He already gave you the ultimate gift in Christ Jesus, Paul at the end of Romans 8 says, ‘then what do we make of these lesser things?’  God will take care of those as well.

So here, Noah is not reasoning or receiving direct audible revelations.  He’s actually using the mind God gave him.  He’s sending out, first of all, the raven, which has a different function, before he sends out the dove.  Noah obviously had some sort of understanding of zoology in reference to which bird to send out at the right time.  Notice in Genesis 8:7, Now he sends out the dove.  In fact, it’s not verse 7, we just read it.  It is Genesis 8:8-9, “Then he sent out the dove from him.”  Now the dove, unlike a raven, is white.  The dove, unlike the raven, is portrayed very positively in Scripture.  In the Song of Solomon 1:15, it says concerning the dove, “How beautiful you are, my darling.  How beautiful you are.  Your eyes are like doves.” Now, men, use that one on your lady.  Song of Solomon 2:14 says, “My dove in the clefts of the rocks, in the hiding place of the mountain pathway.  Let me see how you look.  Let me hear your voice, for your voice is pleasant and you look delightful.”  You want to read a book about romance?  Put down these romance novels and read the Song of Solomon.  When you start using language like that, see what that does for your marriage.  And so, the dove is portrayed in this positive light.  In fact, in Matthew 3:16, it says, After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting [settling] on Him, …

Unlike a raven, a dove does not live on carcasses.  Unlike a raven, a dove will settle in valleys and not on mountain peaks.  And unlike a raven, a dove will settle on surfaces that are dry and clean.  So, the fact that the dove goes out and the same dove comes back shows Noah that the earth is still flooded; the water is still receding.  So, Noah brings this dove back into the ark.

Round 3 is now the second dove returns with the olive leaf.  Notice Genesis 8:10-11.  So he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark.  The dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf.  So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth.

Olive trees grow in high elevation.  They grow in the upper mountains.  And they can grow in submerged water. So, Noah could conclude that the mountains were not yet dry, and the valleys were still flooded.  Notice 8:12 as it says, Then he waited yet another seven days, look at the chronology] …and sent out the dove; but she did not return to him again.

(See slide/chart on Chronology of the Flood at 1:O09:03) We are now at the 11th month, the 25th day; Noah has been on the ark for 285 days.  Most of us can’t even deal with kids in the car for a family vacation.  And so clearly what has happened here is the valleys had dried up.

And thus, we conclude with Genesis 8:13-14, Now it came about in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth.  Then Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried up.   [Free of moisture is what that Hebrew word means].  ¹⁴ In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry—meaning the complete absence of water.  I have a tendency to think it was the exact same dove sent out three times.  I don’t know that for sure, but I get that because not every kind of animal was in the ark, but a particular kind. You’ll see the word ‘kind’ repeated there in Genesis 7:14.

4. And so now, [see chart/slide on Chronology of the Flood] the third dove—no return Genesis 8:12. The 12th month, 2nd day; in the ark for 292 days.  In 8:14, Noah opens the ark door, and now the disembarking process starts.

I had to kind of gloss over some stuff at the end for the sake of time, but you get the big picture.

The bottom line is new beginnings. This is a brand new beginning, and the offer of salvation today to the lost is the exact same offer.  God will begin again with you.  It does not matter what has transpired in your life up to this point.  Love, 1 Corinthians 13 tells us, keeps no record of wrongs.  The provision of Jesus Christ is such that it’s complete, and the only thing the Lord asks us to do is to trust in what He has done by way of salvation.  The Spirit of God has been dispatched into the world to convict men and women of their need to do this.  The human race, as I speak, is under conviction to trust in the Savior for salvation as their only hope.

And if you find yourself today under such conviction, either in this building or listening online, or watching this after the fact, we have a very clear exhortation to share with you.  It’s very clear, because the Bible makes it clear:  stop trusting in yourself and your religiosity. Even if you think you can do ten percent you can’t.  It’s impossible.  What you can do, though, is to receive what Jesus has done for you.  Jesus having done this in fullness 100%.  Trust in that.  Rest in that.  There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. You enter that Sabbath rest by trusting in Christ and in Christ alone for salvation.

If it’s something that you need more explanation on, I’m available after the service to talk, but it’s not a matter of joining a church, walking an aisle, giving money.  It’s a matter of privacy between you and the Lord where you’re convicted of this reality and you respond by way of faith, by trusting in Christ, period, for this free gift.  It’s not a matter of us fixing ourselves. It’s a matter of our resting by way of faith, which means to trust or have confidence in what Jesus has done.

Shall we pray?

Father, we’re grateful for this story, which is not just a story, it’s history and the things that it reveals to us.  Make us good stewards of this area of Your Word.  We’ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus’ name.  And God’s people said, Amen!