And as we've been looking at the flood, the cause of the flood was given in chapter 6. And that was because violence among men, twice it says that violence among men had grown so great that God had regretted that he'd even made man. And so the judgment came because the final straw, you would say, it wasn't the only thing, but the final straw that broke the camel's back, as it were, was the fact of the violence among men. And so chapter 6 verse 11 tells us it was in the 600th year of Noah's life. It was in the second month on 17th day that God opened up the springs from below and sent the floodwaters down from the heavens above. Chapter 7 he talks about all the necessity for gathering in the food and bringing in everything two by two and those of clean beasts and birds they brought in in pairs of seven and so everything was gathered and that Noah did in verse five exactly as God had commanded him to do so it was all done and Noah stood as a representative that the covenant of this covenant of grace was given to Noah and that those who were sheltered in the ark were beneficiaries of a covenant that God had made with Noah And in the same way, the covenant of grace has been established with Christ, and those who are associated with him are saved because the covenant is not with us, but it's with Jesus Christ. Galatians chapter 3 says, in verse 15 says, Jesus Christ is the heir to the promises of God, that he is the son of Abraham. and that you and I become children of Abraham who are by faith in him. So our association to the promises of God, the promises are all to Jesus. So our association, the promise of God, they're not ours to claim in and of ourself, independent of Jesus Christ. But in Jesus Christ, they are all ours. And as Paul would say, they are all amen. Amen. They are ours completely because they're his and they can't be taken from the sun. And so by adoption, we've been brought in. And so in the same way we have the picture of that through Noah and the animals and his wife and his sons and his daughter-in-laws as they've all gathered in together in the ark. And then it rained. And we know the duration of the rain. We learned it when we were children. It was how long? 40 days and 40 nights. Rain came down, water came up. So the wells of the springs flowed upward and the rain fell down for 40 days. Now you imagine for just a moment doing anything, waiting for any time at all for 40 days. You remember two weeks ago when we had all that rain? Every day was drizzly and rainy. All right. How did your week go? It was miserable. You waited in water. I know that one day I had to go pick up the kids because they couldn't get the cars to Woodcrest Elementary. And when I stepped out of the truck, I had on these tennis shoes. When I stepped out of the truck, the water went up to my calf. Then when a car come driving by, the water went up to my waist. So I'm standing there drenched from my waist down, and I carry Ethan and put him in the truck. Then I go and proceed to pick up Kaylee at the elementary. That road was worse. When I drove down Llano, and it goes heading towards Southside Baptist Church, right there before G-U-L-F, GULF, I think that's how you say it, when I was heading towards Gulf on Llano, You come down off of the pavement, and you hit the concrete, and they've got drainage down there, right? No. The water was to the headlights of the cars. And so I'm pushing water all the way past the church, and when I finally get in front of Cayley's church, you know, the water's over the road, and the water's up to the school, and I'm thinking, but you know, the road's there, and the pavement's there, everything's going to be fine. I stepped off, and I missed where the curb was, and boom, it was over my knees. And so I waited in water to get, it was miserable. The point is, is it was miserable. If you're snowed in, if you're rained in, it's not pleasant. I mean, how was today and yesterday? Wasn't that just great? 70 degree days. Here it is, January. You know, Chicago's down in single digits. Mom and dad had 12 yesterday. You know, I'm saying I made the right choice. They ought to move to Texas. What is this? You know, and so there's a misery that comes with things. So imagine 40 days you're in a boat. And in the boat, there's nothing to see. It's kind of like taking a transatlantic flight and sitting at the window seat. What exactly is there to see out the window? Nothing. And it's like taking a cruise and getting a room toward the outside so you can look out, and there's only two things to see. One is the people as they walk by on the corridor, and the other one is what? the water. There's nothing to see. Water for as far as you can look, nothing but water. There's nothing out there. You know, there are no plants, no trees. There's not even any boats for the most part. And so there you are looking at water, and for them it's raining, so you don't do anything. And then you imagine animals for 40 days, and they're all cooped up. And even if they're dormant, like bears and different things are during the wintertime, or an alligator is right now down in the mud, even if they're dormant, they're still going to make odors and noises, aren't they? Have you ever been to the zoo? They make odors. And so here you are for 40 days, and there's lots of odors being made. And it's not over when the rain stops. And so when we come to chapter 8 and verse 1, it says God remembered Noah. Did God ever forget Noah? No. So for God to remember doesn't mean that God had forgotten. It just means that now God is coming to do something to act in a sense of a visitation. There is a minor prophet, the next to the last minor prophets test for your Bible knowledge. Second to the last, the next to the last minor prophet, last book in the Old Testament before Malachi comes. What? Zachariah. Zachar means to remember. Yah means Yahweh remembers. So Zachariah's name means Yahweh remembers or God remembers. And that's exactly what we have here. We've got God remembering. So in the same way God remembered to restore Israel from their captivity and to bring them back to the land and give them their temple and give them back possession of this property he had given, God has come to visit Noah in remembrance. How did God come to visit him? In verse one it says, it says, and all living things with him and all beasts who are with him in the ark. And the second thing about God is God's something did something. God's spirit came. When God works, how do you know God's at work? Because the spirit of God is always there. When you look in the creation, in Genesis chapter 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and something was happening in verse 2. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep. God remembers all of these that are in the ark, everything that's there with Noah, because he remembers Noah. And how do we know God remembers? He says, because the Spirit of God is passing over the face of the waters. So how do we know when God's doing something? Because the Spirit of God is associated with the work of God. And so we find God acting, and the Spirit being very much present with it. Down in verse 15, before God speaks, God acts. And having acted, in verse 15 it says, and God spoke to Noah. Now he's been silent during this whole time. Once he commanded him, you get in, and Noah got in, he didn't hear another word. He's waiting for the phone call, and the phone's not ringing. For 40 days of it raining, there is no voice of God. All he sees and all he hears is the thunder and the lightning and the rain falling. And when the rain stops, for 150 days, after the rain stopped, for 150 days, nothing. Then he has to wait for the for the water to recede. He's in the boat for one whole year He goes in on the second month on the 17th day He doesn't get out of the boat till the next year when he is a 601 on the second month of the 17th day So exactly a year in the boat. That's a long time to wait to hear from God Now sometimes we think that we come to a church service, and I say we, I'm saying it collectively, it's editorial, we, it means I. Sometimes I think when I come to church that in a 45-minute service that God ought to come and God ought to just demonstrate himself and we ought to see great things and it ought to happen every Sunday. Does it happen that way? No, it doesn't. Sometimes we go for months. Sometimes we can go for years. And we know God's present. God never left him. God was there through the whole thing. In fact, God's the one doing all of this. And yet in the presence of it, not to see what God's doing to hear from God for a whole year. So there are, I think, at least two questions that ought to be raised from this. The first is, are we willing to wait? Are we patient to wait on the Lord for God's timing? You remember, how many of you watched the movie, and I know we showed it, about the fireman? Fireproof, yes, fireproof. You remember in the movie, Kirk Cameron, he and his wife have had a doubt. He's more interested in buying a boat, and she's more interested in caring for her sick elderly mother. She needs a hospital bed, and he's still wanting a boat. And all of a sudden, their marriage is kind of drifting apart, and there's all kinds of strain. And when finally God gets a hold of him, he gets a hold of him before he gets a hold of her in the movie. And the song goes, Waiting, waiting on the Lord. It's a good song. You ought to watch the movie all over again if you don't remember it. Because in the course of the time, he had to wait. Just because he made a change in direction, because he repented and he made a change in himself, it didn't mean that everything just cleared up like that. And it doesn't, does it? It took time. And so he says, so while I'm waiting, And it took time, it didn't happen overnight. It was a whole process before the marriage and everything about it restored. Now we rejoice because in an hour and 20 minute movie, we get to see a marriage that's crashed get repaired. But does it take an hour and 20 minutes to repair a marriage? It doesn't, does it? So we sing while we're waiting. And that's what Noah was doing, was waiting. Now Noah's seeing the judgment of God. God, Noah is experiencing a fierce and an awesome and a fearful wrath of God. Psychologically, what's that do to you? To see God at, you hate to say it, God's worse, but, and God not misbehaving, those are both Those are both terms that have been used in books in the last decade. God misbehaving. I don't think he was misbehaving. I think God acting justly. God acting righteously. God being holy and God being who he is. And so both sides of God, those are one picture of one in the same. And so we find that in this process, Noah is in the grace of God, but in the grace of God, he's in some of the greatest suffering and the greatest tragedy that would be known to the world until the end of the world comes. You do understand that. Because God made a promise that never again would he destroy all flesh like he did with the flood. And so he experienced a one time thing that won't be experienced again until the end of the age. And this time without water but rather with fire. And I can't imagine that that's going to be any better or more delightful than the flood was. And so here he is experiencing something to the greatest degree and yet to experience also with that the greatest salvation that man have ever known. Because in him God has rescued the world. And so again, we keep looking back at the reflection of Jesus Christ in all of this. That in Jesus Christ and in the greatest and one of the worst of times to see Christ in the greatness of his suffering. to see God in the flesh, and see God manifest, and God present, and God at work in the lives of men, and hear Him to suffer the great and the harsh wrath of God, and to do it for us, to see the greatest grace of God and wrath of God meet in one place, in one time, on one person, in one event, is overwhelming. And yet, without it, there is no salvation. And there is no deliverance from sin, even as there isn't with Noah. And so as he describes it, it talks about the periods of time. In fact, I brought it in a note form just because the time in verse 4 of chapter 8, Noah, 600 years old, the second month, 17th day, verse 5, it's the 10th month, the 11th day. And you've had from, 150 days after it quit raining that before it begins to recede So they floated out there with nothing everything dead and nothing there Nothing flying in the sky. It's just empty. It's it's eerie and for 150 days before the water begins to recede and once it begins to recede then in verse 6 you add 40 more days And once the tops of the mountains are there, he waits seven more days. And then verse 12, seven more days. And then finally in verse 18, it is verse 13 of chapter eight, on the 600th year, 601st year, on the first day of the first month. So this is a January 1st message. And then in 814, we have another month, and it is the second month of the 17th day. all this activity. So what is God doing in his remembering and what is the Spirit of God doing? He is removing the extent of the curse. He is removing the curse that fell upon the land by removing the water and by drying up the deep and by completing and by causing it to finish for it to be over. In chapter 2 verses 1 and 2 and verse 3 he uses the word to complete that God had completed his work And then he rested or the Sabbath day came the day of rest came And so we find the same verbs occurring here that God has completed the rains finished. It stopped. It's not coming anymore And then it's receding, and for this 150-day period of receding. And then the ark resting, chapter 2, verse 15, talks about God resting from His work. That God was settled, and that there was a rest that came with it. And so it's kind of an anti-type to creation. That what happened in creation is seen as opposed to see the opposite side of it in the flood but yet with a similar and familiar verbs and notions he tells us the place chapter 8 verse 4 it says that the Ark rested upon Mount Ararat or Ararat And it's in northern Turkey. I've got a book in the office about a group that went in the 70s, about 71, one of them an astronaut to go into Turkey and to go up to see if they could find the ark. If you've ever watched a National Geographic documentary on the ark, I think that the ice is thin enough that it could be seen. Even when it's at its thickest ice it can be seen from outer space. It's kind of like putting a magnifying glass on something. So what would be obscure from the eye here close up when you move back away from it is seen clearly. But the ice gets close enough that you can actually see to touch it. And I want to say it's every 10 or 15 years. So if you go this year, you may have to wait for 10 or 15 years to be able to return to have it close enough to be able to see, to touch. Pieces of the wood's been brought back. And there have been many excavations there. So the place is known. So what do we do with the ark? Let's say they were to excavate it. They were able to get up there with helicopters and somehow or another wrap chains around it, bring it down. What would they do with it? And what would they say about it? Well, it's simple, because they're already saying it. And so anthropologists say, well, because floods are common all around the world except in deserts, then there has generated among men a flood mythology or a flood cult. And so to every flood cult, they have a god of the floods. And therefore, on Mount Ararat, because of flooding and the ice, there was a cult, much like the Buddhists go up into the mountains Mount Everest in that region, and they go up and build their temples and shrines up in the high mountains to be with the gods. So in Turkey, they have built a shrine to the flood god, and it looks like an ark. So if we're waiting for some resolution that people are going to go, ah, what God said is true, it's not going to happen. It will not happen. And so it says that it rested. He tells us where it rested. So God, even though we may not know things, God knows everything. If He knows the hair of our head, even as declining and receding and recession, if God knows the hair of our head, then do you think He knows where we are? Do you think you would know where to locate us, where he has rested us? I think in Acts 17 that Paul, talking to the Athenians, said that God has put the boundaries and he has set peoples in different groups, that God has set us where we are on this planet. He's divided us not by skin, he's divided us by language. Ever since Babel, the thing that separates men is not the color of their skin or what color their hair is or the description of their nose, but is by their language. Men associate by common tongue. And as we associate by common tongue, so God's divided them and placed them around. So God knows exactly where he has rested and placed everything. And then we find the emphasis upon the birds. We find first an unclean. Before anything else goes out, an unclean bird goes out. It says in verse seven that Noah sent out a raven. It went out and it was going and it was returning until the water had dried up from upon the face of the earth. It's only a reference to the raven. But before he sends out a clean bird, he sends out an unclean bird. Now think about it. How many unclean pairs of unclean animals are there? One. So if something happens to this bird, then this whole bird species becomes immediately extinct. You know, if this bird somehow or another, you know, a log falls on it, it gets stuck in the mud, you know, if this bird gets out and drowns or dies, then the other raven is all to itself. Well, we know that raven, it didn't happen. Why? Because there are, there are ravens. And so we know that that didn't happen. But when we think about it, what we would be cautious about was didn't cross their mind. Or if it did cross their mind, if God was in control of the flood, could he not control the life of the bird? And if God's in control, again, I mean, you think of the risk factor. We'd start measuring this out. We got more clean birds, so if we lose one, we still got six more pair, we're okay. That would be our reasoning, wouldn't it? But to take and to send the unclean out into the unclean before we sent the clean to go out into that area, Again, it shows a dependence, it shows a confidence of Noah upon the God who has preserved him and who has kept him through this great wrath and judgment. In verse 8, he begins to send out the dove. And the dove doesn't go out one time, but the dove goes out on multiple occasions. Three times we find that he goes out, and the third time he doesn't come back. the first time he goes out and there's no place to rest. So it says in verse 10, and so he waited again seven days before he again sent the dove out from the ark. And the dove went out and did not return until evening, verse 11 says. When he came back, he had an olive branch or an olive leaf that he had in his mouth, and the water had to cease from the earth. And so, verse 12, he waited again seven days. We've got two weeks, two Sabbaths, two waiting on the Lord. You remember I mentioned when we looked at chapter 2, verses 1 to 4, that Sabbath is a picture of God's grace. Before Adam ever worked, what did he do? He began by resting. Before God sent him out in chapter 2, verses 5 and after, to tend the garden, before anything, he had him rest in what God had already accomplished. God had created everything in six days. On the seventh day, God ceased from his work and Adam did not work. but rather rested in the Lord. And before you and I can ever work to honor, to serve God, we must first do what? We must rest in Christ. We must find our sufficiency in what Christ has done, just as Adam had to find his sufficiency in what God had done in the creation around him. Then he went to work for God in the same way you and I rest in the sufficiency of Christ. And before we can go out and do anything for God that would be pleasing unto him, we must first rest in God and in his salvation. And so we find that Noah is content before they do anything else. Oh, we got an olive tree. May we be busting out the walls, going out there, figuring out where we're going to build, where the best place was. Before anything else, he rested. He knew God was at work. Did Noah make the fig tree grow? Did he give it time for it to sprout? No. And when we consider that the water level, it says, was 25 cubits above the tallest mountain. And to my knowledge, Mount Everest in the Himalayas is the largest. And some say, well, it didn't happen that way. Well, go to Montana. And archaeologists find fossils, and they find a shark. And in the shark's stomach is shrimp, undigested. So what was the shark doing when whatever catastrophe happened that buried him in the mud? He was eating shrimp. I mean, that could have been us, you know, eating shrimp before a catastrophe happens. You know, they may find our bones like in Pompeii, you know, buried in volcanic ash with shrimp in our stomach and digested because it happened so immediately. You know, so there is much that we do not know. But willing to rest in the midst of this, did he rest for fear or did he rest in faith? I think faith would be the picture. Because to go out before God had accomplished what was necessary for him to live would have been in vain. And so waiting upon the Lord, verse 12, for another seven days, he sent it out, but it did not again return unto him. And the day then is satisfied. Everything is in association to the ground. And why? The strong emphasis. I've underlined, starting in chapter 6, every time he either said, upon the face of the land or upon the face of the earth or upon the earth or upon the land. And I've underlined it. It may be green, but I think it's brown. But anyhow, you look at my Bible and every page is just replete with underlines. I could give them all to you, but it would really be senseless to do so. But you don't find that emphasis after verse 19. So everything, man's existence, when God made everything good, where did he make us to live? earth not in space not in the sea he made us to live to fit on earth so our existence is associated to the earth to the ground to the to the dry ground that had appeared in Genesis 1 and so the emphasis upon it is in association to the emphasis upon man and the living creatures that live upon it the judgment was upon us and And yet we find, as Paul says in Romans chapter 8 verse 15, I think verse 15 down to verse 23. And he says that all of earth or all creation is groaning. Everything is bearing under the weight of sin. Now, you can only imagine the cry of animals as they're drowning, trying to get to higher ground, the cry of men as they're trying to climb trees and climb to the highest hill when the rains are coming down and the futility of it, and then finally giving up. You've seen movies over the years of the going down of the Titanic, and finally people just do what? Just give up. They know it's hopeless, there's nothing they can do and they just quit. And they sink into the depths of the water and that's it. And so you think about it, the covering of the whole earth, everything upon the earth suffering because of man. Because of man's violence, because of man's sin, because of man's intent, a man's heart. And so the creation itself, everything is under the burden of sin. And even today, it awaits for God's redemption for when we find our final redemption. So. All creation. Now, when the kids were little, they liked a little Walt Disney movie called All Dogs Go to All Dogs Go to Heaven. And I kept trying to say, you know, that's a cute little story, but that's just theologically way out there. Well, you know what? There will be animals in heaven. I believe that now. Do I believe that in the redemption? The redemption is the same as all other creation. God's going to renew creation. And everything that's been crying out for redemption is going to know redemption. Now, does that mean that Blackie or Whitey or Ralph or whoever it is is going to be there? Probably not. But there will be the evidence of things created there. I'm just not convinced in the eternal soul of my favorite dogs. I'm just not there yet. But I'll keep looking at Patsy because I know that she is. But just the fact that in the ark, God would make provision for that. and that God would make provision for the whole creation in the redemption in Christ Jesus and that in the new heaven and new earth, the only things that are missing. When you look at the list of things that are missing, he says what won't be there are the seas. Why? Because they are unruly and they're dangerous. They'll be gone. What else won't be there? Well, the sun and the moon. Why? Because they won't be necessary. Just as there was light before the creation of the sun because God was the light, so he will be the light in the new creation. They won't be needed. They won't be necessary. And so things that are dangerous and unruly will be gone, and the things that were only a reflection will disappear, for we will see the reality face to face. We have much to learn from the book of Genesis. And though it may be a book of antiquity and from even prehistoric times in the sense of pre-writing, and that it passed on through, not through legend, but through oral tradition, the fact of the matter is, is this message is as true for us today as it ever was from the day it was first written. God speaks because God acts. And when God acts, His Spirit is always involved. The Word of God came by how? By the Spirit of God, by the breath of God, by the movement of God. And even so today, we will know God's actions by God's presence, by God's Spirit, and it will be in accordance to God's Word. Father God, as we stand before you, We are reminded that we stand, God, not to exalt ourself, but we stand humbly underneath the authority and underneath the supremacy of the glory of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, and in honor of the word that reflects his glory. And we submit our lives before it, all sufficient for every need, for every issue, for every struggle, for every battle, for every question, for every heartache, for anything that we face, that it is sufficient. And by your spirit, it gives us grace. And so Lord, we stand before you to honor you, and we thank you, God, for speaking to us. For it's in Christ's name we pray, amen. Well, at this time, does anyone need a prayer list?