send out the text message. Wonderful. Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and devotions is where every day you and I we get together we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. In this year 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from the book of Genesis to the Book of Leviticus and today, we are wrapping up Genesis chapter six. I'm so glad you're here this morning. Why don't we pray and we'll get into the Lord's word. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank You for Your Mercy, and your grace. And the way in which your Holy Spirit leads us, God we are utterly dependent upon you. When we come to your word that these words would not just be words on a on a page, but that Your Holy Spirit would enlighten our eyes and teach us the way in which we should walk. Father, show us your love and show us how we should live in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, so we're at Genesis chapter six, beginning at verse 13. And we'll read down to verse 22. Here we go. God said to know the end of all flesh has come before me for the earth is filled with violence through them. And behold, I will destroy them with the earth make yourself an ark of gopher would make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and outside with pitch. And this is how you shall make it. The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, its width 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits. You shall make a window for the Ark and you shall finish it to a cubit from above, and set the door of the ark on its side. You shall make it with lower second and third decks and behold, I myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven, all flesh and which is the breath of life. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you and you shall go into the ark you and your sons, your wives, and your sons wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring to have every sword into the ark, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female of the birds after they're kind of the animals after they're kind of every creeping thing of the of the earth after its kind to have every kind will come to you to keep them alive. And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself and it shall be food for you and for them. Thus No it did, according to all that God had commanded him. So he did. Well, we need to ask ourselves, Hey, what's this about be? What's the best verse to summarize this and see, what do we call to do in response to these words? So what is this about? Well, God comes into covenant with Noah. Notice, there are a few things here God reveals Himself to Noah. God tells him the plan of what he's going to do. God comes into covenant with Noah, he tells him that he's going to save and God gives the instructions for how this is going to happen. The building of the ark, it's the mentions of bringing of the animals, the procurement of food, the placement of the door, all these types of things the Lord reveals to move to know Him. And so at a base level, this is just God saving is God revealing. And yes, that's true. And there's all sorts of things in here that we can get into speculative stuff you don't like there's nowhere in the scriptures that it's told us it's rained. Actually, beforehand. It's told us that it hasn't rained and so it's possible that at this point, Noah has never even seen rain. But what we read yesterday in Hebrews is that by face, no believed the things that God had taught him by faith, and we're gonna see it took Noah over a century to build this ark. And as Second Peter tells us, he was a preacher of righteousness as he is doing this work. He is telling people of God's wrath that's about to come. And people seem to not believe him. But God's come into covenant with Noah, with his wife, with his sons and with his sons wives, and God Himself is the one who is going to bring salvation for Noah See, this is a way in which the Lord works. It's remarkable. What God looks on on humanity sees the corruptness of our flesh, He sees our violence. And yet, somehow, for some reason in his mysterious will, he decides to show grace. Right, it's a world is filled with people who transgresses law. Yeah, he has electon Noah and his family. He will not forget the promise that he made in Genesis chapter three verse 15, that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. He would bruise his head and the serpent would bruise his heel. And here we find that God is still faithful to that covenant of grace, that God is still faithful and how this works and I want to point out to you that this is a normal way in which it seems God makes relationships with people. He made a covenant with Adam and Eve and now he's making a covenant with Noah. This is only the second of many covenants we'll see throughout the different parts of the Bible as we continue to work through things but this covenant of grace that does start at Genesis 315 is continuing on and God's plan of redemption. And here we find Noah. Noah is a righteous man he believes God is righteous because he believes God and that faith plays out. Now we can get into the nitty gritty details of things, you know, like the bringing of the two animals that's only the clean animals, he's actually going to even save the unclean animals and they're supposed to be seven until he or sorry, it's two of the unclean and seven of the clean I think we'll find that out in the next chapter. I can't remember off the top of my head right now. But this is what there's all sorts of nitpicky things. You know, if you really want to delve I don't want to say nitpicky fine details. It's not that they don't matter at all. Actually, if you want to find out more about these things, I would encourage you to go down to the to the ark. You can see this thing in person and see how huge it is and you can catch the grandeur of how massive this place would be. You know, there's the creation, research researchers who have done lots of work explaining this and so I don't want to duplicate their work here. I encourage you to go do the Ark Encounter and see those things. But I think what this is getting at is God's grace. God's care and patience, his humanity in the face of Noah to receive these instructions and actually go about doing it. Well, what's the best verse? To summarize this section? In my Bible, I would underline verse 18, and 19 Right, because I think this is the covenant that he's making with Noah, and with Noah, also his family and creation. And I think I might also underline verse 13. And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me for the earth is filled with violence. Through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. I think that that's kind of getting at the why God is doing this. Maybe want to underline verse or first 14 also because it actually is the first verse with the command to build the ark. So 1314 18 and 19. Let's say that's what I would do in my Bible. Maybe you're more concise and me what would you underline in your Bible, alas, seek calling. What are we called to do? Do we go to Jesus Christ as the Ark of our salvation? Do we recognize that this covenant of grace is being filled more and more and more becoming more and more clear and that salvation is found in Jesus alone? That the way in which we are made right with God and find found righteous in His sight is by faith in his son and it's as if the Ark itself was a picture of God's saving, of God caring, of God electing of God being merciful and gracious. And for you who believe in Jesus Christ. Jesus is our ark of salvation is God who has hemmed us in and we find safety in him. So would you believe in Jesus Christ? Would you hope and him love Him and follow Him? Would you find shelter and refuge in him?
I'd encourage you, maybe today. Go pick up Psalm 46. And think about how God is our refuge in our strength. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you are a gracious covenant making God that you are faithful to your promises and you are wonderful in your deeds. Lord, please let us have faith. Faith, Lord in the unpopular truth, that judgment does come. But you have provided a way of escape for us in Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray, amen. Or may your faith be strengthened. May you love the Lord. May You love his word, and may you walk in his ways out of a heart of gratitude. And joy. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai