God's Purposes Will Not Be Thwarted
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
David C. Wright
Genesis 6:5-14
June 20, 2010
Following
the 9:30AM, one of our members told me this story that he heard
on the NPR show, “Car Talk,” and since it relates to
the topic of today’s sermon, I thought I’d pass it
along. It seems that God heard that things were not going
well on earth. He send an angel to check out the rumors. The
angel reported that things were very bad. He estimated that
95% of the people were evil and 5% were good.
God was deeply concerned. But
to be sure, he sent a second angel to check things out. The second angel
came back with the same report- 95% evil and 5% good. God knew he needed
to do something drastic, but he decided to warn the good 5% first. So
he send them an email.
Do you know what the email
said? Oh, you didn’t get one either!
The biblical story of
Noah is a perennial Sunday School and Bible School favorite for children. There
are wonderful possibilities for crafts- like building cardboard arks and coloring
pictures of rainbows and animals. And kids love all those animals!
The story also contains
a good moral lesson in the person of Noah. We imagine faithful old Noah
out there with his hammer, slaving away in the hot sun, building his ark, while
his neighbors heap abuse and ridicule on him for building this monstrosity in
the middle of dry land! Was this guy deranged? And what would this
do to property values? But Noah persevered, obeyed God, and saved humanity! Kind
of the Superman of the Old Testament! No wonder we use this story so often
with children. Besides, you can also sing the “Arky, Arky” song
and play with the incredible model ark that Charlie Behre built for us.
However as adults, we
can see that there is more to the story. It raises some profound and disturbing
questions. For example, what kind of God destroys the lives of untold
numbers of men, women, and children, not to mention all those animals? And
why does he do it? You see, I believe that the central character in the
story is not Noah at all. It’s God! And we learn a great deal
about God and how God interacts with his creation from this story. Contrary
to some modern thinkers, who believe that God created the world, wound it up
like a giant clock, and then walked away from it, the story of Noah shows a God
who is passionately involved in his creation. I believe that the central
teaching of the story is this: God’s plan for his creation will not be
thwarted. God will use any means, including judgment and grace, to fulfill
his purpose for his creation.
Listen as I read the beginning
of the story:
5 The Lord saw
that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth,
and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was
only evil continually.
6 And the Lord was
sorry that he had made humankind on the earth,
and it grieved him to his heart.
7 So the Lord said, "I
will blot out
from the earth the
human beings I have created—people together with animals and
creeping things and birds of
the air,
for I am sorry that I have made them."
8 But Noah found
grace in the sight of the Lord.
13 And God said
to Noah, "I
have determined to make an end of
all flesh,
for the earth is
filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with
the earth.
14 Make yourself an ark of cypress wood;
make rooms in the ark,
and cover it inside and out with pitch. (Gen.
6:5-8, 13-14)
Let’s take a step
back to be sure we understand God’s plan for his creation. Remember
what we talked about the last two weeks as we looked at the first three chapters
of Genesis. God created a wonderful world and desired that his creation
live in harmony. That there be plenty for everyone. That there be
a peaceful and fulfilling relationship between the Creator and the created. But
all of that began to unravel in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve chose to disobey
their Creator, believing that they knew what was best. Sin entered the
world and the human heart at that very moment. By chapter 4 jealousy is
a reality and the first murder is not long behind. By the time we get to
today’s text, in chapter 6, the entire human race has become so infected
by sin that the world is filled with all kinds of wickedness and violence and
the situation appears to be absolutely hopeless.
Remember that sin includes
the individual wrong acts that we commit- lying, stealing, gossiping, violence,
and refusing to share. Those are bad enough, for they subvert God’s
purposes by causing pain to others. And sometimes we can’t seem to
stop doing them. Consider the case of David Joe White, age 32. He
pled guilty to 42 burglary charges, but was rearrested after swiping his lawyer’s
portable tape recorder from the defense table at his trial! Sometimes
we just can’t stop sinning even when it’s risky and stupid! Sinful
actions can become habitual for us.
But sin also involves
the attitudes behind those acts- selfishness, greed, hatred, jealousy, and lust. These
can be terribly difficult to root out of our hearts. And sin doesn’t
just affect the actions and attitudes of individuals. It pervades
entire societies and cultures and nations. Listen to these words from Anglican
pastor, Dr. John Stott, “Many of the (practices) of civilized societies
would not exist if it were not for human sin. A promise is not enough;
we need a contract. Doors are not enough; we have to lock and bolt them. The
payment of fare is not enough; we have to be issued tickets, which are…inspected,
and collected. Law and order are not enough; we need the police to enforce
them. We cannot trust each other. We need protection from one another. It
is a sorry state of affairs.” Sin is having its way and it
appears that God’s purposes for his creation are being undermined, just
like they were in Genesis 6.
But God’s plan for
his creation will not be thwarted. God will use any means, including judgment
and grace, to fulfill his purpose for his creation. So God decided to intervene
in Genesis 6. Now this is not a capricious, angry, out-of-control God,
like the pagan gods of the surrounding nations. We’re told that God
was “grieved” over the pain and violence that he saw. His wonderful
vision for a harmonious, loving paradise had been shattered and God was deeply
saddened by it. God was sorry he ever made the earth. Since his good
plans for his creation were not coming to fruition, God determined to destroy
it and start over. I know that this sounds very harsh and unfair, but recall
the words of the prophet Isaiah who likened God and his creation to a potter
forming a clay pot. Isaiah points out that the potter has the absolute
right to do as he pleases with the pots that he makes, including destroying the
defective ones. This is God’s judgment.
And judgment is a major
theme of the Old and New Testaments. In the book of Exodus, the rescue
of God’s people from Egyptian slavery consisted of multiple judgments against
Pharaoh. God’s judgment was present during the time of the kings. God’s
judgment was foretold by the prophets and Israel experienced it as they were
overrun first by Assyria and then Babylon. Jesus foretold coming judgment,
even referring to the story of Noah as he did so. There is judgment in
the book of Acts and in the letters of Paul. There is certainly judgment
in the Revelation of John. We talk about the final judgment of God in the
Apostle’s Creed when we say that Jesus will “come to judge the quick
and the dead.” From Genesis to Revelation, God’s judgment is
an inescapable reality.
But God’s judgment
is not pointless or vengeful. Its purpose is to restore God’s creation
to its original design, which is the purpose of the great flood. God’s
plan for his creation will not be thwarted. God will use any means, including
judgment, to fulfill his purpose for his creation.
But judgment is not the
only means that God uses to restore his creation to its original purpose. Look
at verse 8, “But Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord... And God
said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the
earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them
along with the earth. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms
in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch.” (Gen. 6:8,
13,14) Grace. Noah was not perfect, which we see vividly portrayed just
a few chapters later. But God, in his grace, reaches out to Noah and his
family and determines to save them, and through them to save the entire human
race. That’s what grace is- favor with God that is not deserved. And
grace is a central theme of both the Old and New Testaments.
The deliverance of God’s
people from Egyptian slavery was an act of grace. Leading them safely
through the wilderness to the Promised Land while they complained all the way
there was an act of grace. Liberating the land of Canaan from powerful
enemies was an act of grace. Warning the Israelites of impending judgment
through the prophets so they could repent was an act of grace. And sending
Jesus to live and die on a cross for our sins was the ultimate act of grace. It
was ultimate, because while all the previous acts of grace were helpful and generous,
they did not solve the ultimate problem of human sin.
Consider again the story
of the great flood. When it was all over and the floodwaters had receded,
Noah built an altar and offered sacrifices to God. Listen to God’s
graceful response, “I will never again curse the ground because of
humankind, though the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor
will I destroy every living creature as I have done.” (Gen. 8:21b) Did
you catch the little parenthesis? In the midst of God’s promise
of grace- not to destroy the earth again by flood- we find this brutal reality
check- “...though the inclination of the human heart is evil
from youth.” Even here in Genesis, it is clear that a solution
to the problem of sin in the human heart has not been found. Even a radically
fresh start, like the one given Noah and his family, was not enough. Many
of us would like to believe that if we only had a fresh start, things would go
better. Well, maybe. But it’s hard to imagine a fresher start
than Noah and his family got, and within a few chapters, sin came roaring back,
distorting God’s good creation all over again.
A more radical step was
required. Only in the cross is sin addressed once and for all. Through
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, our sins have been forgiven, and we have
been filled with the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit gives us the power to
overcome sin in our lives and gives us the mandate to overcome sin in our places
of work, our schools, our governments, our social groups- wherever we may be. In
the cross, the decisive victory for the restoration of God’s creation has
been accomplished. Now God’s creation is being restored around us
as followers of Jesus Christ are hard at work. The work of restoration
is far from complete, but it is going on all the time.
Noah’s story is
a reminder that God’s plan for his creation will not be thwarted. That
God will use any means, including judgment and grace, to fulfill his purpose
for his creation. Let us always remember the judgment and grace of God
and give thanks that God will not allow his purposes for his creation to be thwarted,
including his purposes for you and me.
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