All right. Well, E-Mays set the bar kind of high, so don't worry. I won't get over it. When I was putting this on, I hit the mute button.
I was talking to somebody about technology this morning, and we were saying how we hate it, but we love it when it works. And right now I hate it. There we go. Welcome.
I was thinking, last week John said he wished he had E-Mays passion when he preached. And I'm sitting there thinking, oh, there's only Hulk Hogan who had the passion that John had when he was telling us we had hope. Brother. So you're not going to get any of that from me today.
That's just not me. It's, unfortunately, we're all different in the way we are. And thank the Lord for that, because if it was the same every week, you wouldn't be too happy, especially if it was me up here every week. So let's take a moment and pray.
Father, thank you for bringing us here this morning. Thank you for the Lord Jesus, our Savior. And thank you that we can sing these praises to him. And in him we are more than conquerors.
Our sins are forgiven. We have the hope of heaven. And Lord, we look forward to that day. This morning I pray that you would teach us from your word and that you would give us a word that would be for each person who was here.
Lord, in an audience of the size, there are many believers who love and know the Lord Jesus. But maybe some are struggling and you know their hearts. And Father, there's likely here some who don't know the Lord Jesus have never come to him. And they're still lost and still in their sins.
And Lord, may they come and find the forgiveness that can only be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, may you encourage us as we look at your word this morning in Christ's name, amen. So when Jesus went and had a discussion with his disciples, he said to them, but as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. So this morning we want to look at kind of the world conditions at the time of the flood, how the world has kind of fallen back into similar to the private.
It's like God's hit the reset button and things have gotten scuzzy again. And then we'll look at some parallels between God's plan of salvation and his salvation for Noah. This thing is very uncomfortable today for some reason. Yes, because my arm is in the way.
All right, so very simple six point message. So a double perfect message. We say a perfect message has three points. So you're going to get a double portion today.
We won't be that long. We won't be here twice as long though. So let's read the scriptures together. In Genesis chapter six is where we're reading verse one.
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. So they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever. For he has flesh.
His day shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land and man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heaven. I'm sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24 verse 35. Now I put the title in red. If I put the words up there in red, you would find it very hard to see.
But these are the words of the Lord Jesus. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the son, but the father only. As it were in the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the son of man.
For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark. Then they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of the son of man. First Peter chapter 3 verse 20.
Because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight persons were brought safely through the water. Now here's one of the things. In our world, in our universities, in our general world in general, they will tell you, really like, okay, you know what, the ark and the animals and all that makes a cute little little type play thing. And it looks nice in story books, but it's a myth.
And I think, okay, your argument is not with me. Your argument is with Jesus Christ. Because look at what he said here. As it was in the days of Noah, soul will be in the coming of the son of man.
And he described what the day was like. They were eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage. And then he talked about the flood that came and swept them all away. Jesus is not someone who perpetuates myths or perpetrates myths, I meant to say.
He is not somebody who tells lies. It's impossible for God to lie. So therefore, I have to believe this account of the flood. Because Jesus Christ proclaimed it was true.
Peter, one of the disciples who later wrote the Epistles, first Peter, he has much to say about Noah and about the flood. The writer of the Hebrews speaks of Noah as a man of faith and righteousness. You see, oh, I left these verses out. Knowing that this is for 2 Peter 3, 3 to 7.
Knowing this first of all that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing following their own sinful desires, they will say, where is the promise of his coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. For they deliberately overlooked this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water and by the word of God. And that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
And by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. So Peter clearly understood that there was a flood. You see, here's the thing. And here's a quote from Martin Luther.
Martin Luther says, I am much afraid that the schools will prove to be the very gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the holy scriptures and engraving them on the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which means are not increasingly occupied with the word of God must be corrupt. When I first heard that quote attributed to Martin Luther, I thought, okay, I need to kind of research and see.
Is that true? Did he say that? He did, in fact, say that. I remember and I gave this account to my wife a couple of weeks ago that as an unbeliever, but new enough of the Bible, when I came to Dalhousie University, I had foolishly signed up for a course that was going to help get me into the school I wanted to go to, evolutionary biology was the course.
In the very first lecture, the very first paragraph, the teacher stood up and said, first of all, if you have any delusions of there being a God and of creation myth, then you're in the wrong class. I exited that class. It wasn't a long walk from the life science center to the ANA building. I went to the registrar's office and said, I need to make a change.
Even as a nonbeliever, I feared the fact that they were going to tell me that there is no God and I would be put on a path of foolishness. You see, many deny the existence of this flood. Many deny this. Why?
Because I want to deny the existence of God. Why? Because if God is who he says he is, he is the judge of all the earth and I must give an account to him. And they refuse to accept the word of God.
They deny the evidence. I remember, I studied, I have a geology degree. I was not saved as I was studying for my geology degree. And I sat in many, many classes wondering, wow, there's nothing very certain that they're talking about here.
They keep using words like may have been. Because we believe. Because they're trying to make the story up as they go along. I can go to the scriptures and I can say, this is a fact.
I don't understand everything about it. But God said it. That settles it. I believe it.
See those who use it the other way, they have to kind of have a couple of phrases wrong. It's not God said it, I believe it. That settles it. That settles it.
Now, do I believe it. In the Psalms, we also read of the flood. And I believe it speaks of the flood. Psalm 104, verses 6 to 9.
You covered it, speaking of the earth, with the deep, as with the garments. The waters stood above the mountains. It's not talking about just creation. This is speaking of an event where the waters stood above the mountains.
At your rebuke they fled. At the sound of your thunder, they took flight. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place where you appointed for them. You set the boundary that they may not pass so that they might not again cover the earth.
What was the promise at the end of the flood? I will never flood the earth again. David, when he wrote this song, fully was convinced of a worldwide flood. Further evidence for the flow.
Oh, yeah, this was a good one. This at the top, you probably can't see it, but written and fact-checked by the editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. The title, Flood Myth. Huh, myths of a great flood.
Biblical flood myth. The fact-checkers. Wonder what they, where did they get the facts? Where did they check?
Did they check with the author? Did they check with the scriptures? Did they check? Who?
Where did they check those facts? No, see, you put fact-checked on something. Oh, this is solid. I'll believe this is a myth.
No. You got to think. Well, you see things like this. What did they check with?
Biblical flood myth. Oh, we fact-checked that. Really? In your prayer closet?
Wait, look, where did you go and check this whole thing? Because God was behind this flood. Did you check with Noah? No, he's long gone.
So I kind of get a kick out of this. This is what you run into. This is what your kids run into in school every day. Every day.
Here's some other evidence. It's proven to be fossil records. You see those fish? Right here.
Those fossils were found on the top of Mount Everest. Mount Everest. 49,000 feet above sea level. Fish.
Clever fish. And I would say from looking at the ages, they got there before Sir Edmund did. You find all around the world, you find a rapid burial of plants and animals. You find polystrate trees.
This one is from Joggins, Nova Scotia, right here. So you look at all the layers, the thousands of years, it took to put those layers down millions of years, so on and so on. But that tree, man, it persevered and grew up through all those layers. I would have thought it would be bigger after all those years.
But somehow made its way through all those trees. And the other thing is geological evidence that you see around the earth. And believe it or not, I'm not going to make this a geology lesson as much as I really wanted to. I'm not going to do it.
But coal deposits in Cape Rotten, in places like Russia, China, all around the world, Joggins, Sydney, in land seas, China, India, the Great Plains, sediments that have been carried long, long distances, and the fossil record. Now, for those of you who have never seen or touched the fossil, I did actually bring some today. So you want to come and see them after. You can come up and look at my fossils.
Those are seashells. And here's one of a tree from Cape Rotten. And here's some ripple marks. And then when it all dried up, it left stuff that I left at home.
I had a big lump of rock salts, but I guess I put it on my breakfast. And here's a bunch of seashells that are fossilized. So I'll give you a chance to look at those after. And if you want to get all kinds of information on the scientific background and implications and everything on the flood, I would highly recommend, Whitman Morris, the Genesis Flood, thick book, lots of technical stuff in it.
But I'm telling you, if you talk nice to me, I might even let you borrow this copy. I am allowed to lend it. So there's lots of proof in the geological record. There's lots of proof in the way the earth looks of this flood.
How about this? And this actually played a part in me coming to Christ. Flood stories. Almost 300 people groups have accounts of the flood, almost everywhere in the world.
You know the Chinese symbol for a boat? Right here. Ship or vessel? There's a ship right there.
Eight people or mouths. Where would that come from? How could they come up with that? Flood.
There's the symbol for flood. That might be a little low. Hopefully you can see that. It equals water right there.
Total, right there. A total flood. Together is in this earth. And again, eight.
Huh. Coincidence? I think not. It's not a coincidence.
They have a story of a flood. I was working in the Arctic for a summer. And what's now known of it, it was called Northwest Territories back then. And there were two guys that shared a tent with me.
Victor and Sam. There were two Inuit guys. And we were talking one night about the flood of Noah. And they said that's very interesting because we have a legend of a flood too.
Really. So here's some Inuit guys. And they do. I looked up what their whole legend is all about.
And these mounds that are behind them is part of the whole thing. But bottom line, the world had fallen into such great depravity that it had to be rescued because it was going to be judged. And one family alone got into a boat and was saved through the whole thing. And I listened to these guys.
And I thought, OK, then, I better start listening to the Bible because what they're telling me in their legends and they've never heard the Bible matches up. That's not just a coincidence. Of these stories that are told around the world, 88% of them have a favorite family. 70% talk of a boat.
95% report that the cause was a flood. Only a flood. 66% said it was because of the wickedness of man, 77%. Report the animals were also saved.
60% report that the survivors ended up on a mountain. Many of them used some form of Noah's name. Many reports that a bird was sent out to check to see if it was over. And in many of these reports, eight people were saved.
So in all of the myths and legends that are told around the world, I should say not myth but legends that are told around the world, 300 people groups have an account of a flood. Therefore I have an argument with Encyclopedia Britannica. So what was the world like before the flood? The days of Noah.
They lived a long time. As we looked at in Genesis 5, people were living a long time. Hundreds and hundreds of years. It changed after the flood.
There was a substantial population on the earth. With the memorialists in this book, they've done the calculations. And by the time the flood actually hit, in Noah's day there was probably 750 million people. But by the time the flood actually hit, there was about a billion people on the earth.
That's a lot of people. From that time forward, in the day of Jesus, there was 250 million people on the earth. We didn't hit a billion people till the 1800s. And then 2 billion in 1927.
3 billion, 1960, and so on. 6 billion, 1999. This past year, 8 billion. We're at 8.1 billion right now.
2,100. They expect 11 billion people on the earth. So population was growing rapidly. The earth was substantially populated.
And that would be in that area, that Mesopotamia, the Middle East, through that area. And then what also was going on was this whole depravity of the sons of God and the daughters of men. Now, I tried. I did so much reading on this.
I thought I'm getting lost in this, that I'm not going to get any kind of a message out of this. I kept reading different things. You know that Henry Morris believes it's one thing. Can Ham believes it's something else.
These are two of the students of creationism that I hold in highest esteem. I don't know what to think. So here are two views. One, the sons of God, which this has valid weight, the scriptures usually refer to the sons of God as being angels.
And the daughters of men as being women. So there was this sexual union between angels and human women. And as a result, these giants were born. Okay, so that's, you know, sounds like weird science fiction.
It does actually kind of make some sense. The other thing that makes some sense is that the sons of God were the descendants of Seth, the godly line. And the daughters of men, the descendants that came through Cain. And they came together and they shouldn't have.
You had wicked line through Cain. And you have a righteous line through Seth. Makes a little bit of sense. I favor the first one actually.
But because I'm not sure how that would produce giants. That's all. So I thought about this and I thought, can I get like what is the point? Like why?
And I think you should read your Bible and think what's the point every time you read something. So what's the point? And I got two points from this. One, if it's a union between angels, fallen angels and human women don't mess around with the occult.
Don't mess around with the things of the devil. You want to do that. The results are going to be disastrous. So here you have in this situation, you would have human women who were created in the image of God to be godly.
Fallen angels who had fallen away in heaven and a union and they produced children that are, I don't know what you would call them, definitely weird, giants. They're genetically modified. So it's not a good thing to mix and mess with the occult. Here's the second point.
If it was the sons of God being the children of Seth and the daughters of men who were human women who were of the unrighteous line of Cain, and this is a really important point, the Bible says do not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. I'm looking out here and I see a whole lot of young people and every one of you are going to look to get married to somebody. If you are a believer, if you are a believer, you will have hideous results in your marriage if you marry somebody who is not a believer. If you have been called to righteousness and to godliness and you marry somebody who isn't, you will have results that will be hideous in your life.
Be very, very difficult. I know that's not what the point was of this, but those are the two things that came to my mind. Don't mess with the things of darkness. Do not mess with the things of darkness.
And secondly, do not be unequally yoked with somebody who is not a believer. I'm going to move along because the clock is. So there was an increase in wickedness. There was violence in the land.
You know what the word for violence is in Hebrew? Hamas. Interesting. I looked the word up and said there was violence.
Hamas. Every intention of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil continually. It's very similar to where we are today. Are we in the days of Noah?
I don't know, but boy, I'll tell you the description fits. It was a very wicked time. In Romans, Paul writes this describing the total depravity of man by the time you get to to Paul's day. It says, for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immoral God for images resembling mortal man, birds, animals, and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them up in their lusts and their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring their bodies among themselves and so on. You can read that in Romans chapter 1. It is a very dark picture of mankind. And then we find Noah in the middle of all this, in the middle of all the violence, in the middle of all the depravity that's going on, we read, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Noah, the account of Noah, back in Genesis chapter 5, Lamic had lived 182 years. He fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one. She'll bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. He didn't mean that he's going to come alongside and run the business.
He meant that through Noah is going to come relief from the curse that we are seeing on the earth as a result of sin. Lamic lived after, verse 30, and Lamic lived after his father, after he fathered Noah, 595 years and had other sons and daughters. And after Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Sham, Ham and Japheth. So they came after Noah was 500 years old.
And then we read this verse, but in all of the depravity that was going on in the world, of all of the wickedness that was all around him, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in all his generation. And Noah walked with God.
It says in verse 9 and verse 10, and says, Noah had three sons, Sham, Ham and Japheth. Now I started thinking about that. Was Noah a perfect man, sinless, spotless, pure? Doesn't say that.
It does say he's blameless in his generation. I mean, when you compared him to what was going on in the world, yes, Noah did stand above the rest. He chose to walk a path of godliness rather than a path of sin. But he stood alone.
Think about it, a billion people. And Noah is singled out. It reminds me of today. I mean, John or Warren, if I asked you, or David, could you tell me how many tracks you've given out on the streets of Halifax over the last 12 to 14 years?
You probably couldn't count them, but I bet you're a million, or not a million, but it's hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands of tracks have gone up to people have heard the message. Very few will heed. Noah was different than the rest.
Noah found grace. You know, we talked about mercy today at the Lord's Supper. We sang about mercy. We sang about mercy this morning.
Noah was not a perfect man. Noah was not sinless. When he read in chapter 9, when we get there, we will realize Noah was a sinner just like the rest of us, but he found mercy from God. God showed him great mercy.
God showed him grace. Despite his sin, in spite of all of that, God showed mercy to him. Just like anybody who is here, there's not a single person here who could stand up and say, the reason I'm a Christian, the reason I can come to Northbrook Bible Chapel and the reason I will go to heaven is because I'm a perfect man or woman or child. I've lived a sinless life.
I've been spotless and I've obeyed every command of God and all of the law. Not one single person can say that. The Bible is very clear on that. In fact, you don't even need to look in the Bible to find that out.
You know it in your own hearth. Your conscience will tell you. We'll convince you. I have sinned.
I have fallen short of the glory of God. I follow after my own lusts. We all know that. Noah was like that, but he found mercy.
He found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And every believer who is here and has trusted in Jesus Christ has found mercy in God, has found grace in from God. We did not get what we deserve. That is the mercy.
And we are given salvation as a gift of grace. This is the first mention of the word grace in all of the Scriptures. You see, Noah lived in the middle of all of this wickedness that's going on. It says, and God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh and corrupted their way in the earth.
And I have determined to make an end to all flesh. The earth is filling with violence or is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth and make for yourself an arc of gopher wood, make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch. Now, I'd love to get into the whole idea of what the pitch means and all of that, but we won't get into that.
We don't have time, maybe for another time. But here is Noah living in the middle of this wickedness. So what did Noah do? Noah hears these words from God and Noah believed God.
That is why Noah is called a righteous man. Noah believed God just like Abraham and it is accounted to him for righteousness. Noah didn't work for grace. Noah didn't work to receive favor from God.
Noah was given favor from God because he believed God. And any person who is here who can say, I am going to heaven and I'm sure of it, is only going because they believed God, because they believed that Jesus Christ died on the cross and took all of their sins and believed that they can have forgiveness of their sins. If you're here this morning and you have never come and had your sins forgiven, you can come today, you don't have to leave this building. You don't have to leave your chair.
Just acknowledge to God, I am a sinner and I know it. I need my sins forgiven. I want the forgiven now. Thank you for sending Jesus Christ to die for me.
I believe that with all my heart and the moment you do that, you will be saved forever. That's what Noah did. So then he was told to build an arch. Now the arch is very interesting.
Make for yourself an archival would make rooms in the arch. I love the descriptions all given there clearly and cover it inside a note with pitch. This is how you are to make it. I'm sure the details were probably a little more extensive than this.
Like God probably took a lot of the guesswork out of this. The length of it, 300 cubits, it's breadth, 50 cubits, and it's height, 30 cubits. I meant to put the conversions up. I'll actually go down below there.
Make a roof for the arch, finish it to a cubit above and set the door in the arch and its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. So here's the size of the arch. 450 feet.
And it was about one and a half foot ball feels long. That's pretty long. It's width, about seven parking spaces. And I put in there, cosical parking spaces, not second cup.
The height, 30 cubits, 45. There it is next to a three and a half story building, four story building. 100,000 square feet of deck space. Just to give you an idea, like you go to the super store like an average one like the brainmart store, that's about 33,000 square feet.
So it's three times the space in that. 1.4 million cubic meters for storage. That's what I need for my freezer. Perfect dimensions for stability according to shipbuilders.
And I haven't checked with Henry in any may yet, but I think that that's probably exactly right. So I think that's the best New Mexico I think it is, is kind of modeled on the dimensions of the arc. And Paul shaking his head, Paul's in the military. So I take that from Paul to be exactly right.
So it's longer than the length of three space shuttle split end to end. And it was an amazing thing. I really wanted the things on my bucket list is to get down to the arc in Kentucky, the arc encounter and see that arc. I think that would be amazing.
He built it to the dimensions that they believe came from from these. Time is almost up. And I'm on my last slide and my last point. You see, here's the thing about the arc.
Never mind all the dimensions. There are some important things about the arc. 1. It was the only way to be saved.
The only way to be saved from the flood was the arc. Secondly, there was a point of entry and that was the door. There was no other way to get into that arc but to go through the door. And most importantly, it was a perfect design because it was designed by God.
Let's look at salvation from sin. God designed a plan that you and me could be saved. I'm an eye, sorry, my grammar. Whoa, my grandmother's not listening.
Maybe she is. God made a way for you. He designed it. He perfected it.
It's his provision. It's 100% his plan. And there's only one way to be saved. Just like there was only one way to be saved from the flood.
There was only one way to be saved. And that is to have your sins forgiven. There's only one door into the arc. There's only one door into salvation.
And that is Jesus Christ and the cross where he died to take your sins. The next time I'd like to look a little more at the picture of the arc. The arc is very clearly a picture of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. Very clearly.
It's a picture of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. The flood came. The human population was wiped out. But those who were in the arc, we sang about being secure this morning, didn't we, Brother Quad?
They were in that. And they knew. They knew how secure and safe they were. Father, thank you this morning as we come that you have provided a way of salvation.
We thank you, Father, that just as the arc is a picture, Father clearly there was one way to be saved from your judgment and the flood. And that was through the arc. For us, you have provided an arc to save us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I pray for any who are here this morning who do not know their sins forgiven, that they will come to him, simply believe what you have said and be saved.
We thank you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.