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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh

Beyond Belief:  Noah and the Flood

We're gonna go to the book of Genesis, the sixth chapter, Genesis chapter 6, starting at verse 5.

Genesis 6 and verse 5, and the Bible says, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Verse 7, and the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air for it repenteth me that I have made them but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, Beyond Belief, Noah and the Flood.

Father God we thank you for this opportunity to study your word Lord I ask that you pour out an extra portion of your Holy Spirit Lord I ask that you make me just a vessel, Lord, and fill me with your truth and with your word and with your spirit.

Instead, Father God, let us dwell upon your truth and your word.

This is our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name.

We're going to go back to the book of Genesis, chapter 6 again, starting in verse 9.

You know, it's funny, when I was asked to give a title for this and asked to speak many, many weeks ago, and this is what I was going to speak on, I didn't realize that the movie Noah would be released the night before.

But we'll deal with it a little bit right here.

Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations and Noah walked with God.

In order to get the story of Noah there's a few things you have to get.

1 of them is that Noah was not a typical, is not the typical Bible character.

Noah lived in a time when corruption had reached a proportion of the world that made it so there was just such a few, just a handful of people who were still faithful to God.

Noah was the key guy in that group and the Bible says he was just, he was perfect.

But I like the way it ends Noah walked with God now he had an ancestor Enoch who also walked with God and Enoch walked with God's And to the point where God did what with him he took him now.

No, I didn't get that deal Because each of us has a different role to play Right Noah walked with God and was found worthy to be the 1 who keeps the species, the human race, alive through the great flood.

Enoch walks with God and gets an escape route out of planet Earth.

And so each man has his place to play in verse 10 says and Noah begat 3 sons Shem ham and Japheth the earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence Verse 12 and God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth the stain of sin had reached epidemic proportions sin had come into the world in the garden and after about 2, 000 years of sin existing on the planet it had penetrated man so deeply that now when you looked at the character of men when God looked down all he saw was corruption there was no no more light no more good in people on the earth the whole world all flesh even into the animal world The stain of sin had marred the world so greatly.

When God looked at it, that's what he saw, corruption.

Corruption from what God had designed the world to be.

Corruption from the perfect environment that was the Garden of Eden and the world as it was first created.

So God said unto 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 now, that's a heavy verse.

It's an important verse The end of all flesh come before me 1 of the reasons that this is true is because of the rate of violence in the world.

So it was so violent at the time that as God looked at the earth, God looked at the earth and said, you know what?

These people are going to kill themselves off.

Now, we live in a time when we've seen the Earth come to a point where mankind had the ability to destroy itself completely.

We've created weapons of such great magnitude that in fact man can destroy this planet.

Mankind has the power and the potential to destroy this planet 30, 40 times over with the nuclear arsenal that is on the planet.

So when God speaks here, he's not simply speaking that he's seen the end of all flesh come before him because of the weight of sin and the kind of normal things you look at, but you have to understand that these antediluvian people are far superior, quote unquote, in many ways than we are.

Their intellect, their stature, their size, their strength, all that they were able to do before the flood was much greater than man, than we can comprehend now.

The antediluvians were an amazing group of people in every way that you could describe mankind.

Yet they were corrupt, which means they had increased power with increased corruption.

When God looked at the earth, he's, you gotta get this, he's being merciful.

He's realizing that if the earth goes on the way it is you are these people are going to live in in in 1 of them in a such a broken and and Destructive state that it would be worse.

It's almost worse to be alive than to not exist The earth is filled with violence Spirit of prophecy tells us that in that time if you wanted something you just whoever was the strongest and had the most strength That a brute force they was go over and take it There was no negotiation they had gotten that corrupted and he says behold I will destroy them from off the face of the earth.

He wanted to destroy sin from off the earth and give mankind another opportunity to start over.

The atheists will say, as I think the movie's point is, as I began to read the reviews of the movies, and many religious groups are upset about the movie, Everyone from Muslims to Christians, many are upset about the movie because it portrays Noah as this dark character who really could care less what happens to the people who are going to be destroyed.

And of course, it's Hollywood, so he does stuff like hit the ground and fire comes out of the ground and all kinds of other stuff happens.

But in its essence, as we'll talk about in a minute, it is really a statement about God and his nature.

The movie is literally an indictment of God in the great controversy.

So we have to go back to the story in the scripture and understand what God was really dealing with so that we can vindicate It vindicate God's character because Hollywood now has that power so man doesn't have the stature He used to have he doesn't have the size and the power But he has now this mental power that has been created through media Then he can control the world that way Now watch this So God wasn't being cruel here He's being merciful Matthew chapter 24 Verse 37 People say this story is not a true story.

In fact, I went to the gym yesterday and worked out, and this became the discussion after our spin class.

As there were a few Christians in the class, and the instructor, an atheist who thinks he's so brilliant and intelligent, and he can deconstruct all biblical themes.

And so we got into a discussion after class.

So it actually turned out to be a very good discussion in many ways.

But his whole thing is these are just stories.

And of course 1 of the first defenses I give when people say the Old Testament stories are just stories Is the fact that Jesus quotes them?

So that's 1 of the first things because Jesus is truth.

So when Jesus quotes the story it It validates the story Right.

So before we even get to history and science The only and first and most important person in my life that needs to validate the story is Christ So when Christ says but as the days of Noah were so also shall the coming of the Son of man be he says not only is that story a right and true story, it will in its context and in its purpose be repeated.

So he goes beyond just saying it happened to say those circumstances will arise again.

This is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo which has been called the new, The Great War, the World War, Africa's Great War, many, many terms.

We have watched hundreds of thousands of people potentially have been killed.

Amputations and all kinds of crazy things.

You don't even hear about the conflicts in a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo on the nightly news in America.

All of this violence can happen and it's just almost completely ignored as if they don't matter.

The South Side of Chicago is now 1 of the most violent places on the planet.

Homicide rates have gone through the roof right here in America, right where the President of the United States came from to be elected.

The city of Chicago and this kid is holding up a bumper sticker that says, don't shoot, I want to grow up.

And some of you know Because you've lived in neighborhoods like this where literally every time you go outside.

It's as if you are entering a war zone I used to visit my uncle in New York He lived in Brooklyn and there was a part of the neighborhood when we'd go and visit and they called it Vietnam because so many People died on that corner That's inside the richest most sophisticated Nation in the world We've watched as drug wars have escalated and the drug war-related murders in Mexico.

And you can see this graph here of how the murders have escalated and increased over time.

We live in a violent world that is only becoming more violent.

And even when you look at this, there is now even a concept that once never existed of the serial killer.

And here's the sad thing about it, just to show you how much we are in love with violence is the serial killers are almost glamorized rock groups named themselves after serial killers Jesus said as it was in the days of Noah so shall it be when the Son of Man comes.

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Beyond Belief: Noah and the Flood

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