Genesis 7:1-24 – Cameron Jungels - Sun PM, April 13, 2014

Our Sin, God’s Justice and Mercy - Genesis 7:1-24 – (Eastside Baptist/Sun PM/April 13, 2014) 

 

Acts 17:14–34, NIV

¹⁴ The believers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea.  ¹⁵ Those who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible. 

¹⁶ While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.  ¹⁷ So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.  ¹⁸ A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.  ¹⁹ Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?  ²⁰ You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean."  ²¹ (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) 

²² Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.  ²³ For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship-- and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. 

²⁴ "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.  ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.  ²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.  ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.  ²⁸ 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' 

²⁹ "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone-- an image made by human design and skill.  ³⁰ In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.  ³¹ For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead." 

³² When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject."  ³³ At that, Paul left the Council.  ³⁴ Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.  

 

2 Peter 3:7, 10, NIV

⁷ By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (2 Pet. 3:7, NIV) ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. (2 Pet. 3:10, NIV) 

 

Genesis 7:1–24, NIV

¹ The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.  ² Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate,  ³ and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.  ⁴ Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made." 

⁵ And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. 

⁶ Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.  ⁷ And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood.  ⁸ Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground,  ⁹ male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.  ¹⁰ And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. 

¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month-- on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.  ¹² And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. 

¹³ On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark.  ¹⁴ They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings.  ¹⁵ Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark.  ¹⁶ The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in. 

¹⁷ For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.  ¹⁸ The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water.  ¹⁹ They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.  ²⁰ The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.  ²¹ Every living thing that moved on land perished-- birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.  ²² Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.  ²³ Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. 

²⁴ The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

 

1.       In righteousness, God judges a sinful world. 

2.      In mercy, God delivers his covenant people. 

3.      Through God’s merciful deliverance, the future of the planet and God’s plan is secured.

 

Main Idea

Ø  Though God is righteous and must judge wickedness, he mercifully extends deliverance to the objects of his love, ensuring the fulfillment of his gracious purposes.

 

Luke 17:26–27, 30, NIV

²⁶ "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.  ²⁷ People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.  ³⁰ "It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.