A Great Flood, Ferry and Faith

a misplaced object of faith when our faith should be in Christ and in his word alone. So for some it is an object of faith and so there are still expeditions to try to find the ark. In spite of all the logistical and political challenges with the supposed location, still a lot of attempts to find the ark. For other people however, it is an object of scorn and ridicule. The idea of a boat carrying eight people and thousands of animals through a worldwide flood seems to many like a fairy tale. And Hollywood has done us no benefit with films like last year's film entitled Noah, which may have been a great epic adventure film but showed very little realism and certainly little if any biblical truth to it at all. So the ark is an object of great interest to a lot of people. For that reason I think it is important that we go back to the beginnings. Genesis chapters 1 through 11 form the foundation of everything we believe in the Bible. And it is important to understand so that our confidence in the Bible remains true what the Bible says about the ark and the flood and all that happened through Noah and the flood. So Genesis chapter 7 where we find ourselves today describes a great flood, a great fairy and a great faith. We are going to go back to see what the Bible actually says. Get a biblical picture of the greatest cataclysm to ever befall mankind ever in human history. And we are also going to take a look at the man who is at this center of that great event. Let's begin with what chapter 7 says about a great flood. We are going to pick verses out of the chapter rather than just reading through the whole chapter. We are going to pick verses out of this chapter and also dip back into chapter 6 a little bit to find out what the Bible says about a great flood. And the question really as to the flood is as to its extent. I want to deal first of all with the question as to the extent of the flood. The question is this, was the flood a universal flood, worldwide flood, or was it more local in scope in just the Mesopotamian world? It is amazing to me how many Bible commentators, people who write commentaries on the Bible, are trying to argue for a limited local flood. It is almost as though we are so ridiculed for believing what the Bible says literally that there is this desire to be academically credible in the eyes of the world. I don't care the least about that. What I do care is what the Bible says. And so we are going to take a look at the biblical information. There are those who believe it had to be a local flood because it would be impossible for the water to cover all the mountains as the Bible says it does. To the height of Mount Everest, really? And so those who do not believe in a universal flood say it would take eight times more water than is on planet earth to cover all the high mountains on planet earth today. What they failed to take into account is that there were no Mount Everests before the flood. There were no mountains that high. The mountains that we see on planet earth today are a result of the breakup of the earth's crust and the upward thrust of the earth's crust because of the flood. Before the flood, when Noah lived, there were no mountains like that. There were mountains but not nearly that high. And so the water did not have to reach Mount Everest, but it did cover the mountains that were on planet earth at that time. I want to give you this morning, basically as a form of apologetics, if you will, or cementing our faith in the Word of God, give you several reasons for a universal flood. The reason why I'm doing this is because I know that many of you are interested in these kind of things by the kinds of questions you ask. And so because we are sometimes influenced by the world that goes against what the Bible teaches, I want to give you biblical reasons for a universal flood. The language of Genesis is actually quite clear on this issue. And you have to explain it away to deny a universal worldwide flood. The first reason is its purpose. The purpose of the flood is given to us very clearly in chapter 7. Look at verse 4. Verse 4 says, 7 days from now, God speaking to Noah, 7 days from now, I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. And I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made. Skip down to verse 21. Verse 21, every living thing that moved on the earth perished, birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind, everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. So every air breathing creature on earth, including man, died. Obviously, sea creatures were able to make it through the flood. They are not included in this description. But every air breathing creature died, every on the whole planet, including all people. Verse 23 says, every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out. Men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth only Noah was left and those with him in the ark. The purpose of the flood, as we saw in chapter 6, was to judge mankind. So the purpose was not just to judge a small little civilization in a small corner of the world. By the time of Noah, with the lifespan of hundreds of years that these people lived, and the time involved between creation and the flood, it's quite possible that population had spread throughout the earth. In fact, there are some who believe the population in Noah's day may have approached almost what it is today. So we're not talking about a little pocket of people living in a corner of the world. We're talking about a worldwide population, worldwide teaming with animals, and all of that is destroyed. So the purpose of the flood leads inevitably to believing in a universal flood. But secondly, there's the miraculous nature of the flood. It's miraculous nature. Look at verses 11 and 12. Look at how the flood happened. Verse 11, in the 600th year of Noah's life on the 17th 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 and rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights. Here's how you get all the water for the flood, two locations where this water comes from. The Bible says, first of all, it came from beneath. All the springs of the great deep burst forth. Possibly the uplifting of the earth's crust caused the ocean waters to overflowed land, but there's more than that. Remember that before this time there had been no rain on earth, but there were rivers. So where did those rivers get their water? Well, those who study these things, like Henry Morris, an engineer who wrote a book called the Genesis Flood, actually his comrade Dr. Whitcom. One of my professors in seminary wrote the book and then Dr. Morris later added some of the water issues to it. But they have described that where the water came from for the great flood was from subterranean springs and chambers of water that produced rivers. There were great subterranean pools of water, all those burst forth, and great amounts of water came from those. But then the Bible also says that the floodgates of heaven were opened. That's a very specific description of the collapse of the vapor canopy around earth. Remember when we talked about creation, God divided the waters, some in the heavens, and some on the earth. The waters in the heavens formed a canopy of vapor around the earth that protected the atmosphere of the earth and contributed to the long life of people on the earth. All of that water collapsed and God caused it to gradually fall on the earth over a period of 40 days, non-stop rain for 40 days. So water coming from beneath, water coming from above, the miraculous nature of this flood leads us to believe it was worldwide in scope. Third reason for a universal flood is the depth of the water. Look at verse 17. For 40 days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the water's increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than 20 feet, actually literally 23 feet. Over the highest mountains, again remember the mountains were not as high as ones we have today. So the water coming from the firmament, coming from the depths of the earth, from the oceans, would have been clearly sufficient to cover every mountain on earth. The depth of the flood, clearly the way it's described, is a worldwide flood. Fourth reason for a universal flood is the duration of the flood. How long did it last? Look at verse 24. The waters flooded the earth for 150 days. That's the build-up of the waters and then it stops. But for the waters to recede are another seven months that Noah is on the ark as you read in chapter 8. So in all it was like 370 days that Noah was in the ark and the flood was on the earth gradually receding. So that's over a year. This is not a little local flood. Local floods don't take that long to dissolve and things get back to normal. This is a worldwide flood. Reason number five is the size of the ark. We're going to look at the size specifically just a little bit later. But the size of the ark, that would be ridiculous for a local flood. You got to have that big a boat for a local flood. Are you kidding me? That thing wouldn't even fit in the rivers and the flood plain of the Euphrates for very long for sure. The size of the ark indicates a universal flood. And number six, even the need for an ark indicates a universal flood. If this is a local flood, God could have told Noah I've got a place for you over here away from this basin where the flood is going to be. I'll protect you over on this part of the earth. Go over this mountain on the other side. You'll be safe. God could have told him that. There was no need for an ark if it was not a universal flood. Number seven, there's the testimony of Peter. The testimony of Peter in 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 5 and 6. Look at these verses. But they deliberately forgot the people living in those days deliberately forgot that long ago by God's word the heavens came into being. The earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. Not a local river basin, the world that existed at that time was deluged and destroyed. And then there's the testimony of Christ in Luke chapter 17. Christ has this to say about the flood just as it wasn't the days of Noah. So also will it be in the days of the Son of Man? People were eating, drinking, marrying, being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. All of the world's population destroyed by the flood. And then ninthly there is the promise of God. The promise of God. Remember what God promised? If you look at chapter 9 verse 11 since we're close let's just look at it. Chapter 9 verse 11, after Noah gets off of the ark after the flood, God says this, I establish my covenant with you. Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood. Never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. And then in verse 15, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all the living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. The way God describes the flood through his promise. I will never again do what I just did. Now if this is a local flood God has broken his promise thousands of times. Because there have been thousands of local floods on planet earth. So if this is a local flood then God's promise is called into question. What God promised is I will never do what I just did destroying the whole earth with a flood. And there are more reasons. Henry Morris in his commentary the Genesis record gives 26 reasons for a universal flood. You ready? All of you with bated breath. Are wondering is he really going to do it? No, I'll spare you that. I think these nine are enough. But there is overwhelming evidence from the biblical record that this is a universal worldwide flood. Now the reason why it's important to state that and know that and nail that down in our belief is because the Bible in the New Testament, in one of the passage we read in 2 Peter 3, likens the future judgment of God to this judgment in Noah's day. So if we're going to doubt what the Bible says about that judgment then it opens the door to doubt what God says about his future judgment. It's one of the reasons why people deny the basic truths of scripture when you deny what's in the 11 chapters of Genesis. First 11 chapters of Genesis it opens you up to denying everything else in the Bible. So I'd rather just believe what God says about the flood and about everything else. So this is a universal flood. If you take the language of Genesis at face value you cannot escape that. And believe me, I got a ton of commentaries on Genesis in my study and I know what they say. I looked at them all this week and a lot of them, even good Bible believing commentators, seem to stumble all over themselves trying to fit in with the academic world and deny that this was a universal flood. The language of Genesis is clear. This was a universal flood, a great flood. But to deal with that great flood Noah was instructed to build a great fairy. Let's look at what the Bible says about the ark. First of all the boat itself. Look with me first back in chapter 6, chapter 6, verse 14. After God predicts that he will send the flood he tells Noah in verse 14. So make yourself an ark of Cyprus would make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you're to build it. The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. That's a description of the boat. Now there are lots of ways that this has been pictured. One of the ways I'm going to show you on the screen is an artist representation of the ark that is being constructed by Ken Ham and answers in Genesis in the state of Kentucky. It's a little difficult to see with the lighting and so forth in here. But this is a life size to scale representation of the ark and artist representation of what they're doing. Actually it may not have looked quite like that. Probably the ark was a flat bottomed, flat sided barge, not really a boat as much as it was a barge. It had no rudder, no mast, no sail. It was not navigable by Noah. He could not navigate it. It was at the mercy of God on the flood waters as to where it would go and what would happen to it. But this thing is huge as it's described in the Bible. It is three stories and those three stories with the dimensions that are given us in the verses we just read would give us 1,396,000 cubic feet of storage space. That is enough space to carry two of every kind of air breathing creature on planet earth today and still have one level completely empty. This was a huge boat. This was an enormous boat. Here is another way to look at it. I'm indebted to Ben Faulkner for this next slide as he has positioned the size of the ark on our church property. This is what it would look like. This is where we are right now. This is where I am. This is where you are. That's our auditorium. This is our church auditorium right here. This is the education wing, right here, the curved wing. This is our gymnasium, parking lots. Halls Ridge Road. This is the ark. From there to there. It dwarfs this auditorium. This auditorium from the back of the seating to the front of the ceiling is about 80 feet. The ark is 450 feet. This ceiling is about 32 feet high from the floor to the ceiling. The ark is 45 feet high. This auditorium is 60 feet wide. The ark is 75 feet wide. This is an enormous, enormous structure. Much more room than needed to carry the animals that Noah was supposed to carry. The Bible describes it with one door. It only has one door. When Adam and his family went in, God closed them in that door. It has a window of 18 inches high all the way around the top of the ark for ventilation and a little bit of light. It is a boat that is worthy of a great flood. It is a great ferry. There is a lot of question about the animals and getting all the animals inside the ark. Look at what the Bible says about the animals in the ark. Let's begin back in chapter 6, verse 19. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind, please note that word kind, two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal, and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and stored away as food for you and for them. God says, take two of every kind. In the Bible, the word kind is similar to our word today, species. It is not like Adam had to take two colleagues, two docksons, two dobermans, every variety of dogs. He just had two dogs. In the genetic makeup of those dogs would be the material from which would come all the kinds or different forms of dog afterwards. Kind just simply means two dogs, not two of every looking dog, but just two dogs. That is what kind means. That helps us understand that there are not as many animals as some try to say you had to have on the ark. But then notice chapter 7, verses 2 and 3. Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male in its mate, two of every kind of unclean animal, a male in its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female to keep the various kinds alive throughout the earth. Wait a second, is there contradiction here? Two, is it two as in chapter 6 or is it seven? The general rule of thumb is take two of every animal, male and female in order to keep them alive. But of the clean animals take seven, three couples and one extra. The one extra would be given as a sacrifice to God when they got off the ark and the other clean animals because after the flood, God would give man the ability to eat meat up till this time he is only eaten vegetables. I am sure glad I live on this side of the ark or in the flood. But anyway, God allowed them to eat meat afterwards and that is what the extra animals were for to give them food supply after the flood. So there is no contradiction here, there is just a little more detail given in chapter 7. If you look down at verse 8 of chapter 7, Pairs of clean and unclean animals of birds and all creatures that move upon the ground, male and female came to know up and entered the ark as God had commanded Noah. Skip down to verse 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, pairs of creatures that have the breath of life in them came to know up and entered the ark. The animals going in were male and female of every living thing is God had commanded Noah then the Lord shut him in. Please understand the size of the ark was plenty of room for all the animals, even all the kinds of animals on planet earth today. They didn't have to be the largest and the oldest of the animals, they were going to be there for a year and then be able to grow and reproduce after the flood. They didn't have to be the absolute largest of animals, there are some who have wondered how did Noah get all these animals into the ark, I read one commentator who said, how did he get all the way to Australia to get those animals? That's crazy. I mean again the continents were formed by the flood, not before the flood, so the breakup and position of the continents, that wasn't the issue in that day. And there's no indication Noah had to go out and recruit the animals, it wasn't like he was going out and trying to figure out which tigers to get. Would you be willing to go? No, that's crazy. Three times the Bible says the animals came to Noah, God instinctively brought them to the ark, Noah didn't have to go out and do anything to get the animals, he just needed to prepare the place for them to go. And so God brought the animals, people have raised questions again trying to discredit this story and treat it like a fairy tale, people have raised questions about what the animals do once they got in the ark, they fight with each other, they run around all over the place. No, the God who is able to instinctively bring them to the ark is also instinctively able to cause them to rest or go into some supernatural hibernation and not even require enough food. In fact, look at chapter 8 verse 1, but God remembered Noah and all the wild animals in the livestock that were with him in the ark. He sent a wind over the earth and the water is receded. And when it says God remembered Noah and the animals, it's not like after a year in the ark he said, oh yeah, they're down there, forgot. Oh, that's not what he's talking about at all, obviously. The word remembered actually is a Hebrew word which means to take special care, to provide for all of their needs. And that talks about the time they were on the ark before they were released. I believe that God put the animals into some kind of year-long hibernation where they didn't require a lot of food. Food was basically for Noah and his family and to keep whatever animals needed it along the way. But God's able to take care of all that. Any denial of what the text of scripture says really is a lack of confidence in the greatness of God. It's all there is to it. The Bible describes a great flood, universal, worldwide flood. The Bible describes a great fairy, an ark that could hold all of the animals no one needed to preserve all the different species of animals. But there's something much more interesting to me than just the ark. And you're thinking, I sure hope so. This is like a Bible study just about the length and breadth of the ark. It's got to be more of this message than that. Turn with me please to Hebrews chapter 11. Because the Bible describes the greatest element of this story is not a great flood. It's not a great fairy. It's a great faith. A great faith. God's perspective on the most important element of the flood is given to us in Hebrews 11. And it describes the faith of Noah. And so what I want to focus on now is the faith of Noah. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 7 says this. By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen in Holy Fear, built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. That one verse describes several elements of Noah's faith that are demonstrated in Genesis chapter 7 in our text for today. This is a challenge to us. Hebrews 11 is supposed to be a challenge to us to live by faith. To look at all these Old Testament characters that live by faith and to emulate them, to use them as our examples. Chapter 12 begins with seeing that we have such a great cloud of witnesses. People who've gone on before us and who've lived by faith, let us run our race with endurance. With faith looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. And so these examples are given to us to challenge us to live by faith. What does Noah's faith challenge us to do? There are five things about his faith that are mentioned in this one verse. First of all, genuine faith, great faith is rooted in a relationship of trust. It is a relationship of trust in the Lord. Look again at verse 7 by faith Noah when warned about things not yet seen, notice the next three words in Holy Fear. Built an ark. Just lift those words in Holy Fear from this text for a moment and let's focus on those. What is Holy Fear? What is the fear of God anyway? The fear of God is a healthy respect for who he is and a response to that respect for who he is. That is in line with who he is. So it is a healthy respect for who God is and then it responds in kind. It responds on that same level. It is a trust in God recognizing who he is. You know that's the way Noah got saved. Was to recognize who God was and that he was worthy of being trusted because of who he was. That's what the fear of God is all about. The Bible says as we saw last week that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He was saved by grace, God offering salvation and deliverance to everybody on planet earth, but Noah and Noah alone it seems. Recognized who it was that was making that offer and with a great respect for the person of God knew that he was worthy of placing his trust in him. And so Noah was saved just like we are by grace through faith. Noah trusted God as his Lord and he trusted him for salvation. That's how he was saved, but it goes beyond that. Noah didn't just get saved by faith. This relationship of trust calls Noah to walk in faith, to live by faith. It's clear from the story that Noah trusted God when he couldn't see what God was talking about. He was obedient to God when he couldn't understand even what God was asking him to do or even hear God. You reach chapter 6 and 7 carefully again and you'll find that when God first tells Noah to build the ark, then you've got 120 years. We saw last week, 120 years before he finishes and the flood comes. There's no indication that God spoke to him again. Now he may have, but there's no indication of that in the Bible. So he believes what God told him even if he never hears another word in the next 120 years. He's going to live by faith in what God told him to do. And then God speaks to him in chapter 7, verse 1 of Genesis and says now, it's time. I'm going to send the flood. You're to come to the ark. After 120 years, he finally speaks again. And then in verse 15, 16, he closes him in the ark and there's no indication that he spoke to him for the next 371 days while he was on the ark. He may have, but there's no indication of it in the Bible. Until at the very end, he says, I'm making a covenant with you. It's time to get out of the ark. I'm going to make a covenant with you. I will never send this kind of judgment on the earth again. There are long periods of time, years and years and years when he never hears God speak like he did in the beginning. There's no word from God during those long periods of time. But he was in a relationship with God. He had heard God and he had trusted God and he would trust him instinctively even when he didn't hear from God. My friend, that's the way God wants us to walk by faith. We have the privilege of having the word of God that we can open anytime and we can hear God speak to us. So we are much more blessed than Noah was. And yet there are times when we cannot see or hear God in our lives and our faith grows weak. And we stop trusting him for our daily lives and his daily provision and care for us when we can hear him speak every day if we will go back to his word. Noah's faith was a great faith because evidently he went years and years and years without hearing God speak to him but he was still just as confident in the promise of God of the judgment of God and what he was to do as he was when he heard it. And instinctively because of this relationship of trust, he walked with God in faith. You know this time of year and shortly before this time of year is witness to one of the greatest migrations in the animal kingdom that of the monarch butterfly that goes from Canada and the northern part of the United States by the millions to about 11 different mountains in Mexico. And they went there. They have never been there before but they know where to go. They instinctively because of what God has built into them instinctively go thousands of them 3000 miles to a place they've never been. And they're there by the millions they know to go there. God has built that into them. They don't need someone to draw them a map or provide them a GPS. They go where God has built into them to go. The same thing can be said of Sam and another other of God's creatures. How much more those of us who have a personal relationship with them who have a relationship of trust should be able to instinctively say whatever God says wherever he says to go whatever he says to do I will trust him. I will go even if I can't see the end result of that. Even if I don't know what's going to happen I will trust God. I will do what God tells me to do. I will go where he tells me to go. You see faith is built on a relationship of trust and if you know the Lord and you know you can trust him with everything in your life then you will go and do whatever he says. That's Noah. Great faith. But this great faith is also characterized by a readiness to obey. Look again at verse 7 in Hebrews 11. By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen in Holy fear built an ark, those two expressions warned about things not yet seen so he builds an ark. Can you imagine think for just a moment of how striking this example of faith is? Noah is told out of the blue about something that has never happened in human history up to that point. God is going to send rain on there. It has never rained before. God is going to send a flood. There has never been a flood on planet earth. God tells Noah because he is warned about that catastrophe about things that have never been seen in human history. God tells him to build an ark. Nobody has ever built an ark before. God gives him instructions as to what materials to use and how to build it. What the dimensions should be, how many stories it should be, tells him everything to do. All the details. This has never been done before. He is being warned about things that have never been seen. All this is incredible. It goes beyond reason and yet Noah believes. Can you imagine what the average person must have thought when they came by and asked Noah what he was doing and he told them? I think it probably sounded a lot like the tabloids in the grocery stores and supermarkets today. Here are some headlines of tabloids. World War II bombers found on the moon. Woman gives birth to two-year-old baby. Child walks and talks in three days. Adam and Eve's bones found in Asia. Eve was a space alien. Those are literal headlines on the tabloids and I have some others here. Just mom on a chicken diet lays a huge egg. This is stuff beyond belief. And yet people snap up those things. You mean that really happened? That is probably what people thought about Noah when he told them about the flood. Nobody has ever seen anything like this. It sounds too incredible to be true. And they laughed at him just like you laughed at those headlines. And yet Noah believed God. Here's my point, friend. Faith today calls us to obey God even when it seems ridiculous what God says to do. We should not be deterred by how foolish it looks to walk with God. Sometimes when God speaks to us, sometimes the commandments of His Word, sometimes the teaching of His Word sounds very foolish in the culture in which we live. And more and more. We're going to see more and more of this, folks, where people think we are some kind of radical, crazy people for believing what this book says. Are you kidding me? You really believe that? You take it literally? We're going to see more and more of that as our culture moves further and further away from God. And the question is, will you obey God? Will you stick with His Word even when it sounds like tabloid headlines to everybody else in the culture? I love what Philip Yancy said about faith. His definition of faith was this, believing in advance in something that will only seem logical when seen in reverse. When you cannot see how things are going to turn out, but you believe God anyway. And you obey God anyway. That is great faith because great faith leads to a readiness to obey. Thirdly, great faith is a rebuke to unbelief. Look again at verse 7. By faith, Noah, who has warned about things not yet seen and Holy fear of faith, will not be seen. And Holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith, he condemned the world. What does that mean? Noah's faith was a rebuke to the unbelief of those around him. Noah believes what God says he will do. And he's acting on that faith, on that information. Everybody around him is laughing it off. Noah seems like an old fool. It's where we live, folks. Genesis chapter 7 verse 1 says that when God told Noah to go ahead and get ready to get on the ark, he said, because I have found you to be righteous in my sight in the earth. People who live by faith are a delight to God, but they are a laughing stock to this world. Living by faith, living righteous lives that believe what the Bible says causes irritation sometimes among unbelievers, unsafe folks who don't understand why we live the way we do. Sometimes it causes misunderstanding. Sometimes even anger and hatred. Just this past week. Remember a year ago when we had the I stand service here on Sunday night for supporting the pastors in Houston who were being required by the mayor of that city to provide their sermons on homosexuality. Houston was going to try to shove through an ordinance, gender neutral, transgender ordinance that would open up restrooms to every gender. Remember that? Well, those folks in Houston forced it to a vote, which was the way it was supposed to be done anyway. And this last week, they voted 62% to 38% to turn down that ordinance. Thank God. But I was reading a report of that this week. And those, by the way, the left wing radical liberal segment who was pushing for this transgender ordinance had brought in all kinds of Hollywood stars to promote it and so forth. And it would have meant that basically any predator could have walked into a women's restroom and just said, you know, I kind of feel like I'm a woman. So I'm going to go in this restroom. That's what it could have meant. You know, in some of the reports, reading some of the statements of those who supported that measure, you know what they called the people who voted against it and led the rallies against it in the pastors. They called them misinformed bigots. They called them scare mongers and other choice words that I will not repeat here in this church. Listen, friends, more and more in our culture, when you stand on this book and you live by faith in God's truth, you're going to be seen that way. I'm going to be seen that way. We're going to be viewed as radical too far out to be pushed to the fringes of the acceptance of society. Let's continue to live by faith that rebukes the unbelief of a generation that is quickly leaving everything the Bible teaches. I'm willing to stand and say, my faith in God will remain undeterred even when it does rebuke unbelief and calls anger on the part of those who are unbelieving. Now, let's always balance that folks with love and that needs to be said too. We should never become a stench in the nostrils of unbelievers because of our own obnoxiousness. We need to live a lifestyle of love and grace, but firmly declare, believe and live by God's truth. We can do that lovingly, but uncompromisingly. Great faith is a rebuked unbelief, but fourthly, great faith results in blessing. Look again at verse 7. By his faith, he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. What that's probably speaking of is the end result of his faith and the end result of his righteousness which would bring eternal blessing. When you place your faith in Christ as your Savior, you become an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ. And you will inherit someday all of the blessings of heaven. I think that's involved here, but there's also blessing to be inherited here as well. Obviously, for Noah, he was delivered from the flood. He was delivered from God's punishment on the earth and he was vindicated in his stand for the Lord. And so there are blessings here also. God takes care of those who live by faith, who live by his word. And so faith results in blessing. But then lastly, faith, great faith, genuine faith is a reminder to our generation. Jesus said it in Luke 24. Look at these verses on the screen. Matthew 24 verses 37 to 39. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving and marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they knew nothing about what would happen. That means they did not recognize what Noah was saying was true. Didn't think anything about it. Until the flood came and took them all away, that is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Now in the context of that passage, he is talking about the second coming. At the end of the tribulation, those of us who know Christ, I believe, will be raptured to be in heaven before that happens. But the general downward decline of human society will continue at an accelerated pace through the tribulation time to the point that at the second coming, it will be just like it wasn't the days of Noah. But we are getting there fast. We are already seeing the evidence of it today. Now here is my point. In Noah's day, people were just getting along with life. When Jesus said they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving and marriage, he is not talking necessarily about sinful activity. I think that is often viewed as all they were living in sin to the health and they were, but they were also living everyday life. They were sitting down, he thermals. They were drinking their drink everyday. They were doing the normal family customs. They were marrying off their daughters and their sons. They were marrying and giving the whole point of that statement is that they were just getting on with life. And they didn't want to pay any attention. They were just ignoring that strange little man over there, building that big boat. He is just a crazy man. Let's get on with life. And that is exactly where we are today. Nothing is happening. All those things that he is preaching about. Look, it has been 90 years. Nothing has happened. That crazy little man building that boat over there is out of his mind. Come on, let's just plan for the next meal. Let's plan for the next wedding. Let's plan for the next business meeting. Let's plan for the next thing we need to do in our company or our farm. Let's just get ready and do the stuff of life. Forget about him. That is the way people were living. And people view life and those of faith in much the same way today. You mean you really believe in this apocalyptic stuff? You really believe you are a doomsayer. You believe that the world is going to come to an end? Why aren't you standing on a street corner with a placard? That is how people view what we believe today. Just like they did in Noah's day. This is a little life. We are too busy doing life. To stop and listen to the word of God. Great faith is a reminder to our generation what God says is true even if they don't see it. It is true. I want to remind you, my friend. I want to remind you to be people of great faith. First of all, if you have never trusted Jesus as your Savior, you need to establish that relationship of trust with God that comes through His Son, Jesus Christ. You need to trust Him by faith as your Savior. But then I want to challenge us as a church and as individuals to be people of faith in this day. To be people who step out and live by faith to do what God wants us to do. Listen, it takes faith to go across the street and witness to your neighbor. It takes confidence and trust in the Lord to do that. It takes faith to give a tenth of your income to the Lord's work. In our economic climate to continue that pattern faithfully and obediently takes faith that God will take care of you, that God will provide for you. It takes faith to give the time to serve in ministry. It takes faith to commit your life to whatever God wants you to do. Where are those who will step out in faith and say, God is speaking to me, God is calling me, God is moving in my heart, placing a burden and an inescapable burden in my heart to do whatever I can to invest my life in the Lord's work in these years. Are there some among our midst, we're praying for this? Are there some in our midst whom God is touching and speaking to about giving everything to go to the world and take the gospel to unreached people groups? It takes great faith to step out and do that. Where are those in this generation who will do that today? Where are the William Carries? William Carry was a pastor, a young pastor in England. In the late 17 hundreds he was also a shoemaker. He didn't make enough money as a pastor to support his family. He wrote a tract with this resounding title and inquiry into the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen. That was his tract. And then he began to preach rousing sermons about the need to go take the gospel to the ends of the earth and he decided to go himself. He was roundly criticized and mocked. He's called the father of modern missions because not many people at all were doing that in his day. But he decided to sail to India. He had very little formal education, but he taught himself Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Dutch and French before getting to India. And then once he got there he taught himself Bengali and translated the entire Bible into Bengali and helped produce scriptures and related materials in 40 different languages and dialects. Over 40 years of ministry in that part of the world he buried his wife and all of his children. But he stayed there. That was back in the day when you didn't take an airplane home. Once you went to the foreign field you were there for your life and you never saw home again. It took great faith for him to do that. And God I believe is calling out people like Noah when God says I want you to do this and Noah says what? Has never happened before? Nobody's ever built an ark. It's never ran. You want me to do something impossible when God speaks to us to do something that seems unlikely that seems like this is something for other people to do. Not me. Where are the folks who will respond in great faith and say I will go. I will go. I will take the gospel to the lost and it may be your lost neighbor. Some of us can't even generate enough faith in God to witness to our neighbor. When God tells us what to do will we step out in faith and do it? Will we be men of great faith, women of great faith like Noah? Will we? Let's pray together. Father help us to be people of faith in this day. If we learn nothing else from Noah help us to learn what it means to receive a seemingly incredible task and yet be willing to do it. So help us to follow you by faith and no matter what others around us may say no matter what the culture thinks help us to live with an eye toward pleasing you and you alone. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.